Tag Archives: walking

Martyn Howe talking walking

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There are 19 long distance national trails in the UK and you are about to hear from Martyn Howe, a man who has walked each of them, but he hasn’t stopped walking, and he is now completing the newly designated English coast path.  So what got him going in the first place, and what kept him going, and what is his advice to anyone considering walking one or more of the national trails?  Andrew Stuck tries to keep up with him as they walk through Regent’s Park in London, as Martyn explains his mantra of beast, feast and yeast and how his endeavours got published in his book, aptly called the Tales from the Big Trails. 23’10” 11.1MB

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Fiona Hesse talking walking

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Fiona Hesse, is the guest curator of WALK!, the current exhibition at the Schirn Kunsthalle Gallery in Frankfurt that includes work from more than 40 international artists.  Recorded over a Zoom call, it was Andrew Stuck’s pleasure to learn more about Fiona’s own journey to becoming a curator, her enthusiasm for contemporary art, and in how she  undertook a PhD on walking artist, Hamish Fulton. Hamish was one of the first Talking Walking interviewees back in 2008.  Although the opening of the WALK! exhibition was delayed by COVID, some of the artists featured were able to include work they had created under pandemic restrictions. Fiona reveals some of the criteria used to select works, offers a useful working definition of walking art, as well as suggesting a couple of walking art practices for listeners to try. 24’51” 11.6MB

Fiona Hesse
Hamish Fulton, 35 Walks Map. Europe. 1971-2019, 2019, Druck, 68,2 x 67,7 cm, © the artist and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin
Schirn_Presse_Walk_Diaz_Morales_Pasajes_III.jpg
Sebastián Díaz Morales, Pasajes III, 2013, Video (Farbe, Ton), Monitor, 12:30 Min. im Loop, Filmstill, © the artist and carlier | gebauer, Berlin/Madrid

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Featured Image credit: Schirn_Presse_Walk_Chung_A_Thousand_Years.jpg Tiffany Chung, A Thousand Years Before and After, 2012, Video (Farbe, Ton), 09:01 Min., Filmstill, © Tiffany Chung

Duncan Minshull talking walking

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“Where My Feet Fall” is an anthology of essays on walking by 20 contemporary authors, brought  together by Duncan Minshull.  Duncan was for decades an editor and senior producer for BBC Radio, and if like Andrew Stuck you are a fan of listening to books read on the radio, then it has been Duncan who is likely to have chosen them.  “Where my feet fall” is not his first anthology of writing on walking, and Andrew is keen to establish, why he chose that topic, of all the ones he could from a lifetime career of choosing books for the radio. They meet in Paddington Recreation Ground, a popular London park close to where he lives. 18’56” 8.9MB



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Published to coincide with the publication of “Where My Feet Fall” – you can join a conversation with Duncan at the Walking Writers’ Salon at 7pm BST on Tuesday 5 April – read more and book your ticket here.

Pam Rouquette talking walking

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Active travel and environmental activist Pam Rouquette has given Andrew Stuck a walk as a birthday present.  The route that we take is around the city of Salisbury and links up places which are significant to Pam.  25 years ago in 1997, when she was still working as a community physiotherapist, she was a member of the Salisbury Walking Forum and became involved in a healthy walks initiative called the “Doorstep Walks”.

Pam has been the driving force behind healthy walks in Salisbury, ever since. She has led hundreds of group walks for different ages and abilities, devised scores of walking routes as well as being instrumental in creating a popular walking map for the city and surrounding areas. As you will learn from this slightly unusual interview, Pam has also had a hand in maintaining foot paths and in securing spaces for wildlife.

Over the years,  Andrew has tried to entice Pam to be interviewed for Talking Walking and each time she has turned him down, modestly saying that she has little to tell. However, Pam is one of the most inspirational, and quietly determined people he has ever met, so as unobtrusively as he could, he took his recorder with him on this birthday walk.

The birthday walk begins on the bank of the River Nadder, we have reached this point by passing through a narrow railing-fenced alleyway between business units on the Churchfields industrial estate.  We are less than 10 minutes walk from the railway station. 28’28” 13.6MB

  • Pam Rouquette on the banks of the River Nadder
  • River Nadder with view across the Harnham Water Meadows
  • Following Pam along the Broken Bridges path
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Feature image – View of Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Path on Harnham Hill

Hugh Lupton talking walking

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Hugh Lupton is a storyteller, living in East Anglia, who has been walking the lanes and ways of Norfolk learning stories through walking, and sharing them across the globe. We meet on a cold and windy day in April on one of his favourite walks, beside the River Bure, and talk about how people can value place in a different way if they have a sense of the narratives that are associated with it.

