0:01

BBC Sounds Music Radio

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Podcasts Look at this

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for traffic. These are boats,

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one after the other, on a

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constant stream. There's

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an appropriate traffic

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but river-based word. I've

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come to Reading. It's a beautiful,

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sunny early summer's day. I'm

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in shorts and that hardly ever happens. I've put suntan

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lotion on, I've got dark glasses on

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and everyone who has

0:29

access to a boat is out on

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the River Thames to enjoy

0:33

a glorious Saturday. We don't

0:35

often walk at weekends but that's

0:37

what worked out and I've come here to

0:39

join Karen Ironside and Emma

0:41

Courtnidge. This is just a small section

0:46

of an epic walk that you are

0:48

taking on and I know it's coast to coast because you're

0:50

both wearing t-shirts that say coast

0:52

to coast and actually give the route. So you started

0:54

in Bristol and you're going all the way to the

0:57

Isle of Grain which

0:59

I have to say I haven't heard of. What

1:02

is the Isle of Grain? We had until

1:03

we researched where the end

1:05

of the Thames estuary was and

1:07

Isle of Grain. Oh it's

1:10

the new extension. Exactly, it's the very

1:14

end of the Thames Path now, apparently. We'll

1:17

tell you in 150 miles. So the route we're

1:19

going to take today, starting in Reading, we'll

1:21

leave the kids playing football behind us

1:23

and head off towards Sonning

1:26

and Ship Lake and ultimately Henley

1:29

but you'll carry on to where? How

1:31

many miles are you doing today? So

1:33

we're going I think about 14

1:34

miles to Hurley. We're

1:37

on OS Explorer 159 which is Reading,

1:39

Wokingham and Pangbourne. Might

1:42

go into a bit of OS 171 as well.

1:45

But the

1:47

start point, well we

1:49

started actually at Thames Lido, roughly

1:52

it's SU 726739. Have

1:56

you always been walkers?

1:58

Nope. Okay. Definitely not. I mean,

2:01

yes, I've done a lot of walking with my husband

2:03

but not this sort of walking. Yeah, we were

2:06

sort of lazy on the couch, 40

2:09

odd year olds in

2:11

middle of Covid really when we started doing all this, didn't

2:13

we? I challenged you to walk 24 miles

2:16

in 24 hours with me and we

2:18

never looked back, frankly. Yeah, we'd

2:20

only met maybe

2:21

a year before. But during

2:23

Covid so we couldn't be. During Covid so we didn't really

2:26

socialise or anything together. We

2:28

lived two doors away from each other. We

2:30

moved in a week apart, two

2:33

weeks before Covid lockdown. And

2:35

Karen, during lockdown, was

2:37

out roller skating in

2:40

the street. Yes, roller skater,

2:42

ex-roller skater. And

2:44

I've got, well, at the time 11 year

2:47

olds, they were 10, 10 year olds and they were like,

2:49

wow. So Karen ended

2:51

up helping me with the children and she

2:54

took them roller skating because there

2:55

was not much that they could do at the time. So

2:58

we loved her to bits and then we did that walk together.

3:01

What was the original spur?

3:04

Why

3:05

go from just fun walks

3:07

for being outdoors and a bit

3:10

of exercise to taking on massive

3:12

challenges? Because the fun stuff didn't seem

3:14

hard anymore. So with this

3:17

walk of ours, it makes me laugh, we started

3:19

that we do the 100 miles of the Kennet Maven canal.

3:22

So from Bristol to Reading, basically. And

3:25

that was fine. And I think we felt a little bit like, are

3:29

we really challenging ourselves? It's fine. It's still 100 miles.

3:32

That's impressive, right? And then what

3:34

was it about day four? We literally

3:36

met a random woman. If she listens to this, I

3:39

don't know if I hate you or love you, met

3:41

this random woman who was watching

3:43

canoes go by and there's a canoe race every

3:45

year from devices, Thames barrier. And she

3:48

was like, I love what you guys are doing. It's so amazing.

