Hamstreet to Ham Street Part III - a Walking Perambulation

 

As I predicted in last month’s post I have completed the ‘Hamstreet to Ham Street’ route for a third time now. I hiked it with my friend Tom in 2006, cycled it in 2019 (first half - Greensand Ridge) and 2022 (second half), and I’ve completed it again on foot in 2026. Sort of.

The two ‘cheats’ were that I skipped the section where one has to hike on roads between Haslemere (Surrey) and Four Marks (Hampshire) this time, and I stopped at Castle Cary in Somerset, a few miles short of the other ‘Ham Street,’ as will be explained.

So my first trip of the second half of the route began at the village of Four Marks, a few miles southwest of Alton in Hampshire. I was following a path called the St Swithun’s Way [sic], which runs from Farnham to Winchester, where the remains of St Swithun (or ‘Swithin’ if you prefer) were initially buried outside the abbey so that the rain could fall on him. They were later moved inside by monks. Hence we have the saying that if it rains on St Swithun’s Day (July 15^th) it will rain for forty days and forty nights.

The path was very pretty via Ropley (pronounced 'Ropp-ley'), with occasional hoots from the steam trains on the nearby Watercress Line. I stopped for refreshment in a cool barn-like annexe of a pub in Bishop’s Sutton. Then I pounded the tarmac around the south side of New Alresford (pronounced ‘Orlsford’). Here, a new housing development has blocked the path and I had to battle with the weeds up a steep bank to get around the high metal fences.

Signage for the path was also poor beyond this and I made the same navigational mistake that I made with Tom in 2006, ending up about half a mile too far north. This time I was able to contact Hampshire’s rights of way team via their website on my phone and report both issues.

Having rejoined the official route, I continued to Winchester and camped behind some nettles. The next day I followed Nuns Walk into the city and passed the remains of Hyde Abbey which comprise of just the arched entrance to a gatehouse.

My path back out of Winchester was different to last time as the next footpath, the Clarendon Way, has since been diverted to commence by heading southward along the river, before curving west and crossing the Roman road, which was its original course. This adds some distance onto the route but is more pleasant than pounding the tarmac.

The Clarendon Way is named after a ruined palace just outside Salisbury, for it links the two cathedral cities. When I reached the village of Kings Somborne, which was often used a location in the children’s programme ‘Worzel Gummidge,’ I had a rest and necked down a bottle of Coke outside the village shop. A man passing by exclaimed ‘You wanna foind a pub and get some coider’ which was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to hear in the West Country.

It was searing hot as I continued via Houghton (pronounced ‘How-tun’) and Broughton (pronounced as one would expect). The locals in the Greyhound pub were very friendly and I was given a large glass bottle of cool water when I asked if they could fill my water bottle. However, after a few more miles cycling, rain began to spatter as the Clarendon Way joined the Roman road, so I dived into the woodland at the side and got my tent up quick.

The next day was as hot as ever and I merely walked the final ten miles or so into Salisbury, departing from the straight Roman line after the village of Middle Winterslow. With around seven miles to go I kept hearing a flapping sound, later realising that the sole of my shoe was coming off. I tried to attach it with some puncture repair glue that I had in my rucksack, but this was ineffective so I merely looped my lace under my shoe to hold it on. I then had to catch two trains and a bus to get back to my sweltering car at Four Marks.

The second trip involved me continuing from Salisbury, but I wanted to retrace my original route as much as possible so I got a bus up to Winterbourne Dauntsey. A grouchy old man made a sarcastic comment about having to step around my rucksack as I waited for it. Personally I think a few extra steps would have done him good so he should have thanked me!

I backtracked about a mile to Figsbury Ring, a circular Iron Age hill-fort, and I walked an anticlockwise circumnavigation. The views were great.

I then descended back to Winterbourne Dauntsey, where a village fair of some kind seemed to be finishing, to pick up the Monarch’s Way. This footpath roughly follows the route of King Charles II following his defeat at the Battle of Worcester to his escape to France from Shoreham-by-sea in West Sussex.

It was very hot yet again as I crossed Salisbury Plain. I was amazed to see a large framework barn still there after twenty years. Tom and I had considered sleeping among the hay bails in 2006. After a long descent I stopped for refreshment at the pub in Great Wishford, where I was kept entertained with a rock playlist. I then camped in the woods after a significant climb to Cranborne Chase.

