These Hills Are Ours
These Hills Are Ours is a theatrical show about the joy and freedom of trail running
A new theatre show about running asks questions about the right to roam
WORKING TOGETHER on their show These Hills Are Ours, Daniel Bye and Boff Whalley had a problem: how do you bring trail running indoors?
On the small stage at the Spring Arts & Heritage Centre in Havant, near Portsmouth, are a few items normally found outside – a cairn and a broken barbed wire fence – as well as a large map, which Bye will mark in finger paint while he relates the story of his attempt at a 90-mile run from his home in Lancaster to the top of Kinder Scout, the highest point in the Peak District. Whalley, formerly the lead guitarist in anarchist rock band Chumbawamba, provided practical support on the journey and underpins the tale on stage with deadpan interjections and songs.
What’s missing is the running. The pair sit on yellow chairs while they talk and sing – no treadmills or puffed-cheek miming. ‘Using a running machine would have felt like we were depriving the audience of imagination,’ says Whalley. ‘It’s better if we tell you a story about running and you can picture it.’
‘AT THE ROOT OF WHAT WE DO IS THE IDEA THIS CAN’T JUST BE ENTERTAINMENT’
When they collaborated on productions in the past, the talk between the work always turned to running. Bye gets teased as the Strava bore, all about the data. Whalley is an old-school fell runner who doesn’t wear a watch. In 2012, he published a book about his offroad escapades,
Run Wild, and produced a fanzine in the early 1990s called Fellternative.
So it was natural for the two to gravitate towards a new project about the subject, but they knew it had to mean something, too.
‘At the root of what we do is the idea this can’t just be entertainment,’ says Whalley. ‘If the point was to encourage people to go running, that wouldn’t be enough. We started thinking about running as escaping – not just from a city, but from technology, from work, from class, from your own history. What’s the history of us being able to do these things? All of that makes it much more interesting than talking about your split times.’
In the show, they discuss their shared desire to go, fast and on foot, to the highest point in an area. For Whalley in his early years, it was Pendle Hill, 550m above Burnley. For Bye, it was Roseberry Topping, a Yorkshire Moors mini Matterhorn. But they chose Kinder Scout as the centre of the story for a good reason. In 1932, it was the site of an act of mass trespass – around 400 ramblers and members of the Young Communist League walked to the summit to protest against the lack of access to the British countryside. Five of them, including leader Benny Rothman, received prison sentences, and the resulting public sympathy is often given as the reason much more of the UK’s land was opened up to us common folk.
However, it wasn’t until 1965 that Britain’s first National Trail, the 268-mile Pennine Way, was declared open and the ‘right to roam’ wasn’t protected in law until the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. These privileges are more recent and more fragile than we might think and there’s a
‘use it or lose it’ message at the end of each performance. Even today, details about land ownership are fairly murky, but according to Guy Shrubsole, activist and author of Who Owns England?, two-thirds of land in the UK is owned by 0.36% of the population.
‘Ramblers are often portrayed as cuddly, but they went to Kinder Scout to get into a fight. They were knowingly breaking the law,’ says Bye. ‘They’re part of this proud history of disruptive protest that includes the suffragettes and
Black Lives Matter. We sort of gloss over that in school history lessons – all the ways that change has been made through struggle – because we don’t want to encourage people to break the rules.’
As to the realities of Bye’s epic tribute trek, you’ll have to see the show to find out how it went. As with any 90-mile run, it was no walk in the park. He is not expecting others to do the same (though you can join him and Whalley on a local jog the morning after every show), but hopes to inspire audiences in some way.
‘People who’ve seen it have been getting quite emotional,’ he says. ‘I think they’re leaving with a sense that a long run is possible, or that changing the world for the better is possible, or both. That’s amazing.’
For These Hills Are Ours tour dates, visit danielbye.co.uk/these-hills-are-ours
RUN THROUGH THE PAIN
I was reading your article on running through the grief (The Mourning Run, September). In 2008, I lost my 20-month-old son to a rare immune disorder. He had to go through chemotherapy and eventually a bone marrow transplant. Sadly, despite the transplant going well, he passed that April. Running helped me to cope, raising funds and awareness of a cruel disease we had never heard of before our son, Cammie. Over the years I’ve run various distances, from 5Ks to marathons and everything in between.
VIRTUAL INSANITY
Sam Murphy’s article on the dubious merits of virtual races and the shirts that come with them (September) chimed with my thinking. Bored with seeing runners sporting T-shirts of virtual events in geographical locations I was barely aware of, I designed my own locally relevant shirt. I took great pleasure in wearing it for the return of parkrun in July. Dave Juson
RECOVERY RUN
For me, my running journey began during lockdown number I-don’t-evenknow-which at the end of last year. Although I’d dabbled in running years ago as a teenager, I decided to properly give it a go again. My main reason was because I was suffering (and still am) a crippling panic disorder. I threw myself into running and what inspired and impressed me the most was that for the
I’ve met the most incredible people, and, honestly, I would have struggled so much without running.
Anne Devenney
first time I was running, I could breathe. The anxious thoughts silenced and
I felt peace. My agoraphobia and panic disorder is still something I battle with daily, but I’ll never underestimate the power of running in mental health disorder recovery.
Anna Dunne
NEW DISCOVERY
I have only been running since I was lucky enough to get a place in the 2019 London Marathon. In 2018, my husband and I went through three rounds of IVF after trying for a baby for eight years. Sadly, they weren’t successful and after many tests and discussing other options, we decided parenthood wasn’t going to be for us. But then I found running and I truly believe it has changed me and helped my mental health. I just love running and all it brings: the training, having something to aim towards and how good it makes me feel. Being a new runner, I needed all the help and advice I could get – and I got that from Runner’s World. So I just want to say a massive thank you for the great articles, inspirational stories, recipes, virtual support and podcasts. I couldn’t do it without you!
Sarah Fisher
RW says: Thank you so much. We're delighted running – and RW – has come in handy over the past couple of years. Keep it up!
CLOCK HORROR
I read the excellent Murphy’s Lore article in the August issue of RW. While I agree with her about the benefits of orienteering, it’s the first sentence that resonated most with me and made me realise something I’d suspected for a long time: my Garmin watch is the worst kind of bully. It’s borderline abusive. After sweating through 18 excruciating intervals last Thursday, it told me I’m ‘unproductive’ and pointed out that my fitness is going down. What else can I do to impress you? I hate intervals. On Tuesday it told me I was ‘detraining’, even though I’d run on two consecutive days. Is nothing I do good enough for you? I hear people saying ‘run watch-less’. I really wish I could but I think must I have Stockholm syndrome. I just want my watch to love me!
Jason
RUN THERAPY
I have just read The Mourning Run in the September issue. It has hit home at a really poignant time for me after just completing the London Landmarks Half Marathon to fundraise for my late dad. My dad passed away in May and I managed to stay strong in front of my family and provide the support I felt had to; however, every day, I took the opportunity to ‘run away’ from that to keep my run streak going. I was disappointed that running did not bring me the comfort or distraction that I longed for – instead I went out hard and fast and let the pain of my burning lungs take my mind elsewhere. After a few weeks of this punishing training, I settled back into a normal stride and once again used running as a therapy and a time to reflect and release any weakness
I had bottled up. I came to realise that I use running more for my head health than my physical health.