View of the River Bure in Norfolk

It is not the first time that Andrew Stuck and Hugh have met. Both of them took part in the Sideways nomadic art festival, that included a walk across Belgian Flanders in 2012. 20’27″ 9.6MB

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Riccardo Marini talking walking

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Riccardo Marini’s accent belies his Italian upbringing.  When Andrew Stuck met him a dozen years ago, he was Design Lead for the City of Edinburgh and Andrew was a researcher for the Academy of Urbanism. Since then, working first as a director for Jan Gehl Architects and now as founder of Marini Urbanismo, he has worked with cities to make their commercial cores more people-friendly.  They are in London’s West End, in the midst of the mid-morning hubbub on a chilly December day, so Ricardo’s cogent, forceful and passionate argument for putting pedestrians first is even more pertinent.  24’16” 11.4MB

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Wendy Landman talking walking

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Andrew Stuck was attending the Made of Walking gathering of artists at La Romieu in remote south west France, when Andrew was surprised to meet American walking activist Wendy Landman, an executive director of WalkBoston, one of America’s longest running pedestrian advocacy groups. She is here, on an invitation from her college friend and artist Carol Mencke.

WalkBoston walk audit in action in the snow

Wendy discovers that the walking artists at Made of Walking are grappling with many of the issues that Walk Boston has encountered too.  In the blazing sun, they walk along gravel paths, seeking shade, and discuss how walking and pleasurable walkable places are now seen as key elements of quality of life for increasing numbers of Americans.  And how through subtle change in vocabulary, from talking about art to talking about delight  – the delight of walking and of delightful places – hearts and minds of politicians can be won over to the cause of better conditions for those of us who travel on foot.  25’21” 11.9MB

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Kristie Daniel talking walking

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Kristie Daniel

Kristie Daniel

Kristie Daniel is Programme Director for the Liveable Cities Programme delivered by Healthbridge a Canadian NGO. healthbridge-logo Healthbridge were multi-award winners in the 2015 Walk21 Visionary Awards, for projects in developing countries in Asia and Africa, where they are working with local groups to create public spaces and improve non-motorised access to them.

Andrew Stuck, producer of Talking Walking, caught up with Kristie as she stopped over in London, on a journey from Toronto to Bangkok. The interview was recorded in March 2016 on a walk through Margravine Cemetery, a popular public space in Hammersmith, beneath the flight path to and from Heathrow. 26’22” 12.4MB

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What has happened since the interview

“Since the interview was recorded, we have continued to work on all the great projects that I spoke about in the interview.  The HoiAn Master Plan is currently being implemented.  The city has planned for 79 new parks that are within walking distance of residents.  The city has thus far achieved 40% of that targeted number of parks.  In Kathmandu, the success of Ktm Walks has lead to the creation of a one kilometre permanent pedestrian space in Thamel.  This was a huge success for the local project.

In addition, we have been able to greatly expand our projects in Africa thanks to a grant from UN-Habitat.  In Africa—like in many other places in the world—public spaces are used for public life, commerce and interaction. However, lack of funds, planning, and maintenance, as well as priority for motorized vehicles, has turned many public spaces into unsafe, unforgiving and unconnected places. Many public spaces are difficult to access, especially for those living in vulnerable situations.

This is especially the case in Kampala, Uganda, Niamey, Niger and Accra, Ghana. There is a significant lack of formal public spaces in each of these cities, particularly in the outlying areas where the slum settlements are located. Of those spaces that do exist, they are degraded, of poor quality, and under constant threat of being developed into other purposes.

To address this issue, HealthBridge is working with local partners to  implement pilot public space projects in Kampala, Niamey, and Accra.  These spaces will improve local policies, plans and designs for safe, inclusive and accessible public spaces.  The final results of this project should be available in May.”