The next day my route differed from that of 2006 as I chose to follow the Monarch’s Way properly rather than to take a short cut along the Roman road through the woods. After this more southerly section I was back on the familiar drover's path, which begins as a concrete farm track.

Doglegging southward when the path hits the A303 trunk road, I descended to Fonthill Bishop, which had a nice little café where a pot of tea went down like a snake’s foot (as a friend of mine often says). As I approached the next village (Hindon) I was startled when a large dog ran at me. However, this proved serendipitous when its owners recommended the Grosvenor Arms to me, so I made a beeline. Here, the barman treated me to a free bowl of roast potatoes. The next stage involved quite a gruelling overgrown trek towards West Knoyle, where I had a snack break in the porch of the quaint church. Then came the little town of Mere, where I merely used the shop to stock up on supplies before heading off up towards Zeals Knoll for another night’s camping.

This time, my inappropriate footwear was wearing on my feet rather than the soles of my shoes and the next day was hard work, with blisters and discomfort at the back of my legs from walking funny! It was also searing hot and I passed a woman walking with a donkey as I commenced the day's perambulations. The donkey reminded me of the life of Christ, as did my breakfast of bread and tinned fish which I ate in a shelter at the National Trust's centre at Stourton / Stourhead as a man tested disability buggies and parked them outside ready for the use of visitors.

After a stone archway, a look at an old pumphouse and a glimpse of a lake and a Greek-inspired building (pictured), I picked up the Macmillan Way (named after the cancer care charity for whom it was devised) and headed for the little town of Bruton. A man in a gardening community at the hamlet of Redlynch pointed me in the right direction when I got lost and filled my water bottle. After a panoramic view across to Glastonbury Tor and a brief look at a dovecote which resembled a ruined church tower on a hill, I dived into Bruton's Sun Inn to cool off - literally going in the Sun to get out the sun. The pub still retains a separate public bar and saloon bar, which is a nostalgic throwback to the 1970s. I had a chicken kebab from the separate cooking area at the back of the pub and then continued towards Castle Cary, cutting off a long S-shape in the official path by nipping down a farm track.

However, the heat got to too much, and heeding the advice of the gambling adverts on TV, when the fun stopped, I stopped! I dived into the woodland and got some of my camping gear out, proceeding to snooze for a few hours. As it grew dusky I decided to add a tent into the equation!

The following day involved a short two-mile trek to Castle Cary station, with a fine glimpse of Glastonbury Tor in the distance as I descended from Ansford. I decided not to continue Ham Street in Somerset for the simple fact that there’s nothing there! Essentially, I felt that I had completed the walk and I began my five-train journey home to the Las Vegas-like 'Hamstreet' in Kent. Indeed, the inspiration for the initial walk in 2006 was simply to hike to the other village of the same name as the one where Tom and I lived.

My conclusion to this 20-year anniversary jaunt is that very little has changed. Even the development on the south side of Ashford, Kent has had relatively little impact on the rural feel of the footpath route, and the only other areas of new development I encountered were the annoying one on the south side of New Alresford and a modern 'village' development on the north side of Salisbury. What has changed is some of the text in my book of the initial walk, ‘Mud,Sweat and Beers.’ I’ve added some additional info about the places that I’ve gleaned on my two subsequent re-visits so if you wish to buy the book a third time the latest version (still called the ‘2022 Reload’ edition) can be ordered on that website named after a South American river!

Will I walk it again for the ‘ruby anniversary’ in the 45-degree heat of 2046? Who knows!

The Greensand Way Part II - a Walking Perambulation

My twenty-year 'china anniversary' re-walk of the Greensand Way is now complete. I first walked the c.110-mile path from Hamstreet to Haslemere in May 2006, as the first phase of a challenge to hike to Ham Street in Somerset with my friend, Tom.

This second installment fills in the gaps between the sections explored in the 'Part I' blog.'

The mid-Kent section westward from Sutton Valence to East Peckham was achieved by catching trains to the village of Headcorn and then a bus to Sutton Valence. The first two thirds of this section feel similar to the section from Pluckley (documented last time), with the path remaining resolutely at the top of the range of hills, with excellent views across the Weald of Kent to the south. Orchards abound and the path passes the gated driveway to Linton Hall. Eventually the route tumbles off of the hills to reach Yalding, a village that used to flood severely on a regular basis. The route then follows a short navigation channel which was built to cut a corner off of the meandering River Medway for commercial vessels.

