Probably our nation’s greatest poet, Simon Armitage has published a follow up to Walking Home called Walking Away – a very entertaining travelogue of his walk along the south west coastal path as a modern day troubadour, reciting poetry to groups of people in exchange for bed and board. He undertook the challenge after getting ‘itchy feet’, he confessed, needing to get out into the world in order to discover things to write about. The south west path was almost the same distance as the Pennine way, and although it seemed to be an easier walk, it required a great deal of concentration, as in one direction was a steep cliff and the sea beyond…

He read an extract detailing a horrendous night spent at a Butlins Holiday Camp, which, he admitted ‘could have formed a book on its own’ During the walk he encountered the generousity of strangers and met some good people, and it was these experiences that kept him going despite the tiredness and melancholy that often accompanied him. Walking gives him a balance between writing in solitude and being out in the world, finding and experiencing things to write about. Training for the walk wasn’t something he thought about; ‘walking on day one is training for day two!’

After a slide show of photos (‘what I did on my holidays’) from the walk, he confessed that he probably won’t be writing any more fiction or non fiction, feeling that he is more ‘wired up for poetry’ Either way, I still remain an avid fan.