The Final Leg - revision with example of really poor parenting skills

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Day Three

I managed to rip a little toe nail off in the morning and could not wear walking boots. So I had to put on my soft leather shoes, which have poor grips.

Arriving on the outskirts of Hebden Royd by bus, we went up from Brearley, following the way markers for Churn Milk Joan. The pathway is steep, very steep where it leaves the old trackway, passed forgotten meadows in the woods. I was excited to discover the first bluebells of the season had started to open.

Going up wasn't too bad because I could scramble, but it would have been very difficult to come down. Sophie fell over and cried, but dusted herself off and carried on. I was impressed by her attitude. The views were awesome, but the one photo we took is over exposed.

On Heights Road, we rested on a bench. Clearly, a popular destination for picnickers, the ground was littered with packets and cans. We continued up Chapel Lane and then onto the moors.

I managed to take a wrong turn into a field and impaled myself on barbed wire before my wife sensibly got us back on the track again. Whereupon we met an old guy bobbling down the hill. He told us the story of Churn Milk Joan, whom, he said, had died on the moors carrying milk in a blizzard. As a memorial, a grieving community erected a seven foot high stone. There's a local tradition that you should leave a few pence on the top as a tribute. He said he'd once put some pesetas on the top and then come back a week later to find all the English coins gone but the pesetas still there. When we arrived, I helped my daughter to place a 20p piece on the top. Then I got Aeisha to take my photo. The reason I'm holding my hat is because she made me take it off because she says I look silly in it.

There are other explanations of the origins of the site, well summed up in this article by local journalist, historian and co-operator, Andrew Bibby.

Next to Churn Milk Joan is yet another Crow Hill. This is the one most people say Ted Hughes was writing about in his poem of the same name. However, according to a friend, there are more than two Crow Hills in the area, so who knows..... However, there were at least some crows in the vicinity.

We crept along the Calderdale Way. Aeisha took a photo of some stones which look like they have sandstone deposits in them, near Cock Hill. This would make sense as it's sandy on the tops.

Going down by the side of the golf course, we made our way to Four Lane Ends, the pub at Old Town.

The photo shows the view toward Heptonstall just before the turn.

Arriving at the pub, we were fortunate: the landlord had decided to start opening it between 12 - 3pm on Thursdays, and we got there in time to order some soft drinks and look at the pigs in the adjacent field. The landlord told us that and they were owned by his wife, who was thinking of getting some oil to rub them down with to stop them from getting sun burn. This was the first time I'd heard about pig sun cream.

We walked straight down from there towards Dodd Naze, then took a right. The path was stony and a stream was flowing down it. My foot was in pain and it took me a long time make my way down but I was cheered by a friendly donkey in the next field who peered at me as I hobbled along, as if it was concerned for my health. Needless to say that my family had forged ahead and were waiting for me at the end of the path.

After this, we crossed the top of Nutclough, over Hurst Bridge and up the trackway to Hurst Road. Then down towards the river and the archery field (technically in Heptonstall).

Only one more part of the journey to do now. We let Sophie play in the river and decided to complete the walk the next day.

Day Four

Once again we started from home, this time going up through Eaves Wood, then passed Hell Hole Rocks. The photo is off a sunburnt me, leaning off the strange rock wall - possibly a moraine of some kind - that stands at an angle in front of Hell Hole Rocks.

Aeisha noticed that someone had written 'F**k' on it in yellow paint. 'Look,' she said, 'someone's written f**k on the rock'. Sophie piped up, 'Mummy, what does f**k mean? Is it a swear word?'. 'Me: 'Never you mind what f**k means, just keep walking. We don't want to hear it'. So on we went with our delightful daughter skipping around our feet going 'f**k, f**k, f**k'

 

There's a path above St James's church that hugs the hill roughly on the boundary with Heptonstall, so we followed that, before taking a turn up passed the back of Lime Avenue and the side of Heptonstall New Road. We came off that, passed some boats (of all things), and then down the steps, and towards the Archery field once more, by an old setted pathway that descends to the bottom of the valley.

The photo shows Sophie and me at the end of the journey. She'd forgotten about the new word by then, thank God.

We'd done it! Thanks to the photographer, my wife, Aeisha.

Walking for refugees - the first two days

I haven't organised a civic dinner this year because I can't stand them. Instead, I'm walking round the civil parish (CP) boundaries of Hebden Royd to raise money for refugees and other vulnerable people who need help. Anyway, my seven year old usually can't go to civic occasions because they're too stuffy or late. By doing this, I can include her.

If you want to donate, please email info@hebdenroyd.org.uk with your name, the amount and a contact address and email.

Doing a boundary walk isn't easy for two reasons. Firstly, the pathways don't always follow the boundary lines. So sometimes I have to walk around the border into other areas or walk within the boundary. Secondly, I have a variable mobility impairment so even when fully functioning cannot take rough tracks for very long without breaking down. So this walk is also about finding accessible routes in and around Hebden Royd for those who can walk, but not always very well.

Day One

We started from where we live down the steps into Colden Clough, over Colden Water and the Milking Bridge and up the perilous track on the other side that goes straight up to Jack Bridge Road. This marks the boundary with Heptonstall civil parish (CP). We were supposed to walk around the back of Savile Road but last time I tried that the path was hard and I was much younger and my legs worked all the time, so instead we walked down Savile Road, which follows more or less the same route, where my daughter found a stone wall with water tricking through tiny leafed weed.