The hill range takes a while to get back into full flow after the path crosses the Medway Valley, but the next section westward includes the pretty village of Shipbourne (pronounced 'shibbun' and located a few miles north of the town of Tonbridge), with its grassy common land being a prominent feature. The moated manor house at Ightham (pronounced ‘item’) is well worth a short detour. Beyond this, the ridge reasserts itself and one is really quite high up when nearing Knole Park on the edge of Sevenoaks. You may spot a deer here and you will almost certainly pass the odd jogger! The path then falls off of the hills and becomes quite hard to follow, needing to tunnel beneath the A21 to reach the village of Sevenoaks Weald. After a pint of mild and a bag of crisps in the local pub I walked up to the Hildenborough Road and caught as bus to Tonbridge Station.

The next section west from Sevenoaks Weald takes the walker all the way to Surrey, climbing back onto the ridge again to pass the village of Ide Hill, with its conveniently located shop / cafe, and the wooded summit of Toy’s Hill, one of the highest points in Kent. The true highest point is actually Betsom’s Hill on the North Downs above Westerham, which musters over 820 feet in height.

The path then passes Chartwell, which was Winston Churchill’s home for over forty years, chosen by him mainly because the view across the Kentish Weald is so nice. Crockhamhill Common becomes Limpsfield Common as the walker passes into Surrey (it's all just 'woods' to me). Here, there is a marker-stone showing Hamstreet and Haslemere as each being 55 miles away in opposite directions. The walk beyond into Oxted is typically ‘Surrey’ with lots of common land around leafy suburban roads.

Having documented the sections between Oxted and Dorking in my last article, there is just the last 35 miles to report on. I decided to work backwards, catching trains to Haslemere to begin my walk eastwards. Haslemere is a pretty country town, where a plaque commemorates the first police officer in the Surrey Constabulary to die on duty in what is known as the 'Haslemere riot.' Clearly these were different times.

The Greensand Way climbs steeply to the Devil’s Punchbowl at Hindhead, a village that used to endure a near-permanent stream of traffic on the A3. The road tunnels beneath it today and there is not really any evidence that it used to run right through the village, with tasteful landscaping removing all vestiges of this arterial road from London to Portsmouth. After some magnificent northward views the path descends to Thursley village, from where it begins its long bumpy journey eastward to Dorking. The name 'Thursley' is a reference to the Norse god, Thor, and the Devil's Punchbowl was so named because the legend is that Thor and the Devil had a battle here and the punchbowl was created when the dark one scooped out a load of earth from the hills to throw at Thor. A great way to settle a dispute, hey?

I was crestfallen to reach the Dog and Pheasant at Brook to find 'To Let' signs. I had used the pub in 2006 on my initial walk and a beer would have gone down like a snake's foot (as people say down here on Romney Marsh). Instead I continued via Sandhills (the clue is in the name) and Wormley, and I had an evening meal in the Merry Harriers pub in Hambledon. Conversations in 'RP' English reverberated around me as I ate. A few miles beyond, I camped in the Hurtwood. The name has nothing to do with pain, as ‘hurts’ was a local dialect word for bilberries.

The next day was searing hot. Hascombe was quaint with a winding lane, a pond and a pretty church. When I reached the village of Shamley Green, where the ridge has another break to let a river through, I was seriously considering throwing in the towel. However, the next section was mercifully shady as the ridge is heavily wooded here. There are some great viewpoints, and the path descends to pass by the Duke of Edinburgh School and again to pass through the village of Holmbury St Mary. Beyond is Leith Hill, the highest point in Surrey. It is crowned with a tower and seems to be quite a tourist hotspot.

There was just the long slow descent to Dorking to go after this. Time was limited before the train that I needed to catch home, so a ‘meal deal’ in an Esso garage had to make do. There's no point lying - this last section was gruelling in the heat, with no public transport on a bank holiday Monday and no refreshment facilities between Holmbury St Mary and Wotton, by which point I needed to get a spurt on.

All in all, it’s been fascinating to re-walk this long distance path, and I’ve made a few tweaks to my book, ‘Mud, Sweat and Beers’ which documents the route and our continuation westward to the other ‘Ham Street’ in Somerset. It is perhaps inevitable that I will eventually re-walk those paths too. The book can be found on most major digital platforms for those who want to explore more.

