Around Britain

My plan to run/walk round the entire mainland of the British Isles is really nothing more than a device to make my training more interesting. I haven't done a training run in London since 27th August. That was the day before I started running the Grand Union Canal Race (145 miles). Having completed that I wanted to start something bigger that would keep me busy for a long time. Around Britain was the biggest I could think of without leaving the country.

One appeal of this project is that I can probably do much of the south east without staying away overnight. If I ignore the Thames Estuary, the most accessible point is Brighton. In fact the journey from Victoria Station took only 47 minutes. The road leading down from the station to the front is extremely squalid these days, sporting amusement arcades and mean establishments of all types. When I reached the sea there was no discernible improvement. One pier was wrecked and the other very sleazy. I stood on the front for a while baffled by a curious noise. What could it be? After a while I identified it as the line running down the mast of a yacht flapping against the mast in the wind. I turned left to face eastwards.

Once I reached the marina, I followed the path under the cliffs. This took me past Rottingdean as far as Saltdean. The wind blew hard, the tide was up and some waves came over the wall that divided the path from the beach. At Saltdean the path ended so I had to take to the main road. Serried ranks of modest housing covered the area above the cliff. A swathe of grassland at Telscombe Cliffs offered fleeting relief. Once through Peacehaven, I descended into Newhaven, where a group of youths were walking in the same direction as me towards the town centre. They were playing a game with a lump of soft material like a shapeless rag doll. One of them would throw it into the traffic and another would dart amongst the cars to retrieve it. Sometimes the object was thrown into the garden of a house adjoining the road. Once it lodged in a tree and was mournfully pronounced lost. Somehow they got it back and the game continued into the town centre precinct. One player stood in front of me ready to catch the object, shouting “Easy, easy!” as if to exhort a colleague not to project it with full force in case it struck me. Passers by smiled approvingly at such youthful high spirits.

I caught the train at Newhaven Town to get back to the Brighton line. My time from Brighton to Newhaven was 2 hours 20 minutes.

Today I purchased a day return from Victoria to Newhaven Town. I ate my lunch on the train.

At first I had no alternative but to proceed by way of the A259. There was no pavement so I had to run on a grass verge or on the road itself. Before Seaford I took a narrow lane which crossed the railway line to Seaford and brought me to the beach. Beyond Seaford I crossed a headland imagining I had a clear route to Beachy Head. I could see Cuckmere River on the map but it looked quite small and I was confident I could cross it on the beach. When I came up to it, I realised that I would have to take off my socks and shoes and wade across. Instead I ran upstream to the road bridge and then back on the other side. There were lots of people about and I didn't want to make an exhibition of myself or cut my bare feet on broken glass.

Beachy Head was very hard with its undulations. I ran up one or two of these and suffered for it. The sight of Eastbourne spread out beneath was most welcome. I made my way along the front and then inland to the station. There I bought a cup of coffee and caught the train. The ticket collector said that he wouldn't charge me as the extra fare was only £1.35. I doubt whether his employers would have approved. I was out for 4 hours 20 mins today.

I bought a day return to Eastbourne . I started at the pier having walked down from the station. To escape the main road I turned off to Langney Point but this was a serious mistake. The area looked like wasteland on the map but it's now an enormous development site. Mostly the buildings are homes constructed around a marina in which yachts are already moored. It took me a long time to navigate round the many arms of the marina back onto the main road. I stuck to the A259 until Pevensey Bay where a minor road hugged the beach. The dwellings here were often little more than beach huts. One row of single storey houses had flat roofs with crescent shaped projections at the front. They reminded me of bus shelters. At the remote station of Norman's Bay there was a level crossing. To my surprise there was an attendant there. As I drew near a bell warned of an approaching train. The road gate closed but there was a side gate for the use of pedestrians. There was no sign of the train but I waited out of deference to the crossing keeper. He may have recognised this since he asked whether I wished to cross. “If it's safe,” I replied, relying totally on his judgment. He escorted me over.

I now decided that I should go for the 4.33 pm train at Bexhill. I ran for longer spells but it was touch and go. I didn't want to miss the train since they only went every hour. It became too risky so I stopped at Collington, the next station up the line. The same train stopped there two minutes later. Since there was no one around I changed out of my wet clothes. The train went to Eastbourne. There was no guard so I didn't pay. At Eastbourne I bought coffee and a sandwich and the same train then bore me back to Victoria.

Today's section lasted for 2 hours 40 minutes.

Today I purchased a Day Return from Victoria to Hastings. My efforts in the Great North Run (a half marathon) two days ago had left me stiff, so I thought this an ideal occasion for the short stage from Collington to Hastings.

The weather was as good as it can be in mid-October. The sun shone brilliantly but transmitted only a thin warmth. Disgorged at Collington, I ran into Bexhill's Town Centre through comfortable but not affluent streets. On the front, elderly folk in wheel chairs waited between meals in promenade shelters. Blanketed, despite the sun, they gazed myopically out at the ocean.

Beyond the town I took a path squashed between beach and railway. At a café the path turned under the railway and joined the A259. There was a continuation of the path but I was deterred by a notice in red notifying me that the cliff edge was unsafe. I didn't want to be forced to retrace steps at a dead end. The sign announcing Bexhill on one side of the road is close to the Hastings sign on the other. Apart from Warrior Square and a smart hotel on the front I passed through run down areas to reach the station. My train back to London via Eastbourne only ran every hour and I caught the 3.20 with three minutes to spare. My running time today was only 1 hour 26 minutes.

I bought a day return to Rye and alighted at Hastings. Another clear blue sky in a long spell of such weather enticed me out. Once on the front at Hastings I was struck by the strength of the cold wind so did not remove my jacket and track suit bottom. Immediately after I was thwarted by a closed toilet, the doorman at the Fishermen's Museum beckoned me over. He was annoyed that so much money had been spent on the toilet only for it to be closed throughout the winter. I signed his petition.

