Will Self - Psychogeography

We stroll on and into the wood itself, a substantial chunk of primordial woodland left immured by London. Sessile oak, beech and silver birch crowd around the sandy track, the sunlight twinkles from between the interlocking boughs, the little boys cavort, the adolescents even begin to frolic a bit. Two miles brings us to the remains of Scadbury Manor, a medieval moated house. It’s been excavated and the tall brick chimneypieces and barrel-vaulted cellars are exposed to view. In the weed-choked moat some coots do their thing. We stand looking south through the fringing trees, to where the Swanley interchange of the M25 grumbles in the mid-distance.

I am ridiculously happy. I love these interzones, where country and city do battle for the soul of a place. I can sense the last few roads of semis below us in the valley, and beyond them the open fields. We’re only a few miles from the village of Downe, where Charles Darwin lived out his years selectively breeding pigeons. I like to think he would’ve appreciated this dérive as a sound survival mechanism, the only possible way to stay mentally fit in the psychotic entrails of a twenty-first century megalopolis. Then we walk on to Sidcup through cluttered, darkling fields.

Sidcup is one of those outer London suburbs that have achieved the sublime status of place-name-as-insult. Pinter made much of the place in The Caretaker , the trampish protagonist of which is forever on his way to Sidcup to ‘get me papers’. But we don’t get to see much of the place; night is falling on the valley of the River Cray as we limp into the town centre. There’s time for burgers and kebabs in a Turkish-run chippie, before we proceed to the station and entrain for London Bridge.

On the train are Sidcup lads and lasses glammed up for a Saturday night up in the Smoke. I lean over to my eldest: ‘See that chap over there,’ I whisper, ‘we’re so far out in the sticks he’s unashamedly sporting a mullet!’ My son winces. But then, as the train clatters over the great silvery river of tracks which are being fed into London Bridge, I can see the tension seep out of his shoulders. He’s safe, back in the warm beating heart of his natal city. I, on the other hand, feel dreadful again.

I welcome the new right to roam, yes indeedy I do. After all, I’m a committed walker with the yards of nylon and feet of Gore-Tex to prove it. There’s nothing I like more than a good walk and most mornings I begin the day with a little hike to the bathroom, where I choke down a bit of Kendal Mint Cake while liberally pissing. Then I walk downstairs to the kitchen, where I stop for a well-earned breakfast, usually a cereal bar broken up in a bowl with milk added. I call this concoction of my own devising ‘muesli’. Then I walk back upstairs to my office. That’s three walks even before I’ve started work!

I know lots of other people are keen on walking as well, because when I go out into the street I see them doing it, and if I head over to my local shop I often find Mike, the proprietor, plodding up and down the aisles of biscuits and Brillo pads. As we pass each other we’ll sing out a cheery ‘hello!’ because we’re just two walkers doing what we love and this engenders a certain fellow feeling. Many serious walkers are pretty down on the whole business of shopping, and see trolling around expensive retail outlets racking up consumer debt as a poor substitute for the windswept romance of the fells, but I say fie on you! On a good hike in the West End or around one of London’s many indoor malls, I can travel as far as a mile, while the frequent stops to heave my plastic give the whole experience great style and elan.

I suppose the real objection to all this walking I do is that it takes the form of what’s termed ‘linear access’. I start at point ‘A’ and, using a direct route, walk to point ‘B’. Granted, I may make diversions to points ‘C’ and ‘D’, but these too will be along fairly defined paths. What I don’t do is ‘roam’, and that’s precisely what the new Countryside and Rights of Way Act allows me to do. Personally, I find the whole notion of roaming quite alien, and I’m not even sure that I know how to do it at all. Take my morning routine: where am I to go if I don’t walk to the bathroom? Should I just stroll aimlessly around the bedroom until I end up pissing in the bookcase? This has been known to happen, but usually only after the ingestion of strong liquors. And what about my walk over the road to buy the paper? If I roam up and down Mike’s aisles for too long, tolerant as he is he’ll call the Old Bill.

I’m not just being facetious about this. As I say, I welcome the opening up of an area the size of Luxembourg to the British public, and concur heartily with those who say that for far too long the big landowners have been allowed to hide their bushels under a. . er. . bushel. But roaming, I ask you. I don’t think we’re going to see the Forest of Bowland — one of the new areas of outstanding natural beauty which has been opened up — covered with cagoule-clad worthies ambling about in a completely random pattern, like smoke particles in Brownian motion. Isn’t it more likely that they’ll naturally fuse into flocks and packs that will then denude the patches they settle on, and perhaps end up having to be painlessly culled by high-velocity rifle bullets?

Isn’t the sordid truth that by turning walking, that most primal of physical activities, into a recreational pursuit like paragliding or motocross, the roaming lobby — quite inadvertently — participate in the downgrading of more workaday ambulatory activity? The kind of walking they have in mind requires a fair outlay on kit and usually — for those of us who live in large conurbations — a long train or car ride before it can be undertaken. Besides, isn’t it the case that there can be no rights without responsibilities? And I’m not talking about shutting the gate here. The harsh fact is that far from taking responsibility for their walking the vast bulk of the population is more prepared than ever to sit around on its fat arses licking pure salt and watching reality TV shows.

Still, at least that leaves us linear walkers with plenty of elbow room. I walked to Newhaven this summer from the front door of my house in south London. It was eighty-seven miles and it took me four days. In the first three days out I encountered more people in electric invalid carriages (three) than I did on foot. On the fourth day this changed, because I’d got to the South Downs, which were covered with people roaming. It’s an irony that can’t be lost on the Duke of Westminster and his buddies, that, having lost unlimited grazing for one kind of livestock, they’ve now acquired another species.

I went to a wedding at the weekend in Havana. . in Brighton. Let us just dwell on that phrase for a few moments: I went to a wedding at the weekend in Havana. . in Brighton. Havana was very nice as it happens, two large airy rooms, with galleries running around them, fans revolving lazily on the white-painted ceilings. The staff were bustling and efficient, wound tightly into their immaculate, ankle-length aprons. There was no sign either of the sleaze and corruption one associates with the Batista regime, or of the penury and paranoia that has dogged Fidel Castro’s exercise in nation building. But then this was Havana. . in Brighton.