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Len Banister talking walking

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Len Banister, former Founder member and chair of the Greater London Ramblers’ Forum, and a prolific walk route deviser and author, accompanies Andrew Stuck on a walk through Walthamstow.

Recorded October, 2010 Published November 2011 20’08” 9.5 MB
Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: Len Banister

 

What has Len been doing since our interview:

“Since we last spoke, although I have continued writing walks – particularly for magazines, I have ceased working for the Greater London Ramblers’ Forum.  The Ramblers‘ work in London has become increasingly difficult for two reasons:

  • The responsibility for the upkeep of the Strategic Paths has reverted to the Boroughs which results in the need for complex negotiation, time consuming monitoring, and the difficulty involved in the identification of anyone within the authority willing to take responsibility.
  • The paradox that most Ramblers’ organised walking in London is enjoyed by those on the periphery of the Capital whilst those members living centrally, because of better transport networks, tend to walk more regularly in the countryside.

I now give talks to other organisations on the history of the Ramblers and have responsibility for Rights of Way Liaison in Essex.  In this latter role I have been setting up volunteer groups across the county which take responsibility for clearing, signing, and maintaining path furniture.

I’ve just had an experience which might be worth relating.  At the very end of November, I entered hospital for open-heart surgery to replace a heart valve and insert two bi-passes.  I am now back walking 5 or six miles a day with every prospect of returning to 12-mile outings in 2 or 3 months’ time.  My reason for mentioning this is that my consultant attributes my fast recovery to my walking history.

I’ve just written a walk over the Walthamstow Wetlands…it may yet appear in Country Walking Magazine.”

Leo Hollis talking walking

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Leo Hollis, author and historian, leads Andrew Stuck on a walk through the City of London, discussing how walking has revealed the history of this fascinating city. The interview was recorded in the summer of 2010 and published in September 2011. 20’45” 9.7MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: Leo_Hollis

Fran Crowe talking walking

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Fran Crowe has been collecting 46,000 pieces of plastic that have been washed up on the beach near Thorpeness in Suffolk – she goes out for walks each day to collect the detritus of our modern world.

“My walking has been the inspiration for my last 12 years’ work as an artist – it’s amazing to think it all started just because of the plastic objects that I saw whilst walking on my local beach. I never would’ve guessed where a washed-up piece of plastic debris would lead!”

Andrew Stuck from the Museum of Walking joins her on a walk along the shingle beach as she goes prospecting. Recorded August 2010. 20’02” 9.4MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: Fran_Crowe

What Fran has been doing since our interview

“Since her interview, Fran has exhibited widely both here and overseas, including as part of the acclaimed GYRE exhibition, which was commissioned by the Anchorage Museum in Alaska and toured in the USA 2014/15.

One of Fran’s walks on Orford Ness was featured on BBC Coast in 2015.

In 2014 Fran launched the Museum of Beyond, a provocative and tongue-in-cheek imagining of what people might think of our plastic waste still washing up on beaches in a future beyond oil:  “a sea of plastic seen through future eyes”… Described by visitors as “absolutely mind-blowing” and “extraordinary and moving”, the Museum uses humour to deliver a powerful message about the way we live now.

Recently Fran created a ‘roaming gallery’ in a lovingly restored vintage horsebox.
The gallery features The Museum of Beyond including many of the plastic items that Fran has found on her walks. For news of where the gallery will be popping up next and to browse the museum’s collections, see http://www.museumofbeyond.org. Fran welcomes additions to the museum – so if you find something interesting whilst walking on the beach and would like to add it to the museum, do get in touch!

Fran is particularly interested in how creativity can be used as a catalyst for change and how it can help people (of all ages) imagine how things could be different – and better…

For more than 10 years Fran has been campaigning about the impact of plastic in our seas so is delighted that BBC’s Blue Planet 2 has succeeded in making this front page news in recent months. She hopes real change will result from this and her work on plastics will become redundant.

Research is an important part of Fran’s work. In the last two years Fran has been studying: Social Sciences and, more recently, Evolutionary Biology. Keep an eye on her website to see what direction Fran’s work takes next!”

Photo credits: Fran Crowe

Tom Bolton talking walking

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Tom Bolton is seeking out on foot the routes of eight hidden rivers in London, compiling a treasure trove of little known facts, which he is bringing together in a book, part guide part journal that will be published in May 2011. Andrew Stuck accompanies him along part of the route of the River Effra, from Crystal Place to Norwood, in south London – we only encounter the sound of the river as it flows beneath a manhole cover in Norwood New Town. 19′ 50″ 9.3MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: Tom Bolton

Meet and walk with Tom on one of the Museum of Walking’s London’s Loss walkshops and keep up to date with Tom’s activities: by checking his website

Cover imageWhat has Tom Bolton done since our interview:

“Since 2010, when this interview was recorded, I have published “London’s Lost Rivers“, which I was writing at the time, and two more books on hidden London culture and history: “Vanished City“, about London neighbourhoods that have disappeared from the map, and “Camden Town: Dreams of Another London“, about a London everyone thinks they already know. I have also completed a PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, entitled ‘Wrong Side of the Tracks? The Development of London’s Railway Terminus Neighbourhoods‘, which shows how railway lines and stations have shaped the places around them. I am now writing a book about the Essex coast, Low Country, due for publication in late 2018.”

Listen to Tom Bolton’s 20×20 Vision of walking in 2040.

