TADS #61:Christchurch to Bournemouth (or Hengistbury Head).

""Consumed with premonition of trouble on the horizon. By the remarks I was certain I was destined persecution" - Bournemouth Runner, The Fall

I've written before, many times, about how getting out for walks, alone even - but ideally with friends, can be a real tonic. Well, Saturday's TADS walk from Christchurch to Bournemouth via Hengistbury Head was certainly that. Near the end of the day, over a dosa and a pint of Cobra, I was asked to score the walk out of ten.

I gave it 8.5/10 which is, in retrospect, possibly a bit miserly. It was a fantastic day (great weather, great scenery, great food, 35,391 steps, and, most importantly of all, really really lovely people) and it was a fantastic day that I really needed. I've been bedevilled of late by minor physical health problems and, more seriously, financial woes. Which is what you'd expect after fourteen years of the worst Tory government in modern history.

Worse still, these two things - and my ongoing anxiety, led me into a period of quite deep, and what felt like - at the time - unending, depression. I took some time out, spent a few days with my parents, went for a walk and a pizza with my nephew Dan in Winchester, and even spoke to doctors as well as going to hospital. It wasn't great and though I may have had (brief) periods of suicidal ideation I never attempted suicide.

Family and friends were super supportive and helped pull me out of it but my behaviour was erratic and worrying and I don't feel good that I caused so many people so much worry. I even announced, stupidly - like a drama queen, I was retiring from TADS via WhatsApp. That's when people started to really get worried. I postponed May's TADS walk and didn't even write a blog for April's (from Battle to, almost, Hastings) - though the day was fun and I thank Mo, Pam, Tracy, Mesude, Chris, and Ian for joining me (and Arlow, Tony H, Andy and Jo for joining us on a Sunday 'recovery' session).

I'm glad I reversed that decision. TADS walk, along with the London by Foot and Thames Path walks - and trips to Wales to see Michelle and Evie, Fortean and Skeptics nights, and art galleries - give my life meaning and with no partner or kids of my own I need to give my life meaning. So, hopefully everybody enjoyed the walk on Saturday but for me it was, almost literally, life saving.

It was a long day too. I set my alarm for 5am and woke up before it (at 4.25am) and got up. Not long after 7 I was out of the house, picked up a Guardian, a bottle of Evian, and some ibuprofen (for a mosquito bite that had swollen up right in the ball of my armpit) and then took the train from Honor Oak Park to Crystal Palace and on to Clapham Junction where I met Pam on, of course, platform nine.

Adam, Teresa, and Tina joined us on the train in Basingstoke and soon we were whooshing through Winchester, Southampton, and the New Forest and arriving in Christchurch. A place I'm sure I've been to before but probably not since I was a small child. What had started as a cold day was turning warm and sunny and my combo of jacket and jumper started to look a little ridiculous.

Heading out from Christchurch station, we made our way into the town centre past lots of historical plaques, an impressive Art Deco cinema, and a shop called Davis Tackle which we sniggered at because it reminded us of an off-colour chat we'd just had.

Oh, and there was a dunking stool too. I'm pretty sure none of us had ever seen a dunking stool before but there it was. I'm not sure if Christchurch had a serious witch problem but the name of the town suggests that it was a hotbed of religious nutters so it seems quite likely that many innocent women were once dunked in the nearby Mill Stream. It's not deep enough to dunk anyone now. Not even the King of Tadley himself who gamely perched himself atop the stool.

Adroitly avoiding the tempting looking Dunking Stool tea room and Dirty Gertie's Gin Parlour, we took a snicket to the hipsterish but very pleasant Streetside Cafe - where Shep and Laura soon joined us. Sat across from the first Ian Stocks lookalike of the day (photo - sneakily snapped by Pam - below, followed by another TC who cropped up later in the day, when I shared the photo on Facebook, my friend Dave Fogarty thought it looked like another friend of ours, Richard Sanderson), I had a felafel and chili jam wrap and a chocolate milkshake in a jam jar. Bob Marley was playing and, as if to echo my culinary choice, it wasn't long before the song Jamming came up.

It was something of a musical day and, in my view, days with lots of music are the best days. From the cafe we headed into a green space (past a sign that informed us that the town once had its own 'aletaster' - some guys have all the luck) and, keeping with the torture theme, there was a set of stocks. From Ian Stocks to the stocks.

