HA 31-year old woman is surrounded by a mostly male group of walkers on the Pennines. She stands between the waters at Malham Tarn, in the Yorkshire Dales, and Kirk Yetholm, in the Scottish Borders. She’s wearing bell bottom jeans, a fitted-long-sleeved top and an Alice-band to keep her hair away from her face. Joyce Neville is her name and the year 1952. She’s in the middle of a walk along a proposed national trail – the Pennine Way
Joyce had read an advertisement for this “Pioneer Walk”, as it was called, in Sunday newspapers just a few weeks earlier. It was posted by the writer/campaigner Tom Stephenson He was asking “fit and experienced walkers over 18”, to join him on a 15-day trek along the “long green trails” that he wanted created in Britain. The trail was inspired by the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail in the US. According to Joyce’s note (passed on to me from Paddy Dillon of Cicerone) few women wore jeans in those days. Walking the Pennine Way guidebook), and the whole trip cost just £25.
My friend Cerys, and I, more than 70 years after we first met, are standing at the edge of High Cup Nick, a natural feature in the Pennines. This U-shaped valley known as England’s Grand Canyon is located above the village Dufton in Cumbria. The Pennine Way was officially opened in 1965. We’re on the first of three days to celebrate the diamond anniversary. We’d begun on a cold but sunny day in February at the waterfall-rich town of Middleton-in-Teesdale, and already scrambled alongside the torrent of Cauldron Snout, listened to the call of corncrakes in the farmland of the Eden Valley, bog-hopped along the path beside MOD Warcop training ground (out of bounds to hikers without prior permission), and arrived at this – one of the geological highlights of the entire 268-mile trail.
Joyce walked the same landscape in 1950, but some things have changed.
“Back then it was a damn tough walk because all the blanket bog would be trodden into a filthy morass that got to waist-deep at times,” said Paddy when I called him pre-trip to ask advice about the section we had decided to walk, between Middleton-in-Teesdale and Greenhead, inspired by the same three-day trip Stephenson made in 1948 to publicise his cause. He was joined by five other MPs including Barbara Castle (one the longest serving women MPs in British historical history) and Arthur Blenkinsop. Arthur Blenkinsop is a Labour Member of Parliament for South Shields. You could have worn waders, and you might have stayed clean. You can now do it in carpet slippers thanks to the flagstones.
Joyce would have been proud. Our gear has changed since her day. Her outfit, she says, was viewed as scandalous at a time when women wore long tweed skirts to walk. Joyce, and other women who are like her, can be credited for the fact we now have fleece-lined pants that keep us warm and dry without offending anyone. We had lightweight jackets and did not have to carry heavy bell tents. When Joyce walked this route, hikers were required to negotiate with local farmers in order to camp on their land. Later, after the official opening of the path, there was a network of about 20 YHA Hostels along the route. Most people stay in guesthouses, hostels, pubs or Airbnbs. There are only a few left.
While we are gawking at the crumbling pinnacles and buttresses that line the edges High Cup, we come across a hiker named Mike, aged 73, along with his dog Ringo. Mike claims to have lived at Earby, when the Pennine Way was first opened, on the trail.
“I recall we would hear the banging frying pans, before we saw the walkers,” laughs he. “They were hanging from the backpacks and walking sticks of factory workers in Manchester, who would take Saturday off and walk to see how far they could go before having to return to work Monday.”
We also squeezed our walk between work. We would stay in “hobbit houses” instead. Dufton Caravan ParkAfter walking from Brunswick House B&BAndrew Milnes runs, and told us trail walkers make up a third of the business he does each year.
We have stayed in good accommodations, but the distance between us and Dufton is not shorter. When we arrive at Dufton, at dusk, we immediately head to a delicious meal at The Stag Inn – thankful we don’t need to cook our own dinner. Amanda, behind the bar, raves about our section of trail. “Do you believe it will last 60 more years?” She asks me. “60?” “60?” she asks. “It will last another 6,000 – it’s not going anywhere.”
We were, however, and after a cosy night, we begin our walk on the hardest and highest section of the trail – over Cross Fell, home to the notoriously bitter Helm Wind (the only named wind in the UK). The temperature is -4C. There is frost covering the ground.
We reach the snowline when we reach the slopes at the peak of 893m (2,930ft). It is cold, but the ground is made solid by the frost, and we hike easily to the summit plateau, marked by a great stone cross (reportedly – we later find out from the woman who runs the Post Office at Garrigill – constructed on the trail’s opening by a reverend from Scotland who had received a message “from above” to build it to protect walkers). When we finally reach the top and can see the Lakeland mountains spread out before us without any wind, it makes me wonder how it might be working.
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We eat our lunch at Greg’s Hut. Formerly a miner’s hut, it is now managed by the Mountain Bothies Association, a volunteer-run organization. Judging by the comments in the visitor’s log, many Pennine Way walkers frequent this hut.
From there the trail heads to Garrigill and on to Alston, cleaving its way between a mass of land used for grouse shooting, a place where hikers would have once had run-ins with gamekeepers eager to protect their money-making birds – a practice that still causes heated debates between landowners, conservationists and access campaigners.
While walking a trail might seem like purely recreational activity, the Pennine Way’s roots are in politics. Tom Stephenson never walked all of the trail he created. The idea came to him in 1935, just three years after the mass invasion of Kinder ScoutA protest for the rights of walkers in the Peak District. Paddy says that he didn’t want to walk it himself, but made sure others did. “His plan was to get people to go to the countryside in large numbers to places like Kinder Scout or Bleaklow, which were forbidden to walk. [also in the Peak District]He could use it as a tool to increase access to previously private land for the general public.”
After a Night at the Cumberland Inn We set our compass in Alston for Greenhead and Hadrian’s Wall. From there, we’ll take a cab to Haltwhistle where we’ll catch the train back home. We fly through the 17 miles, enjoying the song of the curlews. At the old Lambley station, now a private home, we spy wild deer.
Since Stephenson’s first walked the backbone of England in the early 1900s, many other routes such as the South Tyne Trail. The route follows the old Haltwhistle railway (closed in 1975; opened in 2004 as a footpath) for 23 miles. It is much more accessible and popular, so Paddy decided to include it in the updated guidebook.
The Pennine Way was the UK’s first national trail – there are now 17 in England and Wales, and four equivalent long-distance “great trails” in Scotland. King Charles III England Coast Path will be complete by the year 2025. It is the longest and newest trail. But there’s still a lot to fight for. According to the campaigning group Right to Roam, only 8% of England is accessible to hikers – nearly 49,000 miles of historic paths have been removed from official maps and 32,000 rights of way are blocked. Access is even more limited to those wishing to swim, cycle or camp (with one exception – wild camping is legal on Dartmoor, but this is being contested in the supreme court By a wealthy landowner).
Walking is still a political act, even after 60 years. Perhaps, just like Joyce Neville, in 1952 we should all take to the trail to exercise our freedom to roam. Jeans can be worn.
