Bill's Walks

“The Early Start” or “A Day to Remember” on the Calderdale Way

Filed under: Other

As you go through life you make many observations of both people and places. The latter often show significant changes, but the same cannot be said of people. The clown at school is still the clown at parties many years hence and the following account, which is all true, illustrates this well!

At the time of this walk which was in the 1980s, we had all known each other for a considerable time and in the intervening years, whilst some are not as capable of doing the distances we did then, we are still capable of causing considerable chaos whether it be long distance walks or cycle rides. The write-up was from Harry Waters who was not out on that day and possibly felt superior because of it. How wrong he was, as was witnessed a few years later on the Five Sisters of Kintail in Scotland – but that is another story, which he would not write about!

The section to be walked was a 13/14 mile easy part of the Calderdale Way, close to Halifax. Sunday morning for the keen, intrepid walkers of Whickham. Bill Gallon, never the best riser around, was picking up Ken, Alan L, John and Brian at 7:20am. Well, I should say he picked up Ken, Alan and John, but as usual something had to go wrong. Brian was still sound asleep in his bed! He was on a course of antibiotics for a wracking cough, which made him sleepy and have diarrhoea; but personally I’ve never known him to be otherwise.

After waking Brian, and half the street, and after a seemingly endless delay, Brian eventually extracted himself from bed and house and duly reported to his knocker-uppers. He was then asked, as there were too many people for Bill’s car, if it was possible for him to use his car as well. As usual, Brian did not have his front door key, so after getting his wife and half the street out of bed again, he eventually found his car keys. Alan and John were already in the car (the door lock was not working properly). Alas and alac, to Brian’s dismay, he had brought out the wrong set of keys! He is an affluent type with two cars! Once again, half the street and his wife arose to ensure that this time he did have the right set of keys.

The next stage was to drive to Durham to meet up with another Alan (Stewart), who lives in Chester le Street, but arranged to meet them at Durham (sounds complex). However, as they approached the outskirts of the city, Brian suddenly exclaimed “Dearie me, I’ve forgotten my boots” or words to that effect. Confusion, speechlessness and unprintable words followed, but after the initial shock they decided to carry on, meet the others first and then decide what action to take. On arriving at Durham, instead of finding Bill with his car along with Ken and Alan S, Bill was nowhere to be seen! “Where is Bill?” asked Brian, Alan L and John to which Ken replied “He’s gone back home to Whickham!” “Why?” they asked in dismay. “For petrol” said Ken. “Why couldn’t he get some on the way?” “Because he’s forgotten the key for his petrol cap!” Ken replied. With good foresight they rang Bill’s wife who woke up their son and dispatched him forthwith to Brian’s house for his boots. By this time Brian’s wife and half the street were up in any case.

Eventually, on Bill’s return with petrol and boots they set off in Alan and Bill’s cars, leaving Brian’s car in Durham – it’s a little old and the other two were modern and reliable. It is a lengthy journey to Halifax and it was already getting late. However, first of all they had to pick up Neville from Darlington, who would be waiting for them at Scotch Corner. When they arrived, Neville was nowhere to be seen, so after more delay they decided to go on without him. Unbeknown to them, Neville had arrived at the pick-up point some ten minutes late, having spent the previous night at his parent’s home in Teesdale, and assuming that he had missed them, set off in hot pursuit.

The happy walkers at long last reached their starting point some two hours late. The plan was to split up into two groups with one lot at point A at one end of the section and the other group at point B at the other end. Hopefully, sometimes by luck and sometimes by skill, the two groups would meet each other half way, give or take a couple of miles, and swap car keys, enabling them to reach the cars and sometimes have to find them with the correct set of keys. Simple really!

Funnily enough, four miles into the walk the lads from Whickham suddenly bumped into Neville, jogging towards them. Having failed to meet up with them at the start, he realised that once he had reached the end of the day’s section, his only option would probably be to retrace his steps and jogging was the only answer if he was to have any chance of returning to his car before nightfall.

May I add that all the lads had a great day and an enjoyable walk and reached their homes at a respectable time without further mishap. Me? Well I had thought of going with them but chickened out and stayed at home to argue with my good wife. Well I mean, fancy her wanting to cook the Sunday dinner while i am laying tiles around the oven. After all it is only six months since I started the job. Still only need eleven tiles to finish; perhaps sometime in the next six months? Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to some great winter walks in the snow up in the hills with Brian, Bill, Alan L, Alan S, John, Ken, and Neville.

Harry Waters

Postscript: In the years following this walk many other long distance path were walked and we each had our favourites. In spite of being intimately involved with the Pennine Way my own favourite is Offa’s Dyke. In all of the years there have been many escapades and we have never had an dissention within the group which over the years has extended to a number where we recently had 22 for a Christmas dinner (and a few bevvies!) where the above account was read out (after a long period of being filed away with the Calderdale books) amidst much mirth. Many of us were featured on Radio 4 on the 50th Anniversary of our walking and cycling trips on the programme “Home Truths” which was originally chaired by John Peel, although he had sadly passed on when the programme was made.