The Hoo Peninsula, Kent

Ramblings

BBC

Nature, Places & Travel, Society & Culture, Science

4.5 • 768 Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2018

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Clare Balding is walking in someone else’s shoes for this edition of Ramblings.

She’s joined, on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent, by the artist, Clare Patey and the author, Roman Krznaric. They are – respectively – the Director and Founder of The Empathy Museum. On their walk from Gravesend Station to the Cliffe Pools Nature Reserve, Clare and Roman describe one of the Empathy Museum’s projects: “A Mile in My Shoes”.

Inspired by the saying: “Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins” the project travels the UK, and the world, in a shipping container which is decorated as a gigantic shoe-box. Inside are rows of other people’s shoes, and audio-recordings of their own personal stories. The idea is that visitors wear a pair of shoes, and go for a walk, while listening to the shoe owner’s story.

The stories range from a Herefordshire farmer discussing his search for love (you wear a pair of his old work boots to walk and listen) to a former sex worker (red high heels). For part of this walk, Clare Balding will wear a pair of fluffy pink slippers and hear a powerful tale.

The idea behind the project is to expose listeners to the stories of people they wouldn’t otherwise meet, in order to promote empathy. The project has a podcast – the link is further down on this web-page.

Producer: Karen Gregor

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Eleven climbers appeared to have died on the world's second highest mountain K2.
0:06.0	It was one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history.
0:10.0	Rock falls, avalanches.
0:11.0	Huge pieces of ice. All are big enough to kill you.
0:14.0	He just flew out into Devoid and he was gone.
0:17.0	How did it all go so wrong?
0:19.0	And is it really worth risking death to feel alive? Why would
0:23.2	somebody pay to go to a place called the death cell on a vacation? Extreme, peak danger. With me,
0:29.9	Natalia Melman Petrazella. Listen to the full series now first on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Claire Boulding.
0:36.3	Thank you so much for downloading this podcast.
0:38.7	I hope you enjoy ramblings.
0:41.1	I'm standing at Gravesend Station,
0:43.1	and the train I'm looking at is a high-speed
0:44.9	South Eastern train.
0:45.8	It takes about 20 minutes or something from London to get here.
0:48.5	This one is called Sir Chris Hoy,
0:50.8	and the one before was called Sir Mo Farrah,
0:53.1	which I think is very cool. Obviously, I would find that interesting.
0:56.7	This is a ramblings of the difference because we're starting off in the urban surroundings of Gravesend.
1:00.5	We're going to be walking towards, well, I'm not quite sure, actually. Claire Patey, who's with me, as the director of the Empathy Museum, you've wrecked the walk, haven't you?
1:07.8	I have, and I'm hoping to lead us not into too much temptation.
1:12.6	Yes. Or whatever. And is it a route that has a tail attached to it? A personal tail? Yeah.
	...

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