3:51

But why don't you just walk to Thames barrier? The canoes can

3:53

do it. And we were like, well, it's only

3:55

another 65 miles. It didn't feel like a lot more.

3:58

And then my husband may or may not.

3:59

have said, oh you could just

4:02

go coast to coast. It's

4:04

only another 85 miles on top of

4:07

that 65 miles and that's how

4:09

it became a 250 mile walk. Yeah we did meet that

4:13

lady then about three weeks later further down the

4:15

canal and I was like I am NOT talking

4:18

to you because I am NOT swimming the channel. That

4:22

isn't set too far! I

4:25

literally cannot make you walk any further

4:27

than this. Yeah

4:29

but we had been doing like after our 24 hour

4:32

walk that we did together we were like yeah we

4:35

want to do walking together now don't we on a regular

4:37

basis and

4:40

we'd meet before work and

4:42

go. So if I'm still working full time? Yeah yeah yeah.

4:44

Which is why we're walking at a weekend. Yes!

4:47

And then my work shifts and weekends as well.

4:49

So I make for the hard task. Yes. Do you do? I'm an occupational

4:51

therapist in the community yeah. So

4:54

yeah we're trying

4:56

to fit in time to do these walks

4:59

around working in family life

5:01

and you know everything else. So

5:04

you've got husbands who just laugh. They're

5:06

like okay whatever are you doing a hundred mile walk? We

5:09

really love

5:10

these walks and value

5:13

them for her mental health

5:15

and well-being. So that's

5:17

why we really

5:18

tried to make time for them. Yeah. I've

5:20

just realised why we had that

5:23

run of three boats in a row.

5:25

This is a Cavesham lock and they obviously

5:27

go in in blocks

5:30

of two or three yeah depending on the length. That

5:32

makes sense. So there's

5:33

a big barge going in there.

5:35

It's not a barge. We are now canal nerds.

5:37

Thank you very much. It's a wide beam. Oh

5:40

very good. Yes. And what's the difference? It's

5:42

wide and it's not a barge. Barge carries

5:45

cargo and such like. So you've got narrowboats

5:48

and you've got wide beams and you've

5:50

got barges. Is that called

5:52

a wide beam? Yes. I do

5:54

have canal knowledge. I like it. That's

5:57

a Yorkshire Terrier on there with them.

5:59

I'm better at that. Yeah, yeah, I don't do

6:02

dogs. So most

6:04

of the walk so far, Emma, has been

6:06

on the canal. Totally, I

6:08

think that we enjoy the canal

6:10

walks. Some guy we met who lived on the canal

6:12

boat, who's a living board, he talked about it as a church

6:15

for all souls. And we

6:17

really love that because lots

6:19

of people seem to run away to the canal, but

6:21

then they find themselves and they stay. And

6:24

there's room to be yourself. Oh,

6:26

look, it's one of the lifeboats

6:29

from the oil rigs.

6:29

Can

6:32

you see through there? Yeah. So you

6:34

find them all the way along the canal. They're old lifeboats

6:37

off the oil rigs, the North Seattle oil rigs. And

6:39

they look like a whale. Yeah, basically.

6:41

Top half is orange, bottom is gray. Completely

6:44

covered in. Yeah, completely. Often

6:46

they're kind of yellow or orange in

6:48

color. But people live on those? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

6:51

Completely. There's not loads and

6:53

loads of them, but you see them reasonably often on the canals.

6:55

Obviously, this is our first time in the river, so the first

6:57

one we've seen. It sort of looks like it could be a submarine,

6:59

but obviously above water.

7:02

It's completely encased. There are no windows

7:04

at all. I think it's got to be able to completely capsize.

7:06

You do see some of them, they put windows and things

7:08

in, and they've done some amazing

7:09

work on them, actually. There's

7:12

a chap here sanding the top of his, now, so

7:16

that's not about our jiver. No. What

7:19

is that? It's a narrow boat. That's a narrow boat.

7:21

It's got a solar panel on top as well.

7:25

I think we have to regard everything we've done so far.

7:27

We've probably only walked about a mile as preamble,

7:30

because we've reached the point, we've come up over

7:32

a bridge, but we've reached the point significantly

7:34

where you finished last time.

