I received a book in the mail this week. Nothing unusual about that even though I do try to buy my books from my local shop. What is unusual is that this book lists my name in the back.

I am among the scores of people who help crowd-source the costs. The book’s subject appealed to me and I was happy to pre-purchase to help see it published.

The Hard Way: Discovering the Women Who Walked Before Us  by Susannah Walker via Unbound Books

I’ve been leafing through at random before digging in properly and I already know I am in for a treat.

I am familiar with much of the setting although I have not walked near as much of the territory as the well-named author. It is a landscape both known and new, comforting and strange. 

The observations are fresh, the anecdotes and references to the people who’ve trod the ancient ways before give new insight into some familiar figures and introduce me to many interesting new ones, especially women. It’s a book rich with names and stories and intriguing ideas. 

More trails to follow and threads to pursue. 

Make Space for Girls

Walker runs a charity, Make Space for Girls, that campaigns for better parks and public spaces for teenage girls. Take a look.

The book blurb poses the following question:

Why is it radical for women to walk alone in the countryside, when men have been doing so for centuries? The Hard Way is a powerful and illuminating book about addressing this imbalance, reclaiming fearlessness and diving into the history of the landscape from a woman’s point of view.

Setting off to follow the oldest paths in England, the Ridgeway and the Harrow Way, Susannah Walker comes across artillery fire, concern from passing policemen and her own innate fear of lone figures in the distance: a landscape shaped by men, from prehistoric earthworks to today’s army bases.

But along the way, Susannah finds Edwardian feminists, rebellious widows, forgotten writers and artists, as well as all their anonymous sisters who stayed at home throughout history. They become her companions over 135 miles of walking, revealing how much, or how little, has changed for women now.

Anna Dillon

I was not surprised to see Anna Dillon on the supporters list. She is a remarkable landscape artist who has rendered the Wiltshire Downs, the Ridgway and so many other places in sets of gorgeous paintings. 

This is from her Ridgeway Series where she also includes extracts from her walking diary.

February…a broad ridge south between Whitefield Hill and Liddington Hill. To the left the downs fall away into Shipley Bottom, offering fine views to the east. As I get closer to the top of this hill I can make out the edge of Liddington Castle. I turn back and look at how far I have come. The stripes of the ploughed field broken up by the deep trenches of snow turn my view into a monochrome landscape with patterns all around me. The afternoon sun turns the sky into a yellow haze as the next flurry of snow arrives.

Liddington Castle is of course not a conventional stone castle of popular imagination, but one of the earliest hill forts in Britain, with first occupation dating back to the seventh century BC.

I could see Liddington Castle from my bedroom window as a teenager and it was a common walking destination. We once found a baby fox in the earthworks.

For at least 5,000 years travelers have used the Ridgeway. and it provided a reliable trading route between the Dorset Coast in the south and the Wash on the east coast in Norfolk. Parts of it are still a grand place to take a walk on top of the world.

And here is an amazingly evocative painting from the Wiltshire Series – the avenue leading from Avebury, the Wiltshire village encircled by stones. As a teenager, I thought it fun and adventurous to catch a bus to Avebury, buy a snack at the little village store, and head back home across the downs. A variation on this theme was a bus to Marlborough with a friend, a night at the YHA Youth Hostel on the Bath Road just west of town, and a 12-mile walk home. I may have only done this a handful of times but it looms large in my memory.  

Many artists and writers have trod this territory and Walker focuses on the lesser-known, equally fascinating lives of the wives and the women.

The featured image is “A view towards the Ridgeway and Hackpen White Horse from the village of Broad Hinton”  – “The Hackpen Horse View” by Anna Dillon.

But enough distractions – back to the The Hard Way. It has already led me to my next read. More anon.