The Greensand Way Part I - a Walking Perambulation

‘It was twenty years ago today…’ begin the lyrics of one of the many legendary songs of the Beatles. Twenty years must have seemed a long time to the young Paul McCartney when he wrote these lyrics which opened the 'Sgt. Pepper' album in 1967. After all, in 1947 we were barely over the Second World War and Paul was four or five depending which side of June the 18th we are!

Personally, I think the twenty years since I walked the entire Greensand Way footpath across Kent and Surrey have passed in a flash. The 110-mile trail begins in the village of Hamstreet, about nine miles from the English Channel and ends in the town of Haslemere in a far flung corner of Surrey. For my friend Tom and I, the Greensand Way formed the first half of a challenge to walk to the other 'Ham Street' in Somerset, which I documented in my travel book 'Mud, Sweat and Beers.'

For the 'china anniversary' re-walk I began with the local section, which falls under the borough of Ashford, back in the winter. The very beginning of the path is currently not signed at Hamstreet Crossroads, although I believe there are plans for a local info board to mark the start very soon. The gravel trail up through Hamstreet Woods (one of the UK's oldest national nature reserves) is a gentle and pleasant incline for cyclists, but upon reaching the brow of the hill, it's footpaths all the way to the settlements of Kingsnorth, Chilmington and Great Chart. I was pleased to see that the route of the trail around Chimington hasn’t been severely marred by the recent housing development, retaining a mostly rural feel throughout. Chilmington is essentially becoming a 'new town' bolted onto the southwestern fringe of Ashford. Beyond Great Chart, the route bridges the Ashford to Tonbridge railway line, and I had to abandon my walk due to the path being flooded all the way down to the Great Stour River near Godinton Park. I’ve never been a fan of swimming!

My second recent dabble at the Greensand Way covered the section which runs along the edge of Godinton Park, again not hugely troubled by the suburban developments, before heading west to pass to the south of Hothfield, descending towards the edge of Hothfield Common (a natural peat bog) and then up and over to Little Chart. From here on, I followed the Stour Valley Path to the village of Lenham, where ponds provide the source of one of Kent's longest rivers, which flows via Ashford and Canterbury, out into the English Channel at the little town of Sandwich, which gave its name to, er... sandwiches!

I walked my third section of the Greensand Way backwards (i.e. west to east), catching a bus from the village of Headcorn to pick up the trail at Sutton Valence, heading eastward. This was, and probably still is, my favourite section of the walk. Kent lives up to its epithet of being the ‘Garden of England’ here, with numerous orchards along the route. Whilst the section around Great Chart and Chilmington on my previous amble has the feel of a ridge, this is where the Greensand Hills, which give the path its name, really find their feet. The views southward from the top of the ridge are panoramic, and the path remains fairly high up the slope until dropping off beyond Boughton Malherbe. After Egerton (pictured), the route dips and then climbs again to Pluckley (reputedly England's most haunted village), where the orchards take over again for the descent to Little Chart. After a pint in the Swan’s beer garden, I negotiated a route to Pluckley Station, being somewhat gutted to find that Dering Arms was closed and the next train was in 55 minutes time. Time for some stoicism.

Then on the first May bank holiday, I booked myself a Travelodge in Dorking, with the aim of completing the sections of the Greensand Way west from Reigate to Dorking and east from Reigate to Oxted. Alighting the train at Reigate Station, the town is reached via a foot tunnel, which was the first road tunnel to be built in the UK, opening in 1823. This was constructed for the ease of stagecoaches, travelling from London to Brighton, so-called because these long journeys were completed in stages, with a change of horses being needed at regular intervals. The route of the Greensand Way to Dorking was far more scenic than I remembered it from 2006. The path drops dramatically into the valley of the River Mole, which runs from Gatwick to the Thames. The Greensand Ridge doesn’t reassert itself until Dorking area, leaving the North Downs on the right hand side to dominate the skyline. I passed through the pretty villages of Betchworth and Brockham and passed a small woodland that I camped in during that original thirteen-day hike. I described this as ‘cake shaped’ in my book and I can confirm that it still gives that impression! The 'cherry on top' was passing a blue plaque in Dorking marking Strawberry Studios where 10cc, Paul McCartney, Steveie Wonder and others had all recorded music.

On the following day I would catch the train to Reigate and walk the ‘GW’ eastward. It was nice to walk a section of the trail that my friend Tom and I had completely missed twenty years ago, having made a hash of the map-reading, ending up in Redhill town centre. Thankfully, modern smartphone apps make following a trail of this kind much easier today. However, signage for the trail was still non-existent on the lanes to the west of South Nutfield so I reported this to Surrey County Council. Modern smartphones make this easier too!

