Diagonal Walking Read online

  The reply was so confusing, involving landmarks I had no knowledge of, that I ended up back on the pavement as ignorant as I’d gone in. I discreetly slipped my phone out, pretending to make a call while actually looking up my route. At that exact moment, my elderly friend re-appeared, full of apologies, delivered through tobacco-stained teeth, for his earlier questioning. The only reason he’d enquired if I was all right was because so few people knew how to read a map these days, he explained. I was just preparing to engage with him in conversation when my phone beat me to it.

  ‘Walk north-west on Halsall Lane towards Long Lane,’ came the disembodied female voice.

  My companion looked baffled and glanced behind his back towards some invisible interlocuter, giving me the opportunity I needed to stride away, embarrassed and defeated once again.

  In the end it took me nearly half an hour to reach my starting point. The route involved a road that was clearly proud of its private status, something it proclaimed regularly on signs. Regularly spaced signs. Using bold type. But the green dashed line on the OS map reassured me this was a footpath, so I pressed on, confident that the sands at its end, marked out in flesh-coloured tones on the map, would soon be within my reach. As it happened, a prayer centre ended up standing between me and the sea, and although a swift pray may have been prudent, I opted instead to designate a path to the left through a pine forest as my official starting point.

  Caught up in the moment, I once again forgot my wider responsibilities to involve others. Having set off into the woods, I stopped and, retracing my steps, went back to the road. Deep breath. This ‘involving others’ malarkey would take a bit of getting used to. I reset my step- and distance-counter and framed some words to accompany my first few paces, which I was going to record on my phone. Literally record, on my phone, which doubled up as a camera, voice recorder, compass, pedometer, map and even something I could make calls on, should I be so possessed. Proving to myself that I could walk and talk at the same time, I focussed the camera on my feet and as I slowly raised it to focus on the path ahead, the following came out of my mouth:

  ‘So, there we are, the first footsteps of what might be hundreds of thousands, or let’s hope so, or I’ll have failed.’

  It was hardly ‘One small step for man’, but at least I was being authentic, whilst also betraying the underlying fear of failure that was now spurring me on. I decided at that point to always say it as I saw it, rather than follow a script. This may have been a mistake as I rambled on, explaining how I was actually not in Formby, but Freshfields, a sort of suburb of Formby, and not, as it name suggested, a branch of a new supermarket chain.

  It was probably inevitable that after this significant moment I got lost for the first, but absolutely not the last, time. I’ve always found woods and forests a problem when walking. Those who erect footpath signs in them seem to work on the assumption that you probably know the way and they don’t want to insult your intelligence by making it too obvious. They also appear to be ignorant of phrase ‘seeing the woods for the trees’. Buoyed with adrenaline and optimism, I took solace from the serendipity of passing through an unanticipated red squirrel sanctuary. An information board recorded that the species was endangered, and it was easy to see why. Maybe it was time for their mid-morning hazelnut latte, but there were none to be seen. Luckily, no one came past as I lurked in the trees, camera poised like some kind of pervert. I gave up, taking comfort in the thought that I was only technically lost. I had a vague idea where I was, heading for the sea, which could be both heard and smelt, characteristics later landmarks were likely to lack.

  A boardwalk eventually delivered me to the coast and the pristine beach that prompted my rumination on sand and pebbles. One of the reasons for coming to this stretch of beach – other than it would have ruined the whole idea of an alternative coast-to-coast if I hadn’t – was to visit the old Formby Lifeboat Station. This was the first in Britain, founded by the Liverpool Dock Master some time between 1771 and 1776. Very little of it is left to view, and given the height of the tide even that was currently hidden. Besides, it was a little further down the beach and, although I could see people walking along the sands, I was heavily laden and wearing hiking boots. I didn’t want to disappear into the sand. Neither did I want to become ‘embayed’. This was a term I’d picked up from Paul Theroux in his book The Kingdom By The Sea, and means to be caught by the tide and stuck in a bay. Although the dunes would have offered the chance for an undignified scramble for safety, and the long straight beach was about as far from a bay as you could get, I didn’t fancy risking it.