Christchurch tortures itself these days by having one of the most far right Tory MPs in the country. Christoper Chope, most famous for blocking a law banning upskirting, commands a huge majority and may be one of the few Tories to keep his seat in the upcoming general election. Let's hope not.

Christchurch Castle, now in ruins, sits atop a small hill and we went to have a look. It's one of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit but it is of Norman origin. Nearby stands the 11c Priory which was once a monastery but was given to the town by Henry VIII following the 1540 Dissolution of the Monasteries. It's home to a 'miraculous beam' that attracts pilgrims from all around the world.

Suckers. Not that Christchurch is an unpleasant visit. Certainly not on a sunny Saturday in June. We continued through some pleasure gardens and came out on to the fantastically named Quomps. They were hosting a regatta, people were picknicking and eating ice creams and the kids were splashing around in a paddling pool. All felt right with the world. At least this little corner of it. If Christopher Chope had wanted to do some upskirting he'd have plenty of options though it's hard to imagine anything would be more tempting than upshorting Adam who'd stripped down to his shorts and wasn't even wearing his leg warmers/pull up tights.

The Quomps were conveyed to Christchurch by the 5th Earl of Malmesbury (Adam was only telling me recently how he and the current Earl of Malmesbury are bezzie mates) and it hosts a 'Stompin' on the Quomps' smooth jazz festival each year. Past the boaters and sunbathers we walked and made our way over Tuckton Bridge to Tuckton. Once home to the model village Tucktonia. A place that only existed from 1976 to 1986 and I remember seeing from the nearby BMX track when I used to race BMXs. Apparently, Arthur Askey ("ay thang-yaw", "hello playmates") opened it.

Tuckton Bridge crosses the Stour river and Christchurch itself sits in the confluence of that river (which flows sixty-one miles from Mere in Wiltshire) and the Avon (the Salisbury one, not the Bath one). The Stour hosts pipistrelle bats, harbour porpoises, great crested newts, and medicinal leeches. None of which we saw but we did see lots of gulls and swans.

Thomas Hardy wrote about the Stour and the Stour Valley Way is sixty-four mile footpath which may (or may not be) a future project we'll look into. Fish in the Stour are many and include trout, bream, chub, dace, barbel, tench, salmon, perch, pike, grayling, rudd, and roach. There are cuttlefish, oysters, and crabs and the local Blandford fly can leave a painful bite. Perhaps one of them bit me - and not a mosquito.

Christchurch was initially named Twynham (we'd walked down Twynham Avenue near the train station) but the name changed with the arrival of the priory in 1094. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century it was a hotbed of smuggling and another big industry was fusee chains for clocks and watches. Big names in the town include the former Poet Laureate Robert Southey and Bob Wilson (Anchorman) who was born in Chesterfield but made Christchurch his home when he wasn't on telly or playing in goal for Arsenal and Scotland.

Passing through the suburb of Wick, we soon arrived in the countryside. Decorative benches, lists of birds (including oyster catchers and ones with googly eyes - much to Pam's amusement), and reeds as tall as a human. Soon all we could see of Christchurch itself was the priory. Which reminded some of us of Chichester. In fact, some of us had trouble telling Christchurch and Chichester apart. Some of us mistook a bird for an elephant. I won't mention names.

Hengistbury Head, where we soon were, was once Christchurch Head and is scheduled as an ancient monument, a local nature reserve, and lots of other things too. You can, if you're lucky - we were not, spot Britain's rarest amphibian - the natterjack toad - on Hengistbury Head but you certainly won't be able to miss the beach huts. Among Britain's most expensive, the average price is somewhere between £400,000 to £500,000 but some go for a million which is, in a country with a large amount of homelessness and poverty, obscene.

Hengistbury Head, itself - I'm pleased to report, is far from obscene. Goats relax on the head, Noddy trains take happy kids for spins, and some brave souls were even risking a dip in the cold, sewage filled, briny waters of the English coast. Pam and Tina, particularly, took an interested in the local aquatic birds and with the ferry across to Mudeford out of action (pontoon damaged in a recent storm) we soon repaired to the Beach House for drinks.

I took an Estrella as Matthew Wilder's deathless classic Break My Stride played out to our pleasure. Soon I did, indeed, break my stride and we sat, looking across to the Isle of Wight (a place, remarkably, I've never been to) and the Needles and chatting away. Laura offering, almost threatening, to lance my mosquito bite with a knife. Nobody give Laura a knife.

