A Year with the Brighouse Stars Walking Club (December)

December

So Gordon then.

Back in the day – the very early days of the walking club – the lads called him Galloping Gordon. He was something of a phenomenon then. He just loved to walk, and walk very quickly. Challenge walks with the club, anytime, anyplace – he’d beat allcomers. Actually he was at his happiest – and his best – when he was walking on his own. Pennine Way – he knocked that one off in 6 days. Coast to Coast walk – 4 days. Camping along the way. He was his own man then.

I think the rest of the lads in the club were happy (proud even) to portray him to anyone that they met along the way as a little bit strange. He didn’t drink either so perhaps strange should actually have read very strange. The lads would walk along in their groups and chat about this and that. Gordon would march on alone somewhere in the distance up front and periodically wait for them to catch up.

He knew he was a talking point and he was ok with that. Didn’t care actually. I suppose that’s why he walked with the club really. Everybody was happy. Happy days.

Then he had his accident. Stanage Edge. Speed walking close to the edge to avoid any other walkers. Didn’t see the dog until the last moment. Must have fallen 30 feet. Broke both his ankles. A bunch of tendons and ligaments were shot. Put his spine out of line. Don’t think he remembered too much about it.

So, Edale Mountain Rescue to Air Ambulance to Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital where he eventually regained consciousness. A few weeks later home to mom and eventually back to work.

But not back to the walking club.

No point. He learned to walk again - in a fashion. But walking at his old speed – forget it. He could have strolled along at the back of the group and had a chat with whoever was going along particularly slowly that day. Talk about what though? He never had to bother with any of that conversation nonsense before. The lads were his occasional walking companions, never his friends. Not from his side anyway.

Didn’t have any mates at work either. Got his head down and any spare time at lunch or at coffee breaks he’d be planning his next adventure.

You could say he became something of a recluse in the twenty years since his fall. On the rare occasion that he saw one of the lads from the club he’d either cross the street in advance of a meeting or just smile and walk straight on. They probably thought he was beyond even very strange now.

So that’s Gordon – well almost. End of November just gone his mom passed away. She’d been terribly ill towards the end so it really was a blessing. She was something of a loner herself. Just her and Gordon at home. The father had buggered off to God knows where more or less as soon as Gordon was born. Anyway his mom never had any real friends or any sort of social life. Like mom like son you could say.

***************************************************************************

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that there’s no-one else around. After all it’s Christmas Eve and it went dark some time ago. I had wondered if there might have been others up here. Something different – special even - to do at this time of year. An afternoon walk to the summit of Haystacks. But no – just me. Of course it has to be better this way.

I could see why Wainwright chose to have his ashes scattered at this spot on the shores of Innominate Tarn. So peaceful. And so still tonight.

Wainwright – my hero. I had climbed all his 214 fells on my own before I was 21. I wonder if he’s looking down on me. Could he forgive me my reason for being here?

I’m trying not to think too much. I can’t seem to anyway. I just feel paralysed with this overwhelming sadness. Sad for everything that I once had. Sad because I can’t see any chink of light that might let me see a future. Especially sad about my mom. The sadness is overwhelming. I think it must even be numbing any fear that I have.

Starting to feel the cold now. The forecast said minus 10. Not that I’m dressed for it. No point.

Someone’s walking up from the tarn towards me. Not dressed like a walker, more like a farmer perhaps.

I didn’t plan for this.

‘I know that you’ll think I’m crackers but have you seen a sheep recently?’ he asked.

That made me smile in spite of myself.

‘Thousands over the years but not round here tonight. Why have you lost one?’

‘Always losing them, but I always find them in the end. They’re all that I have so no matter what, I have to find them. If I give up on one then it’s the start of a slippery slope’, he said.

‘Are you planning on staying up here all night?’, he asked.

I really didn’t know how to answer that, so I went with ‘Possibly’.

‘People get into difficulties up here when they’re indecisive. Seems to me that you’re not equipped for a night up here. No tent and dressed like that you’ll freeze to death’.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

‘Tell you what. I’ve got a hut that I use just off the path back towards the slate mine. Sometimes I have to spend a day or two at a time there so it’s fully equipped. There’s food, we can make a fire and there’s plenty of spare warm clothes. Where’s your car parked?’

‘I didn’t come by car. Got the bus to the slate mine and then walked to here’.

‘There you go then. My name’s Joss by the way’

‘Gordon’

‘My huts about a mile away’, said Joss.

‘What about your sheep?’ I asked.

‘Too dark to continue now’, said Joss, ‘I’ll start searching again at first light’.

Something seemed to shift inside me. Difficult to explain really. A bit of light in the darkness? A crack in the wall of sadness? Whatever it was it was enough to get me off my arse and get moving.

So by the light of Joss’s torches, we cracked on towards his hut.

‘I used to walk much faster than this, but I had an accident’, I said.

My goodness, was I actually opening up to this stranger?

‘Speed’s irrelevant’, Joss replied, ‘I’m happy to walk along with you at your pace. Just enjoy being here. You know walking in the dark can be awesome.

Joss stopped and switched the torches off.

‘Look around, what do you see? What do you feel?’ asked Joss.

In the dark, surrounded by blackness, I knew of course what the obvious answer was, but that wasn’t it.

‘You know what. I do feel a thrill. It’s exciting actually. Knowing that it’s all out there but just not being able to see it in the dark. Even though I can’t see anything I feel such a part of it all’.

‘Treasure that feeling’, said Joss.

A short while later we got to Joss’s hut. Stone built actually. A mattress on top of a low stone base and a fireplace inside.

‘I can rustle up some stew if you fancy it’, said Joss.

‘Thanks but I won’t. I suddenly just feel incredibly tired’.

‘Well get yourself inside that sleeping bag and under the duvet. I’ll get a fire going and leave you be’, Joss said.

I slept right through until morning. The fire must have gone out in the night but I felt warm enough. No sign of Joss – must be out searching already.

I walked back down to the slate mine where the café was just opening up. I was starving.

‘Where’ve you come from?’ asked the lady who seemed to be running the cafe, ‘first bus to here isn’t for an hour and there’s no cars parked’.

‘I slept in that hut up along the path. It belongs to someone called Joss – he’s a farmer or something. He let me use it last night. Think he went off early to look for one of his lost sheep’.

‘I think you’re talking about the Dubs Hut Bothy’ she said, ‘It doesn’t belong to anybody. The mountain rescue team maintain it and keep a sleeping bag and duvet washed regularly and some kindling for the fire. Not sure who you mean by a Joss though’.

She thought for a moment, ‘Actually, there was a shepherd called Joss who worked at Cragg House Farm down in the valley but he had a bad fall and froze to death in the night on Haystacks. Must be twenty years ago now’.

***************************************************************************

A few days later Gordon plucked up the courage to gatecrash the Walking Club’s New Year’s Eve party in The Star. He was nervous. After all it had been twenty years.

‘Evening everybody’, said Gordon as he walked in.

‘Bloody hell, look what the cat’s dragged in’, said Wolfy, ‘we all thought you were dead’.

‘Among friends’, said St John as he stood up and shook Gordon’s hand.