Ramblings

Clare Balding is joined by singers Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh of the band Deacon Blue to walk one of their favourite coastal routes in Fife. Starting at Elie they walk along the beach passing through the village of St Monan's ending in the picturesque fishing town of Pittenweem. Ricky and Lorraine have been married for over thirty years and perform together as part of the band, as well as having their own careers in broadcasting and acting. They say the secret to their enduring relationship is doing things together as a couple and sharing the same interests, one of which is walking. One of their favourite areas to walk is the East Neuk in Fife reputed to have some of the driest sunniest weather in the UK because of its sheltered position between the Rivers Forth and Tay.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Clare Balding joins a unique family ramble in Dorset. She is walking from Osmington Mills to Weymouth with Simon Waley and his three Dutch sons-in-law. They are here, from their home in the Netherlands, for a three day hike along a stretch of the South West Coastal Path. Simon is British; he met and married a Dutch woman and moved to the Netherlands more than twenty five years ago. They have three daughters and each met a Dutch man. For the first time, Simon – a very keen walker, who regularly comes back to the UK – is bringing his three Dutch sons-in-law to experience long-distance British trekking. He says the culture of walking is very different in the Netherlands where every square inch of land has a specific purpose, there aren’t many public footpaths, and agricultural land is out of bounds. When people do walk, it’s usually in huge, organised groups along a network of rural roads. Simon wants his family to experience both the freedom of British walking and the unique delight of youth-hostelling, s

Clare Balding walks with sisters Georgina and Rebecca - both mothers of young children - who started a group called Go Wild Go West to help inspire other young families to get out and enjoy the outdoors. They have happy childhood memories of exploring and adventuring in nature and are concerned that children today are losing touch with the thrill of walking and playing outdoors. They take Clare on a circular route around from East Harptree in North Somerset. It's a walk designed to delight and entertain the children who build a den, climb trees and find a rope swing along the way. The children are free to roam and explore with the mums a safe distance behind.There are more walks and ideas for days out on their Facebook page GoWildGoWestThe walk is from East Harptree Woods up Smitham Hill and down Harptree CombeProducer: Maggie Ayre

Clare Balding meets a group of native American women who live and work in the UK. A sense of isolation and homesickness led them to the Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol seeking connection with other indigenous people. They now meet regularly. Clare joins them on a walk around Henley in Arden in Warwickshire and hears how despite different tribal affiliations, the common cultural and spiritual backgrounds they share bring great comfort to them thousands of miles from home. Leandra Nephin is from the Omaha tribe of Nebraska and grew up on the reservation there. Sarah Sense is a Chitimacha artist who met her husband while she was exhibiting her work at the Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol run by Joanne Prince, while Stephanie Pratt is an academic and art historian from the Dakota Crow Creek tribe. Melinda Schwakhofer is Muscogee Creek and through her artwork is attempting to reconnect with her culture from her home on Dartmoor.The walk: Start Henley in Arden Centre ending Preston Bagot Church. Distance approximatel

Clare gets lost in the rain as she walks to meet two extraordinary sisters in their 90s. Both were code-breakers during WW2, and one invented the TV classic, Ask the Family.Pat Davies and Jean Argles both worked in espionage during WW2. Pat helped the Royal Navy intercept German Naval Traffic at coastal stations, while Jean was a code and cipher officer based in Cairo, then Italy. Throughout the war, their father was a Prisoner of War. He was Lt Colonel Cary Owtram who was in charge of the infamous Chungkai Japanese Prisoner of War camp. There, he found himself responsible for the wellbeing of thousands of other prisoners including those used to build the notorious Death Railway which featured in the film, Bridge on the River Kwai. Incredibly, Lt Col Cary Owtram managed to keep a secret diary which Pat and Jean have recently published: "1000 Days on The River Kwai" (scroll down to 'related links' to find out more). Following the war, Pat worked in TV. She produced University Challenge and the Sky at Nig

Clare Balding joins singer Feargal Sharkey for a river walk on the south London/Surrey border along the River Hogsmill one of just 200 chalk streams in the world. He's always been a rambler and is currently walking all of the river routes of London. He is often dismayed and pleased in equal measure at the state of our rivers as he is a passionate advocate for water health and quality. The walk is part of the London Loop and starts from Ewell West Station and ends at Kingston upon Thames passing through Old Malden.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Clare Balding goes walkabout with a group of Australian women who call themselves The Norfolk Broads. They include a Colman, of mustard fame, and one ‘honorary Aussie’, actually a Texan who once dated John Wayne’s son. They’ve all ended up living in this eastern corner of England and have discovered fun and companionship by exploring their new home on foot. They walk a stretch of Norfolk’s Boudicca Way from Diss to Shimpling. On the way, Clare discovers what brought them here, how they've adapted to their new home, and how to pronounce local town names... Producer: Karen Gregor

