N is for navigation

IT’S A SHAME navigation is such a technicalsounding word. It makes it sound like a niche interest that it would be weirder to know about than not to – like Russian formalism or object-oriented programming. But answers to the questions ‘ Where are we?’ and ‘ Where are we going?’ are the stickle bricks of self-confidence, with which we build a stairway out of helplessness and begin to plot our own course in life.

By the happy accident of being in the UK, we’ve the biggest leg up in the world, in the form of Ordnance Survey – the country’s mapping agency. OS began compiling its maps in 1791, surveying areas of the coast most vulnerable to French invasion. Today its master map of the country records over half a billion features in the landscape in a vast data-centre in Southampton, and you can access all of it on your mobile phone*. Surveyors armed with planes, satellites and stout footwear are adding thousands and thousands of modifications daily. No other country has such a detailed picture of itself (two petabytes covering the UK’s 94,525 square miles), nor makes maps available to walkers – in print and on screen – that are so clear, informative and reliable. To start walking in Britain is to begin a lifelong swoon for maps, marked by a willingness to stare silently at a spread-out sheet the way a dog will stare at an open fire. Despite looking complicated, the fundamental purpose of a compass, meanwhile – to lock the map into orientation with the world around you – can be appreciated in a moment. In a few moments more you can walk on a compass bearing and lead a party to a ladder stile and safety the far side of a fogbound moor – something that feels about as cool as flinging a 50p across a crowded bar and have it thunk straight into the jukebox slot.