Psychogeography or psychobabble, each of us draws our own sustenance from our perambulations, always feeling the better WALKER for it. As Nietzsche said (before he went mad): ‘Never trust a thought that didn’t come by walking’. Summer 2009 Ramblers’ Association Warwickshire Area Newsletter Editor: John Garrett, 10 Conway Avenue, Tile Hill, Coventry, West Midlands, CV4 9HZ

Email: [email protected] The psychogeography of Windsor includes Queen Victoria’s first train ride and Heathrow Airport’s terminal 5 Registered Charity No. 1093577 ______Area Web Site: www.warwickshireramblers.org.uk Puschair Walks: Update Editor’s Word From Catherine Nicholas: A recently published book, The Lost Art of Walking: the history, science, philosophy and literature of pedestrianism by Getting these started has required the assistance of the Geoff Nicholson, is a reminder, if any were needed, of the ‘Activities coordinator’ at one of the Solihull Children's contribution to mental and physical health offered by our Centres who is able to provide walk leaders and has access to favourite weekend pastime. As an American urbanite, the contact details of new parents in Solihull for advertising Nicholson’s focus is on city walks in particular; he notes the purposes. currency of the verb ramble among black New Orleans citizens in the early 20th century. Some of you may be Pushchair walks in Solihull will be starting May 12th on a familiar with Kid Ory’s classic Muskrat Ramble, or know the weekly basis for parents with babies under 12 months in the two-part structure of the funeral march, Didn’t he ramble, as first instance. It is hoped to develop this further to include performed by Louis Armstrong: a solemn trudge to the more locations and dates, so, if anyone is interested, please cemetery followed by an upbeat swing back to town once the either let me know or email Walker for a copy of the timetable body has been interred. Life goes on. in the first instance.

Now, two of the articles in this issue of Walker refer to For 4 yrs and above, I hope that it may be possible to develop geoparks. But what about psychogeography, I hear you cry a local Ramblers Family group in the longer run. (don’t I?). Well, Nicholson attended a conference in New ______York on psychogeography. This is one of the many abstract terms for which we must be grateful, or not, to the French. ADVANCE NOTICE OF AREA AGM Apparently it was invented in 1955 by Guy Debord, who defined it as ‘the study of the precise laws and specific effects The Stratford-upon-Avon Group will be hosting the next Area of the geographical environment, consciously organised or AGM on Saturday 6th February 2010 in the Town Hall, not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals’. So next Stratford-upon-Avon, commencing at 10.a.m. time you feel like emitting a murmur of discontent when your leader has delayed the coffee break too long, just think of all Further details will be included in the next issue of Walker, but the juices you’re unwittingly imbibing from the atmosphere. Tom Franklin, Chief Executive of Ramblers Association, has promised to come to the meeting, having been unable to attend has its own psychogeographer: Iain Sinclair (strictly the last AGM in Birmingham. speaking, a Welshman). Sinclair has steeped himself in the psychogeography of London, which he regards as a A selection of walks in and around Stratford will be led by palimpsest, a text written over many times by events in members of our Group. history. He’ll walk, for example, down a street in Whitechapel and hear the footsteps of Jack the Ripper padding along behind We look forward to welcoming members of all the other him. You know the feeling. Sinclair’s highest (or lowest) point Warwickshire groups to Stratford-upon-Avon. was reached in 2002, when he published London Orbital, a 600-page description of his walk along the M25, all 117 miles Susan Bruce of it. According to Sinclair, Guy Debord was not the inventor Stratford-upon-Avon Group Chairman of psychogeographic walking. A Brit got there first: Thomas de Quincey, famous opium-eater of the early 19th century, Please note that the deadline for material submitted for the Autumn 2009 issue of Walker is 31st July. published his London ramblings, ‘slightly druggy, no pattern, mapping out the city in a dream-like state’.

obviously used to holding a geological map in their hands as well as an OS map, but armed with the Guide, the appropriate VIEWPOINT OS map and the help of the waymarks now appearing along the route, you should have no trouble following the Geopark Way... indeed, I suspect that many of you would find that you are already familiar with much of the route.