Soon Tony, Alex, Grace, and Izzie - and, of course Freddy, came to join us. Freddy chased a ball and ran into the sea and Grace and Izzie were quizzed about their recent navel piercings while refusing to be photographed. It was good of TAGI(F) to come all this way to join us and I'm reliably informed that Grace and Izzie are back in Hengistbury Head tomorrow on a school trip. Not fair. My school trips consisted of going ice skating in Southampton while Renee Smith sat at the back of the coach doing foghorn impressions.

 

Pam made an impressive cairn, Freddy had some doggy donuts, and, inevitably, a two pint mistake was made before we headed back along the Head to the coast. Diggers were constructing defensive sea walls but, otherwise, this stretch was almost deserted. Goats looked down on us from the rocks and we all agreed that walking in dry sand is tricky and steps should count double when on that surface.

Eventually we reached a promenade and the coastal path led us to Southbourne (which they now try and style, rather daftly, as Sobo) which was full of people playing beach volleyball, eating and drinking, and, listening to Nickelback's 2002 How You Remind Me. The day was so enjoyable that even that AOR dirge sounded passable.

We grabbed a table at the Sobo beach bar (a far more agreeable soundtrack of post-disco classics that included Jocelyn Brown's Somebody Else's Guy and Evelyn 'Champagne' King's Love Come Down) and had another drink. Teresa disappeared off and then returned with two portions of chips (smothered in parsley and chives) and ketchup and mayonnaise to dip them in. I said I'd only have a couple and then ate bloody loads of them.

They were good chips and I was at the point where I was nearly ready to end the walk but there was still an hour and half to go. We passed Boscombe pier, lots of enthusiastic salsa dancers, and more games of beach volleyball (though sadly nobody was playing 'grids' - a game that Adam, Rob, Bugsy, and myself invented in Bournemouth decades ago) and took the zig-zagging Toft steps up from the coast - the steepest walk of the day.

Shep and Laura headed off and the rest of us continued on in to Bournemouth proper - past an impressive building that reminded Pam and I of Lambeth Town Hall. I wondered if it was built by the same architect, a man I erroneously told Pam was called Decimus Burton but who is actually Septimus Warwick. I looked on the Internet and could find neither confirmation nor refutation.

 

 

 

Soon we arrived in Dosa World and I had a paneer raae masala dosa and a brace of Cobras. The beer was cold, the food was tasty, and the service was pretty swift. I was more than satisfied and we were out of the restaurant in plenty of time to get back, via Tesco for some train booze, to Bournemouth train station. Just time for a quick roll call of famous Bournemouth names:- Tony Hancock, Anthony Blunt, Sophie Rundle, Virginia Wade (second HMHB reference of the day), Andy Summers, Gareth Malone, Tobias Ellwood, Millie Bobby Brown, Christian Bale, Christine Hamilton, Mary Shelley, Radclyffe Hall, Max Bygraves, and William Doyle AKA East India Youth.

Although I forgot to mention the Bournemouth Runner, my 89th favourite Fall song which, surely, should have been the name of the walk. Missed a trick there. On the train we played Heads Up (Joao, the friendly Portuguese ticket attendant, joined in - very enthusiastically), talked shit, and mucked about. Tina, Teresa, and Adam got off at Basingstoke and Pam and I continued to Clapham Junction - solving crosswords en route as we so love to do.

At Clapham Junction we said goodbye and then I saw my train to Peckham Rye was seriously delayed due to a lorry crash! So I took a train to Vauxhall and got the 185 bus home. Listening to Pavement and Caetano Veloso and uploading photos on the way. By the time I got home it was nearly 1am so I'd been awake the best part of twenty-four hours. Better than being awake though, I felt I'd been alive. I'd been living not merely existing which was a vast improvement on some of the shit days I'd had recently.

Thanks to Adam, Laura, Pam, Teresa, and Tina for the photos I've added to this blog and thanks to them and Shep, Tony, Alex, Izzie, and Grace (and, of course, Freddy) for joining me on Saturday for a wonderfully enjoyable, wonderfully spectacular, and wonderfully healing even, TADS walk. Next month we're walking from Guildford to Horsley and, who knows, we might be bumping into, or walking straight through, The Captain, Julian Fawcett MP, and Lady Fanny Button. Hopefully no mosquitoes though!