Free As A Bird:Trailblazers:A Rocky Mountain Road Trip.

I'd never heard of Isabella Bird. She is just one of many many women who have been more or less written out of history and, in recent years - finally, is being written back into it. She was a fascinating character. Born in Yorkshire in 1831, by the age of 41 she was suffering with a bad back and a general 'malaise'. Advised to get some fresh air she headed off to the Rocky Mountains in America in 1873 and from there she never looked back.

On horseback, she rode eight hundred miles across the Rockies in three months. She met pioneers panning for gold, she helped cowboys wrangle cattle, climbed 14,000ft high Longs Peak (in men's shoes three sizes too big for her and a dress), faced down grizzly bears, and ate cherry kernels from the stomach of a dead bear when there was no other food to be found. She even fell for a one eyed alcoholic ruffian called Mountain Jim. She was four foot and eleven inches tall.

In Trailblazers:A Rocky Mountain Road Trip (BBC2/iPlayer), Ruby Wax, Mel B, and Emily Atack tell her story while going on their Rockies road trip (though in a Jeep rather than horseback). At the same time they manage to uncover a few obvious, and a few less obvious, truths about American society both then and now as well as tease each other relentlessly and muck about a far old bit.

It's educational, sure, but more than that it's heart-warming and charming. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Their journey starts in Cheyenne, Wyoming for a look at taxidermy and a meal of Rock Island deep fried oysters which, spoiler alert, are not oysters at all but bull's testicles. Yum.

The rest of the journey, apart from one brief stop in Utah's Moab (the red rock desert where Thelma and Louise died), is all in Colorado. They travel from Estes Park (9,000ft high peaks with "health in every breath of air" and now a tourist destination") to the gambling mecca of Central City (once the site of a gold rush and nicknamed the richest square mile on Earth) and on to Aspen, a ski resort and billionaire's playground where rich divorced men come to meet young attractive women and where there's a ludicrously priced hat shop (a mere hat band may set you back $6,000) with an attached cocktail bar.

In Aspen they learn about something called the 'paradise paradox'. Despite all its wealth many in Aspen are very unhappy and the city has a very high suicide rate. The bluegrass festival in Durango looks much more fun and life affirming and the people living off the grid in the desert ghost town of Cisco seem much happier in their lot. Atack describes the former railway town as looking like an "abandoned Alton Towers".

Ruby, Mel, and Emily visit Colorado's spiritual centre, home of Native American ceremonies, and - this is America - UFO hotspot, Crestone and when they attend a festival with the indigenous Ute tribe (all bear dances and talk of sweat lodges) they learn that the dream for them is not ever increasing wealth but, quite simply, self-sufficiency.

It's quite telling. Being in America, we obviously touch on guns, God, and a greedy destruction of nature (which, admittedly, is hardly unique to the US) and equally obviously we take in some of the most awesome and breathtaking scenery the planet has to offer but we keep coming back to that thorny old concept, the American Dream.

For many the American Dream seems to be tied up with consumerism and worship of money. It's been such an powerful driving force in US history that entire forests were cut down, millions of buffalo were slaughtered, and it ultimately resulted in the near genocide of all 'Indian' people. On the day that Donald Trump has been indicted and is suspected to use that to stir up hate and division in the country this seems as relevant now as ever.

But Ruby Wax, Mel B, and Emily Atack aren't Simon Schama, Ken Burns, or Adam Curtis and they're not here to get political. They're in Colorado to have some fun and try new experiences while they learn about Isabella Bird. We see them horse riding, rock climbing, fishing, wandering around in snow shoes, off roading, trying rodeo, allowing wolves to lick their faces, drinking Bourbon with pickle juice chasers, sasquatch hunting, and 'stumbling' on an old mining town, Gold Hill, which looks like a Wild West Hollywood film set.

They even make a mural of Isabella Bird. While some of the pranks appear to be staged the chemistry between the three presenters comes across as genuine. They sing Wannabe in the Jeep, when Ruby drives (terribly) Mel B becomes a very persistent back seat driver and Emily even takes time out to swipe on celebrity Tinder halfway up a mountain. She's big with the selfies too and has a very crude, very British, sense of humour. Giggling at a horse's multi-coloured dick and barely able to control herself when she's introduced to a musical instrument called a growler.

Set to a soundtrack of Johnny Cash, Blondie, Steppenwolf, Shania Twain, Lil Nas X, Woody Guthrie, Whitney Houston, LeAnn Rimes, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cyndi Lauper, Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Denver, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, First Aid Kit, and Doc Watson's wonderfully evocative Freight Train Boogie, it's all great fun.

A fun way to learn. I warmed to all three presenters. I didn't really know anything about Emily Atack beforehand but she seemed to go on the biggest mental, and emotional, journey of all three. Obviously I know who Mel B is (she was one of The Spice Girls for FFS, she even reveals here that Geri and Emma were her two favourites) but despite being ironically scared of lots of things she seemed a good sport and it was hard not to laugh when she mixed up the words yeti and jetty and then, later on, flagellation and flatulation. For some reason, I'm not sure why, I've never been a fan of Ruby Wax but she won me over here by singing the Beverly Hillbillies theme tune and telling stories of being the daughter of Austrian immigrants and being bullied at school for speaking German. All three of them were great but Isabella Bird? She was a bad-ass.