7:37

So how far here, so this is

7:39

what the end of the... Kennet and

7:41

Avon Canal. How far have you covered

7:43

to this point? Exactly 100 miles,

7:46

shockingly, exactly.

7:48

You've only got 140 to go. Well,

7:51

it's not a recipe. Exactly.

8:00

We've crossed the river so it's now on our right

8:02

hand side and we've got open meadows

8:05

on the left and gorgeous chestnut

8:07

coloured cows and calves in

8:09

the field to our left

8:12

and it still is warming up toasting up

8:14

now. It's the most perfect

8:17

day. The birds are really letting rip

8:20

and we've settled into our stride and Emma

8:23

you said earlier on your day job as an occupational

8:26

therapist. Karen what about you? What do you

8:28

do? So I'm one of the co-leaders

8:30

of

8:30

the youth mentoring

8:32

charity Caldwell Youth so

8:34

we work with young people who are at

8:37

risk aged 11 to 24 and

8:39

provide them with sort of holistic

8:41

wraparound support but predominantly through

8:44

volunteer mentoring. And that was set up by

8:47

John Caldwell yeah? Yeah so I

8:49

approached John Caldwell along with the other three

8:51

about nine months ago now.

8:53

Who is a you know incredibly

8:55

successful businessman? Incredible. Founded

8:58

Phones For You which most people

9:00

are aware of sold it back in 2006 and has

9:03

since committed at least 70% of

9:06

his worth. He's a giving

9:08

pledge signatory at 70% of his

9:10

worth to now and after his death to

9:12

philanthropic purposes and so

9:15

when I approached him it just it was something

9:17

that he said he just felt that the

9:19

energy was right it was what was really passionate about

9:22

and we're yeah nine months old

9:24

working with about 150 young

9:26

people already incredible.

9:32

First.

9:40

In the cold and frosty

9:42

morning. Is this how

9:44

you think that's going by the way? We

9:48

actually I mean I don't know if this is a radio

9:50

for possible to say but we actually

9:52

have an album coming out theoretically

9:55

called No Canal Too Far the

9:57

nether regions. Don't ask me

9:59

why

9:59

became the nether regions I can't remember what's the

10:02

reason it was about the

10:06

fact that we needed to go and

10:08

do the toilet and

10:11

also about the fact that sometimes there's a bit of chafing

10:13

going on yes so

10:16

it became so we've been adding songs to

10:18

the no canal too far the nether regions

10:21

for a long time right yes

10:25

some of them are Irish songs and they're Scottish

10:27

songs some of them are just the three

10:29

lines of a song

10:29

we can remember that we sing repeatedly badly

10:32

I mean make up the words yeah

10:35

you can sing I can't sing

10:36

though that's the difference you said

10:40

what you were in the military wives choir yeah

10:43

because on some of the military bases they

10:46

have

10:46

quite a good presence and

10:48

particularly when you're a home

10:51

mom and you're not able to get to work because

10:53

well your husband's away all the time you

10:55

end up joining in and the

10:57

military wife choir was

10:59

such an amazing experience

11:02

it was a time of my life where I

11:04

didn't really have anything of my own I

11:07

was just there for the kids all the time and so

11:09

to

11:09

be part of that group and

11:11

be a

11:14

valid member in that group

11:15

meant that I had another purpose

11:17

really the dog that's just

11:20

come by us which was a labrador

11:23

has got in its mouth the biggest piece

11:26

of wood I don't know how it

11:28

almost had the strength to carry it I think

11:30

it's a gangplank off a boat that

11:33

somebody may not be able to get back into their

11:35

boat now so

11:39

you were saying it was a time in your life when really

11:41

you were doing everything for everyone else you had no identity

11:44

yourself yeah definitely gosh

11:46

it was a tough

11:48

time I really got to say so it's kind of hard for me

11:50

to talk about really I was working

11:52

as an engineer before I had children and

11:55

my husband got married my husband was in the military

11:57

we had a bit of a long distance thing going on

11:59

I was on well just

12:02

the year after we got married and we

12:04

found out that I couldn't have children.