So if you find yourselves out and about in the new Geopark and you come across the Geopark Way waymarks, dark green with a stylised image of the Silurian trilobite Dalmanites inside the arrow, just remember that he’s 400 million years In addition to National Parks, AONBs, SSSIs, Access Land, old, or thereabouts... I think! World Heritage Sites, Nature Reserves and Country Parks, we ***** now have a new addition to the official armoury of In the 2007 winter edition of Walker I wrote of the closure of countryside designations – Geoparks – and one of the six in the Dodford Inn near Bromsgrove, a splendidly useful and the UK, the Abberley and Geopark lies just welcoming pub for ramblers, which the owners, an Essex- to the west of our Area. What is more, the Hereford and based investment company, wished to sell for conversion to a Earth Heritage Trust have published the route dwelling. So outraged were my Group at this blatant example of a 109-mile-long Geopark Way, for the benefit of the of asset stripping that when the case came before Bromsgrove geologically inclined walker. Council for planning consent, our Group sent in a formal objection. To our delight Bromsgrove planning committee There is a line of thought that the whole of the British Isles threw the application out—unanimously! deserves to be designated a Geopark, as rocks of all but one of the fifteen geological periods are displayed in our small Not happy with this rejection, the owners served notice on the archipelago! Be that as it may, the Abberley and Malvern Hills tenant and closed the poor old Dodford anyway—despite a Geopark - running in a linear direction from Bridgenorth down desperate attempt from local campaigners to keep this unique to - manages to cover a surprising variety of village asset open. But the Company were determined to have geology, from the Pre-Cambrian right through to the Jurassic, their wretched way and appealed to the Planning Inspectorate with more recent glacial drift and river terrace deposits thrown at Bristol—and on the Planning Inspectorate’s usual form, I in for good measure... For the benefit of the non-geologist I expected them to get it! had better explain that the geological timescale is divided into some fifteen or so main divisions, ranging from the Pre- However, much to my delight, even the Planning Inspectorate Cambrian at 4600 million years old to the present day. So if dismissed this second application and I now hear that the you ask a geologist how old a particular rock is - like the Dodford has reopened with new tenants. So come on ramblers, historian who will say Medieval or Stuart rather than this is a rare victory these days, so get your boots on, visit ‘sometime around the 1200s or 1600s’ - the geologist will Pepper and Chaddesley Woods and don’t forget to call in the place your rock in one of these fifteen divisions rather than tell Dodford for a celebratory pint! you its age in millions of years. Frankly, like me, they probably can’t carry the figures around in their heads anyway. Michael Bird Area Chairman It is a geological convention that the geological column is read ______(oldest first) from the bottom up—and if only it were that Poets’ Corner simple we would be able to follow the Geopark Way in that direction too. But, unfortunately for simplicity - but splendidly What would the world be, once bereft for the scenery - tectonic activity has so jumbled up the rocks Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, of these periods and thrust them up and worn them down to O let them be left, wildness and wet; such an extent that the oldest rocks (the Malvern Hills) now lie Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. in the middle of the walk. Only at the southern end Gerard Manley Hopkins approaching Gloucester will you encounter the youngest rocks, the Lower Jurassic, at 199 million years old.

So far two of our local groups, Stratford-upon-Avon and the City of Birmingham Groups, have embarked on walking the Geopark Way in monthly sections—and by the time you are reading this they should have arrived at the half-way stage, swapping the rolling fossiliferous Silurian limestone of the Suckley Hills for the rugged igneous terrain of the Malverns.

There is a splendidly illustrated trail guide published by the Hereford and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust, University of Worcester, price £9.95, postage and packing £2 (an order form can be downloaded from their website www.EarthHeritageTrust.org). The authors of the Guide are

We found and boarded the coach, breathed a sigh of relief, and OUT and ABOUT all agreed that it had been a wonderful day’s walk.

Derek Spencer ______

To Boldly Go . . . This report has been received from Andrew Ireland of Coventry Group’s footpath working party.

Some residents are more welcoming than others. Relic of a footbridge over the Great Central Railway near Maidwell This sign was displayed on a garden gate near Ansty, ______Coventry, through which a footpath right of way went, and it A Walk to Remember would intimidate even the bravest, especially as the waymark had been removed. Geopark Walk Part 2 Warwickshire Council recently had the sign removed, but it It is possibly best that I do not mention the name of the leader was lying on the ground and looked ready to be replaced in of this particular walk although it seems as if the name Roger position! is obligatory if one is to be honoured in this way. We should have been suspicious at the Highley start for, after information The sign reads ‘No Uninvited Guests - This is my dog and it and instructions, he wished us well on the walk as though he can get to the gate in 1.6 seconds - the question is - can you??’ was not actually coming with us! Was he just revealing his own secret apprehension?

Fate must have smiled on us as we battled through snow and mud, slipping and sliding from and along the assumed path. Our childlike question, ‘Are we nearly there?’ was treated with disdain. With just a few centimetres of snow the fields looked lovely, pristine white with no visible puddles or marshy mires or any sign of footpaths to spoil the landscape. Of course the only problem was that we were trying to follow the hidden paths with only occasional diversions through jungle-type vegetation to avoid mud that would have swallowed a small dog – we didn’t experiment with a small rambler!