Chasing Rainbows:Murder In The Pacific.

I remember the sinking of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior back in 1985. I was sixteen at the time. That's nearly forty years ago so, perhaps understandably, I don't remember much detail about the event. Murder In The Pacific (BBC2/iPlayer, directed by Chloe Campbell) has received good reviews so I thought I'd give it a look.

I must admit though. I wondered how they'd stretch it out for three nearly hour long episodes. Quite easily it turned out. By telling the story pretty much day by day, by using reenactments and dramatisations, with archive televsion footage, with scores of talking heads (from Guardian reporters and other journalists to deck hands and the captain of the Rainbow Warrior - Peter Willcox, from various Auckland police to Michael Hesltine (then UK Defence Secretary) and Malcolm Rifkind (then a junior minister in the Foreign Office) and even a lady from a car rental company), and powered along by Raphaelle Thibaut's dramatic score, Murder In The Pacific was a lot more interesting, and intriguing, than I'd expected.

Even moving in places. Back in 1985, in Jacksonville, Florida, Greenpeace are getting a former North Sea trawler ready for its journey across the world's largest ocean. It's got a predictably hippy vibe on the surface but there are experienced sailors on board too. As well as journalists and photographers to tell the story. The Rainbow Warrior even had a dark room.

The plan was to sail to Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands where the US had been testing nuclear bombs, some larger than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since 1946. After being awarded the Marshall Islands following the end of World War II, the US were supposed to be looking after them but, instead, it appeared they were ruthlessly exploiting them.

Though testing had ended by the time the Rainbow Warrior set sail the legacy, in the form of contamination - both of the land and of the people, was still very much in evidence. Nuclear fallout in Rongelap had caused islanders hair to fall out, to suffer severe pain, and every single islander had a scar on their neck where their thyroid had been removed. Some children had suffered stunted growth and one baby was born without a single bone in its body.

We hear US reports from the time that refer to the Marshallese as "amenable savages" but some on Rongelap were savvy enough to get in touch with Greenpeace and ask for their help in moving to another, less contaminated atoll, about one hundred and fifty miles away. Greenpeace agreed.

When, on 17th May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior reached the "extremely beautiful" island they were welcomed with a song and then roughly three hundred of them, and all of their stuff, were relocated to the island of Mejetto. The fishing wasn't good there and the soil wasn't fertile but at least it wasn't full of nuclear contamination. The community remain there to this day.

The next mission for the Rainbow Warrior and her crew was to try and stop the French carrying out a nuclear test in French Polynesia. They'd been testing at Mururoa Atoll since the sixties and, unlike the Americans, were still doing so.

The plan was to head to New Zealand and spend a fortnight there resupplying the Rainbow Warrior before heading to Mururoa. On the 10th July a party was held on the boat for someone's birthday but later that same night two explosions happened on the Rainbow Warrior. Peter Willcox had been asleep but when the bombs woke him up he quickly called for all to abandon ship.

Within forty seconds the Rainbow Warrior had sunk. With one crew member on it. A young parent. Dedicating your life to Greenpeace, Willcox says now, shouldn't mean giving up your life.

It soon became apparent that it had been no accident but who had bombed the Rainbow Warrior? Suspects were many. Greenpeace had made lots of enemies. A homicide inquiry began. A big one. One of the, possibly the, biggest New Zealand had ever seen. It was headed up by "dour Scotsman" DSI Allan Galbraith who, interviewed then and now, comes across as decent and methodical.

The final two thirds of Murder In The Pacific are dedicated to that homicide inquiry and police investigation and it's quite a ride. It takes in dinghies, yachts, camper vans, a motel on Norfolk Island, Interpol, secret agents, and, possibly, state terrorism. Eventually all the evidence starts to point in one very clear direction but will the New Zealand police find the culprits, the killers, and, if so, will they be made accountable?

Murder In The Pacific reminds us of a time when photocopiers and fax machines were impressive and bamboozling bits of kit but it also reminds us of a time when those on the right thought that Greenpeace were KGB stooges either intentionally, or unintentionally, helping the Kremlin. It also shows that powerful people are very hard to bring to justice. More than anything it reminded me of what amazing work Greenpeace did back then. It remains a crime that someone died for trying to make the world a better place. 

Send Me A Postcard:Execution Postcards.

"They're selling postcards of the hanging" - Desolation Row, Bob Dylan

We've all sent and received a postcard. What do you think of when you think of the image on the front? A beach? A historic castle or palace? Some beautiful scenery? What about somebody being garrotted in Mexico or an Italian firing squad shooting someone dead?

Last night I joined the London Fortean Society at The Bell in Whitechapel for The Brutality of Spectacle:A Brief History of the Execution Postcard to hear a little about these grisly, and seemingly once popular, artefacts. I wasn't sure if it would be particularly interesting, it is a little niche, but it turned out to be a great evening. Although one that is hard to capture in blog form because it was highly discursive.

