Book #43 Pathlands

Pathlands: 21 Tranquil Walks Among the Villages of Britain by Peter Owen Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Peter Owen Jones has always expressed a deep love for the countryside and the natural world and in Pathlands he follows his heart into the intimate land of footpaths that crisscross Britain. Peter is an Anglican clergyman and lives on the edge of the Sussex Downs.

I have lots of walking books. All of them have been bought with a half-baked intention of actually doing the walks described within them - something I have only ever partially succeeded in.

Jones is something of an existentialist, determining his own development through 21 tranquil walks among the villages of Britain. For each walk, we get Jones' description of it, how it was for him on that particular day, the sights and sounds and smells, the people he meets and doesn't meet, the churches he finds (mostly locked), the birdsong and its absence, the reflections and memories all of this provokes. Jones has a map, he has a plan. The one is needed all the more as the other drifts away from reality. Paths marked on maps aren't always visible on the ground. Paths on the ground aren't always mapped. Jones' response to this is to take a best-guess approach and strike out in roughly the right direction. He'll ask passers-by, he'll study the map – but he'll also climb fences, stumble through ditches and (one feels, quite often) just hope for the best. He uses beautiful expression and does not over-romanticise with a tinge of gentle humour here and there: Brokering peace terms with a goose is always more pleasurable than dealing with a dog in the same mood. Geese don't have teeth. And some lovely turns of phrase when talking about simple things. He tells of an old plough rotting in the corner of a field: it might have been the end of the day, or it started to rain heavily, or maybe it has sheared a bolt and the farmer thought 'I'll just leave it there overnight' and something cropped up the next day which became a week which became a year which became a quarter of a century, and there it remains, like a name in an old address book.

Beautiful description, and philosophical reflection: the natural world is not subject to clocks, to minutes, to weeks. The sparrows are not counting their kings; nor does the mountain measure its standing in metres. The yew is more surely an emblem of patience than of time.

I'm unlikely to walk any of these paths - I don’t have to, but I will think about Jones’ approach when I find myself out on a walk elsewhere….

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