  As a result, I executed a tactical withdrawal and headed back down the boardwalk, where I was promptly attacked by a dog, apparently under the impression I’d spent the night before marinating the bottom of my trousers in cat urine. Being English, I assured its owners that everything was all right and that their dog was a delightful playful little chap. In so doing I realised I was displaying one of the timeless features of the English so admired by foreign writers such as Theroux and Bill Bryson, namely our politeness. I wondered if I’d been another nationality, Dutch for example, or possibly German, whether I’d be instructing the owner in no uncertain terms to keep their animal under control. Words to that effect had, after all, been bouncing through my head.

  A signpost once again raised the subject of asparagus, suggesting I was on the Asparagus Route, with a circular marker displaying one of these vegetables to ensure I wasn’t mistaken. As it was becoming something of a theme, I consulted another of the information boards the area is so well endowed with. It appeared there was a tradition of growing the suggestively shaped vegetable in the area, one that gathered momentum with the coming of the railway in the mid-nineteenth century. If you are someone who enjoys their asparagus, you may wish to skip the next paragraph.

  Around the same time as the railway’s arrival, there was an escalating problem with the piles of human waste emanating from the growing metropolis of Liverpool. The asparagus growers knew exactly what to do with it. By the 1920s, 200 acres of the stuff was under cultivation in Formby, with crops being sent down to London’s Covent Garden market by night train. Formby’s asparagus was top notch stuff, winning national prizes (yes, there are such things), even being eaten by the first-class passengers on the Titanic during its fateful maiden voyage – much good that it did them. These days there’s only a small patch of it left, other solutions having being found to Liverpool’s little ‘problem’.

  Back on the path, I dodged round a MOD firing range, thankfully silent, and followed the Sefton Coastal Path, eventually emerging into dunes beside the green expanse of the West Lancashire Golf Course. Occasional ponds identified themselves as breeding grounds for Natterjack Toads, amphibians distinguished by a yellow stripe down their back. It seemed the Sefton Coast was where up to half the country’s Natterjacks bred, usually around April and May, which was exactly when I was there. They appreciated the sand and short grass and liked making whoopee when the sun became warm enough to heat their eggs. Ecstatic croaking was notable by its absence however, so I concluded that like us humans, the toads were still in shock at the arrival of some decent weather after what had been a shocking winter.

  The wind was really whipping up as I crossed the dunes and I was grateful when the path gave way to a metalled track leading up to the Coastguard station at Crosby, which reacquainted me with the sea. The tide was still high but on the turn, the shallow beach slowly beginning to reveal itself.

  I was gazing over the water when I saw my first one – a stationary naked man, the conventional six feet tall with a deadpan expression, his arms slightly away from his torso, ankles still in the water, somewhat barnacle covered and ramrod erect (although not in that sense). These were the famous ‘Iron Men’ of Crosby I’d been looking forward to seeing. I’d arrived at the perfect time as suddenly, and somewhat surreally, other bodies emerged from the tide. Some were at angles
, others out to sea, with only their heads above water. Some were buried up to their thighs, others up to their waists, and one or two had seagulls perched on top of their heads. All were modelled on the artist, Anthony Gormley, although I hoped for his sake he didn’t share their disc-shaped nodules on his nipples and at the top of his thighs. They were all facing out to sea and were spaced far apart, accentuating the bizarre overall effect.

  Called Another Place, the installation was designed to explore man’s relationship with nature. The idea of the artwork is to express how human life is exposed to the elements. It uses the figure of an ordinary man, pitting him against the tides, seawater, sea life and the gritty sand-laden wind, all the while contemplatively staring out at the horizon at the movement of people and materials on ships out at sea. Before coming to Crosby the iron men had been displayed in Germany, Norway and Belgium, and were originally intended to go on to New York after a year on the Sefton Coast. But they’d remained, gazing impassively out towards the city they’d been intended for, the goal for so many people who’d once headed out of Liverpool’s docks, leaving their native shores forever.