My lunchtime refreshment break was at a pub in Bletchingley, a village straddling the A25 at the top of the ridge. It was doing brisk business and the barmaid was clearly feeling the pressure. The next section feels similar to the Pilgrims’ Way, a more famous trail which runs along the (also more famous) North Downs. Here, the 'GW' runs along the lower part of the ridge’s scarp slope in an easy-to-follow straight line. Crossing the busy A22 near Godstone was more of a challenge, but the section via Tandridge to Oxted passed very quickly. Oxted is perhaps most famous for the being the childhood home of a certain Keir Starmer. Not far from here is the furthest known mention of Hamstreet, where the ‘GW’ crosses the Kent border, with the village signed as being 55 miles away but we'll be visiting that in 'Part II' of this report. For now, we'll trundle down to Hurst Green Station and catch the first of four trains home.

Instant Poetry - War & Climate Change

Inspired by Bruce Springsteen's Dylanesque protest song 'Streets of Minneapolis,' I thought I'd throw an an environmental slant on the latest horror show from the Middle East. The image is of an E.P. I released under the name of 'Adam Colton and Teresa Colton' (although this was a solo effort). Please seek out our music on your favourite online provider if curious...

Lots of explosions filling the air,

More refugees, but does anyone care?

Houses blown up, plumes fill the sky,

Does anyone ever stop to ask why?

Remember when Trump said to Zelensky,

‘You’re gambling [around] with World War Three?’

But his Nobel Peace Prize chances are blown,

So now he’s embarked on a war of his own.

For years we’ve been trying to stop climate change,

Meanwhile our ‘great’ leaders, they still act the same,

We turn off lights, while they fill the skies,

With non-stop explosions, this cannot be wise!

Trump hopes that Putin will be a good mate,

If he finds his country a 51^st state,

Canada, Greenland or Gaza will do,

He’s trying to look big to impress you-know-who –

No money for healthcare or helping the poor,

But billions of dollars to start a new war,

And don’t disagree with him, ‘cause he’s got ‘ICE,’

And they’ve all got guns and they’re not very nice!

When COVID hit hard, we all had to change,

But everything then got put back just the same,

Was that our last chance to cut down emissions?

Instead our world leaders took warring positions.

So don’t blame the people who’ve had their homes burned,

It seems that humanity still hasn’t learned,

But when the tides rise and the crops die away,

Trump and his mates will still be OK.

Hamstreet, Kent - Concise Information for Visitors

Location: 6 miles south of Ashford, Kent

Population: 1988 (2021 census)

Parishes: Orlestone and Warehorne 

New Book on Hamstreet OUT NOW

Introduction to Hamstreet

The village of Hamstreet used to be a mere hamlet known as ‘Ham’ with most of the population living at Orlestone, a small settlement based around the pretty parish church of St Mary one mile north of the village.

When the Romney Marshes were properly drained, Hamstreet became more desirable, being strategically located at the cross of the Ashford to New Romney road and the current Tenterden to Hythe road. The coming of the railway in 1851 boosted the village’s growth, which has continued steadily throughout the last hundred years. The Ashford to Hastings line is now one of only two diesel lines in the provincial Southeast.

Today, the village encompasses Orlestone parish and part of Warehorne parish. The village is twinned with Therouanne in France.

Countryside

The area around Hamstreet is relatively unspoiled, in spite of the busy bypass (built in 1994) and the southward growth of Ashford. There are many traditional Kentish weatherboard buildings at the village centre. The flat nature of the marsh means that the quiet winding lanes are very popular with cyclists. There are also three long-distance footpaths here: the Greensand Way, the Saxon Shore Way and the Royal Military Canal Path

The first two paths pass through Hamstreet Woods (SSSI), which is a large protected reserve of deciduous woodland where you will find many trails and may even hear a nightingale. A second area of public woodland can be found a mile north of Hamstreet at Faggs Wood / Orlestone Forest.

Link to walking guide here:

Link to cycling guide here:

Fame

Hamstreet had its moment of fame in 1991, appearing in map form on every postage stamp in the UK. This was to commemorate 200 years of the Ordnance Survey, because the Hamstreet area was the first to be mapped as part of a nationwide survey. The set of four stamps effectively illustrated the changes to the village over time.

