The Old Ways

The Old Ways – A Journey On Foot by Robert MacFarlane

It is quite rare that I read a book that immediately goes into my top-ten list of favourite non-fiction.

I came to Robert MacFarlane’s book after watching a TV documentary that he wrote about Nan Shepherd, the Patron Saint of the Cairngorms. I immediately read ‘The Living Mountain’ by Shepherd, and then by chance found a copy, brand new, of ‘The Old Ways’ in a charity shop. Being a romantic I liked the strange chance that led me to picking it up, and the many worlds that it opened up for me.

It’s as if Robert MacFarlane knows all the interesting, quirky and windswept landscapes that I love so much, has already visited them all, and tied it all up in one book.

This book is also a field guide for all the influences that can shape a person and their view of the world into one of affection, wisdom, and the love of walking. Whitman is here, Emerson, John Masefield, Dorothy Wordsworth, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and George Borrow. There are many side-roads that can be explored. An example is George Borrow. As a student I passed George Borrow Road in Norwich, and never gave it a second thought. In these pages the author describes Borrow, his life, and who he influenced.

Throughout, I kept thinking about the inheritance of great thinkers from one generation to the next, a little like the line of descent of eastern wisdom. At the end of Robert MacFarlane’s line of inheritance is Edward Thomas, the walker, writer, poet and soldier who died at Arras in 1917.

But to describe The Old Ways as a book about people doesn’t even get close to why it is magnificent. It is primarily a book about landscapes. MacFarlane senses that our long link to the earth beneath our feet is metaphorically and literally being eroded, and when the link is broken we stand to lose so much. He writes with beauty and care about how the ancient people of The British Isles tended their landscape, took care over the paths that run through it and over it, and how their lives contributed to it and it to them. From Neolithic times, when people first made an impression on the landscape through barrows, chalk cuts, pathways and stones, we have shaped the landscape and it has shaped us. With hundreds of carefully crafted examples, the author leads the reader through a series of landscapes and reminds him or her what is special and distinct. It is a major piece of great writing, and had me reaching for other books to learn more. We are connected by our footfall, and it is this that is the centre of Robert MacFarlane’s meditation.

The message, perhaps, is that we understand our land through physical movement across it. If we cut that link, how can we understand, and how can we think?

Pathways do not just exist on land. I enjoyed the writing about the sea-ways that until recent times were a very important part of the lives of so many people. There are chapters about the far north, the lost people who lived around the sea instead of around the land. We now look inwards to our road and rail networks – something that people in previous centuries would not understand. Instead, they considered the sea, and its relative ease of movement, to be at the centre of things. We are an island people, after all.

This book is primarily about the British Isles, but there are other adventures as well. There is a chapter about Ramallah, and how walking there is becoming a political act. There is also a section about the graceful and dangerous Minya Konka in Tibet.

It is when the writer returns to Britain and the land of Edward Thomas that the book makes most of the link between person and place. It is clear that Thomas is a hero. After reading this book, I felt compelled to add a little chapter of my own by making a detour in Northern France. With significant difficulty I managed to find Thomas’ grave at Agny, just south of Arras. As the book is so much about being out in the landscape, I decided to follow the advice.

This is a magnificent book. It takes some reflection and digestion. Read it, and start following some paths of your own that you have been putting off for so long. Leave the car at home.