Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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
What 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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Ben 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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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
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.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
An interview with Dawn Vernon, who played an instrumental part in the development of the Walking for Health project. 
The 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).”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Richard Holden, a planner with Bristol City Council and George Ferguson 
CBE, 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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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. 
Nick 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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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. 
Recorded 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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Dr William Bird MBE, the creator of health walks, joins Andrew Stuck on a walk around St James’ Park London on a bright January day. In this interview William tells us about how he prescribing health walks to his patients in a diabetic clinic has evolved into a national campaign to get us all outdoors. 
Still practising as a GP, Dr Bird has set up Intelligent Health, a consultancy advising on the delivery of physical activity to organisations including schools. 22’05″10.4MB
Download notes of items mentioned in this episode: William_Bird
What has happened to Dr William Bird since our interview
Dr William Bird MBE set up Intelligent Health in February 2010 with the vision of making a lasting difference to people’s health and wellbeing by supporting them to become more active.
With more than three decades of experience in practising medicine and first-hand knowledge of the need to develop preventative measures to stop people developing diabetes and COPD, William is one of the UK’s leading experts on physical activity and building active communities.
William has helped transform the health of millions of people across the UK through innovative initiatives he has developed such as Health Walks, Green Gyms and Beat the Street. He has worked for the World Health Organisation to develop a physical activity strategy for the Middle East which is now being implemented in many of the countries there and also worked on an innovative project for the Met Office, developing Health Forecasting and still works as a family GP.