Landlines by Raynor Winn — those boots were made for walking
Landlines — the third part of Raynor Winn’s travelogue/memoir — sees her and her husband Moth once more lace up their walking books for a long-distance trek.
Their destination this time is the Cape Wrath trail in Scotland, an arduous 200 miles of bogland, lochs and steep mountains. It’s a trail that only the fittest walkers undertake yet Moth embarks on this walk when his medical condition — a rare and incurable degenerative brain disease — is worsening. Beset by fatigue and dizziness, just getting through a day of restoring an old cider farm, is an ordeal.
In tbose circumstances, most people would think it utter madness to set out on an expedition along the toughest and wildest trail in Britain. Raynor however believes that it could save her husband. This isn’t just a blind leap of faith. Walking a long-distance footpath had saved Moth once before — a 600-mile journey that formed the basis of Raynor’s first book, The Salt Path.
Eight years later they set off for Scotland in the hope that the combination of physical exertion and the psychological benefits of being immersed in nature, will provide a cure once more.
Challenges galore
Things don’t go quite according to plan. They hadn’t expected to be scrambling over such rocky terrain or plodding through boglands. Moth is so feeble, he can’t walk in a straight line. Raynor has a huge blister from her new walking boots. They’re cold and wet but campsites and hotels are closed because of the Covid pandemic. Their supplies of food run low because cafes and shops are wary of strangers who could be carrying the virus.
Do they just give up and head for home? Do they hell. They just head off on a different walk and then another and then another. Somehow a journey that was meant to be around 200 miles became almost 1,000 as they walked the whole way through the heart of England to the South West Coast Path and then home.
Irrational, irresponsible, maybe, but in that desperate moment our decision to walk offered every thing we needed — shelter in the form of our tent and a line on a map to follow. It gave us a route forward, a purpose, a reason to go on into the next day when all other reasons had fallen away.
Raynor turns this epic journey into a riveting chronicle that combines tension — we’re never absolutely sure that Moth will make it — with travelogue, humorous observations on her fellow walkers and reflections on environmental and socio-economic issues. Landlines frequently slides from one to another.
Notes about the physical discomforts of walking and wild camping for example, morph into a commentary on villages left empty because locals can’t compete with newcomers with more cash to splash about. An encounter with a group of of youngsters who plan to spend a night wild camping on a mountain summit gets Raynor ruminating that if they tried to do that in England they’d be breaking the law.
An appeal for change
As we approach the end of the book, Landlines edges close to being a manifesto for a new relationship with nature. One which envisages greater harmony between the needs of food production and a fundamental human need to feel connected to the land.
What if we re-imagine this land? Create one where biodiversity and humanity are set free. A land where we can feed ourselves without destroying our environment. What if we join up the islands of stranded biodiversity? By-pass the monocultures. Link are areas of wildlife-dense habitat to other areas, creating corridors of natural abundance. Landlines that join, one to the other, across the country, giving biodiversity free passage through a network of wild arteries that flow into every depleted corner, where wildlife, plants and humans roam free.
Wishful thinking maybe (I can’t see farmers giving up chemicals entirely as she suggests) but her ideas come from the heart rather than the head . What she lacks in practicality she more than makes up for in passion and a deep seated devotion to the healing power of nature.
I’m just about to start reading The Salt Path. I’ve been swithering about it as I thought I might find it a wee bit depressing. I can see that I might want to go on to read this one too.
Salt Path is sad but not depressing and there are some delightful moments of humour
Thanks for the recommendation. I enjoyed The Salt Path so I’m lookingg forward to reading this too.
I felt the Wild Silence wasn’t as interesting as Salt Path – it meandered a bit too much — but the latest one has more in common with the style of Salt Path so well worth reading
Emily read and is rereading this trilogy, currently partway through this very title. I applaud such brave endeavours as Raynor’s and Moth’s in the face of all dangers, especially when the alternative is to quietly fade away, but I personally find such vicarious experiences exhausting more than inspiring.
I much prefer Landlines to the middle book – The Wild Silence which seemed quite fragmented to me. I like my home comforts too much to ever embark on any kind of expedition of this nature so all I can do is participate through other’s experience
I’ve only read reviews rather than the books but I’m full of admiration for the determination of this couple. This may sound odd but my most optimistic radio-listening hour is Farming Today This Weekend and On Your Farm which often showcase farmers trying to make a difference so perhaps their hope isn’t in vain.
There are undoubtedly are farmers who are working their socks off to care for the land in the way it should be treated. Unfortunately Raynor’s ideas would also involve huge government support and involvement and the way successive governments have treated that sector doesn’t bode well
I really enjoyed The Salt Path, and plan to read more from their travels. I hope Moth made it.
I can let you into a secret on that score – yes he does make it.
These books are so interesting. I need to finish the trilogy🌺
The latest one is as good as the Salt Path I think.
This sounds good. I still haven’t read her second book but loved the Salt Path (and I think it was you who originally recommended it to me many years ago!).
In that case I think you will love Landlines which has a similar feel to The Salt Path.
Interesting. I’ll have to take a look at this trilogy. Thank you.
It’s an astonishing story Angela
I don’t know if I can read about another hike where they are so ill prepared! I barely made it through the first one!
I agree – I read The Salt Path and it seemed to me both brave and foolhardy. I read this book with absolute amazement that they could take themselves away from medical care and set off, almost totally unprepared and not fit enough to walk 630 miles along a coast path. Moth struggled with pain and exhaustion, and it horrified me that he could carry on in that condition.
I understand how their decision seemed foolish and reckless but I believe they did it while reeling from the double shock of losing their home and livelihood and then getting Moth’s diagnosis. In the circumstances their ability to think clearly was very likely impaired
I can see that, the diagnosis alone must have been devastating and add to that nowhere to live and no income … it doesn’t bear thinking about!
I can’t imagine how I would cope. Ive never been camping and the idea doesn’t appeal at all. Combining that with walking every day would be a nightmare.
Well they were ill prepared the first time around because they set off in a state of shock I think, plus they had no money to buy anything new