  The receding tide, combined with the falling light, made for a magical end to my first day, and I could have stayed taking photographs and video for my YouTube channel for hours. In the end, I took so much video my phone ran out of battery, necessitating a dash to the café of the nearby leisure centre to top up on juice both for the phone, using an emergency powerpack, and for me, in the form of some coffee. Oh, and a slice of cake.

  As the percentage indicator on my phone crept up unhurriedly, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the iron men also offered a metaphor. Were they scanning the horizon looking for the trading partners and new friends the country was going to need after turning its back on its nearest neighbours? Were they lost souls, or hopeful? It was difficult to know, and that was probably one of the things that made the installation great art.

  It was while waiting in the café that I struck up my first proper conversation with a local. I was wearing one of my Diagonal Walking branded T-shirts, revealed after taking off my fleece in the face of the stifling humidity from the adjacent swimming pool. The woman serving the coffee (and cake) came out from behind the counter, business being slow as the end of the day approached. The power of personal marketing was revealed as she asked me what ‘Diagonal Walking’ meant, and I duly explained. This led to a wider discussion about the need to challenge oneself and, perhaps inevitably, given she was a few years older than me, to the health issues faced by contemporaries and the need to grab life’s chances while you could. The year before she’d fulfilled a lifetime’s ambition to walk the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, which momentarily cast my own more prosaic efforts into relief. My feet and legs, however, were both reassuring me that I’d achieved something significant that day, but that my hotel now beckoned. Before I went my new best friend spread the word amongst her customers, leading me to do the rounds handing out some of the cards I carried with social media and other contact details.

  Diagonally Walking was officially up and running… well, gentle hobbling.

  2

  Beating the Beatles

  Mention Liverpool to most people and you’ll probably get one of two reactions: football or the Beatles. As I passed the unprepossessing building that announced itself as the Aintree Racecourse, I wondered if the Grand National, which had taken place two days before, could be added to that list. Flatbed trucks were queuing to leave, their backs loaded with blue portaloos, and I couldn’t help but feel a longing twinge. I’d been walking non-stop for a few hours with steady rain falling for most of that time, with drips tumbling off the hood of my coat and onto my nose.

  I’d started early because of the forecast and negotiated a route out of the red- and bronze-bricked terraced houses on the edge of Crosby without too much trouble. A marked footpath sent me down an alleyway opposite the entrance to a primary school where parents, both mums and dads, were dropping off their little ones for the day. Along the way I also noticed a number of empty plots and wondered whether these could still possibly be the result of bombing during the war over seventy years before or the result of more recent demolition.

  The alleyway brought me on to the first canal of my walk, the Leeds and Liverpool, which did what it said on the can, linking these two great northern cities either side of the Pennines. The towpath was busy with dog walkers and cyclists; in contrast the water lay still, murky and flat, untroubled by boats, either moored or moving. Efforts had been made by the owners of houses on the far bank to take advantage of their waterside views, with decking and benches placed at the bottoms of their gardens, although quite what there was to sit and stare at was less clear.

  The houses themselves tended towards the detached and were reasonably well kept up, even if on this dull day they seemed a little bleak. The areas I’d been through the day before, albeit in better weather, were undoubtedly more prosperous. But prosperity was relative, as my host in Southport, where I’d stayed the night before setting out, had pointed out. Perhaps he was unduly conscious that I came from ‘down South’? From my point of view, sand, sea, golf and asparagus – life north of Liverpool didn’t seem too bad.

  A three-sided milepost appeared on the towpath and suggested that Liverpool was only five miles away, which was encouraging as that city was my target for the day. My route was more circuitous, however, and would inevitably be longer. This was due to the constraint I’d set myself to wander no more than three miles off the diagonal line and to use only footpaths and other public rights of way wherever feasible. It still came as a surprise when the second milepost suggested that Liverpool was now six miles away, until I realised it was telling me how many miles had passed since the canal’s terminus north of the city. I remained on track to reach the centre.

