'The adventure is not the getting there, it is the on-the-way. It is not the expected; it is the surprise; not the fulfilment of prophecy but the providence of something better than prophesied.'
Sometimes a book arrives and I can barely contain the excitement, and even though I had read The Gentle Art of Tramping by Stephen Graham in a proof copy I was still delighted when this arrived...
A brown paper package tied up with string á la Sound of Music, to reveal...
The book and some Kendal Mint Cake. Sustenance of the gods when out walking, and a bar carried in my emergency kit at all times.
This is little gem of a pocket-sized book, originally published in 1926 and now republished by Bloomsbury, in a beautiful hardback edition that slots neatly into a rucksack and warrants reading whilst out on the hill. I came back from New Zealand full of the joys of 'tramping', (because they don't hike, or walk, they 'tramp') only to find that it sounded strange to say it here in the UK, so I was soon back to walking, plodding, or bimbling as usual. But 'tramping' I like.
Born in Edinburgh in 1884, a son of the editor of Country Life, journalist and writer Stephen Graham's long-standing love affair with Russia saw him walking through the country in the years before 1914 in the belief that life viewed through the eyes of a wanderer might give him a truer account of the people....
'He was from his arrival fascinated by the Russian Orthodox church, but he was even more struck by the spirituality of the people, which he believed was an instrumental force in shaping Russian society.'
They all have that 'look' from this era don't they...
As his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography attests of course events in Russia would all go slightly pear-shaped for Stephen Graham, who having been the government's preferred expert would eventually become something of an embarrassment, but he would continue his career as a travel writer and clearly it was these wanderings and observations that underpinned The Gentle Art of Tramping.
With its original artwork cover from a wood engraving by Norman James, and written, as it was, in those years after the First World War, I am thinking too about the numbers of homeless, wandering soldiers who tramped the countryside in search of healing and solace ( think A Month in the Country by J.L.Carr). Those men who had fought for their country, many of them outcasts from a society they no longer recognised and arguably classed as vagrants. Class an issue addressed in the early pages of the book and with it maybe a concealed warning in the tramp's defence not to judge them by appearances...
'Class is the most disgusting institution of civilisation, because it puts barriers between man and man...but in the tramp's motley you can say what you like, ask what you like, free from the taint of class. It also puts you right with regard to yourself...'
Suggesting that it also offers freedom of speech action and judgement and then this...
'All that highfalutin advice which Kipling wrote in 'If' may be left in its glum, red lettering pasted on your bedroom wall, if you will only put on your tramp's motley.'
'Tramps' were still much in evidence when working in casualty at the London Hospital in the East End in the 1970s. The men (for they were mostly men) would do anything to get a bed for the night, often throwing themselves down the front steps of the hospital, and many's the head wound we were allowed to stitch as students because the men didn't mind, declining local anaesthetic on the basis they had drunk enough to be beyond feeling. One in particular, known to us as Henry Sunshine, was rumoured to have been a professor at Cambridge, and talking to him I had no reason to disbelieve it.
With its chapters on Boots, The Knapsack, Clothes, Carrying Money, The Companion, The Fire, The Bed, Drying After Rain, Books, Notebooks and so much more, there is plenty to find here. Though the reading suggestions to take on the road with you might be a little outdated, the idea that the 'tramper' should 'take a book that you do not quite understand, one that you have nibbled at but have found difficult' is an interesting one...
'I do not mean an abstruse work, but one you are on the verge of understanding and making your own...'
And maybe some of us would concur with this...
'It is better, therefore to take one a whole-time book. It is good to have a book that is full of meat, one with broad margins for scribbling and extra pages for thoughts, poems, thumbnail sketches. After a long tramp it is nice to see a book which has been clothed with pencillings.'
For our 25th wedding anniversary, and long before the Kindle solved the problem by allowing me to carry 300 books with me at all times, what terrible choices I made for our three weeks wandering around Europe with rail passes and our lives in rucksacks. The journey all seems a bit daring and adventurous looking back, and was largely determined by the fact that on the date of our actual anniversary September 11th 2001, horrible things had happened so in 2002 we decided on an adventure. But Volume One of Lord of the Rings (abandoned in Bilbao) The Secret History (deserted in Barcelona) and two more long gone from memory but similarly discarded around the continent proved to be poor choices . In desperation I bought The Awakening by Kate Chopin (from a very limited selection) just as we were about to board the ferry across the Mediterranean to Genoa and there followed one of the most memorable reading experiences of my life.
The Gentle Art of Tramping is replete with moments that had me nodding my head in agreement, crystallising thoughts that frequently occur to me...
'Beware of going to Jerusalem in order that you may come back and tell the world you have been. It spoils all you found on the way...'
How relevant this is in these days of social media and Instagram, and something I had been unwittingly aware of as I write the scribbles. It's very easy to set off on a day's adventure thinking to myself, 'What can I write about this...' 'Which pictures would be best', whilst missing being in the moment and the pleasure of it. Please be assured that I do go to a lot of places that don't get written about or photographed, because as Stephen Graham would agree it's a question of balance.
'The less you carry the more you will see, the less you spend the more you will experience...'
An added delight are the book's endpapers...
Facsimiles of walking notes from 1932; the book itself and these notes especially, bringing Edward Thomas to mind.
Someone has planned their journeys carefully...
Route III - Lake District and the 1932 walker plans to stay at Fell Foot Farm, Brothers Waters Inn (both still in existence) whilst another, recommended by the guide, The Dun Bell Inn which I discover was subsequently flooded in the creation of Haweswater Reservoir in 1940 to provide water for Manchester.
Route IV - Round the World. This an even more ambitious journey with "Beaucoup Zigzag'' estimates 113,900 miles on foot across Europe to Romania and the Carpathians to Constantinople, through Persia to Afghanistan, N. India, Burma, Siam, Saigon and onwards taking a boat to Vancouver walking to St Johns, Newfoundland (say 3500 m 12mths) and thence sailing back to Liverpool.
I think you can probably tell that The Gentle Art of Tramping has found its niche in a corner of my rucksack and Offspringette's too, a spare copy travelling back to New Zealand with her. Mine is already covered in pencillings and doubtless more to follow.
Meanwhile how about you...walk...hike...tramp...plod...bimble ?
And about the one book to take with you...which would it be...
Oh yes, and please do scroll down for gifts, Magnus awaits...
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