After that we tried to join the pathway on the map but found ourselves going too far West into Erringden, so retraced our tracks and walked over the road by Stubbings Wharf, across the bridge over the canal and up the steps to the road to Horsehold.

Unfortunately, that nearly did for my wife, for her own medical reasons, and we had to sit on a bench and give her pain killers. She went yellow and grey and I was ready to send her back down the hill, but she continued in discomfort.

Rather than cut straight across to Stoodley Pike, so we could stay near the CP boundary, we walked to Old Chamber (rather than to Wood Top - my map skills at fault). Luckily, at Old Chamber we found a shed called 'The Honesty Box', which is an unofficial refreshment point, where you can buy farm free range eggs and make yourself tea and coffee, or help yourself to a tub of ice cream. You are asked to contribute a small amount for this service (hence the name). I made Aeisha, my wife, a cup of coffee and she started getting her colour back. Then I sat down with my daughter and ate some ice cream.

After this, we walked to Stoodley Pike along Pinnacle Lane, not by Rake Head as planned, as the route's too rough. I know Stoodley's in Todmorden but by going this way we encapsulate Hebden Royd. Pushing further on after a picnic overlooking the valleys, we continued down the Pennine Way before going East into Cragg Vale, passed Withens Clough reservoir.

I believe that there is a way over Withens Moor if you go by the storm drain. This takes in more of Hebden Royd than the route we'd chosen, but as you can see the land is barren and looks much as it did when the glaciers retreated. There's nothing there and I'm not confident that it would be accessible for me, so instead we aimed to skirt around the parts of the CP which humans have been able to inhabit.

We finished at St John's in the Wilderness, the church in Cragg Vale where Aeisha and I got married.

Day Two

We parked at Russell Dean's in Mytholmroyd and got the bus up Cragg Vale, getting off where we'd stopped the day before.

Taking the route passed the river and into the moors, by several ruined mills, we emerged at Trimming Dale, a very old West Riding working stone farmhouse, with angry tethered barking dogs. This place is like Wuthering Heights. Farming is the main occupation here and hard. There's a variety of farm machinery parked outside. On the day, there was also a pile of dead lambs. They looked like they'd been skinned, but who knows in what state nature'd left them? I had a young child with me and didn't want to go for a closer look (anyway, the dogs wouldn't have liked it if I did). So we walked up Sykes Gate, Sophie splashing in the nineteenth century setted storm drain that runs along the side of the metalled track.

Just after Sykes Farm, we turned right, then went up an old road, now just a rutted track between walls. We had beautiful views of Cragg, and beyond that, Stoodley Pike.

The track becomes Water Stalls Road and we'd have had an easy journey down into Mytholmroyd if we hadn't seen that the top of Little Crow Hill was circled by cows with a bull in the middle of them. Aeisha was all for going on but I can't run and I couldn't guarantee Sophie's safety so we took a longer route round, outside the CP, by taking some paths on the other side of Crow Hill. In fact, we more or less saw every side of Crow Hill except the side we were supposed to be on.

As it turned out, this was a good move because we came across a farm with horses and a huge cockerel that saw us and legged it up the track. The farmers were friendly and people smiled and waved at us from their cars.

We got onto Bower Slack Road and made our way down into the valley overlooking Sowerby and the beginning of Halifax, before turning left at Scarr Hall onto an old track called Tavern Road, passed a big jowly Boxer dog that looked at us sleepily before howling as we walked off. By this means, we more or less got back to where we were supposed to be, but then my map reading skills failed again. We started to struggle to find ways back down into the valley and my left knee became painful.

Rather than go straight down the CP border (to the white house you can see in the photo in the bottom of the valley), I limped along Scout Road, passed the old quarry and wood, and the cap over the asbestos dump from Acre Mill, stopping at the school, hugging my daughter to stay warm, as my wife went to collect the car and take us back home.

Walk for refugees and others in need of help - please donate

I will be walking around Hebden Royd's parish borders in aid of the St Augustine Centre in Halifax. The chaity helps vulnerable people, particularly asylum seekers and refugees, throughout Calderdale.

 

If you wish to donate, please send details of the amount and your contact details to info@hebdenroyd.org.uk

 

 

The St. Augustine's Centre, based on Hanson Lane in Halifax, is a community centre for anyone who needs help, advice or support. Based on the Christian faith which respects and values individuals, the Centre welcomes the vulnerable and cares for all, regardless of faith, ethnicity, background or any other factors.

For over 40 years the St Augustine Centre has offered a warm and welcoming environment for people to access support and advice from friendly workers and volunteers. When Archbishop John Sentamu of York visited St Augustine’s Centre, he said: “If we could replicated this in every community, the country would be a different nation.”

I wanted to support this marvellous charity but had to delay the walk over the winter because I have a mobility impairment, which gets worse in cold weather. Now it's Spring, I think I'm up to the 20 or so miles around the borders of Hebden Royd if I do it over a couple of days. The fact that the walk will take place over the Easter holidays couldn't be more appropriate because it reminds us of what it says in Matthew's gospel when it states that welcoming strangers is one of the foundation stones of the Christian faith.  Whether you're Christian or not, I think you can still be inspired by the humane values behind the verses, particularly: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me".

 

Hebden Royd is a lovely place, but it's part of a bigger world in which there is a huge humanitarian crisis - there are now more refugees than at any time since world war two, though we only have about 250 in Calderdale. So in walking around our beautiful peaceful area, I shall be paying tribute to people from other places which are not so fortunate, and to those people from around here who are troubled and who find peace in the centre.