I'll give it a go. The speakers, historian Jennifer Wallis and conceptual artist John B Bernard - a couple who met and got together, when he showed her his etchings/execution postcards, began by outlining how death and photography had long gone hand in hand. In the early days of photography, it was not uncommon to take a photo of a dead family member to remember them by.

That's something we'd probably blanch at now - preferring to remember people in life rather than after death - but it didn't seem to worry the Victorians. Even that though is hardly comparable to sending a jauntily written postcard to a friend, family member, or sweetheart with a cover image of a bandit gang stoned to death in Afghanistan, a Chinese strangulation device in operation, or black men being lynched in America.

Some are in the form of illustrations but it's the photographs that disturb the most. The lynching photo shows a joyful crowd of white folk, some in their Sunday best, gleefully celebrating both the lynching and the photo op. They're not ashamed to be there. They're proud. It's a family event. As the Chinese prisoners are gradually strangled by horrific torture devices a seemingly unbothered crowd mills around a market stall in the background. 

As if it's absolutely no big deal. That's what happens with othering and dehumanisation. The French philosopher Georges Bataille noted that some people, on the point of execution, seem to appear both in extreme agony and almost somehow joyful. In the case of the Chinese victims of lin-chi (where you have your body slowly cut up into about hundred or more pieces, the death by a thousand cuts) that may be because they've been given opium before execution so that they don't die too quickly and can fully experience the pain of their own death.

Families of some of those subjected to lin-chi would bribe executioners to make a stab in the heart right at the start so that they at least die quickly. Albert Camus observed not so much the "joy" of the victims but how much the gathering crowds who watch these grim spectacles seemed to get off on it. As long as humans are fascinated by death, to an almost pornographic degree, there's always a danger of this happening.

Wallis and Bernard are looking at creating both an exhibition and an academic book on these execution postcards but they admitted they had moral qualms that they had not yet fully squared. Some of the images shown were cropped and there was a lot of talk of gatekeeping, positionality, and how an image of, for example, a lynching may be viewed very differently by a black person than it would be by a white person.

During the Q&A, I was tempted to ask a question wondering if there were ever any British equivalents to these postcards and then I looked around the pub I was in. It was in Whitechapel so they were selling Jack the Ripper t-shirts and promoting Jack the Ripper walks (on the way to and from the pub I passed the controversial Jack the Chipper fish and chip shop) and I soon realised that we're not really that different.

We're all fascinated by death but I'm certainly glad that most sane countries in the world country have got rid of the death penalty and we no longer gather in crowds to watch people die and then send postcards to celebrate the experience. Thanks to Dewi, Jade, Michael, Tim, Paula, and Jackie for joining me last night, thanks to David and the LFS for hosting, and thanks to Jennifer and John for a fascinating talk about a very grim subject.

Abortion.

I don't have a view on abortion. It's not my place to. I'll never be pregnant. I'm a man. I think it's up to women themselves to choose and not for me to tell them. If, and this is a highly unlikely scenario, I'd ever impregnated somebody I would hope they would at least discuss it with me before making a decision but that decision, ultimately, would be theirs.

In that respect, that means I'm 'pro-choice' rather than 'pro-life' but I don't think those terms really help anybody. A lot of the pro-life brigade seem to think life ends at birth. They fully support policies that ensure infant poverty and often they are vehemently in favour of having no restrictions on gun ownership. They don't seem very pro-life then.

Last night's Skeptics in the Pub - Online talk, The Social and Cutural Factors Influencing Attitudes To Abortion, was not about whether or not abortion is morally right or morally wrong. Both speakers, Dr Lora Adair (a senior lecturer at Brunel University in Uxbridge) and Dr Nicole Lozano (an assistant professor in psychology at Angelo State University in Texas), were firmly pro-choice and they were there to talk more about what influences people's attitudes on abortion.

After all, lots of women have abortions, it's estimated that one in three of the female population of the UK will have one, but very few speak about the experience and even fewer speak about it publicly. You almost certainly know somebody who has had an abortion and hasn't told you.

The evening kicked off with a story about a woman called Diamond. Diamond became pregnant as a teenager. She was quite naive and she didn't know who she could talk to about it. So she spoke to her mum. Her mum told her that if she had an abortion she'd never be able to have kids. That simply isn't true. It's a popular abortion myth to go along with the oft told lie that having an abortion can give a woman breast cancer.

But Diamond believed her mum and she had the baby. Though Diamond, now, does not regret bringing her child in to the world she does regret that she was not told the truth when she was pregnant. When Diamond became pregnant for a second time, this time better informed, she chose to have an abortion.

The reason for telling this story is because it's one that illustrates how people's attitudes about, and knowledge of, abortions affects whether they choose to have one or not. Dr Lozano's research has been primarily carried out in rural Texas and her takeaways have been that denying women access to abortions can create many problems.

These mothers may face economic hardship for years and years, they may have their credit scores lowered and be forced into debt, and having an essentially unwanted child may force them to stay with violent partners. Violent partners who may indeed insist on yet more children. Unsurprisingly, the development and well being of the children involved is often affected too.

Abortions are relatively safe procedures nowadays. Being forced to give birth is far more dangerous. For some women, it is life threatening. Yet some women still feel stigma and shame about accessing abortion services. Some people tell them that by having an abortion they're killing a baby and nobody wants to do that.