Hamstreet was also featured in BBC TV's ‘Blue Peter’ as the 'base camp' for a humorous charity exercise involving climbing the 'Marsh Mountain.'

The writer, Joseph Conrad once lived near Hamstreet, and Noel Coward owned a residence at nearby Aldington, where several TV personalities have also lived. H E Bates would have been familiar with the village, and the wider area of Romney Marsh has many literary connections, including the Dr Syn books and the Ingoldsby Legends.

There is also a memorial at Johnson’s Corner (the southern bypass exit for the village). This marks where a heroic American pilot crash-landed in the Second World War after allowing his crew to parachute to safety.

Leisure

Hamstreet is a popular base for ramblers due to its variety of shops, station, Old Schoolhouse Indian restaurant, chip shop, Cosy Kettle cafe and pub.

The Duke’s Head was originally located on the High Street itself, but was rebuilt in the 1930s back from the road to accommodate coaches. The Pavilion (Pound Leas) is another popular venue.

An ale trail can be enjoyed by heading along Warehorne Road and onto the Saxon Shore Way across the fields, to the 16th century Woolpack Inn, which is linked to the church of St Matthew by an underground smugglers' tunnel. Although small, Warehorne used to have a second pub – the World's Wonder, one of five in Kent built to the same design.

Alternatively one can follow the canal path east from the garden centre (half a mile south of Hamstreet village centre) for 2½ miles and wander uphill along the lane at the second bridge to the White Horse, Bilsington. You will notice a monument dedicated to a local landowner, Sir Richard Cosway. Sadly Ruckinge (passed en route) surrendered its Blue Anchor pub to history in 2015.

Full village blog page here:

Thoughts on Sheffield

 

If you look at a map of the country and squint slightly, you can see four big blobs of urbanity running up the middle of England like the buttons on a jacket. These are Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield. Having visited the first three, my most recent trip was to the town that is the home of the world's oldest existing football club (not 'United' or 'Wednesday' but Sheffield FC, founded in 1857). However, I didn't visit the ground as it was about six miles to the south of the city centre. Sheffield is arguably the fifth largest city in England after London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

As with Nottingham and Manchester, there is a tram service in Sheffield. However, my aim was to walk to the southwestern suburb of Ecclesall, as my paternal grandfather was born there, in the days when it was a village just outside the conurbation. It was a long uphill walk of about three miles from the city centre and I popped into the parish church, where I was pointed in the direction of the vicar who managed to track down some info on Colton graves for me.  My grandfather struggled to settle back in Sheffield, working as a crane driver after World War I service, so he went off to search for 'gold' in California. He didn't find any, so he joined the Canadian army's Princess Patricia Regiment, eventually meeting my grandmother who was working as a house parlour maid in Winnipeg. Moving back to Sheffield, they soon relocated in the Kentish town of Ashford, which is how I came into the world as a 'Southern Softie' who loves black pudding and isn't averse to gravy on chips.

My next port of call was the childhood home of Jarvis Cocker, the lead singer of the nineties band, Pulp. Personally, I think that their hit 'Common People' epitomised the decade that my generation now view with rose-tinted glasses, but the band had been around for many years before remotely troubling the music charts. I took a very scenic amble eastward to the suburb of Intake, but I was unable to view the front man's front door. Or indeed any of his former residence. However, the wander back into the city centre was pleasant, with a great view before descending past an amphitheatre. I popped into a quaint looking pub which played continuous classic rock music and had a range of real ales from mild to porter. Bliss. The barman was from Lincolnshire but he said that he had found it a struggle to fit in in South Yorkshire, intending to move back home.

On the second day I followed the River Don upstream (westward). Near the industrial heritage site of Kelham Island there was a big mural of Jarvis Cocker smoking a cigarette on the side of a building (great role modelling for kids!). I then climbed steeply beside Ruskin Park and the suburb of Walkley - a typically ‘northern’ slice of urbanity (terraced streets on steep hills) and I descended a steep lightly wooded bank to reach the Rivelin Valley – a very picturesque river walk with stepping stones across at one point. Sheffield is at the eastern edge of the Peak District and some of the city actually falls within the national park. Indeed, the city is said to stand on seven hills - an epithet it shares with Rome. However, a glance at Wikipedia will reveal a whole host of other places in the UK which also make this claim.

I ambled as far as the Rivelin pub where I enjoyed two pints of excellent mild ale. Mild has almost died out in Southern England but the appeal of all the taste with none of the headache seems obvious to me. So what other delights are there to be seen in Sheffield?