Clare is walking to a land-based lighthouse on today’s Ramblings. Smeaton’s Tower was originally on the Eddystone Reef, twelve miles out to sea on Plymouth Sound but when it was replaced by a new structure in 1882, the Tower was moved onshore and now stands on Plymouth Hoe. Tom Nancollas is Clare’s guide. He has written a book - Seashaken Houses - which tells of his passion for lighthouses and their many extraordinary stories. Also joining them on the walk is Tom’s friend Michael O’Mahony. He joined Tom on two of his research trips to lighthouses, which, as he recalls, ended in an undignified fashion! On their walk, Tom discusses his fascination for lighthouses and a strange family coincidence that emerged unexpectedly during his research: he discovered an ancestor had visited Smeaton’s Tower before him – as part of the team who dismantled the tower and moved it to the mainland. They start their walk by the Devonport Column, take in interesting parts of Plymouth and its coastline and end at the distinctiv

Clare Balding is taking a poem for a walk on today’s Ramblings. Joining her is Jean Atkin, the newly appointed Troubadour of the Malvern Hills. Jean takes Clare, stanza by stanza, to each of the locations featured in one of her poems. Joining them is Peter Sutton who has translated into modern English the famous mediaeval poem ‘Piers Plowman’ which starts with the poet asleep on the Malvern Hills. Also walking is David Armitage who works for the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; he discusses the similarities he sees between the Malverns and some African landscapes, and shows Clare a field packed with the most extraordinary amount of ant hills.The Troubadour of the Hills is a project devised by the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the Malvern Hills AONB. If you're reading this on the Radio 4 website, please scroll down for some photos from the walk and some related links which you can follow to find out more.

Clare Balding walks across Dartmoor with a former soldier whose retirement has taken him in a surprising direction.Andy Salmon is a former soldier who now runs creative events which he hopes will inspire peace and reconciliation. As the former Commandant General of the Royal Marines, Andy has much experience to draw upon. He spent 36 years in the Marines and served in many global conflicts. It might sound unlikely, but the ‘Journey Through Conflict’ events he now stages are a mixture of art, music and storytelling during which he and other former soldiers share their wartime experiences. In this edition of Ramblings, he takes Clare Balding for a challenging walk across a section of Dartmoor – which is a significant training location for the Royal Marines - on the way, they discuss what led him into such an unusual retirement.If you are reading this on the Ramblings webpage, you can scroll down to the 'related links' section to find more information about Andy's project.

The writer, Emma Mitchell, takes Clare Balding for a walk around the woods at the back of her house in Cambridgeshire and explains why exposure to the natural world can have a mood-lifting effect on us all. While acknowledging that she relies on antidepressants and talking cures to prevent her depression from becoming overwhelming, she says that walking several times a week, even on days when she feels well, has a cumulative effect and helps to make the dips in her mood less vertiginous. She says “For me, taking a daily walk among plants and trees is as medicinal as any talking cure or pharmaceutical”. But it’s not just because she has a “fondness for looking at bonny bosky views” rather, she says “I am experiencing real physiological responses that affect my body and mind”. As they walk, Emma explains to Clare why they both feel their stress levels falling... it’s not just the physical act of walking, it could be, partly, because they’re breathing the volatile compounds and oils emitted by the plants and tre

Why climb a snowy Cumbrian hill in a long dress, cloak and bonnet? Clare Balding finds out.It's all down to Dorothy Wordsworth, the sister of poet, William. In her own right Dorothy was a writer and a pioneering walker. Just over 200 years ago she and her friend, Mary Barker, became the first women to both climb and write about Scafell Pike in the Lake District. This wouldn’t have been easy in their long dresses, cloaks and bonnets. To mark this achievement the artist Alex Jakob-Whitworth and some friends decided to follow in Dorothy’s footsteps. They dressed in period costume and tried to get to the top of England’s highest mountain. It wasn't easy, as they tell Clare on today's walk, which starts in Seathewaite in Borrowdale and progresses up to Stockley Bridge, through the snowline, and beyond. Alex took on this challenge as part of a bigger project. If you are reading this on the Radio 4 webpage, you can scroll down the page to the 'related links' section to discover more about Alex, Harriet an

Our original plan for today’s walk fell apart. David Bradbury had invited us to join his lunch-time walking group. Instead of eating a sandwich at their desks, he and his colleagues would make the effort to go for midday rambles which were bonding, supportive and great exercise. He says the group held him together when some difficult personal problems arose. But then David left the company and, therefore, his walking group. However, he remains a keen walker, so we kept our date to walk with him near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk. Instead of colleagues, he brought along his daughter, his mother and his friend, Ron the Human Google. Together, they take a circular route which starts at the Rushbrooke Arms in Sicklemere, passes Nowton Church which has some truly beautiful Flemish stained glass windows, plus views of the British Sugar factory and its huge plumes of steam. They bypass a shoot (quickly), and enter Nowton Park where there is a colourful totem pole which - uniquely - includes a wolf holding the

