A celebratory walk is planned to mark the club’s 30-year anniversary.
This is an advanced notice to help you plan your busy diary.
Details will be posted by a walk poster near the time.
We are celebrating
a very special milestone, the 30th anniversary of our walking club.
Over the years, our club has brought together people from all
walks of life, united by a simple pleasure: walking in the countryside. From peaceful paths and woodland
trails to challenging hills and action packed holidays,
we have explored many places together and created memories that will stay with
us for years to come.
But our club has always been about much more than just walking.
It is about friendship and community, the conversations along the way, the
laughter over a pint of beer or a cup of tea, and the welcome given to new members. Many friendships have been formed and in some cases blossomed into marriages through the
club. It is this wonderful sense of togetherness that has helped it
flourish for three decades.
As we celebrate
our 30th anniversary, we thank the club’s founding father, Nicholas Albery for
his ingenious idea, our webmaster Andrew and many walk posters for their dedication and hard work through the years. We also remember
with fondness those members who have been part of our journey over the years
and are no longer with us or have moved away.
This anniversary
is a chance to look back with pride at everything we have achieved, but also to
look forward with excitement to the years ahead. May the next chapter bring
many more enjoyable walks, new adventures, and lasting friendships.
Lastly, you are invited to share your stories and memories of the club by adding comments to this post.
Look forward to
seeing you at this event.
26 comments:
The very first edition of Book 1 - TimeOut Book of Country Walks was published on 1 May 1997 by Penguin Books. The very first walk was listed in the 7-14 May 1997 issue of the TimeOut Magazine for Saturday 10 May 1997. It was "Hever to Leigh - A Kent Castles Walk". (walk 19). Interestingly, the meeting place was in 'foremost carriage' of 10:24am train from Victoria, not in the middle carriage of the train as we know now. The TimeOut Magazine in the subsequent week (14-21 May 1997) listed the same walk again for 17 May 1997. There was no walk listed in the 21-28 May 1997 issue of TimeOut Magazine. The following week (28 May - 4 Jun 1997) the walk listing was back to the normal rota Haslemere via Marley Common and Black Down (walk 22).
If anyone still remember what happened to the very first walk, why the same walk was repeated in the second week, and the reason for no walk in the third week, and why and when the meeting place on the train was changed from the front to middle carriage , we would very much like to hear from you.
There was a train accident - either the Ladbroke Grove crash in October 1999 or the Hatfield one in October 2000, I would imagine. Both were massive national news. Nicholas got nervous about meeting/travelling in the front carriage, so we switched to the middle.
My first walk was 29 August 1998. Is there anyone out there who started earlier, or am I now the “father the house?”
The walk was Borough Green to Sevenoaks. I saw the listing in Time Out (pretty much how everyone found out about the walks in those days). I was worried everyone attending would be old and weird, so got to Victoria station early and got on the train as soon as it was given a platform. My idea was to get into the front carriage (it was “meet in the front carriage” in those days) before anyone else so I could check out who else turned up before committing myself. I had deliberately not dressed in walking gear.
I found the carriage empty and sat down. The next person to get on said “Are you on the Time Out walk?” To say no and then later join the walk round gave looked odd, so I had to say yes. Cover blown! But shortly afterwards Nichols Albery got on and he immediately pulled out a newspaper. (He did this on every walk: he would then leave the newspaper on the train). He read, no one else spoke. I thought “Thank God for that!”
Once at Borough Green there was a huge group. They did not look old or weird. In fact they were all my age. It was a lovely chatty walk. As far as I am aware, we all descended on the Snail pub in Stone Street and got served somehow. (I don’t remember anyone eating sandwiches in those days and pubs never asked if you had booked.)
At about 3.30pm we got to Knole House and had tea. Afterwards I said “What happens now?” I was horrified to discover that this was the end of the walk, that we would just walk down into Sevenoaks. This seemed a rather early finish for such a nice day, so I pulled out my Ordnance Survey map and decided to walk to Kemsing. Everyone was astonished at this - that I wanted a longer walk, that I could actually read a map.
(I didn’t buy the Time Out Book if Country Walks for about six months. This annoyed Nicholas who thought the book sales were not as good as he expected. But I thought if I was not with the group I would just pull out my map. Who does a walk from a book if they are not in a group?)
So I walked to Kemsing and got to the station at 6.25. The last train of the day was 6.30. I had not bothered to check if there were trains (and indeed had no real means of doing so). Oh, the insouciance of youth!
(This message has been posted by the Lucilla Socialite Super Pac)
That was 28 years ago. Come and think about it, there were a wave of walkers joining the club in their 30s back then, helped by the listing in the TimeOut Magazine which tended to attract younger cohort. As we celebrate our 30 years of anniversary, we should also think about how we can attract the next generation of walkers into the club. Any ideas?
Nicolas sent messages to all the ramblers local groups via their committees asking if any of their members would like to be a walk checker for his new book.
