Western Morning News (Saturday)
Remembering a walk at the seaside, for 630-miles
In the summer of 1998, the then Devon chief reporter of the Western Morning News, Jo Bishop, embarked on a continuous walk around the South West Coast Path. The distance was estimated to be 613 miles. Since then GPS tracking has established it at 630 miles. The walk took Jo six weeks, and she wrote a weekly feature for the paper of her experience. The walk was intended to raise awareness of the path – then celebrating its 25th anniversary – and bring in vital funds for the RNLI and the Devon and Cornwall Air Ambulances. In this, the first of a two part feature on the walk, Jo reflects on the experience and how life has changed in 22 years…
IT’S been strange turning the clock back more than two decades. Looking at photographs I realise, that at 55, I’m nearing the age my parents were, and my nieces – who joined me for the photo call at Lands End as small children – are grown up now with families of their own.
And yet it seems hardly any time since I set off from Minehead, on Saturday 27th June, 1998, on what was to be the most amazing six weeks of my life, meeting many kind and wonderful people, overcoming problems on route, getting rainsoaked and sunburnt in equal measure, being so tired and aching I could hardly move, feeling euphoric at ticking off different milestones. I remember it all, like it was yesterday.
The excitement started with the RNLI literally pushing the boat out on the lifeboat slipway and the Minehead crew donning their seafaring gear for WMN photographer Richard Austin to snap away.
The support of the RNLI was integral to practicalities of undertaking the walk, as I often stayed overnight with crew or committee members and twice slept in lifeboat stations, at Trevaunance Cove and Fowey, where I got to take the helm of the all-weather Trent Class lifeboat and have a spin through the waves on the D-class inshore inflatable.
Their hospitality and kindness was particularly memorable – Ray Thomas, honorary secretary at Trevaunance Cove returning to the station with cereal bowl and cornflakes when he realised I’d be leaving before the café was open where he’d ordered breakfast for me; Penzance branch chairman Peter Garnier and his wife Pat welcoming me to their home, not knowing beforehand I had a dog with me, collie Jess, and thankfully her making friends with their big softie of a Staffordshire bull terrier Lenny; and in Looe the crew organising a longed for fish and chip supper.
Morning News readers were equally lovely, putting me up, feeding me, booking meals in pubs, driving me, doing my washing, and often donating to the charity causes. I so enjoyed meeting many readers on route too – the most stalwart of them being William Smith, from St Ives, then aged 66. William greeted me as I crossed the Devon and Cornwall border at Marsland Mouth, waving the Cornish flag of St Piran, and went on to join me for many miles, including when I crossed the Tamar on the
Cremyll ferry to Devon – or as William preferred to call it: “England” – and he was there for the amazing finish at Poole.
But there was a lot of ground covered before Poole and a lot of writing too. I used to make daily notes, in preparation to file a piece on Monday, ready for Tuesday’s paper. This was in the days when mobile phones were in their infancy, I carried the office mobile, something akin to a brick, more for emergencies than keeping in touch. There was little internet activity – Google wasn’t launched until September 1998 – and social media was face-to-face meetings, letters, and phone calls.
These were the days of a phone box in every village, and in busy towns like Newquay, rows and rows of them, with holidaymakers queuing to make calls. I’d often have to apologise to people waiting that I was going to be “some time”, and equally say sorry to the poor WMN copy takers answering the phone in Plymouth, and then being stuck transcribing my long feature articles for sometimes an hour or more. They were always very gracious about it and those Monday phone box calls became a special part of the walk.
Buying the paper on a Tuesday was always a thrill, seeing how the words looked on the page with photographs, and people’s reactions when they realised the person they’d just been reading about was sitting right next to them in a café or on a seaside bench, yes that did happen.
Some readers were surprised when they realised, I really was doing the walk, it wasn’t just a weekly photo stunt. Among the most surprising encounters was in Dartmouth Post Office, bumping into the father of around the world walker
Ffyona Campbell, who said he’d been following my progress and kindly sent a lovely letter and donation following our chance meeting.
Many readers got in touch following the walk, with further donations and sending wonderful memories of their own similar challenges or talking of being unable to get out and how much they’d enjoyed hearing about the spectacular scenery that makes up this fantastic natural trail, we’re so fortunate to have on our South West doorstep.
Being Devon born, living not from the sea in Torquay, and from a family who spent a lot of time outdoors, the coast path was something I was familiar with in parts. But the whole 630 mile length is staggering in its variety: stunning plunging cliffs, rugged rocky outcrops, narrow stony paths, sweeping open land and fields, densely wooded valleys, tiny secret coves, long sandy and shingle beaches, most of it in a natural setting, with occasional property, or small villages, and the contrasting urban spread of places like Newquay,
‘I carried the office mobile phone with me...something akin to a brick, mostly for emergencies’
Torbay, Teignmouth, Exmouth and Weymouth.
And, of course the waterfront of Plymouth, described as the “finest urban seascape in the land” by the late Eric Wallis, then secretary of the South West Way Association, now South West Coast Path Association. Eric was instrumental in raising the profile of the path, getting route and maintenance improvements done and encouraging visitors, including putting them up in his home near Ivybridge, where I stayed with him and his wife Liz.
Eric’s legacy can be seen in many places on the route, not least in Plymouth, where in 2013 a staircase was built in his memory linking Devil’s Point Park to the Royal William Yard, creating a connection all around the Stonehouse peninsula.
I’ve walked that staircase and it’s a big improvement on the previous necessary road link. I’ve gone on too, to enjoy the beauty of the coast path as a runner, completing several marathons and shorter distance events along stretches of it since I began running consistently in 2005.
I often run with my dog – now a lurcher called Freddie – and my husband John has been a great support in my marathon running as he was of my coast path walk, driving down even to the tip of Cornwall every weekend to collect my dirty washing and bring me clean clothes.
More of dogs – I managed to tire out three of them on the walk – and how John and my family helped me reach the finish line at Poole in part two of this feature, to be published on Saturday 8th August, the day and date I completed in 1998.