12:07

We moved back home to Scotland because we were living

12:09

down south at the time. We

12:11

had a near family. Ended

12:14

up having our children IVF in

12:16

the end which was amazing.

12:17

They've just learned about. I

12:20

went back to my engineering work but

12:22

I knew the environment that I was working

12:25

in wasn't where I wanted to be. I didn't

12:27

feel like I was getting any satisfaction

12:30

like coming home every day. I just

12:32

didn't really feel like I was worth

12:35

anything.

12:36

I

12:38

ended up, well as I am then,

12:40

an occupational therapist. I've been qualified

12:42

for three years now and

12:46

every day is a challenge but also

12:48

I come home feeling really

12:51

fulfilled and feel like I've

12:53

done something to improve

12:55

someone's life which is fantastic really.

12:58

Joining in in things like

13:01

military wise powers or doing

13:05

long walks, build your confidence

13:07

and enable you to make those big

13:09

decisions and life changes. I think that's

13:11

really important.

13:16

You're listening to Ramlings on Radio 4 and BBC

13:18

Sounds. We're in the intersection today of

13:21

the Thames path from Reading

13:23

to Henley on Thames. About

13:26

probably eight miles in total and we're three

13:28

and a half miles in at Sonning Lock. But

13:31

Karen and

13:31

Emma who I'm walking with, they're doing 250

13:34

miles coast to coast in total

13:36

having started west of Bristol and finishing

13:38

right on the eastern edge of the

13:41

Thames where it flows into

13:43

the sea. Just

13:47

coming up now to another little bridge and

13:49

there's a boathouse on the left and the

13:51

massive expanse of the Thames

13:53

which just at this point is boat

13:56

free. But in the distance a row

13:58

of poplar trees standing up like...

13:59

like lollipops, marking

14:02

out, I suspect, the driveway

14:05

to somewhere very big.

14:09

You've been fairly far afield in your life,

14:12

Karen. Yeah, definitely. I'm

14:15

Irish as a starting point. But

14:17

tell me about Poland. Yeah,

14:20

so I randomly, for an Irish

14:22

girl, have a Master's in East Central European Studies

14:25

and I specialised in political

14:28

resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in World War

14:29

II. And the day I

14:32

paid off my student loan, I handed in my notice.

14:34

And within a couple of weeks I was living in Warsaw. So

14:37

I was there for four and a half years, became

14:40

pretty fluent in Polish, and

14:42

I just loved every minute of it. But then I

14:45

came, I was supposed to say I came home, I

14:47

came back to the UK because

14:50

I just didn't feel like there was a career for

14:52

me there. I loved my day-to-day life,

14:54

but I knew I was going to have the same life in 10 years' time

14:57

if I stayed. Just to say how

14:59

amazing she is,

14:59

the way that she picks up the

15:02

language, she went there not knowing anything.

15:05

And she picked the language up and she

15:08

really sort of, you know, is

15:10

a people person true and true,

15:12

but also when we were on the Camino.

15:16

You're learning the Portuguese and the Spanish and you're sitting,

15:19

she's literally done six

15:21

weeks on... Duolingo. Duolingo.

15:24

And she's sitting in the taxi and she's talking

15:26

to the taxi driver in Spanish. I

15:28

mean, who does that? Exactly. I

15:31

love it though. I love the challenge.

15:33

And, you know, I think one of my

15:36

moments around language learning that showed

15:38

me the importance of learning a language, when

15:40

I lived in Poland, I knew one

15:42

Polish person before I went out there, this lovely

15:44

guy called Mihau. So he said, come stay

15:46

with me and

15:47

my grandparents in Warsaw. She's a little

15:49

sadly no longer with us, but I call him a Polish baba, Polish

15:52

grandma. And she treated me like a

15:54

granddaughter. And I got on really

15:56

well with her husband, but then her husband

15:58

died.