But why should one person care what one other person does with their uterus? Dr Adair proposed, quite controversially I thought, that judging and controlling other people has, historically, been quite useful for human society. Spitting indoors and poor food hygiene being things that society has deemed socially unacceptable and if you were to spit indoors or run a disgusting kitchen you'd be looked down upon. This, in a way, forces people not to do those things and makes life safer for everyone.

Reproductive rights are less clear and in trying to look at how people form their attitudes on abortion, Dr Adair first looked at which kind of people, broadly speaking, disprove of abortion. She found it was mostly older people, mostly men, mostly people of a religious persuasion, mostly less well educated people, and mostly more conservative minded people.

Obviously there is much nuance and there are many exceptions but, on the whole, those findings won't be a major surprise to most of us. On a country level, studies show that anti-abortion attitudes are more prominent in very religious countries and countries with very restrictive abortion laws. Of course there's a big, almost pregnant, bulge in the middle of that Venn diagram.

In March 2022, a survey was taken on attitudes to abortion. People were surveyed in four countries (UK, USA, India, and Mexico). Roughly 50% male, 50% female, 87% heterosexual, and with a wide range of political views and an average age of forty-one years old. The countries involved have huge differences in the amount of gender inequality (the UK is the most equal, India falls very far behind) and very different attitudes about casual sex.

But gender inequality didn't seem to affect attitudes as much as perhaps some people would expect. The graph was very confusing but it seemed pretty much to confirm everything written in the previous few paragraphs. In both the UK and India it is easier to access an abortion than it is in either Mexico or the USA and, whaddya know?, survey respondents in India and the UK had more liberal attitudes to abortion than those in Mexico and the USA.

So it seems that a country's laws don't just change how viable it is to access a safe abortion but how people in those countries feel about it. That's why the June 2022 reversal of Roe v Wade by the US Supreme Court is so pernicious. Abortion is now fully banned in thirteen American states and they're not all in the south. They stretch from West Virginia to Idaho and from Wisconsin to Texas.

When laws change it changes how people think. In some cases it gives them permission to entertain thoughts they may have already had in the back of their heads. This is dangerous for women and it's dangerous for society and it's where the talk ended because time was running out. It was interesting even if it had not been particularly conclusive.

But then how could it be? This is one hot topic that's not going anyway any time soon. The Q&A took in anti-vaxxing, bodily autonomy, benevolent sexism (!), the United Nations, human rights, some more Roe v Wade for good measure, and The Satanic Temple of Salem, Massachusetts which looks fascinating and had me thinking of signing up. Especially as they don't actually worship Satan but instead work together to promote broadly progressive causes. 

Including reproductive rights. I'd like to thank Dr Lora Adair and Dr Nicole Lozano for an interesting and informative talk and also to thank Kat Ford from Merseyside Skeptics and her cat (which is called cat, Kat's cat Cat) for hosting and, as ever, Skeptics in the Pub - Online for making these fortnightly Thursday evenings something to look forward to. 

 

Fleapit revisited:Sex On Screen.

"If you were asked to do something, especially by a man, you did it" - Jane Fonda

"The Hollywood machine is something to be survived" - Rose McGowan

Sex On Screen (directed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, part of BBC4's Storyville strand and currently available to watch on the iPlayer) tells a story that won't surprise many. It tells a story of female actors sitting topless, or naked, in large airy rooms surrounded by fully dressed men, it tells a story of women told that if they don't take their clothes off their careers will flounder, and it tells of male actors and directors exploiting that situation to satisfy their own desires.

It is, of course, quite depressing. When the director Angela Robinson talks about how everyone learns how to behave, sexually and otherwise, from the movies I felt seen. Sex education at school was rudimentary and medical, my parents are certainly not the type to sit their kids down and give them a talk about the birds and the bees, and if I believed the kids in the school playground I'd think some men have 12ft long penises and that vaginal openings were perfectly spherical.

So I stayed up late watching Channel 4 'red triangle' films hoping to see some sex or at least some nudity. As many my age did. In the 1990s, The Bare Facts Video Guide listed the exact minute in several films where you could see boobs, bums, fannies, and willies. Teenage boys and young men soon became masters of the pause button. Masturbators of the pause button too.

But all of this was for men. As the film maker Karyn Kusama correctly points out in Sex On Screen, there are lot of people, a lot of women and girls especially, who are not catered for by these films. Films where the men 'act' and the women are looked at. Some women interviewed talk of once desperately wanting to be the 'object' of desire. Wanting to be objectified.

Sex On Screen doesn't have a traditional narration. It lets the women involved, along with a few men, tell the story from their own personal experience. So we hear from the likes of Fonda, McGowan, Kusama, Robinson, Rosanna Arquette, Lauren "Lolo" Spencer, Sheryl Lee, and David Simon as well as body doubles, film scholars, visual effects artists, writers, and producers. As well as lots of other female actors I probably should have heard of but haven't.