Clare Balding starts the 20th year of Ramblings by walking with a listener who is so committed to exploring the countryside that she creates and publishes her own walking routes.Elaine Steane ran out of walks, so decided to invent her own. She's published a number of books including Milestones to Millstones and it's a route from this that we follow today. It skirts the Oxfordshire/Berkshire border and takes in Mapledurham Watermill - a working Mill that not only produces its own flour but also supplies 140 local homes with electricity. The Mill became famous when it featured in the film version of The Eagle Has Landed; Michael Caine's signature is apparently carved somewhere into the building's wooden structure. Later on, we skirt past (but can't quite see) Hardwick House. This was the inspiration for EH Shepard's illustrations of Toad Hall in Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows. From there we head up into the Wild Woods, where we hear a reading from Wind in the Willows, before climbing a steep hill

Clare joins a group of recently graduated students of Agriculture from Newcastle University who are walking and canoeing along the Speyside Way from source to sea in memory of their friend Rob who was tragically killed in their final year. Their summer wild camping trip is a way to bring the group of friends together once a year to talk and remember Rob who was such an integral part of their university life.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Clare Balding meets the writer Tom Cox for a walk on Dartmoor, the setting for many of his musings on walking and nature that are a humorous sometimes spooky take on the countryside and the creatures that inhabit it. His book 21st Century Yokel is full of Devon folklore, haunted landscapes and humorous observations about the people and animals he encounters. Their walk takes them from Manaton Church near Bovey Tracey up to Bowerman's Nose and Hound Tor, stopping off to pay their respects at the grave of Kitty Jay a 17th century farm girl along the way.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Clare Balding walks the final part of the Whithorn Way with a local group of walking enthusiasts. It's an an an ancient pilgrim route from Glasgow down along the west coast ending at the holy site of St Ninian's Cave on the southern tip of the peninsula looking towards the Isle of Man. Pilgrims have been making the journey for centuries until they were banned from doing so after the Reformation during the 16th century, but the tradition has been revived and with the restoration of the walking route, more people are expected to do the 146 mile route through some of Scotland's most beautiful but often overlooked landscapes.Pictured left to right: Ian Gemmell, a retired local vet from Whithorn, Clare Balding, Finn McCreath local farmer and trustee of the Wigtown Book Festival and Jessica Fox, former NASA storyteller.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Clare Balding hears the uplifting story of how walking helped a young man recover from a brain injury. At the age of 23, Matt Masson fell off a roof during a night out. He was in a coma for six weeks and, when he awoke, couldn't walk, talk or sit-up. When his voice returned, so did a determination to return to his previously active life. Walking formed a central part of his rehab; his first goal was to walk just 300 metres but by 2014 Matt had walked the Amsterdam Marathon which took 9 hours and 37 minutes. In this edition of Ramblings, Matt and his mother, Anne, walk a stretch of the Centurion Way in Chichester and recall his many endeavours. The Centurion Way is a route between Chichester and West Dean which follows the line of part of the disused Chichester to Midhurst Railway. Producer: Karen Gregor.

Clare Balding is walking in someone else’s shoes for this edition of Ramblings. She’s joined, on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent, by the artist, Clare Patey and the author, Roman Krznaric. They are – respectively – the Director and Founder of The Empathy Museum. On their walk from Gravesend Station to the Cliffe Pools Nature Reserve, Clare and Roman describe one of the Empathy Museum’s projects: “A Mile in My Shoes”.Inspired by the saying: “Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins” the project travels the UK, and the world, in a shipping container which is decorated as a gigantic shoe-box. Inside are rows of other people’s shoes, and audio-recordings of their own personal stories. The idea is that visitors wear a pair of shoes, and go for a walk, while listening to the shoe owner’s story. The stories range from a Herefordshire farmer discussing his search for love (you wear a pair of his old work boots to walk and listen) to a former sex worker (red high heels). For part of this wal

Clare Balding walks on Hergest Ridge in Herefordshire with Dr. Kate Harding, who has a moving story to tell. This is the second time Clare has walked with Kate. Their first ramble was around five years ago. The run-up to that recording had been stressful and Clare wasn't really up for it. She recalls - 'I was grumpy with the weather and grumpy with life. Not myself at all'.However, when Kate and Clare started that walk, Clare realised it was what she needed most. Kate's advice about the power of mindfulness resonated strongly. It's an encounter that Clare has never forgotten.Now, Clare is returning to Herefordshire to walk with Kate once more. However, Kate's circumstances have changed significantly. Last year, her husband killed himself. A consultant anaesthetist and specialist in intensive care, he had been suffering from crippling depression. Kate and her teenage children have, obviously, been left devastated. They had emigrated to New Zealand as a family of four. Shortly after Richard's suicide, they retu