15:59

she spoke to me about her husband

16:02

and how she was feeling and his importance

16:04

to her and it was obviously on Polish,

16:06

it was about two years, two and a half years into

16:09

living in Poland and I just sat

16:11

there and thought if I'd not bothered to

16:13

learn this language she would still have

16:15

been as welcoming and as warm and had

16:17

me live in her house and come to dinners because that's just

16:19

who she, who Bobcher was but

16:22

she would never have opened her heart to me so

16:25

language learning is really important to me and I

16:27

just think it's a mark of respect

16:29

to the country that you're going to

16:34

Can

16:37

you pay attention to where we're going? Yeah I think we should because I can see

16:39

the river now are we, are you

16:42

happy with where we are? I think

16:44

it's just, we are, the thing is

16:47

The river does that There's a big, there's a big peck

16:49

on the river We appear to have gone

16:51

the wrong way people just to say Oopsie

16:53

daisy

16:54

It's

16:56

routine, we get chatting, we forget where

16:58

we are and then we go oh it's kind of why

17:01

we want to do the canal and the river walking because

17:04

we don't have to constantly navigate If

17:06

we're on like a mountain we have to constantly

17:09

navigate

17:13

We're about eight miles into

17:16

our walk and given that that's half

17:18

way for you two we just stopped for a bite

17:21

of lunch Sat on somebody's

17:23

tree stump We're in Lower Ship Lake and we

17:26

have to walk down a long road to

17:28

get back then to the riverside and onto

17:30

the, I mean it sees the Thames

17:31

path but we can't see the river just

17:33

at the moment but it's a very nice place

17:36

to be and lots of people coming

17:38

by and I just wondered given that you are

17:40

spending so much time in each other's company

17:43

and particularly either at the start

17:45

of the day when you know not

17:48

everyone's feeling 100% or indeed at the end

17:50

of the day when you're a bit tired what

17:52

happens if you get, you

17:55

know, tetchy with each other So,

17:58

problem we've got at the end of the day

17:59

Actually we work really well, don't we?

18:02

Pretty much the entire day. We're

18:04

a step in step. We're working, you know, we want to walk

18:06

at the same speed, et cetera. But when we

18:08

get tired, and maybe it's that last two

18:10

miles to the end, what I want to do

18:13

is get there. So I speed

18:15

up. What Emma wants to do, well

18:17

actually I want to talk to you, talk to you Emma. I'm

18:20

conserving

18:20

the energy. So I'm

18:22

just being careful and taking

18:24

my time. So you slow right down. And

18:27

then I'm speeding up and she's going, Karen, slow

18:29

down. And I'm like, oh for God's sake, I just want

18:31

to put a stud. But so,

18:34

well I had a kind of a light bulb

18:36

moment really. I think on the Camino we did recently,

18:39

Portuguese Camino. Cause we were walking

18:42

in a group of five. And actually what we

18:44

ended up doing is at times walking

18:46

at different paces, but waiting for each other.

18:49

And as much as we haven't had a trial of this yet, cause we've only just

18:51

come back from Portugal. I almost feel

18:53

like now I have this sense

18:55

of when we get to that point, cause

18:58

it hurts me to go slowly when I'm really tired.

19:01

Is actually, well is there an issue with me steaming

19:03

on ahead for a half a mile or a quarter

19:05

of a mile? And then as long as I sit and wait for

19:07

her, and then you catch up.

19:10

Well there's also the psychological thing of knowing

19:12

that you've

19:13

still got two miles to

19:15

go. And I don't really want to know.

19:18

Yeah, whereas I like to know. I just want

19:20

to applaud along and enjoy

19:21

the journey. And I don't want to start, I've

19:24

got to get there two miles to go. Did

19:27

you want to explain your weird and wonderful mathematical

19:30

method of working out? We don't talk about

19:32

numbers, well we do but not infractions.

19:35

So we don't talk about how many miles we

19:38

have to go or how many miles we've done. We

19:40

talk about

19:41

proportions. So for

19:43

instance, we might say we've

19:46

got the distance it takes us to walk right

19:48

into the corner shop and back left to go. Yep.

