We finished the previous chapter thus: Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’ Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?
I asked my sister, Fliss, and brother-in-law, Rod, if they would send me a few lines about their memories of walking the Downs in Wiltshire when they sometimes recited lines from Edward Thomas to each other.
4 July 2026
Now that our days of long rambles on the Downs
are beyond us, we have wonderful memories of the
sweeping views we had from places like
Wansdyke and Ridgeway, from where at one
spot towards Hackpen, five hill forts are in
view with:
Uffington, Liddington, Barbury, Oldbury and
Martinsell all clearly visible.
Often the words of Alfred Williams and
Richard Jefferies came to mind –
‘Still to find and still to follow
Joy in every hill and hollow
Company in solitude’(A.W.)
‘It is eternity now
I am in the midst of it
It is about me in the sunshine’ (R.J.)
Ridgeway walks always brought
Andrew Young’s ‘On the Ridgeway’ to mind
and we often recite these lines to each other.
65 years wed and it seems as though they
were penned especially for us.
‘Thinking of those who walked here long ago
On this greenway in summer and in snow
She said, “This is the oldest road we tread,
The oldest in the world?”
“Yes, Love,” I said.’
With these happy days only memories
our short strolls are now devoted
to botanising and it’s astonishing
the joy to be had when keeping
eyes down when ambling along.
On a rail track walk we recently
Found five varieties of cranesbill.
Then came the canal, bringing
Edward Thomas to mind with –
Willows, willow herb and meadowsweet
Plus
High cloudlets in the sky
While
Nearby a blackbird sang.
In early spring, our search for ‘Each year’s
First violets, white and lonely’
are usually found in the most unlikely
places – roadside verges where they struggle
to emerge through litter and fallen leaves,
yet they somehow survive.
We are always dipping into Edward Thomas and
have come to love ‘The Huxter’ for the image
it gives of a poor but happy pair chuckling
as they ‘bump down the lane’
Pure Magic
Rod Smith and Felicity Smith
The Huxter
He has a hump like an ape on his back;
He has of money a plentiful lack;
And but for a gay coat of double his girth
There is not a plainer thing on the earth
This fine May morning.
But the huxter has a bottle of beer;
He drives a cart and his wife sits near
Who does not heed his lack or his hump;
And they laugh as down the lane they bump
This fine May morning.
I keep the letters sent to me by my sister and brother-in-law, but not neatly tied together in a bundle or secreted in a box. I leave them in odd places on book shelves hither and thither and forget where I have put them. And then have unexpected surprises and pop-up memories around the house.
https://radicalstroud.co.uk/wiltshire-walking-with-edward-thomas/