Walking with Andrew
CW gear tester RACHEL BROOMHEAD went on one of Andrew’s Sense Safaris in London last year. Here’s her account of it...
“The aim of Andrew’s Sense Safari is to walk through three different ‘zones’ of Greenwich, listening carefully to the sounds of each. So off we went, heading first into the ‘residential zone’. Andrew got us to tune into our own sounds first – our footsteps, heartbeats, breath. Once we’ve registered these intimate rhythms, we turn our attention outwards. He asks us to pick out a single sound and identify its qualities: is it shrill or soft, constant or intermittent; does it make you feel relaxed or anxious? I pick out the rustle of leaves in the tree-lined avenue, and really focus on it. The moment is astonishing. It’s the first time I’ve noticed the air against my skin in weeks.
In the next two zones – ‘semi-natural’ and ‘commercial’ – we continue to ‘hunt’ for sounds and record our reaction to them. A couple of them take me by surprise – I’m comforted by the sound of a distant siren when we venture onto a scrap of urban heathland, and similarly I relax when I hear loud voices and laughter spilling out of Greenwich’s pubs and bars. I always thought of myself as an alien visitor to the city. A mountain-dweller on an excursion into a strange land. But it seems I’ve made more of a home here than I thought – if only I’d stopped to listen to it.”
“I like to get people drawing, singing, sniffing, tasting. Write a haiku (the ancient form of Tweeting), make a picture, play a drum: you can accomplish a lot on a 90-minute walk.”
And from the Museum came Talking Walking. Andrew came across more and more people with unique perspectives on walking, and decided to give them a platform. Each podcast lasts between 20 and 30 minutes, and often covers topics way beyond just the interviewee’s line of work. “It’s simple; we walk and we talk,” he says. “I am always amazed at how the simple act of walking engenders greater depth in conversation.”
Our own walk and talk leads us across the Grantchester Meadows and along the Backs – the riverside plain that reveals the elegant facades of Cambridge University’s oldest colleges. All the while he’s asking me about working for the world’s warmest and most welcoming walking magazine.
It’s the greatest job in the world, I tell him – but only thanks to the lovely people who read it.
But essentially, I just write stories about walking. As we wander past Clare Bridge, I’m starting to feel slightly overawed by the sheer scale of what Andrew gets up to. He has a Masters in urban design and often takes architects and developers on walks through London’s most secretive squares and alleyways to see what can be learned from them.
He has worked with children’s agencies and the
spinal injury charity the Back Up Trust, and once walked with a wheelchair-bound friend as he pushed himself from Avebury to Stonehenge. He founded a design consultancy called Rethinking Cities, which has the ear of the Mayor of London.
He has worked with the NHS and mental health charities, promoting walking as a tool for everything from hospital staff retention to combating depression.
And to cap it all, he’s just an incredibly nice chap. It’s hard to think of anyone who has used walking so creatively, for so long. Many of his walks are subsidised by partner agencies to keep the entry cost low – and he aims to lay on at least one free walking event every month.
All of which makes him really annoyed about the wasp.
“It’s not like I have to insure my legs or anything, but still, it’s a bit of a bind,” he says, as we seek respite and a first aid kit in the Eagle pub, where Watson and Crick drew up the basic idea of DNA.
“Oh well, at least we got the interview sorted.” We did indeed. And for my last question, I ask him to sum up what drives him in four simple words. Quick as a flash, he says... “Walking. Makes. Creativity. Happen.” And it’s hard to argue with that.