There are clips from a wide range of films and television shows and they all have, of course, one thing in common. Showgirls, Basic Instinct, Fifty Shades Of Grey, Body Of Evidence, Midnight Cowboy, Barbarella, The Sex Lives Of College Girls, The Deuce, Jennfer's Body, American Psycho, Boogie Nights, Gone With The Wind (!), The Color Purple, Game Of Thrones, Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe, Live And Let Die, Pretty Woman, Psycho, Coffy, Carnal Knowledge, and, er, Ace Ventura:Pet Detective come at sex in a number of different ways but all help to build up a picture of an industry, and a county - USA, that finds it easier to come to terms with violence than it does sex.

It tells a long history of showgirls. Of literally showing girls. It talks of a long history of young male writers who don't know, and don't want to know, a woman's perspective on sex. But limited imaginations result in limited choice and the sex we see on screen is often the sex we, we men, like to imagine. Idealised, prettified, and not very real.

Perhaps surprisingly, it wasn't always this way. In the late twenties and early thirties, about 50% of films were written by women. The likes of Mae West, Greta Garbo, and Bette Davis are described in Sex On Screen as both "naughty" and "dangerous".

They had agency. But the Hollywood Production Code, or Hays Code, changed that. Film makers were banned from suggesting sex outside of marriage, there was to be no interracial kissing, no kissing at all that lasted longer than three seconds, and married couples would be shown to sleep in single beds. Interesting or nuanced women's roles in films had been all but destroyed.

But when sex returned to the silver screen things had changed. When censorship was severely eased, Hollywood went from showing romance without sex to showing sex without romance. Female actors were told, often by male directors, that appearing nude on screen would be empowering for them. Some female actors believe it was and still is. Others don't and talk of leaving their body or going into 'blackout' when having to act out a sex scene. It is to Sex On Screen's great credit that both voices are heard.

Of course, sex was still primarily shown as something to titillate men. Particularly white men. That meant lesbian scenes played out as male fantasies. That meant very few women of colour were shown to have active sex lives. Overweight, and disabled, people fared even worse and trans people? That's a whole other debate and one that films, historically, have either steered clear of or got painfully wrong.

With the advent of the Internet and social media in recent decades, nude scenes don't disappear quickly either. They're made into GIFs and uploaded to websites like PornHub and AZNUDE and, often, people are free to make whatever comment they like beneath them. As prurient, as hurtful, or as abusive as they wish. Imagine having reviews of your body and your (perceived) sexual performance stored online for anyone to view whenever they want.

The body double Marli Renfro describes how, during her career, she was treated "like a chicken dinner:- bring out the legs, bring out the beast, bring out the thigh". Things are improving now and we see scenes of an intimacy co-ordination training class (how to mime a blow-job, watching some very sadistic sex scenes in older films) and a part about how agreements now work.

They're quite involved. An actor may agree to show side boob but not nipple or set a limit on how much bum crack can be shown beneath a slipping towel. In the past many men involved in the film industry simply demanded nudity and sacked female actors who refused to provide it. Blake Edwards and James Franco don't come out of this film looking very good.

Others, of course, went even further. We all know about Harvey Weinstein - current home the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, but I'd never heard of Kip Pardue who sexually violated the actor Sarah Scott on set and seemed to believe that in doing so he was simply enjoying the 'perks' of the job.

Sex On Screen does a good job of naming and shaming individuals who deserve to be named and shamed but it also takes in a whole range of things. From the Victorian photographer Eadweard Muybridge to merkins and modesty garments, from the rise of hardcore pornography to Andy Warhol and the sixties and seventies sexual revolution, and from blaxploitation films to #MeToo and Time's Up. Most of all it tackles an unrelenting, and often squalid, male gaze.

There's a telling moment very early on in Sex On Screen when one interviewee talks about how winning an Oscar means you don't have to get naked anymore. When I Googled to find out who I could attribute that quote to I couldn't find an answer but I was directed to "15 Oscar-Winning Nude Scenes" and "Actresses that got COMPLETELY NAKED onscreen" which, I think, tells you how far we've still got to go.

Sex On Screen does end feeling a bit more positive about how desire and sexuality are now being portrayed on screen but I rather suspect this journey has only just begun and there will probably be more than a few wrong turns along the way. At least it seems like there's a map now.

 

TADS #54:Hook to Basingstoke (or Steadfast In Service).

Basingstoke's motto, Steadfast In Service, does not, as some of us with puerile minds might like to imagine, refer to the perceived performance of the town's infamously priapic statue the Wote Street Willy. Rather less interestingly it is believed it reflects on the quiet and industrious nature of the town's population. Hmmm.

 

Basingstoke has been much mocked over the years but having grown up nearby I became very familiar with the place, even briefly living there, and I came to love it. Although as a Tadley person, very begrudgingly. It was often portrayed as a shit town with good people or as Boringstoke back in the old days. Slagged off as a London overspill. But in recent years you're more likely to hear people refer to it as Amazingstoke. 

With their tongue only half in cheek! Reflecting on last year's Tadley TADS trek, Neil Bacchus said he loved doing a walk where many of us could sleep over and where we could meet for lunch again the next day. He suggested we do one in Basingstoke to start this year and I thought that was a great idea so I set about writing one - and then made it the 2023 season opener. From Hook to Basingstoke through areas that nobody on the walk (despite an approximate combined 400 years of living in the region) had ever visited before. We even crossed rivers whose names nobody had heard before. There is, it seems, no end of surprises on our own doorsteps should we only take the trouble to look.

