Walking the M62

Pointers towards the journey

Pointers towards the journey:

1.
A fascinating walk yesterday around Norris Green Park, led by Paul, one of our city's excellent Park Rangers. This small and (I'd thought) quite unremarkable park was illuminated for us by a man deeply knowledgeable of local history and flora and fauna. Most astonishing insight - inside the ruins of what used to be the kitchen gardens of Norris Green House (abandoned in the 1930s and since all but demolished) we were introduced to numerous examples of a rare tree, the Chinese Wingnut. Brought here by John Pemberton Heywood, collector of rare species for his gardens, these lovely trees have flourished in a forgotten corner of what by reputation is a dull, monochrome, housing estate. Lesson learned for my travels: never again, under any circumstances, use the term, "There's nothing worth looking at there."

2.
A good day today at Henry's, talking over ideas for the M62 adventure. Designed to add some symbolic, spiritual aspects to the walk, we talked over the ideas of my (a) composing a 'Prayer for the Walk' which I could use at the beginning, repeat and/or revise as I go along; (b) putting that or something else on a card which I could give to people I meet and engage with en-route; (c) starting off a poem-prayer-reflection which I would invite people to add a couple of lines to as we go along - a sort of transpennine motorway epyllion or epode; (d) giving and receiving gifts or tokens from those who provide me with hospitality, passing on the gift previously received to the next host en-route, thus creating a chain of giving (and cross-Pennine collaboration).

This conversation made me recall Graeme's idea some time ago that 'Perhaps it should be mandatory to bring a single torn out page of ‘On the Road’ and then (at the final destination) the pages compiled in reverse order and bound into a single volume to be left at Bill's Tower? – Each person could write a single word (in their own blood) on the top left hand side of their page to see whether anything of significance is constructed from the words once the volume is bound?'

Plenty of potential in all these thoughts.

Simple journey

This is an extract from Paul Farley's reinterpretation of Polyolbion, Michael Drayton's epic journey in verse around England and Wales. I love the poem, of course, with its viewpoint the Mersey banks and its playful alt.rock Godspeed nod (which means something else to me too).

I like Farley's interview too, which accompanies the poem in Magma 37 (Spring 2007). In it he talks of being excited by Beryl Bainbridge's update of Priestley's English Journey, when she came to the place where he was growing up, and his admiration of other literary journeys such as Paul Theroux's Kingdom by the Sea or Patrick Keiller's Robinson in Space. And especially - because it encourages my own related quest - I like the way he describes what he's trying to do on the journey he is making to retrace Michael Drayton's steps:

'My own intentions are simply to write as well as I can, I can't offer up any sense of project beyond that. I would like my poem to contain the fizz and crackle, the texture, of the contemporary and our experience of living in this landscape and moving through it. I would admit to that.'

Learning to listen, learning to see

James Attlee came to realise that to make a pilgrimage you don't have to travel that far. He began to sense that there'd be no more to discover by travelling great distances across the world on tourist routes than there would be by taking a closer look at the road on which he lived. That road is Cowley Road, Oxford, which winds away from The Plain roundabout near Magdalen Bridge, through the inner city area of East Oxford, and into the industrial suburb of Cowley.

Off the prescribed route for international visitors, nevertheless Attlee noticed that Cowley Road is lined with businesses from all around the world. Not where tourists are advised to spend time, Attlee noticed that this was a road full of variety and promise: from restaurants and sari shops to live music venues, centres of alternative medicine, various sorts of butchers, and a Russian supermarket, Cowley Road has a great deal to explore. So it dawned on him:

These words form part of the introduction to Attlee's book Isolarion: A Different Oxford Journey, which describes his pilgrimage on the road where he lives.

Reading this today, and reflecting on my own journey to come, I decided to change the strapline on this website. It did read, In autumn 2007 I will walk the M62 motorway corridor, Hull back to Liverpool, in search of the True North of England. That was an impossibly inflated aim. Now it gives the reasons for my journey as being ... because I hope to learn to listen, because I hope to learn to see.