Stuart Maconie

You can ask me anything about walking. Except the one about choosing a jacket…

HE OTHER DAY an old pal sent me the kind of text I fear. Nothing serious really, but it still threw me into a ‘flap’, to use a technical term. She wanted to know if I could recommend, quote, ‘a decent walking jacket that is waterproof but light enough not to be too hot if I decide to jog’.

Some of you reading this will now be nodding sagely and saying ‘ah, I imagine he suggested the Nyroflex 280 ‘Kinder Scout Ranger’ with detachable sleeves and teabag-style perforated inner skin”. There probably even is a coat like this very one that I have just made up. But I did not say this. I did not say anything of the sort. I texted back and said ‘Hang on, let me think and I’ll get back to you’.

I have to tell you now that I have not done so yet. Even worse, there is no immediate prospect of me doing so until a) I go through all my back copies of CW looking at the gear reviews or b) one of you helps me out.

Because I write for this fine magazine and sometimes make outdoor TV and radio shows and DVDs and am president of Ramblers GB and go walking as much as I can, some of my friends assume I occupy a position regarding the activity of walking rather like that of the Pope to Roman Catholicism or Jurgen Klopp to Liverpool FC. A kind of infallible, authoritative sage cum spiritual leader. In fact, I am more like Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards with regard to ski-jumping. I mean, I can do it. I’m okay at it compared to many. But I’m a gifted amateur rather than a seasoned pro. Some areas I feel qualified to give advice on; best ascents of Lakeland Fells, short good walks near Brum and Wigan, decent accommodation on Shetland, the best pizza in Penrith etc.

But when it comes to gear, I become as shallow as the Loch of Stenness, a brackish pool on Orkney that ranks amongst Scotland’s shallowest as you well know.

I am ashamed to say (and this is an admission that may well see me sacked from this publication and

TIf you’ve ever had a sceptical friend ask why you do so much walking when you could drive, you might enjoy Ray Bradbury's classic short story The Pedestrian, about the only man in LA who still walks… and the trouble it gets him into... Hear Stuart on Radcliffe and Maconie, BBC 6 Music, weekends, 7am to 10am. stripped off my Ramblers presidency in a bloodless coup) I have never properly researched any item of gear I have ever bought. I have routinely gone purely on looks, convenience and instinct. Does it look good? Is it reassuringly but not eye-wateringly expensive? Have they got it in my size in stock? Great. I’ll take it

The Helly Hansen coat that I often go fellwalking in is actually a snowboarder’s jacket. Now I have never performed an ‘airdog’ on a ‘quarter pipe’. I’m only vaguely aware of what they are. But I just liked the colour and the fact that it has a little ‘coms’ pocket where you can tuck your iPhone away safely (snowboarders are, to my knowledge, the only sportspeople that listen to their fave tunes on their earphones as they perform).

I have a perfectly good, technically brilliant winter woolly hat with the flaps and everything that often comes with me in the ‘sack’ on snowy sub-zero walks. But it is only there for the direst of emergencies since I know that, rather than make me look like a brooding Russian dissident poet, it makes me look like a boiled potato in a tea cosy. Or a bloke from Wigan in a stupid hat.

I appreciate that there is an element of vanity here. But at least I cannot be accused of being the ‘all the gear and no idea’ type. You know, chaps who have a 1948 Martin Dreadnought and still haven’t mastered the intro to Stairway to Heaven. Blokes with top-ofthe-range golf clubs, little buggies and leather gloves who send their tee shots through the clubhouse window (I rather think and hope the current President of the United States is this kind of guy, though I have no proof).

Until such time as this magazine commissions me to spend a couple weeks in the Tuscan Hills with a selection of hi-tech kit, a portable hot tub and a case of whisky to review, I will continue to go on instinct.

And as for my mate: come on, help me out.

I have my position to think of.