I'd woken early, taken the 363 bus to Crystal Palace, one train to Clapham Junction where I met Pam, and then two more. First to Woking and then on to Hook. At Hook station we met with Neil B, Bee, Tina, Neil W, and Denim Nick. So named because he used to rock the double denim with no little panache. I'd not seen him for about twenty years and even though he didn't recognise me until I took my woolly hat off it was good to see him again.

We walked along the A30/London Road through Hook (alas our friends Ben & Vicki, both of whom once lived in Hook, were unable to join us as they were in Manchester doing a Coronation Street tour). There was a major diversion where a new Sainsbury's is being built but it wasn't long before we reached, first time ever for me, The Shack Cafe and met with Shep, Laura, Adam, James, Gwen, and Colin. 

The Shack Cafe's got an interesting history. Ben sent me a link the day before the walk which told me it was first erected during World War I and has stood there ever since. It survived World War II bombing and it even survived a visit by Chas'n'Dave. They didn't get served though as the cafe was closed.

The best story was probably the one about a former owner Mr Baker who kept funfair rides in the land behind the cafe and used to ride a motorbike and sidecar round a wall of death with a lion in the sidecar. Pretty sure that would fall far short on both animal cruelty and health and safety fronts these days.

I had a delicious meal of crinkle cut chips, baked beans, bread and butter washed down with a cup of tea. Pam was very impressed with her veggie breakfast and Gwen's scrambled egg on toast with brown sauce looked pretty good too. Everyone seemed pretty happy and I was pleased to put my hands on my side and proudly announce a 'good turnout'.

Hook, initially, was a series of farms on the stagecoach route between London and Exeter. Inns sprang up to serve those passing through and eventually it grew into a village and now a small town with a population just shy of 8,000. The parish church, St John the Evangelist) was designed by Edward Maufe, a man more famous for Guildford Cathedral and St Columba's in Knightsbridge.

Thomas Burberry died in Hook, aged 90, in 1926. We left the cafe, crossed the A30, and cut down a lane by the side of The Crooked Billet pub and into the Whitewater Meadows. We briefly followed the Whitewater river. A pretty short river, it's just twelve miles long and eventually flows into the Blackwater which itself flows into the Loddon and, finally, the Thames).

It was a picturesque stretch of fast(ish) flowing water, gently rolling fields, and towering pylons above. Lots of different pylons including one that Shep decided looked like a Belgian pylon! We eventually reached the B3349/Reading Road and had to negotiate a short, roughly one hundred metre, stretch with no pavement before cutting in more open fields, sometimes with imposing solitary trees silhouetted against the greyish (but dry) sky.

Adam was using his GPS device to help me orientate the route and decided he'd call it Little Dave. This soon led to a few people singing the theme tune to 1970s kids TV favourite Big John, Little John and having a debate about the lyrics. A quick listen proved it's "what a way to grow" and not "what a way to go".

This was such fun that it wasn't long before we were crossing Green Lane (a road on the map, barely a path in reality) and the village of Rotherwick was in front of us. A pub stop would be happening earlier than usual but, even more surprisingly, we were actually running early. A two pint mistake, it seemed, was inevitable (there'd already been a 'two tea mistake' back in the Shack).

The Coach & Horses in Rotherwick is a nice pub. I'd visited on one of Alex's TADpoleS walks several years ago and we'd sat in the garden looking out at the countryside but it wasn't so warm today so we sat inside with Coco the dog. As Colin's protocol dictates he bought me a pint of Bunny Chaser from the Longdog Brewery and soon we were joined by Darren (who'd done a 5k park run in a fairly decent time that morning), Cheryl, Tommy, and Luca.

Not long after that, Tony, Alex, Grace, Izzie, and Freddie arrived. Now all fully recovered from a recent bout of covid. We'd now pretty much taken over half the pub. James had bought three one third pints of different ales (but still asked if he could try some of Adam's 1% beer) and it would have been easy to get a bit too comfy in there. Neil W felt so at home he loudly announced he was off to do a "pub poo".

Sat by the roaring fire, Tina got me my next drink. The Bunny Chaser was off but another local beer was on. Moondance from the Triple Brewery in Alton. I had that. It was good. They both were. We left the non-walkers there and headed off. There would be a lot of pee stops behind trees from that point on. For some of the men at least.

Rotherwick's a pretty little village. With a population of just over 500, its main attraction (apart from the pub, of course), is its small parish church. Donated, as was a nearby village hall, from an American couple in the 1930s, it looked pretty with the blossoming tree in front of it.

There's a small lake and an interesting looking house with windows that protrude out on to the street and, according to Adam, used to have a rocking horse in the window for years making it look like a shop. We followed The Street (there's really only one road in Rotherwick) on to Post Horn Lane before taking a right into Stroud's Green Lane which would slowly curl south and cut through Tylney Park Golf Club.

