Camino Inglés with Jannine and Sally

Ramblings

BBC

Science, Nature, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

Clare is walking on the Camino Inglés today with Jannine Stoodley who is pushing her mother, Sally, in an off-road wheelchair. This entire series of Ramblings is themed around the Camino de Santiago, a network of pilgrimage trails that stretch across western Europe and converge on the world famous Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, in northern Spain.

The Camino Inglés, or the English Way, is one of these trails. It has two starting points, either at Ferrol which is 119km, or A Coruña which is 75km from Santiago de Compostela. Because the distance required for a Compostela certificate is 100km, the Ferrol route is most popular.

Jannine and Sally are taking the path from A Coruña, and hope to finish their adventure at the Cathedral on Sally’s 85th birthday. Sally suffered a debilitating stroke in 2023, and had been admitted to a hospice for end of life care. But, incredibly, Sally rallied and recovered saying “I’m not ready to die yet” and was eventually able to return home. However she could no longer walk for long distances, which had always a passion, so Jannine found a robust wheelchair that Sally could be pushed in, and set off to walk the Camino.

They have already completed the Reading to Southampton route in England, which is an officially recognised section of the Camino; it’s a 68mile/109km path so when they complete the A Coruña, they will have surpassed the 100km needed to gain the coveted ‘Compostela’ completion certificate.

Clare met Jannine and Sally outside Restaurante Mar de Esteiro (What3Words: ///sweeter.jazz.lazing) which is around 11km out of Santiago de Compostela. They walked together on an often challenging route - especially when pushing a very heavy wheelchair across uneven terrain and up steep hills - for approx 10km.

Jannine and Sally let us know that they successfully completed the final stretch of their walk the following day, reaching the Cathedral on Sally's birthday. They are keen to make the kind of off-road wheelchairs that Sally uses available to others through Adversity to Adventure, see the 'related links' section on the Ramblings webpage.

Presenter: Clare Balding Producer: Karen Gregor

Transcript

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0:00.0	Why do some big successful brands go bust?
0:05.0	Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.
0:11.0	I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.
0:15.0	They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.
0:19.0	And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn?
0:25.4	It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive.
0:30.3	Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.2	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:40.1	Just ahead I can see a yellow arrow.
0:43.4	And it's pointing to the left and it says kilometres 9.233.
0:48.3	So it's only just over 9K to Santiago de Compostela.
0:52.2	And all of the marker stones have got the symbol of the way above
0:57.0	so a blue background and on it
0:58.6	this bright yellow
1:00.4	looks almost like a shooting star
1:02.2	but it's the scallop shell
1:03.9	it's just in lines though rather than all filled in
1:06.5	and over this series of ramblings
1:08.5	we are walking with lots of different people who are doing the Camino,
1:12.4	all of them having started in different places, but with one destination, the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela.
1:20.1	The two that I'm meeting today are doing the English route, so Camino Inglese.
1:26.2	And it's Janine Studeley and her mum, Sally.
	...

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