The Wild Rover_ A Blistering Journey Along Britain_s Footpaths - Mike Parker [55]
Thirty odd years on, and the modern Landranger 187, as well as showing the brutal reality of the M25, is crawling with named LDPs. On the cover map, now relegated to the back, the North Downs Way is shown, but the ever-obedient OS also remind us that it is part of the E2 European Long Distance Path – not that any Surrey stalwart would ever refer to it as such, or at least not without a few choice expletives attached. Handy, though, for those occasions when the urge grips you to walk from Leatherhead to Luxembourg, and who hasn’t had one of those? Inside the map, the keen rambler is spoilt for choice: there’s the Eden Valley Walk, the Forest Way, the Greensand Way, the Downs Link, the Sussex Border Path, the Way South Path (or was it the Path South Way?), the High Weald Landscape Trail, the Sussex Ouse Valley Way and the West Sussex Literary Trail. There’s a corner of the London Loop, for those Hoxton hipsters who will exhaustively blog about their trundle through Cheam, Carshalton Beeches and the outer reaches of Purley. Most irresistible of all is the Vanguard Way, with the tough choice of which glittering trailhead to aim for, Croydon or Newhaven.
I’ll call my mythical rambler from Landranger 187 Dave. He lives in one of the villages south of Weybridge, and walks every morning to the station (Effingham Junction perhaps, if only for the comedy value of the name), where he catches a train to work, at the University of Surrey in Guildford. Dave came to Guildford as one of its earliest intake of students, back in that apocalyptic year of 1968. Originally from the Potteries, he’s never felt much at home in Surrey, but his degree became an MA, then a PhD, then a lecturer’s post and, for the last 12 years, he’s been head of department, so although he likes to keep his vowels as flat and northern as possible, he’s lived in chi-chi Surrey for well over two-thirds of his life. Dave’s north Staffs tones get even stronger when he’s had a pint or two (real ale only; lager is the devil’s work), as does his absentee devotion to Port Vale FC.
To be honest, Dave hates his job, but he’s far too near retirement to think about quitting. As someone who came to a university that was forged brand new in the white heat of technology and the blazing flames of potential revolution, he just wants to slap the pallid little remote-controlled excuses for students that file through his seminars these days. Not that he ever would, of course. Dave is a lifelong pacifist and socialist, though he voted Lib Dem last time round, as the Labour vote in Surrey had shrunk to Monster Raving Loony proportions, and he quite liked their stance on Iraq and tuition fees. He’s kept very quiet about the latter since. His most radical daily activity is buying the Guardian from the tiny pile at the station newsagents, dwarfed beneath tottering mountains of Daily Mails and Telegraphs. Even that just makes him feel worse, though. He hates the Guardian’s incessant wittering about Twitter and Facebook and Borough bloody Market, and would, if truth be told, rather have the Telegraph, because the crossword’s better.
Dave and his wife Maureen have never made great friends locally. When the kids were growing up, they were pals with other nearby couples from the school run, but most of these have since upgraded to Richmond or retired to the coast. They have the immediate neighbours round every Christmas for a stilted hour or two of sloe gin and