Some of the trees had had their barks partially removed and looked particularly photogenic. For the first time some of Basingstoke's taller buildings (the Fanum House, the tower block in Oakridge, and Skyline Plaze which replaced Fanum House as the town's tallest in recent years) and they looked farther away than I felt they should be. Perhaps this would be a longer walk than planned.

At least we hadn't made any wrong turns and - quite rare this - didn't all day. Eventually the path through the golf course became a road (of sorts):- Lone Barn Lane. This came out on Newnham Road where we turned right and, passing a sign incorrectly warning of ice, we crossed the river Lyde by a very beautiful old mill house.

The Lyde flows for just 6.2 miles (from Mapledurwell to Sherfield-on-Loddon) before joining the Loddon. The footpath took us through the enormous garden (it even had a tennis court) of the aforesaid mill house and through another field to the side of the railway line where we followed a thin path, and one with quite an unfortunate camber) along the edge of the fields.

We'd occasionally come off on to road for a bit but mostly be on this path until we reached Basing. Except, that is, for a brief part where we had to walk through a field with two horses in it. As soon as they noticed us entering their field they came over to give us the once over. They were stroked and cooed at. The black and white one soon lost interest and wandered off to eat some grass but the bay horse with the jacket on turned out to be something of a character.

In turns, that horse would follow us, walk in front of us, or even stand in front of us in what seemed like a half-hearted attempt to block us. Horses are big so I don't like to get too close so I was near the front of the pack as we trudged through their field. Then I heard a bit of a commotion and looked round to see Tina running and the horse running after.

She got out of the field just as a noisy train went past and this startled the bay horse again. It ran straight past Pam and back across the field, kicking its heels like a bucking bronco as it went. Tina had mentioned a few minutes before that she'd been chased, over the years, by both a goose and a pig. She can now add a horse to that list!

When we reached the footbridge over the railway line, Colin (a former Basing resident as a kid) knew where he was. When we passed Basing cemetery and entered Basing so did many others. There was a brief debate about the route we'd take to get to Barton's Mill and I lost. Neil W made it known he was not impressed with Barton's Mill as a pub. Too expensive (true) with rude staff (not my experience).

He felt there were better pubs in Basing but I was dead set on going to Barton's Mill for various reasons and, via some parts of the former Basing House, lots of cute thatched cotttages, some interesting topiary, and the curiously named Milkingpen Lane, that's what we did. The normal pub part was shut but they'd erected a heated tent to the side so we had our drinks in there. The staff were friendly but the drinks were indeed expensive and I must concede that Neil W was probably right.

The Loddon flows through the beer garden of Barton's Mill (Bugsy even won a rubber duck race there once) and sometimes Civil War reenactment societies meet there for drinks and role play. The Loddon is near the start of its 28 mile journey to the Thames in Wargrave here. In the river you can find bream, chub, roach, barbel, rudd, carp, and pike but, unlike the Whitewater it seems, no brown trout (or, if you prefer 'brahn traht').

The Enlightment era poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) invented a Loddon nymph, a kind of female nature deity called Lodona and I forced the walkers to listen to parts of his very lengthy, and quite confusing, poem about it. I was tempted to also read aloud about the cultural influences of the river and the history of its milling industry but judging by the reaction to the poem it was probably best I didn't.

I did, however, treat them to a recital of Edward Lear's limerick about Basing from his Book of Nonense:-

There was an Old Person of Basing

Whose presence of mind was amazing

He purchased a steed

Which he rode at full speed

And escaped from the people of Basing

That is one lazy last line, Lear and, all things considered, quite a shit limerick. It's no Owl and the Pussycat, mate. Though I did wonder if that 'steed' that he rode at full speed may have been a forebear of the one who had chased Tina earlier! 

Luckily, there is some more interesting history regarding Old Basing. Or at least I thought so. In the late 9th century Anglo-Saxon chronicle, during the reign of TADS favourite Alfred the Great, it was called Basengum and in the Domesday Book (1086, William the Conqueror) it had the name Basinges. First settled in the sixth century by a proto Anglo-Saxon tribe, the Basingas, during the ninth century it became a royal estate. In January 871 a Viking army defeated King Aethelred of Wessex and his brother, the future Alfred the Great. That became known as the Battle of Basing.

Neaby Basing House, closed as we passed, is a Tudor palace that was once the rival of Hampton Court in both size and opulence. Mostly now in ruins (though there's a drawing below of what it once looked like), it was built in 1531 as a palace for William Paulet, the 1st Marquess of Winchester and treasurer to Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. Elizabeth was so taken by the place she told Paulet that if he was a younger men she'd marry him so she could live there. He was fifty years her senior.

During the English Civil War, the 5th Marquess - John Paulet - was a Royalist supporter of Charles I so parliamentarians besieged Basing House three times. Twice they were held off but in 1645, under Colonel John Dalbier, they succeeded in taking it. Oliver Cromwell himself arrived to personally oversee the takeover.

After a spell in the Tower of London, John Paulet returned to Basing House following the Restoration. Charles II had returned it to him. John's son, Charles Paulet,  the 1st Duke of Bolton, became wealthy due to supporting William II/William of Orange during the Glorious Revolution. He used his wealth to build a new home at nearby Hackwood and most of Basing House was demolished.

