In Search of the Old Ways

Ramblings

BBC

Science, Nature, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2013

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Clare Balding walks with the celebrated author and academic, Robert Macfarlane who takes her from his home in Cambridge out onto the Icknield Way. For a man known to love mountains, Robert explains how he's slowly come to love the tame lowlands of Cambridgeshire and how he now relies on climbing trees to give him height and views. While Clare is not tempted to join him at the top of an accommodating beech tree, she's happy to admire the graffiti left on the bark. Walking out in the summer sunshine Robert shares his fascination for the ancient tracks, drove-roads and sea paths that criss-cross the British Countryside. Producer Lucy Lunt.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I want to tell you why I love podcasting. Hi, my name's Tommy Dixon,
0:06.3	and I make podcasts for the BBC. I'm a big fan of stories, always loved a good book. But when I started
0:12.0	commuting for my first job, I discovered podcasts. I was blown away by how a creative idea and the right
0:17.8	mixture of sounds could take you into a whole new world full of incredible stories. You know, the type that make you go, wow. And that kind of inspired me to
0:25.2	give it a go myself, which to cut a long story short led to a BBC training scheme and a whole
0:29.9	new career giving other people that exact same feeling. So if you want to hear amazing stories
0:34.1	that make you go wow like I did, they're just a tap or click away on BBC
0:38.0	sounds. This is a BBC Radio 4 download. You're listening to me, Claire Boulding with another
0:44.4	edition of ramblings. I think it's one of the great joys of life to be able to shut your front door
0:54.7	walk out and know that you could go for hours, days or weeks
0:59.2	and that's exactly what Robert MacFarlane did
1:02.1	because you live very close to the Ickneald Way
1:04.4	which is the most ancient is it of all of Britain's footpaths?
1:08.4	Well we don't know really but it's probably 5,000 years old,
1:12.2	might be Roman, but it's a really old way.
1:15.1	And you decided, right, I'm going to walk this,
1:18.3	and then that took you on this incredible journey
1:20.4	across all of Europe following what you call the old ways.
1:25.8	Yeah, well, I mean, the paths join up with one another and we're
1:28.9	i mean we're walking we're on tarmac now we're on on a on a local road but we're going to pick up a
1:34.2	little field path and the field path will lead us to a roman road and the roman road will lead us the
1:39.1	oakneald way and then that is this immense thoroughfare that joins up with the ridgeway and all the other famous old trackways
	...

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