I was with Kensington and Chelsea Ramblers group and volunteered to check a walk. Nicolas sent me Hever to Leigh which I checked and made comments largely about the use of the phrase’ ‘your direction’ in place of compass bearing. He was the editor of the walk drafts and insisted that the walk descriptions follow his chosen format so my suggestions were dismissed.
When I attended the inaugural walk I met his journalist and other friends who were so impressive to talk to and having received a free copy of the book I was hooked and excited to attend each week.
There were 3 walks each Saturday starting at a different time from the same station so that the relaxed walkers could catch up with the main group and the faster walkers and all could socialise together over lunch which was pre booked and sometimes ran to 2 courses and coffee.
The whole ethos was to de stress and meet up with like minded individuals and experience Vitamin T a tribal concept that humans require socialisation to feel a sense of community for the benefit of one’s mental health.
Nobody ate a packed lunch unless they wanted to be on their own which very few did.
The group attracted a lot of foreign visitors to London as it was a good opportunity to practice speaking English but many people from the Ramblers groups found the instructions difficult to follow if you needed spectacles to read or for distance.
. Map reading was considered a skill that could be dispensed with simply by following the instructions with no need for a leader.
Later there were social events in the evening such as going to a film. No rushing off and in my case an opportunity to shop in charity shops around the tea stops in the afternoon.
The pace was much more relaxed and we took time to listen and observe birds and animals with some nature lovers having expertise in this area.
With pubs becoming more expensive and less reliable on opening times and speed of service most walking groups have picnics today but many walk leaders in the Ramblers and independent walkers still use the walk directions as a guide.
Personally speaking I still prefer a pub lunch and a relaxed atmosphere which is all too hurriedly overlooked by those using the walk as an aerobic workout or an opportunity to talk incessantly about themselves.
Nicolas was a journalist who enjoyed interviewing people on the walks and rarely spoke about himself uninvited. He would then publish his feedback in a newspaper article and I enjoyed reading in print under a pseudonym some of the comments I and others had made in conversations with him.
I’ve read all his books and have met up with Josephine his widow over the years.
I still miss him.
How fascinating to have someone who was on the first walk, Marion. I too remember Nicholas’s friends: such an interesting bunch. We had some great conversations in those days.
This is a fascinating article from Museo del Camminare in Venezia - Foot Politics - about Nicholas Albery and SWC. The link attached. If you click the photos, you can see the full size on the screen.
https://www.museodelcamminare.org/progetti/foot_politics/anarcwalking/anarcwalking_en.html
This is an unusual source of information highlighting the Institute of Social Inventions publications which I’ve certainly not read. I have Poem for today also Seize the day which I still refer to. Nicolas thought you should memorise poems and recite them in public at his Annual competition often attended by schoolchildren which is how I could still remember a few learnt at school for auditions etc.
He was suitably impressed as most of the adults hadn’t learnt their poems off by heart but as we all know ones long term memory for learning lines is so much better as a student than as an adult. Nicolas thought that exercising the brain’s memory was good for staving off dementia and that walking as exercise was helpful for circulation and lubricating the joints. In his case it was ankylosis spondylitis of the neck which is why he looked forward to the walks each weekend having spent the week writing in a chair.
Interesting article, Lucillla. Nice to see some photos of Nicholas, with his soft smile, again.
To Marion: it is still possible to learn poems when you are old. I just learned Macavity the Mystery Cat by TS Elliot.
You may have learned a poem recently but how long will you retain it? My rendition of Abu Ben Adam learned age 16 was still in my memory aged 45 and again on an anniversary walk 10 years ago.
I’ll try you out when I next see you.
Challenge accepted! The key is to practise the poem relentlessly for a week or two. Then update every couple of days for another week or two. After that occasional refresher recitals work fine.
I was doing the walks from TO Book 1 before I 'joined' the group.
Once on the train back from one, a cyclist noticed my book and suggested I go on the group walks. She also informed me there was now a book 2 (which may help date the encounter). Soon after, I did go on one -from the timetable at the back- and Hey Presto, here I still am. It was a Chilterns walk, damned if I can remember which one, except when I'm on it, cos there's a distinctive downhill right turn through a gate or two. I had met Nicholas Albery during his - and my - squatting days but, sadly, was too late to walk with him.
I’m pretty sure it would be Tring to Wendover Mr T - definitely as Wendover finish and that’s the only Book 1 walk that goes that way.
I also did walks using TOCW long before joining the group. My friends and I started doing country walks with pub visits (focusing on Good Beer Guide entries) in 1996 so I was quite surprised to read the book came out in May 1997; we must have been using a different one to start with. So my first Book 1 walk would have been the Manningtree circular on 27 June 1998 (I was working in Germany in 97). I remember it rained in the afternoon and we were pleased to find the bar on the station platform at the end of the walk - it’s still there!