We continued along the brilliantly named Swing Swang Lane (Basingstoke's only real rival is Fuzzy Drove), down Basing Road (past the Hampshire Clinic), and under the A339 into Eastrop Park. A park rich in memories of drinking vodka, mucking around in the boating lake, and jumping in the paddling pool fully clothed. Eastrop Park takes you into the bright lights of Basingstoke and to a Wetherspoons pub called The Angel.

I don't like to give Brexit bellend Tim Martin money but my boycott ended with a visit to one of these cavernous drinking dens in Bognor Regis fourteen months ago and I was outvoted so we popped in for a quick one (I had a Corona, the supporting local beer thing had gone south) and to meet Helen who was joining us for the evening. Afterwards, we crossed Festival Place and passed the infamous Wote Street Willy, Chennai Express (recent winner of best Indian restaurant in the south), and the statue of Jane Austen and made our way to my dining venue of choice:- Agra.

It says something about the nature of the people of Basingstoke that a giant granite schlong is more celebrated than a statue of one of the country's most revered authors but the big question was probably why did we walk past an award winning Indian restaurant to go to another Indian restaurant?

Well, I didn't know Chennai Express would win that award when I booked it. Anyway, it looked very small. Agra is marginally bigger but it was a squeeze to get thirteen of us in (Denim Nick and Colin had bailed out for the evening session) but they managed and soon the Banglas were, inevitably, flowing.

I had a veggie dansak and a garlic nan and it was only the next morning I realised my pilau rice didn't come. Carole and Dylan had joined us for the meal and it was good to hear the news about their new shower and Dylan's studies. I, of course, read out some Basingstoke history and listed some notables.

The earliest known settlement in the area is a Neolithic campsite from around 3000BC and the Willis Museum has flint and axes from even earlier (Palaeolithic times, 10,000BC). In 1086, in The Domesday Book, Basingstoke is noted as being a weekly market site. Cromwell is believed to have stayed in Basingstoke during the siege of Basing House and in the 17th century malting, brewing, and the cloth industry became important in the area.

Hundreds of years later there was even a band called Cloth doing the rounds! In 1839 the railways came to Basingstoke and in the 19c the town moved into industrial manufacture. Steam engines, traction engines, threshing machines etc; Thornycroft's, making buses, coaches, and trucks, became the town's largest employer. In 1856, Thomas Burberry opened his first store in the town and, one year later, Alfred Milward opened his first shoe shop here.

Brewing continued to be so important that the brewer John May was three times mayor of Basingstoke. The town suffered very little World War II bomb damage but big change came when Basingstoke, along with other towns like Ashford in Kent and Swindon, was rapidly developed as part of the London Overspill plan. The Malls were built and later Festival Place, the town was full of West Ham fans watching the football scores through the windows of Radio Rentals, and the town even twinned with Alencon in France, Euskirchen in Germany, and Braine-l-Alled in Belgium.

Getting closer to Europe! Imagine! So those famous names, those notables, it's a mixed bag. Wikipedia lists Jane Austen, Sima Kotecha, Waldemar Januszczak, John Arlott, E.O. Higgins (wtf? he pulled me out of a bed at his brother's house in Belfast once), Carl Barat, Steve Lamacq (hmmm), Shelley Conn, Liz Hurley, Shaun Udal, Ruth Ellis, Tanita Tikaram, Ramon Tikaram (who I used to see in the subway busking his sister's Good Tradition before finding fame as an actor in This Life and Happy Valley), the golfer Justin Rose, footballers like Tom Cleverly, Alex Bogdanovic, Dean Francis, and Kit Symons (who went to school with Tina and stole her skipping rope), Thomas Burberry, Kathy Smallwood-Cook (she went to my school and I think you'll find she's from Tadley), Dr Hilary Jones, Sarah Ferguson the Duchess of York, and Arthur Wellesley the Duke of Wellington.

Quite a list. A jolly old time was had and afterwards, after a brief hello to Trugnug, a few of us went to The Tea Bar for more drinks and to hear a covers band, a pretty decent one to be fair, play songs by The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, and The Kaiser Chiefs. I left before they ended their set with Sex On Fire and, of course, Mr Brightside.

Which was a pity as you hardly ever get to hear those songs! I took a taxi back to my folks in Tadley. Next day they dropped me in Basingstoke and Neil and Bee treated me to cheese omelette, chips, and a can of Coke in Poppins before I headed back to London feeling very satisfied that the first walk of the ninth (NINTH) TADS season had gone so well.

Thanks to Pam, Neil B, Bee, Tina, Neil W, Denim Nick, Shep, Laura, Adam, James, Colin, Gwen, Darren, Cheryl, Tommy (& Luca), Tony, Alex, Grace, Izzie  (& Freddie), Helen, Carole, Dylan, Teresa, Dad, and Mum for being part of this event and thanks (again) to Pam, Adam, Tina, Neil W, Bee, and Colin for the mappage and snappage provided here. A walk is only as good as the people who come on it and this one was particularly good. TADS reconvene next month, April, for a walk over Box Hill from Dorking to Reigate. It's called Flowers Of Romance and some of you will be able to work out why.