Listen to Kristie Daniel’s 20×20 Vision of walking in 2040

Nick Hunt talking walking

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Have you been inspired by a piece of travel writing to try a similar endeavour of your own, but found circumstance or lack of courage has knocked you off your stride?  Not so Nick Hunt, who as a teenager, read Patrick Leigh Fermor’s account of a walk across Europe.  bavaria_2Nick has followed in Fermor’s footsteps, walking from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul, recounting his seven month journey in a book entitled ‘Walking the Woods and the Water’.  What pace do you set yourself? How do you keep yourself going? Who do you have as your companions? What do you learn about yourself and about walking? As I try to keep up with Nick on a walk along the popular canal towpath from Broadway Market to Islington, I ask him these questions and more. 29’27″14.5MB

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Want to hear more from Nick Hunt?  Try his audio field guide on How to walk across Europe

walking the woods and the water_2Buy: Nick Hunt’s Walking the woods and the water published in trade paperback by Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Photo credits: Nick Hunt


Where the wild winds are – published in 2017 – It describes a series of walks following the invisible pathways of some of Europe’s named winds – Helm, Bora, Sirocco, Foehn, Mistral – to discover how they affect landscapes, people and cultures.  READ MORE

“Where the Wild Winds are” was shortlisted for the National Geographic Traveller Reader Award for 2018 

What has Nick done since our interview

“In the past year I have moved from London to Bristol, but am currently looking after a small cottage in the Lake District for the coldest, darkest, wettest of the seasons. In 2016 I spent three months living and working in Atlantis Books, a bookshop on the Greek island of Santorini, and last year led a group of friends on a ten-day walk through the Accursed Mountains of Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro. I’ve been continuing to work with the Dark Mountain Project as editor and contributor, publishing two books of (loosely) ecological and ‘uncivilised’ writing a year. But my main project has been a series of walks following the invisible pathways of some of Europe’s named winds – Helm, Bora, Foehn, Mistral, Sirocco – to discover how they affect landscapes, people and cultures. The book about these journeys, Where the Wild Winds Are, was published in September 2017 by Nicholas Brealey, and is soon being translated into Italian, German and Dutch. Currently I am working on a book about London’s feral green parakeets for Paradise Road.”

Indie publisher Paradise Road published in Autumn 2018, Nick’s study of parakeets in London – you can get a taste of it in this article that Nick wrote.

Nick Hunt shares his 20×20 Vision of walking in 2040

Viv Corringham talking walking

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An interview with Viv Corringham a British vocalist and sound artist, currently based in New York City, USA, who has worked internationally since the early 1980s. Her work includes music performances, radio works, audio installations and soundwalks. She is interested in exploring people’s special relationship with familiar places and how that links to an interior landscape of personal history, memory and association. 22’52” 10.7MB

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What has Viv Corringham done since our interview?

“My series “Shadow-walks” continues into its second decade. So far the project has occurred in twenty six places in Asia, Europe, Australia and America. The process is straightforward. I arrive in a new place and ask local inhabitants to take me on a special walk, one that has been repeated many times and has meaning or significance for that person. While walking together, I record our conversations and the sounds of the environment. I then go back along the same route alone, trying to get a sense of my previous companion’s traces on the walk. Then I sing what I feel using wordless improvisations. 
The many hours of recordings made in the place are then taken back to my studio, selected and edited together to become the final work, the Shadow-walk. These raw materials are my singing, the conversations and the environmental sounds. 
I began Shadow-walks after finishing a different project, one that required me to walk the same route repeatedly over several months. When I no longer did this daily walk I was surprised to notice my sense of nostalgia for it. It had become my “special walk” with some significance for me. I began to wonder whether this was a common experience for other people too; if a walk is repeated over and over again, does it become meaningful for that person as if they had left some part of themselves there? James Joyce wrote that places remember events. I find this idea very engaging – as if everything that happens leaves traces that we might be able to sense. If a person walks through certain places repeatedly, along the same route, does that act of walking leave a trace? In a sense Shadow-walks is an attempt to make a person’s traces, their shadow, audible through my singing, improvising voice.
It is important to me that these Shadow-walks are presented in some way in the places where they were made and to the people who walked with me. I have made them into audio-walks, concerts, radio works, an iPhone app and sound installations. In Athens I presented one as a walking, singing performance through the streets. In 2018 I toured in Hong Kong, China, India and Taiwan with a solo work called “Shattered song, shadow city”. It is based on Shadow-walks from five different countries and uses a multichannel setup plus live vocals. In 2019 I made Shadow-walks in Prespes Greece and in Mexico City, as well as leading several sound-walks and walking in Venice on an artist residency to create a musical tribute to Pauline Oliveros called “Listening for Pauline and IONE”.