Keep on Searching | Mark Goodwin

Don’t Lose Your Way kilometre-square
King’s Lock, River Soar, Leicestershire

I very recently received a pleasing email from Jack Cornish of Britain’s walking charity The Ramblers, related to their Don’t Lose Your Way campaign. It began:

Hello Mark,

Our records show that you’ve been busy mapping lots of squares – thank you for helping to uncover and save generations of lost paths and hidden ways. Together we’ve mapped over 50% of England and Wales.

I of course informed Ordrey, and she agreed that someone called Jack Cornish is perfectly named to announce that Cornwall is currently amongst the top three counties (along with Hampshire & Derbyshire) which can clearly be seen on this map of completed squares.

The said map (that you, dear reader, cannot at this moment – reading this – actually see) clearly and very satisfyingly shows how very many of Wales’ & England’s kilometre-squares have – by various volunteers across the lands – already been coloured in. Have been checked. Have been scoured for paths & ways of right that have slipped off our present tongues of ground. And Ordrey is invigorated to find that fresh old secrets will now – hopefully – grow back through her skin.

Jack Cornwall went on to congratulate me: You’re among our top mappers, and with your support we can tick these areas off in no time.

It is me who should be thanking Jack & The Ramblers. For the into-a-future opportunity to imagine mythical wanderings across a double map of present/past. And for the future possibility of a few more slivers of free ways for us to walk … more threads for us to tread among England’s pastures private. Anyway, I’m in danger of diverging from my original direction …

All this avid mapping activity on-line is not because I’m a political activist, you understand. It is simply because I’m someone (or even various ones) who(m(e)) really really like(s) to walk without being hindered. And also someone who can stare for hours-on-end-@ Ordnance Survey maps. So when the Ramblers very kindly gave me this opportunity to pore over contemporary & historical Ordnance Survey maps on-line, and to trace lost footpaths, and to tick off kilometre-squares in a deliciously satisfying colouring-in way … well …

… Ordrey yet again took me by the mind and led me along the streets of Tombland. Oh, yes – by the way – she calls it Tombland because so very much more is buried there than has ever been uncovered …

 

Click here for details of The Ramblers’ Don’t Lose Your Way project.
Sign the ‘Don’t criminalise trespass’ petition here.
A recent tweet-poem by Mark Goodwin illustrating the absurdity of criminalising the movements of virtually … everybody

Mark Goodwin‘s publications include All Space Away and In (Shearsman, 2017), Steps (Longbarrow Press, 2014), and a new collection, Rock as Gloss (Longbarrow Press, 2019), acclaimed by Andy Clarke in Climber magazine as ‘An exhilarating journey through the glorious variety of UK rock, including mountain rhyolite, eastern grit, Llanberis slate… a fascinating and rewarding collection that amply repays backtracking and re-reading.’ Click here to visit the Rock as Gloss microsite for extracts, essays and audio recordings. You can also order the hardback via PayPal below:

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