Ben Rossiter talking walking

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VitoriaWalkslogoBen Rossiter, Executive Officer of Victoria Walks, an Australian walking promotion body based in the state of Victoria, accompanies Andrew Stuck from Rethinking Cities on a walk from London’s Covent Garden across the Thames. 20′ 30″ 9.6MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this interview: Ben_Rossiter

Danielle Wilson talking walking

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Danielle Wilson, a labyrinth facilitator based in London, talks to Andrew Stuck about labyrinths and how through walking them, people can experience a walking meditation. 9.7 MB 20′ 46″

Simply click here for: Danielle_Wilson interview notes.

Geoff Nicholson talking walking

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Geoff Nicholson talks to Andrew Stuck about how he came to writing about the Lost Art of Walking – listen to this intriguing interview in which Geoff talks about some of the eccentrics from the world of walking. The interview was recorded over the Internet in March 2010 and is published to coincide with the UK publication of the Lost Art of Walking. 19’04” 8.9MB

Download notes from the interview with Geoff_Nicholson

STOP PRESS – July 2023

Walking on Thin Air – Geoff Nicholson 

Geoff Nicholson was one of the first authors with whom we recorded an over-the-Internet Talking Walking interview, at the time he had just written his second non-fiction book on walking. Geoff now has another walking title coming this summer from Saqi Books.

Walking On Thin Air consists of 99 vignettes: previously unpublished pieces, sometimes linked directly, sometimes connected by free association. Topics include John Cage’s woodland walks to collect mushrooms, a consideration of walking stick users – Winston Churchill, Tom Waits, Virginia Woolf, Jean Genet’s love for an ill-fated tightrope walker, a walk undertaken  in Chiswick, London, to the site where the first V-2 rocket bomb landed, a walk in Los Angeles with Mary Woronov (the Warhol Superstar), another walk (very short indeed) with Werner Herzog.

The book addresses, often in a sceptical or subversive way, topics such as walking for physical and mental health, what it means to walk in or out of nature, walking and creativity, walking and spirituality. And, for reasons that will become clear, walking and extinction.

In October, 2013 Geoff made a 5 year walking forecast – listen here

What has Geoff Nicholson done since our interview?

“I see that I was researching ‘Walking in Ruins‘ at the time of the interview – now published – Read a review here.

Last year I published ‘The Miranda’ – a novel about walking and torture – about a man who tries to walk around the world without leaving his own back yard.” Read a review here. A year or so back I did a BBC Radio 4 programme with Claire Balding – for Ramblings – listen here.”

Dawn Vernon talking walking

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An interview with Dawn Vernon, who played an instrumental part in the development of the Walking for Health project. WfHlogoThe interview was recorded on a walk across the Wiltshire Downs near Salisbury in April, 2010. 20′ 53″ 9.8MB

Download notes form the interview with Dawn_Vernon

 

 

What Dawn has done since our interview

“I retired in 2010 having spent 12 years working with the Countryside Agency to develop and support the ‘Walking for Health Initiative’ throughout the UK. It is heartening to see that this work continues  (through Macmillan and the Ramblers) and that there are over 1800 weekly walks. In addition, the work that was started in 1997,  in the shape of ‘Doorstep Walks’ (in Salisbury) continues across the county of Wiltshire as ‘Get Wiltshire Walking’. I walk regularly and in 2017 completed a challenge for Cystic Fibrosis by walking 1000 miles and climbing 3 Welsh Peaks; we raised £1500 for this very worthwhile charity (our 2 year old grand-daughter has the condition).”

Brunel Mile talking walking

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RichardHoldenRichard Holden, a planner with Bristol City Council and George Ferguson GeorgeFergusonCBE, an architect in the Bristol practice of Ferguson MannArchitects (before he was Mayor of Bristol), join Andrew Stuck for a walk along the Brunel Mile in Bristol. Recorded on a blustery September day in 2008. 19’05” 8.9 MB

There are notes of items mentioned in this episode that you can download – simply click here: Brunel Mile

STOP PRESS: In 2013 we adapted this interview as an audio walk “Walk with the Mayor” (as part of a series of Walks in your Pocket devised by Bristol Parlour Rooms) – you can download it here: https://soundcloud.com/theparlourshowrooms/andrew-stuck-walk-with-the

Laura Kate Jennings talking walking

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Laura Jennings, a singer and performer talks about how she has incorporated walking into her practice through the development of audio walks, in which she creates characters that prompt interaction from participants with the environment through which they walk. Her walking art practice began when studying at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. 20’11” 9.5MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: Laura K Jennings

Nick Cowen talking walking

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Andrew Stuck accompanies Nick Cowen, a Senior Rights of Way officer on a walk to inspect a bridleway in south Wiltshire that has been recently cleared by a contractor. FlintNick is an accomplished photographer and musician and has recently turned his hand to writing about his work as seen through the eyes of an early nineteenth century pedestrian tourist. The interview was recorded in September 2009. 19′ 40″ 9.2MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: Nick_Cowen

Since we recorded this interview, Nick has turned his hand to contemporary fiction with “Trust Harrison” – it may be fiction but you won’t find a truer insight into the trials of a Rights of Way warden.

STOP PRESS on the 15 August 2019 Nick Cowen retired after 30 years as a Rights of Way officer.

John Davies talking walking

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John Davies a Church of England vicar in Norris Green, Liverpool talks about his walk beside the M62 from east to west which he undertook in 2007. M62coversmRecorded over the Internet in February 2009 and published in February 2010. 21’30” 10.1 MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: John Davies