Having been confronted by a succession of amusement arcades and cheap eateries along the front I was pleasantly surprised by All Saints' Street. All the houses were old and seemed relatively unspoiled. I climbed up and out of the town looking inland at a large sprawl of housing. The road became a track which took me near Fairlight Place. I joined a minor road which passed through Fairlight, Pett Level and Cliff End. The last marked a dramatic change in the landscape. The downs and high sea cliffs were replaced by Romney Marsh, protected from the sea by a wall. At Cliff End there began the Military Canal built to slow down Napoleon. I ran along it for a short spell as it followed the coastal road. When it turned inland I ran/walked into the teeth of the wind along the top of the sea wall.

Winchelsea Beach houses most of its population in caravans and mobile homes. Perhaps it is mainly a holiday place. It is the site of an 18th Century harbour which remained open for only three months before being silted up and abandoned. A playing field marks its location. This harbour was meant to replace Rye Harbour which suffered from the same problem. Later I passed Rye Harbour which remains open but requires the removal of enormous quantities of shingle to keep it so. A large nature reserve covered the area between Winchelsea Beach, Camber Castle and Rye Harbour. Once I turned inland at the mouth of the Rother the wind eased and I was able to run as easily as I could with the rucksack. I caught the 1655 to Ashford International with plenty of time to spare. In fact I was able to take my ease in the station café which was not the usual stereotype. I discovered that “toasties” were toasted sandwiches and relaxed over tea and a toasted teacake. A woman came in and greeted the woman at the counter with the words “How is ya?” Her posture was slovenly, her dress careless and the cigarette permanent. Her credentials as a fully paid up member of the proletariat were impeccable.

At Charing Cross Station I bought a period return to Ashford International and a single from Ashford to Rye. The ticket clerk accepted my broken credit card without demur. To my surprise no one has objected. It's just as well since it'll be 7 days before I can expect the replacement.

The weather was ideal for my purpose – mild, sunny and calm. Emerging from Rye I crossed the Rother near the end of a long journey from its source, north east of Liss in Hampshire. I cut across country from a school to reach the Camber road. Shortly after I passed the outfall of Jury's Gap Sewer, I reached Ministry of Defence land marked by red flags. A man sat in a small building looking out to sea with a radar device rotating above his head. A chart indicated that the firing range included a substantial area of sea. A van drew up at the gate giving access to the MoD land. I asked one of the workmen whether I could walk along the beach to Dungeness. He said that, if I did, I would be dead before I got 300 yards.

Lydd announced itself long in advance by the substantial tower of its church. There were also a large number of small planes flying about no doubt based at Lydd Airport. The road out of Lydd pointed south west skirting Denge Marsh. Ahead loomed Dungeness Nuclear Power Station. Two rows of pylons conducted electricity over the flats towards the hills just beyond the military canal. The road petered out and I walked along the top of a barrier of stones separating the Power Station from the sea. This brought me to Dungeness and its two lighthouses and the terminus of the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway. Weathered boarded bungalows, some derelict, sprawled across the shingly ground. To my astonishment a notice board proclaimed that the Dungeness Nature Reserve was home to 600 species of plant, about one third of the total number of species in the UK. That sounds implausible.

Lydd-on-Sea was an endless line of houses on the west side of the coastal road. Across the road there was a pebbly area which dropped away to an extensive shelf of land exposed only at low tide. By 5 pm the light started to fade. The hotels marked on my out of date map at Littlestone-on-Sea and Greatstone-on-Sea failed to materialize. I jogged on in darkness until I reached Dymchurch. At 6.10 pm (after 5 hrs 50 mins) I stopped at the Chantry Hotel (£20 B &B) where I had dinner.

There was one other guest at breakfast. He was working nights at Dungeness Power Station. At first I thought he might be the owner or manager of the hotel and asked whether the bren gun was his. He hadn't seen the gun displayed on the stairs and possibly thought the question strange. I explained and he told me that he didn't own a gun at all. I said that I was very relieved to hear it. Outside there was a tank in the car park together with an armoured personnel carrier. The proprietor told me that they belonged to her husband.

It took me 2 hrs 45 mins to get to Folkestone Station. The sea wall at Dymchurch is set high up above low lying land. The field I played on as a child on holiday was covered by housing. Before Hythe I was again forced inland by red flags flying over MoD land. At Folkestone I found a path atop the cliff passing by beautiful old houses. Later I came to the Metropole and the Grand hotels side by side. The Metropole was partially scaffolded and looked well past its heyday.

Another fine day saw me at Charing Cross buying a return ticket for Folkestone Central. I climbed out of the town past a couple of Martello towers. The path I chose passed underneath the white cliffs in an area covered with thick vegetation except where the railway emerged between tunnels. On a downward slope of the path I fell heavily and hurt my left hand.

I crossed the railway on a footbridge and followed the path to the shore line. A concrete ramp promised a route towards Dover but I soon found it blocked by workmen behind a barrier with a Danger sign. A workman further back had said that I could get to Dover this way and I mentioned this to his truculent colleague. With some show of reluctance he let me through. If it had been up to him I would have been sent back to Folkestone. At the end of the path a notice proclaimed a nudist beach. Clothes were not needed beyond this point, it declared. I met no one. After a tiresome trudge on a pebbly beach, I came to an enormous concrete construction way above sea level which might have had some connection with the Channel Tunnel. I thought that would see me into Dover but it was succeeded by a stretch of shore crossed at intervals by boulders for me to clamber over. Just short of the port I crossed the railway by footbridge and reached Dover Priory station. It took me 3 hours 20 minutes to travel these few miles.