Читать книгу The Pennine Way - the Path, the People, the Journey онлайн

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It’s an interesting reversal of the process described by Ted Hughes in his poem ‘Hill-Stone was Content’, in which Hughes wrote of the Pennine stone being cut, carted and ‘conscripted’ into the mills, forgetting ‘its wild roots/Its earth-song’.

There’s an uncanny but powerful sense of coming full circle. Stones that were originally quarried from the Pennine hills were used to build the mills that fed the Industrial Revolution; the workers looked to escape the weekday drudgery by rambling in the same hills; when they finally achieved decent access and people walked for leisure, some of the moorland paths became eroded and needed repairing; the mills closed down and the redundant stone was returned to the hills to form durable and lasting pathways. How neat is that?

Much of Mike’s work on the Pennine Way and for the national park has been about balancing the conservation and protection of the moors with enjoyable recreation. ‘One of the fundamental principles of footpath repair is that you make it a good path that people will walk on. And when I see people coming out to walk the Pennine Way without leaving an impact then I consider that my job will be done. I really do think we’re beginning to get there now.’