The cathedral, dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, seemed an unusual shape to me and it has a crypt – I looked around this at night while a concert was taking place, using the torch on my mobile phone. The Crucible is of course home to the world snooker championships, but really unless the snooker is on there's nothing particularly striking about the building itself. However, nearby is the Winter Garden which I would describe as being like a huge conservatory containing trees of the world. There is a free museum attached but sadly I didn't have time for a thorough look round before needing to catch my train home.

There is also a 'walk of fame' near the town hall, with famous names such as the singer Joe Cocker (popular surname, huh?), the athlete Sebastian Coe, Monty Python's Michael Palin and the actor Sean Bean. Think of the Hollywood 'pavement stars' and scale it down a bit! During my visit I found scant mention of the Arctic Monkeys however – a Sheffield band that were a huge phenomenon in the noughties, arguably as the city’s Def Leppard were in the eighties. In an earlier post I've suggested a similar attraction for my home town of Ashford, which can muster Bob Holness (of 'Blockbusters' fame), John Furley (founder of the St John Ambulance), John Wallis (inventor of the infinity symbol) and the author Frederick Forsyth, as well as a claim to having had the first white lines on any road in the UK. It seems that the north / south divide is one of pride in many cases, with northerners keen to promote their towns and their heritage while southerners generally run their towns down. We give our towns nicknames such as 'Trashford' and 'Jokestone,' but is this affectionate, in the way that courting couples banter with one another? Maybe we love our towns, with all their flaws, after all. 

Who knows, but I intend to check out Leeds next, in order to tick another big conurbation off of my 'must visit' list.

Adam's Music Reviews #10 - Protest Songs & Thoughts on A.I.

 

The job of writing satirical songs and skits is becoming increasingly hard, not least because the world is so bonkers now that you can't really exaggerate it for entertainment. I decided to re-record a couple of my old songs recently with updated lyrics for the modern age and I've put them out on a digital E.P. called 'Trumped.' Check it out on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes or whatever online music conduit you use. Having recorded many albums with my mother in recording studios (as Adam Colton and Teresa Colton), this one is just a 'lo-fi' production, simply because the main emphasis is on lyrics rather than polish (and because it costs so bleeding much!). It was good enough for Woody Guthrie after all...

One of the songs, 'This Song Wasn't Written by A.I.,' although heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, is about a modern issue that worries a lot of people. Creativity is a release of tension and a form of communication for many, in the way that sports can be for others. The fact that creative fields are being handed over to computers seems a particularly mercenary decision to me. Producers and managers no longer have to pay a human to create when they can get a computer to just copy what humans have already done and reconstitute it for a new market. It is surely the most cynical thing the 'fat cats' of this world have ever done – literally turning machines into expressive humans and humans into consuming machines. And all in the name of money, of course.

That said, so far I would quote the trade descriptions act when it comes to 'A.I.' Unlike in Kubrick and Spielberg's excellent film of the same name, what we call 'A.I.' isn't a sentient entity capable of it's own thoughts but really a very advanced search engine that simply scours the Internet for information / misinformation and presents it in the way that a human would present it (coherent but flawed). Somebody demonstrated it to me by instructing it to 'write a book in the style of Adam Colton.' The 'A.I.' then scours the Internet for things I have actually written and approximates the style and content. Personally I wasn't convinced, although my mum said that it was indeed the kind of thing that I write. Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

I went to watch the film 'No Direction Home' at the local cinema a while back. The film presented the early life of Bob Dylan in a slightly fictionalised way. It is certainly not a glamorised perspective of him, whereas I found the musical 'Sunny Afternoon' to present a much more affable version of Ray Davies than I encountered in Johnny Rogan's biography 'A Complicated Life.' What the lyrics of both songwriters have in common though, along with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters in particular, is a desire for fairness, which is increasingly seen as a lefty tree-hugging minority view.

I realise that my own views and lyrics are somewhat to the left of the majority of local people down here in the Garden of England (Kent), but thankfully free speech still exists. I find the shift towards money as an end rather than a means to be a worrying one, with Trump as its ultimate representative. As children back in the eighties we were taught that we would have much more leisure time in the future because computers would be doing all the mundane tasks, but now humans get to do the mundane tasks while computers create. What the technological Utopian dream didn't account for was the fact that the owners of the technology are generally unwilling to share the benefits. If half the work can be done by computers, they are not going to keep all staff on the same pay doing half the work, even though their own profits would be exactly the same. Instead, half the workforce will be laid off. And meanwhile, it's very convenient for the elite to get everybody blaming each other for the problem. Down in this southeast corner of Britain politicians have cleverly channelled everybody's anger in the direction of er... the Channel. Meanwhile, the elite and bankers can laugh all the way to the...