19:51

Or, As she showed you, complicated

19:53

maths she'll say, we are 50% of

19:55

the way to being a third

19:57

of the way done of 50%

19:59

of the walk and

20:02

I'll spend three minutes working out the maths

20:04

and going oh so we've done 315 miles okay

20:06

I don't even work it out very well but it

20:09

makes me feel better I've got to see. I think

20:11

we're going to see the river again very shortly and

20:13

we've broadened out onto a wider path.

20:16

Carol I wanted to ask you about your health

20:19

and how much healthy you

20:21

are now than maybe you were seven

20:23

years ago. A nice

20:25

and day, seven years ago,

20:27

seven years ago there were there

20:30

was months months and months

20:31

where let's say

20:34

to if I walked up our stairs

20:36

to get to my bedroom I'd have to like

20:38

rest for four hours afterwards to recover

20:42

so yeah it's it

20:45

couldn't be more different basically

20:48

I'm still not I'll never be 100 perfect.

20:51

What was it

20:53

that happened? In simplistic

20:56

terms I had a really bad cold

20:59

and I just got worse and worse you know eventually

21:01

I did go to the doctor and the doctors

21:04

very very quickly diagnosed me

21:06

with ME or sometimes

21:08

known as chronic fatigue syndrome but

21:10

actually it turns out that the

21:12

symptoms I had were very very similar

21:14

to ME but actually it was something called

21:16

dysfunctional breathing syndrome which

21:19

is very easily treatable. How do

21:21

you treat it? Physio

21:23

and breathing exercises and

21:25

melatonin if you need it. I

21:27

literally had three, four physio

21:29

sessions and then I had to have a sort

21:32

of a redo of my physio about 18

21:34

months two years later for one session to

21:37

get me back into where I should be and I've

21:39

not needed anything like that since but

21:42

the really thing that makes me really angry

21:44

about all of that is, I'm not angry I'm not angry anymore

21:46

I used to be angry, was if my doctor

21:48

had really listened to what I said and sent

21:51

me for some physio I would have

21:53

been damaged

21:53

within two or three weeks and I wouldn't have been

21:55

sick for a year and the reason I like

21:57

to talk about it is that actually I hid.

21:59

sick I was for such a long

22:02

time and I didn't want to appear weak

22:04

and guess what when I told my husband how sick

22:06

I was he was amazing

22:08

and supportive and my boss was amazing

22:10

and supportive and kind and and

22:13

everything else and so I always

22:15

kind of I always want

22:17

to talk about it to normalize it because

22:19

chronic illness isn't isn't unusual

22:22

and I was very lucky to

22:24

be able to find my way out of it basically I

22:27

think the section we just walked is probably

22:29

my favorite so far really

22:33

easy lovely wide path grassland to

22:35

our left and on the right I

22:37

don't know what that property is but

22:40

it looks like a Hansel and Gretel cottage in pale

22:43

gray and white and then a really modern

22:46

box next to it there

22:48

was a red kite circling ahead the

22:50

moon has just started to appear half

22:52

moon in the sky on a clear blue

22:55

sky and the trees

22:57

over there rising up and

22:59

look at the variety

22:59

of different species and different

23:02

colors it's fabulous but also

23:04

you know it's a good spot because so many people were

23:06

using it long away from picnics lots of people

23:08

going swimming we kept hearing laughter this

23:10

is

23:10

their beach well

23:14

this is the point where I'm gonna leave you and

23:17

you've probably got what another seven miles to go take

23:20

good well listen it extraordinary

23:22

to hit both of your stories and

23:24

also I think hugely motivating

23:28

to anyone who thinks oh

23:30

I can't walk long distances or that's

23:32

not for me I can't take on a challenge because you

23:34

both started at what

23:36

what stage of your lives 43 for me and not

23:43

they're not necessarily from a sporty background

23:46

and really just as a way of extending

23:49

a friendship or starting a

23:51

friendship yeah

23:53

and look at you now I know give each

23:56

other a hug yeah exactly

23:59

And I hope you get more days like this

24:02

because it's been glorious. Yeah. Enjoy

24:04

it. Thank you. Thank you very

24:06

much.