Tell us more, Mr Tiger, about your encounter with Nicholas during your ‘squatting days’. Were you a citizen of The Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia (an independent nation in west London in 1977)? Forget about Piddington, Nicholas was a way ahead of the game.
Don’t get too excited. There’s not THAT much to tell. There were two squatting communities down the same road, divided by the Westway. One was Frestonia, I lived in the other, less famous, one.
Nicholas came calling because I used to knock out an amateurish newsletter and he wanted me to publicise CALIP ( the “Campaign against lead in petrol”) Which I did.
I think it may have been Saunderton via Bledlow. In which case, I would have been eagerly clutching my first edition Book 2
I'd been doing occasional solo walks from books with appealing titles like "Leisurely strolls from Surrey pubs" when I came across the first Time Out book in the early 2000s. A circular walk rated 2/10 seemed like a good place to start so I tried no.43, the Otford 'round walk'. After much huffing and puffing I eventually reached the top of the North Downs from Otford station and wondered what on earth the higher-rated walks were like. Two more stiff climbs further round were more than enough to persuade me to relegate the book to the bottom of the pile. But a year or two later I decided I might just about be fit enough to tackle a 3/10 walk and turned up for the scheduled group walk on April 5, 2003: Gomshall-Guildford. I survived the experience but had quite a lot of weekend bridge matches in those days and so could never call myself a regular Saturday walker, but I gradually came on more over the years.
I remember the buzz about the second book coming out in 2006 and I've kept the August 9-16 edition of Time Out publicising its release. Here's a link to a couple of amateurishly photographed pages where the reporter describes her outing on a group walk from Lewes/Glynde to Seaford: https://www.walkingclub.org.uk/test/sean/time-out/article-aug-2006.pdf.
I remember the young reporter who wrote that Time Out article very well, Sean. (It actually marked the first reprint of the book rather than its original publication, which was in 2004.) Even in those days we were a good bit older than she was, and she clearly was not a walker. But she mixed with us very well and in the article did some very funny pen portraits of various walkers, including me (I was described as being like a scoutmaster).
I think the walk was Lewes via West Firle, but we decided to end it instead in Seaford, going across the downs. We explained that this was not part of the published walk and that she need not come if she didn’t want to. But she gamely stuck with us. Only when we went for a swim at Bishopstone did she blanche and flee the scene…
Remember reading that article in Time Out and keeping it for future reference. Eventually went on my first mid week walk with Marion and some others shortly after? even though not an avid walker those mid week walks were really good🙂 and mostly the same people turned up..Bea, Hope, David, our sometimes naked rambler and who else?
Great comment Marion😊 Melanie
Nicola, older David, David C, Hope D, Bea, Chris L, Melanie with occasional appearances from Johanna L, Marion, JFK. There were far less new builds spilling out over the countryside then🙄
It was my idea to have a mid week walk as I was selling new build residential developments at the weekend and had every Wednesday off. David Cooke agreed to post the walks every fortnight as he thought they wouldn’t be that popular to do every week and it was too much for him to research the train times every week. I’m extremely grateful for David’s input which he did for 10 years. He also became a member of the Ramblers Association as has Thomas G and PeteG who all lead walks for that organisation.
Some Ramblers groups such as Blackheath also contribute to the web hosting fees as they use the walks as a basis for their own leaders. Those of us who lead for other groups do likewise but many don’t contribute financially.
Do people remember the campaign against lead in petrol being started by Nicholas?
He wrote to the Government PM and as many health authorities as he could muster quoting the results of a health scare highlighting the lead levels in people’s blood in a village where he had walked.
Ultimately the campaign escalated and lead was removed from petrol. However what no one had appreciated was that a bypass had been built to divert the traffic so that the data results in this survey were skewed as a result.
Nevertheless we all now benefit from the elimination of lead in petrol but vintage cars probably need to use Red X to maintain performance.
Not the pedantic police but genuine question. Why has the 22nd May been chosen if our website says this?
The Saturday Walkers Club was started on 3rd May 1997 by Nicholas Albery, the author of the original Book of Country Walks.
Was anyone involved in choosing the date as the 3rd May next year doesn't clash with the Scotland trip and can work as the early May holiday walk.
There were some discussions amongst stalewarts of the club about what is the best date in May. The idea is to accomodate as many walkers as possible. The general thinking is to avoid two Bank holidays in May as some people may be away, and to avoid Scottish trip which takes up two weekends. This leaves us only one weekend. The consensus concluded May 22 is likely to be the date that will attract the largest number of attendees.
Like everything else, whatever the date is chosen, it will be inconvenient for some walkers. This is why an advance notice has been put up many months ahead, the hope is that people will have time to manage their diary, work around the date or re-arrange their personal affairs, if possible, if they really want to attend this event. I am sorry if the date is not convenient for you Karan.
The date is not an issue for myself unless the walk is under 10 miles (a joke given the annual choices/distance/numbers debate going on)
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