Change – Page 2 – I Walk Alone

Reflecting on life and death

Saturday 13 August, and my walk through the Old Cemetery was more reflective than usual. Last Saturday, a good friend, and one of the kindest men I know, ran his last parkrun. The whole running community was reeling in shock. Big Dave Hawkins was a familiar face at local events. He organised the pacers for all the big races, the Southampton Marathon, Winchester Half and the Great South Run. He always had a smile and a cheery word of motivation. It was hard to think that I would never experience either again. Out on the flats, Run Director Kate Budd was giving her pre-race briefing. I could hear her voice through the megaphone, and I knew she would be talking about Big Dave. Hearing her words was more than I could bear, so I scurried off to this place of peace and reflection.

Twenty-two, seventy-six and a ninety-nine

We Brits are famous for talking about the weather. It’s true, we do. There’s a good reason for this obsession. Although our little island rarely experiences the extreme weather other places have to contend with, ours is far from consistent. There are no guaranteed warm, dry summers, winter doesn’t necessarily mean snow, rain is always around the corner and it’s quite normal to get all four seasons in one day. When extremes do happen, we’re really not geared up for it. Our houses don’t have air conditioning and there are no snow ploughs or chains for car tyres. The last week has been a tad on the warm side. In fact, the Met Office recorded a record UK temperature of 40.3°C on 19 July. The media gleefully catastrophised. There were headlines like ‘How the heatwave broke Britain,’ and ‘Gates of Hell are opening.’ If it hadn’t been so warm, the men with sandwich boards would surely have been walking up and down, proclaiming that the end of the word was nigh. When people began saying it was far worse than the famous summer of 1976, eye-rolling in our house reached danger levels.

Daedalus, a myth, a memorial and some history

On 3 July 2022, Commando decided to go for a nice flat run along the shore at Lee-on-Solent. Obviously, I took the opportunity to tag along and pay my respects to Leonard Thomas Haley, my first cousin once removed. I discovered him when I was researching my family tree on Ancestry.co.uk. As parts of his story inspired my current work in progress, it seemed fitting to pay a visit. I was also keen to explore the area around the Fleet Air Arm Memorial and enjoy a walk by the sea.

Monks Brook Meadows revisited

Back in the summer of 2018, when I was having regular torture sessions at The Running School, I often walked across Monks Brook Meadows to Stoneham Lane. It was a place I discovered, back in April 2015, on a nature and history walk organised by a local councillor. Finding this wonderful alternative to walking along Wide Lane felt like a huge bonus, and I took advantage of it regularly. Even in 2018, I knew things were about to change, and I suspected not for the better. On 20 April 2022, Commando had a session at the Running School. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I went along to have a walk while he was being beasted. I hadn’t walked that way since late summer 2019 when Kim and I were training for the Clarendon Marathon, so I was interested to see what had changed.

The end of an era

Back in January 2014, I wrote a post about a famous Southampton landmark. It wasn’t the Bargate, the medieval walls, the Civic Centre, or any of the usual monuments; it was a giant boat in a humble garden in Midanbury. To be honest, it was more of an analogy than a history, a cautionary tale about things getting out of control and ignoring the elephant in the room — or the boat in the garden. Sadly, Peter Bromley, the man who built this unintentional folly, has now passed away, aged 93, and, this week, the boat was finally dismantled. Avon Road will never be the same.

Expect the unexpected

The last time I had a wander through Hatch Grange I was suffering from a numb mouth after a bit of dental work to repair a cracked tooth. It was August 2019, I was training for a marathon walk, blissfully unaware that a little cold would turn into a chest infection disaster and my marathon would end at the half way point. COVID19 was not even a thing, or that cold would have been much more of a worry. My mind was full of research on Spanish Flu for a book I was planning to write. Two years on it felt as if the whole world had changed. The word pandemic had certainly taken on a whole new meaning. Now, the book was written and in the throes of being published, Commando was the one visiting the dentist and I had an hour to kill. Hatch Grange was the obvious answer. At least there was one thing that wouldn’t have changed, or so I thought . . .

Thickening the plot

Kim and I wandered down Cutbush Lane towards Mansbridge talking about the things we’d seen in Marhill Copse. We both agreed that the signs, both literal and figurative, looked promising for this little piece of woodland. We walked past Gaters Mill, and down the hill towards the White Swan. The sky was overcast but it was a warm day. The meadows were bright with wildflowers. If it wasn’t for the tarmac road, lampposts and crash barriers, we might have stepped back in time to when this was all farmland and copses and the Itchen Navigation still carried barges filled with wool and coal.

What’s going on at Marhill Copse?

Mid August 2021, and it really felt as if the worst of the pandemic was behind us, so for the first time in a long time, I met up with Kim for a little stroll. Well, I have to be honest, it was more march than stroll and it wasn’t exactly little either, but still . . . For once I had a plan, and it mostly involved finding out what, exactly, was going on at Marhill Copse. The last time I walked this way was in June 2020. I was meant to be walking with Kim but she had a terrible headache that turned out to be the start of her brush with COVID, so I went on my own. Now, as I walked across Riverside Park towards Woodmill to meet Kim, it felt as if I was was completing the circle somehow. We were finally going to get that lost walk.

A hint of normality

On 14 March 2020 when we all said goodbye at the end of the four hundred and first Southampton parkrun none of us could have guessed that it would be more than sixteen months before we’d see parkrun number 402. In those sixteen months, the world had changed. We had all become conditioned to wearing masks, keeping our distance, touching nothing and disinfecting everything. The logistics of organising an event with hundreds of people running in close proximity, queueing for tokens and handing over barcodes was a nightmare.

Another lion’s tail

1803 watercolour painting, Edward Hawke Locker, Bargate, Southampton.

On a miserable wet day back in April 2019, I went to have a look at the Bargate lions. In September the year before a council worker had found the tail of one of the lions on the ground. At first it was thought vandals might have been responsible but it soon became clear that the lion was merely suffering from a bad case of old age. The poor things have been guarding the medieval gate in all weathers for over two hundred and seventy five years after all. These two rampant lions, symbolising courage, nobility, strength and valour replaced the wooden lions who’d guarded the town since Tudor times. They also represent the legend of Sir Bevois, the founder of the town.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31