To save a life is a real and beautiful thing. To make a home for the homeless, yes, it is a thing that must be good; whatever the world may say, it cannot be wrong.
Vincent Van Gogh
This week I interrupt my usual sharing of my explorations of the Northeast to bring you something of London as I ventured back there again last weekend.
Regular readers will know that each year I participate in the 'Big London Walk' in support of the Big Issue Foundation. In January of last year, I shared in a piece on why I support that charity's work. If you missed that piece at the time and would like to know why, then search out the title that is, not surprisingly, 'London Walk'.
This year's walk took place last Friday night and given all the dire warnings of snow and ice leading up to the event, I wondered whether it would take place as I travelled from the Northeast. I left a Blaydon under a light icing-sugaring of snow on Thursday morning, with Amber and Yellow weather warnings covering most of the country. The further I travelled south, the more snow strewn the countryside, with ever-thickening snow fluttering from on high.
Yet come Friday came the walk. The snowing ceased, and the fallen snow disappeared. What had not disappeared as I travelled into London around Friday lunchtime was the bracing breeze that had been my constant companion since I closed the front door of my home in Blaydon behind me. Whenever I ventured out from the warmth of a train carriage, cafe, pub, or my London hotel, that breeze threw its sub-zero arms around me in an eye-watering embrace. And then, as if magic, that wind fell away an hour or so before the walk. It was as if the wind knew there was no longer a need for its companionship as I fell in with those about to accompany me on the walk.
As the walkers gathered excitedly, we chatted about what lay ahead. The walk I was to embark upon was one of several that vary in length (the longest is twenty-six miles) but also in the route that’s taken. When people sign up on the walk to raise money, they also choose the most appropriate route and distance for them depending on their fitness and mobility; of course, the longer the walk, the more one seeks in sponsorship. I’ll therefore pause here to thank all my sponsors for their incredible generosity this year. All I must do is walk a few kilometres. They have to part with their hard-earned cash. So, a huge thanks to all those who parted with such cash to support a very deserving cause. Once upon a time, I undertook longer distances, but age and arthritis are catching up with me, so this time, it was the shorter 10 km walk that I embarked upon.
Irrespective of the route and distance, everyone stepped off on their walk near St Martin-in-the-Fields just off Trafalgar Square with staggered times for the different lengths (and, in some cases, staggering finishes too). As always, we walkers left to much clapping, whooping, and cheering that buoys us all ahead of our endeavour. Very soon, you begin chatting to fellow walkers, and this again happened with conversations ranging from holidays in Tuscany to chats on history and taking advantage of opportunities.
The route the 10 km walkers followed first took us into a buzzy Covent Garden with its animated visitors and busy shops and restaurants. Then under the gaze of the towering Freemasons Hall, it was along Holborn before veering slightly north into Farringdon, where we passed Smithfield Market. An area that will soon become the new home of the Museum of London. Then came the Brutalism that is the Barbican. I know some who read this much like it, but I confess it is not my cup of architectural tea. Maybe that’s partly driven by the fact that in past years I've slugged around it on the last miles of longer walks that, in those days, ended in Shoreditch.
After the Barbican, it was on to Liverpool Street station. Whenever I pass that way, I marvel at how much it has transformed from when I first travelled to and from it some fifty or so years ago on moving to London. Then, from that glass and steel empire, it was to Whitechapel, at which point we hung a right at Aldgate station to begin our return trip.
Skirting a now quiet Leadenhall Market, we made for that pillar to the Great Fire that is the Monument. Keeping up the pace, it was then on to the Mansion House. That impressive home of London's Lord Mayor. That role predates the more recent political appointee of Mayor by some nine hundred years. Then, from impressive, we came upon the magnificent. The grandeur that is St Pauls Cathedral was bathed in a silvery-grey light. And, of course, with thoughts of my father, I nodded towards the National Firefighters Memorial that stands between that lofty dome and the Millennium Bridge.
Leaving Christopher Wren's masterpiece behind, we were very much on the home leg as we passed Temple with its ancient church on one side and the Gothic towers of the Royal Courts of Justice on the other before coming upon what I am old enough to remember was the public records office of Somerset House before their move to Kew. Our finish was now almost in sight, and as we passed the Savoy and strode down the Strand, I could see Lord Nelson standing aloft in the distance as a ghostly beacon for our finish.
And as we had left, so we returned to friendly accolades and smiling aplenty at St Martin. In my case, having covered the distance in just on two hours.
As ever when finishing the walk. The legs felt a little weary, but there was so much adrenaline coursing through the veins that tiredness seemed a long way off, although I decided to catch the tube back to my little hotel near Euston rather than walk!!
And you don't have to walk miles to help those without homes. Just buy the Big Issue each week. Prices are rising, and everyone is watching the pennies, but the magazine costs less than a pint of beer, about the same as a Starbucks or Costa coffee offering or a box of popcorn in the cinema. Every time we buy a Big Issue, we help someone seeking to change their life by giving them a hand-up, not a handout.
Isn't that a lovely thought? For less than the price of a popcorn box, you might change someone's life ...
Thank you Andrew - thought you might appreciate a ‘silent’ mention. It was a very enjoyable stroll. Hope all goes well with you.
Well done Harry on completing the walk and yes, I do like the Barbican!