OK, enough puns, but I sincerely hope Britain doesn't continue down the same rabbit hole that gave the world Donald Trump. Time will tell...

So, aside from my latest release, what other angsty protest material stands out from the love songs and party anthems. Here's a few I know well...

Bob Dylan – 'The Times They Are a Changin' (1964) – After writing the anti-war anthems 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Masters of War,' Bob gives the world his only all-out protest album. In particular, 'With God On Our Side' expresses weariness of the litany of wars that never ends. The title track refers to the generation gap, but yesterday's idealists are sadly today's tax dodgers. Bob's songs would be mostly personal after this release, with occasional 'protest' dabblings such as the songs 'George Jackson' (1971) and 'Hurricane' (1976). His Christian album 'Slow Train Coming' has some thinly veiled anger at the state of things too.

Roger Waters – 'Is This the Life we Really Want?' (2017) – War was always a major issue for Waters, with Pink Floyd's 'The Final Cut' being the first obvious sign of this. This album touches on the 'normality' of accepting man's inhumanity to man and refers to Donald Trump as a 'nincompoop.' The title track is extremely sad and 'Smell The Roses' has a Floydian feel. Mind your language though, Rog!

The Kinks – 'Muswell Hillbillies' (1971) – Perhaps the clearest sign of songwriter, Ray Davies, dabbling in politics, as he longs for a simpler life and a Britain that was fast disappearing. 'Uncle Son' sums up conservatism, socialism and liberalism in three concise lines while his panacea for everything is to 'Have a Cup of Tea.' In truth, there was often a satirical streak even in some of band's the big hits. 'Sunny Afternoon' satirises the moans and groans of the rich, while 'Dead End Street' highlights the struggles of the poor. So little has changed but we are constantly persuaded that this is the natural order of things.

Rage Against The Machine – 'Rage Against The Machine' (1992) - An angry diatribe against society's norms delivered over some seriously heavy funk riffs with regular cathartic screaming. The anti-Ku Klux Klan anthem,'Killing in the Name,' was Christmas number one in 2009, this in itself being a protest against the annual 'X Factor' festive chart domination. Colourful lingo, but generally justified IMO.

John Lennon / Yoko Ono -'Sometime in New York City' (1972) – Whilst 'Plastic Ono Band' (1970) angstily questioned society's norms, this album is more overtly political, dealing with everything from misogyny to perceived miscarriages of justice to the Northern Ireland conflict. Be warned, you get a lot of Yoko on this album too and an extremely indulgent live disc featuring the next artist on my list...

Frank Zappa / Mothers on Invention - 'We're Only in it for the Money' (1968) – This is Zappa's most obvious drift into the protest genre, as he tackles everything from police brutality to the naivety of the hippie culture with a send-up of the 'Sgt. Pepper' album cover to boot. The earlier album, 'Freak Out!' (1966) contains a brilliant song about race riots, while 'Absolutely Free' (1967) bemoans 'plastic people' and hints at predatory behaviour by the elite. Zappa would mainly focus on comedy / experimentation after this, although regular lyrical lashing out would still occur, most natably on 'Broadway the Hard Way' (1988). Hypocritical TV preachers, look out!

Next month I reach the grand age of fifty. I've had a go at marriage and two attempts at being a 'townie' but like a boomerang, here I am back in the village where I grew up, living the single life again (lots of cycling and walking with the odd pub visit thrown in). Although I was always writing stories as a child, my first published piece was written when I was seventeen - an account of a five-day cycling trip for the local parish magazine. 

It was when I was 28 that I finally got a book into print, realising a childhood dream as a collaboration with my father who sadly now has Alzheimer's. The content hasn't changed greatly as you can tell from my regular travel posts, although I've ventured into other genres, such as psychological fiction and music reviews. I wonder if I'll still be writing my travelling tales in another 33 years time. Or will A.I. will be writing imaginary trips for me with imaginary meetings with imaginary characters? I think that's called a novel. Please check mine out on Amazon before my digital clone takes over. Toodle-pip!