Some of you may recall from our old site a mention of three young men known as Ed, Will and Ginger who were travelling around Britain living off the land where possible and singing traditional english folk songs for their supper. Well they’re still out and about, all be it minus one.
I was pleased to see that Ed and Will are still making their journeys around our beautiful Isles on foot. I recall from their first jouney that they were very organised when it came to surviving outdoors and had even copied a shrinken down version of a survival manual covering the the things you need to know such as foraging, shelter, fire making, plant identification etc.
They give a great explanation of why they are doing what they do…this is an extract:
The journey gives encounters that can shake everything previously learned, meetings whose significance seems to echo through earliest memories. Walking allows fate to get closer.
This doesn’t mean it is easy, simply unfolding before you. Walking requires full immersion, observation in all directions, or you’ll get wet and take a bus home. The journey demands as much as it gives.
And this is the greatest trick we’ve learned about walking: Always carry something with you to give, and give it away as often as possible.
For us this was songs, which weigh little and rarely run out. Songs, like journeys, are strange entities with lives of their own. They are learned, adapted, and released with love, and into unknown ears they disappear, racing to their unfathomable destinies.
Singing is not the only way. We know also of walking spoon-makers, who carve and peddle their green-woodworking, and this seems to work too.
So find your gift, and let the journey be your apprenticeship and tutor. Your skills will surely blossom.
And each time you turn a corner, climb a hill, and meet someone, to deliver your gift, you will be forging an open path for those journeyfolk who come behind. A trail of understanding, reciprocity, knowledge and culture is created, just as it always has been.
And that’s why we go walking.
They also caught the attention of the BBC who featured them on Secret Britain:
Their website is certainly worth a visit: http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com
Good luck to them, I’ve great admiration for what they are doing!