Coming through woodland to a small stream, we assumed we ______were on the path but there was no obvious crossing point. BRANDING Like migrating wildebeest we massed on the bank waiting for the first one brave or foolish enough to risk it. Was the water On 18th February a workshop was held by Central Office at a little deeper than it looked? Would that stone roll over the the Centre for Voluntary Action in Birmingham to familiarise moment you stepped on it? Were there crocodiles and where representatives from Warwickshire Groups with the Ramblers’ was our leader? He had left us to face the dangers alone and Association’s new branding and the rationale behind it. two kind helpers hauled me up the far bank with such enthusiasm that I landed in a bog a couple of yards further The message presented by Chief Executive Tom Franklin (by on. Our gallant leader had gone downstream either to cry or video) was that recent surveys undertaken on behalf of the RA to search fruitlessly for a ford, a bridge or perhaps a boat indicate that the image of ramblers outside of the RA’s whilst we, a leaderless herd, poured, or rather hauled, members ‘borders on ridicule’. It was therefore decided to ourselves over a fence posing as a stile. We subsequently revamp the image of ramblers so that people would say ‘Wow! laboured over many stiles and squelched through numerous I never thought the Ramblers were like that!’ fields, but the navigation was mostly impeccable. That was until the advance party realised that their snow-disguised Kate Ashbrook, the RA Chairman, recalled (also by video) ‘path’ was at a ninety degree variance with the actual snow- that twenty odd years ago a meeting had been held to change covered track. As they swung round towards the other corner the RA logo from a rucksack to the present squiggly-line of the field, and another championship-standard awkward motif. After extensive consultation, a new logo has been stile, everyone else adjusted their route so that any passing devised that will carry the organisation forward and airman would have observed a fan-like pattern of forty or so encapsulate what it wants to be in the future. Stratford ramblers seeking to prove that the last can be first so long as you do not follow the leader.

BRIEFINGS (cont.) through the garden of ‘Woodacre’ and onto Hardwick Lane at SP102662. Tony Hall, the RA’s Director of Marketing and Communication, outlined the new strategy for 2008-13. It is AL163, Tanworth in Arden (Explorer 220) called Fresh Air, Firm Ground, and encompasses four aims: This path has now been diverted to follow the south-east side of the long narrow field from Gorcott Hill at SP 092685 to 1) a good-quality walking environment Ullenhall Lane at SP 095687. 2) making walking accessible to all 3) communicating our work Steven Wallsgrove 4) ensuring a well-run organisation Area Footpath Officer ______Why rebrand the RA? To increasse ‘relevance and awareness’. Research independently undertaken to discover what the man Ansty Golf Centre and woman in the street associated with the word rambler elicited responses such as ‘retired’, ‘elderly people’, ‘men with The following briefing has been received from Richard beards’, ‘anoraks’ or simply ‘???’. Barnard, Footpath Officer with Warwickshire County Council.

This gave rise to some self-examination within the association I don't know how familiar you are will the stretch of path and the asking of questions such as ‘What type of organisation along the Ansty Golf Centre course, where the landslide from are we? Environmental? Leisure?’ and ‘How could we attract the railway has blocked the correct line of the path for the last new members?’ Prominent among the responses from the 16 years. Needless to say, after much discussion the path is public was the query, ‘Tell me more about what you do.’ now open on its correct line, behind the fence on the railway side and by 24th April will be surfaced with stone. The path is So the decision was made to refurbish the RA brand, focusing well waymarked, but the problem we and the Golf Centre have on the Ramblers’ ethos, defined in the slogan, ‘We want to be is to educate walkers and the general public to use the new, at the heart of walking’. The essence of the RA is crystallised correct route after having used the golf course for so long. in words such as ‘knowledgeable’, ‘welcoming’, ‘positive’, ______‘expert’, even ‘inspiring’. The general public, it emerges, do perceive us as knowledgeable but not as inspiring. Based on New Area Website this, we need to focus our attention on being ‘visionary’ and ‘relevant’. The new Area website has been up and running for some months now and the Area Webmaster, Colin Rock, would When asked about how they responded to the current, 20-year- welcome any appropriate photographs. Could Groups please old logo, people said it looked cheap and old-fashioned: it check their links to the site: didn’t say anything about what we, as Ramblers, do. The www.warwickshireramblers.org.uk conclusion from these investigations was that the RA needed to make a quantum leap, to startle people.

Hence the new logo was arrived at, based on the key motto, At ______the heart of walking. The new logo was based on the original pattern of two figures: a vertical rectangle and a circle, representing objects that might be seen on an urban and a rural walk: e.g. a tall building and a pebble. The concept was refined, so that the rectangular block was softened into a more flexible shape, somewhat like a tree trunk.

Although ‘The Ramblers’ Association’ remains the official designation of the organisation, this will be simplified to ‘ramblers’ on all publicity material.

Since 2010 will be the 75th anniversary of the RA, the new The Ramblers’ Association is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England logo must appear on all the stationery by the end of the year. and Wales. Company registration number: 4458492. Registered office: 2nd floor, ______Camelford House, 87-90 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TW Registered Charity in England and Wales number: 1093577

Where is that path? The following significant changes have taken place in the rural parts of our Area since the last report was prepared.

AL164a, Mappleborough Green (Explorer 220) The east end of this path has now been diverted to exit on to the Morton Bagot Road at SP 102663, instead of passing