  Although not littered, the canal wasn’t exactly loved either. Locals appeared to enjoy a bring-a-bottle party, the only stipulations being that (a) the bottles were plastic and (b) they were tossed in the canal when empty. Plastic was clearly as much a modern scourge of the inland waterways as it was of the oceans. As I walked along, I remembered the boat owner’s mantra of saving one eye for the towpath in order to avoid the perennial problem of dog dirt. Signs everywhere encouraged dog owners to ‘Bag it, tie it, bin it’ but it appeared even the first of these instructions was too complicated for some. Others got to the end of the second stage and apparently gave up, resulting in regular deposits of small black plastic bags. This came across as a particularly perverse act, doubling the crime rather than solving it.

  Near a swing bridge I came across a team of Canal and River Trust (CRT) workers, all in regulation hi-vis jackets, although quite why it wasn’t clear (if they fell in the water they’d be difficult to miss). They were busy planting out new flower borders either side of some fresh wooden staging erected to give boats somewhere to moor when operating the bridge. Assuming, of course, that there would be boats along at some point.

  Near where they were working, my route joined the Trans-Pennine Trail, a sort of walkers’ Leeds to Liverpool. Here, I stopped to envelop my rucksack with its bright orange waterproof cover and to don a lightweight coat for myself against the steady but cumulative drizzle. I suspected this would become a regular habit. The increasingly urban landscape now unfolding felt like it could belong to the outskirts of any major city, with light industrial buildings lining the towpath, interspersed with more modern housing developments. The only thing that placed me was the accents as I greeted people coming my way from under the drooping hood of my coat. ‘Maarnin’ would come the reply in a distinctive singsong Scouse.

  The accent is actually named after a dish rather than an area. Scouse was a sort of stew eaten by the poverty-stricken masses in Liverpool up until the 1900s. It tended to be made up from whatever might have fallen off a greengrocer’s stall, maybe with some lamb or beef, but usually an assortment of cabbage, carrots, potato and
onion. The accent itself is an agglomeration of those spoken by the various nationalities who came to Liverpool, often with a view to onward emigration. Welsh, Irish and different Eastern European tongues were mangled together and laid over the local English to produce a sound that is both instantly recognisable, but also quite limited in its geographical spread. These greetings would be replaced by others within only a day or two’s walking.

  Having left the towpath, the well signposted route began to take on a number of other guises as it wended its way past Aintree and then onto an asphalted path, becoming part of both the Cheshire Lines Path and the Liverpool Loop. The former used to be a railway operating between Liverpool and Southport, the very same line that solved Liverpool’s poo problem and enabled the good folk of London to enjoy Formby asparagus. The Loop was an old British Rail line, abandoned in 1964 and allowed to become derelict, while plans were nurtured to create an integrated transport system. Efforts to achieve this finally expired towards the end of the 1980s. The route is now maintained by the cycle charity Sustrans, primarily for their principal interest group, but thankfully for walkers too. The only downside of their stewardship was the paucity of places to sit, as the cyclists tended to bring their own seats.

  A group of Sustrans litter-pickers were working the route, again all in hi-vis jackets, and I stopped to talk to one of them. They were all volunteers, she said, and were collecting rubbish, of which there was an ample supply. The path runs from Aintree down to Halewood in the south of Liverpool, a spot later on in my route. She told me how they work sections of the path in rotation. An average haul is twenty bin bags, although whether this is per volunteer she didn’t make clear. As I surveyed the scene, it looked like a distinct possibility. The ubiquitous small black bags left by dog owners were the worst of it, she confirmed unprompted, agreeing with my earlier thought that they effectively doubled the problem. As we spoke one of her colleagues caught a bag on the end of his litter-picking grab-stick and performed a Liverpool loop of his own, sending it in a perfect parabola into the air, where it lodged in a branch of a tree. There it was presumably destined to stay for some time, a suspended dog dirt question mark.