In a dark and secret wood

It’s time I explained what the “Wayfaring” of this website means: at least what it means to me. Something simple, certainly, but deep too. How many times have you said, or heard someone say “There’s nothing like a walk in the fresh air for clearing one’s head”? Perhaps from a headache, a hangover even; or to dwell in a space where emotions can have free access to your consciousness, to convey their true message and then disperse. It was last year, whilst working in MaxiRam Castle (codename for the Fujitsu building in Bracknell), that my blog’s present title was coined: A Wayfarer’s Notes. For I came to see ever more clearly that my inspiration was fed by the hour-long walk I took “religiously” every lunchtime. It was the perfect antidote to the overarching conspiracy in business life to enthrone false ideals as the true reality; ideals involving backbiting competition, urgency and stress. It was then that, looking for a more descriptive title, I hit on Pedestrian Thoughts. But pedestrian, though it carries the desired meaning “on foot”, carries the undesired meaning Of writing: prosaic, dull; uninspired, undistinguished. It would not do: such modesty is not becoming. It carries the further meaning: Of people and things: commonplace, ordinary. This was a plus point for me, for it’s an article of my private religion that within the commonplace and ordinary lies our salvation. There’s a popular hymn which begins “New every morning is the love”, which contains a couple of lines which have run in my head for almost sixty years, and now I understand them:

The trivial round, the common task
Will furnish all we need to ask

Anyhow, that’s how the Wayfarer title came into being.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little out of sorts, apparently unable to escape the gravitational attraction of the outer world, the urban vibes, whatever you want to call it. The wilderness was calling to me, but from where in particular? I pored over maps of the Chiltern Hills, till I discovered which spot beckoned me most insistently, and set out in my grand car of yesteryear, that I call “The Gift Horse” because it was sold to me for little more than the cost of a tankful of petrol. Faithful as it has been till now, it gave me a little scare. It didn’t seem to be registering my speed, or the passage of the miles. My previous Volvo had suffered this malady and never recovered: not a fatal illness of course, but the first of many mechanical failures which resulted in its final ignominy, a loss of locomotion. Let us keep always before us the memento mori, the death’s head, to remind us of our own mortality. Driving along a straight road, I kept checking these dials as best I could. They were working! So why had I thought otherwise? A brainstorm, surely. I must have checked my speed whilst stopped at a traffic light, and been shocked that it registered as zero. I’ve had brainstorms before. Twice in the last few years I have panicked because I couldn’t remember my age, or what year it was. It wasn’t hard to obtain these bits of information, but they lacked the familiarity I was expecting. Was it a mini-stroke, or the first symptom of dementia? I think not, but at any rate these things are an indication to clear the head with the fresh air of wayfaring.

I settled on a certain wooded valley next the headquarters of Wycliffe Bible Translators: “Their one aim is to offer the Bible in every language that needs it.” The Public Footpath goes straight through their complex of huts, but I took a different route this time. I was drawn to a lost world, an unofficial automobile graveyard. There was a path through the valley-bottom, where the only sunlight was filtered and dappled by the trees, strewn with a few bits of old cars, lorries or vans, in their last stages of returning to Mother Nature’s embrace. As it happened I meandered uncertainly, doubling back, not sure where my feet would take me. I was drawn to sunlit meadows on the other side of a narrow steeply winding road, but there was no public footpath there and I couldn’t get through. I was like a dog with its nose to the ground, following a scent, trying to get back on track. Up a steep winding road nearby came the growl of a skip-lorry (which I suppose in America would be called a dumpster truck), its chains clanking, its gear-changes laboured yet ultimately triumphant. Did the driver see me, through these beech-trees? For some reason I felt like a fugitive.

An overgrown track comes off this winding road, so steep that only a tractor or big-wheeled timber lorry can ascend. It leads to a yard where logs are stored, fenced with holly-trees and barbed-wire. It also contains dilapidated sheds and a collection of vehicles huddled together in the churned-up mud. Some look barely functional, others would need months of loving restoration to get them working again. I wanted a closer look, but feared an encounter with the owner. For all I knew, he might be keeping watch over his treasures with a shotgun. This being England, it would be licensed for sporting purposes only, but I would not care to discover his definition of “sporting”.

I found a place where the barbed-wire had sagged; listened intently, strained to see any movement, sniffed the air like any woodland mammal. There was an odd scent: not pine but some kind of wood-resin: perhaps holly-wood? All was still, so camera in hand, I swiftly leapt the fence and sought out the oldest vehicle, to get a shot. We both, the lorry and I, were surprised by the camera’s flash, which lit up the number-plate like an animal’s eyes caught in headlights. Then I climbed the chassis behind the cab to get the cab’s interior, before melting out of the compound like a silent thief.

I should get out more, for more wayfaring expeditions. I do enough rational, useful stuff: installing an old sink in my backyard, for example, to assist in gardening, scrubbing muddy boots and the like. And when I haven’t been pottering in the backyard, I’ve been walking to the supermarket with my bag-on-wheels like any senior citizen living out his days in simple obscurity.

No, my wayfaring expeditions are not insanity. I’m fulfilling the obligations of retirement from professional life. The shackles are off now, so I must act like a man released to freedom. I don’t need to follow the crowd any more. I go walking to follow my nose and not my head, like a man who lets the dog take him for a walk. There is that in me which wants to go somewhere, and I will follow it. My wayfaring is not for physical fitness or curiosity; but rather, a mysterious quest, a scientific investigation even. More in my next.

*** First three tercets of Dante’s Inferno, translated by Willis Barnstone.