Alan Franks
Writer and musician
Writer and musician
Going Over is the first of three works of fiction in Alan's new book, being published by Ruth Boswell's Muswell Press
Going Over was the winner of the 2003 New Writer Magazine award.
Read an exclusive extract here:
Last year, having finally agreed to see my father, I decided to make a detour first. I suppose there were two ideas behind it. If the trip was a disaster, I could at least tell myself that I had done something else as well. Also, it would buy some time between the easy bit of setting off and the difficult bit of arriving. But how much time, and how much space? Too little and it would just be an extension of the journey. Too much and it would become the object itself. So eventually I settled on a distance of about 80 miles and a time of four or five days, bearing in mind that I was walking. I bet he never had such difficulties with his own calculations, the old sod.
I would pick up the path at the Lion Inn, high up and entirely alone on the North Yorkshire Moors at Blakey. I had already done the eastern section of the coast-to-coast route as a boy of 12, coming westwards from Robin Hood’s Bay via Grosmont and Glaisdale. In fact I had done it with my father in the hot summer that started up so soon after the unmentionable events of Easter, the two of us walking in silence along the flat, empty tops. I had no wish to revisit that occasion as well. This present trip was quite enough to be going on with.
If I walked west from Blakey, as far as Shap, I would have done two thirds of the coast-to-coast and could pick up the final section, across the Lake District to St. Bees Head, on a later occasion. This is how I have always done the long distance routes, collecting them in parts over a series of years: two summers for the Pembrokeshire Coast, three for Offa’s Dyke, and so on.
The routes made their way into my life like good novels, and then helped to define my memories of the periods that surrounded them. It is ironic that if it had not been for my father I would probably not have spent so many long days of my own adult life on the upland paths of England, stalking the deep satisfaction of tiredness and inns. For his part he used to thank J.B. Priestley who, in his book An English Journey, wrote about the meditative properties of walking, the “skull cinema” that comes into play when you put one foot in front of the other and let the miles pass beneath them.
Going Over was the winner of the 2003 New Writer Magazine award.
Read an exclusive extract here:
Last year, having finally agreed to see my father, I decided to make a detour first. I suppose there were two ideas behind it. If the trip was a disaster, I could at least tell myself that I had done something else as well. Also, it would buy some time between the easy bit of setting off and the difficult bit of arriving. But how much time, and how much space? Too little and it would just be an extension of the journey. Too much and it would become the object itself. So eventually I settled on a distance of about 80 miles and a time of four or five days, bearing in mind that I was walking. I bet he never had such difficulties with his own calculations, the old sod.
I would pick up the path at the Lion Inn, high up and entirely alone on the North Yorkshire Moors at Blakey. I had already done the eastern section of the coast-to-coast route as a boy of 12, coming westwards from Robin Hood’s Bay via Grosmont and Glaisdale. In fact I had done it with my father in the hot summer that started up so soon after the unmentionable events of Easter, the two of us walking in silence along the flat, empty tops. I had no wish to revisit that occasion as well. This present trip was quite enough to be going on with.
If I walked west from Blakey, as far as Shap, I would have done two thirds of the coast-to-coast and could pick up the final section, across the Lake District to St. Bees Head, on a later occasion. This is how I have always done the long distance routes, collecting them in parts over a series of years: two summers for the Pembrokeshire Coast, three for Offa’s Dyke, and so on.
The routes made their way into my life like good novels, and then helped to define my memories of the periods that surrounded them. It is ironic that if it had not been for my father I would probably not have spent so many long days of my own adult life on the upland paths of England, stalking the deep satisfaction of tiredness and inns. For his part he used to thank J.B. Priestley who, in his book An English Journey, wrote about the meditative properties of walking, the “skull cinema” that comes into play when you put one foot in front of the other and let the miles pass beneath them.
It’s true. When I live for days on my striding feet a kind of hypnosis
occurs. The result is an intense awareness of the place, but a removal
from the moment. There is a shifting of time. Past events stand up like
boulders in the foreground, and present concerns recede to a point on
the rear horizon.
Then there was the other old man, Alfred Wainwright. He was the one who pioneered a walking route from one side of the country to the other, all along public rights of way, and was generally reckoned to be a Great Englishman. I took a conscious decision to do my walk without the benefit of his guide book. In keeping my independence from him I was also asserting my freedom from paternal influence. Childish, I’m sure.
Years ago I met Wainwright a few times, always through my father, and heard him complain about the number of people crowding the hills. I wanted to tell him that many of these people went on account of his recommendations but, as so often, I didn’t quite dare. Then he turned his complaints towards bus fare prices, the performance of Blackburn Rovers, and the decline of ledger calligraphy in town hall finance departments. “You should be able to frame each page,” he said, “and hang it on your wall.” I seem to remember my father trying to humour him, but this was rather like one undertaker trying to jolly another along. I wondered if they were really only happy in the act of complaining. Some time later, on the radio, I heard Wainwright say he’d drawn the hills so that he would be able to recall them when he could no longer walk on them, but now that he could no longer walk he’d lost the sight to see what he had drawn.
Not long after that he died. Everyone said what a fine man he was and seemed frightened of saying a word against him, even when it couldn’t get back to him. I never let on about hearing him say, not long before the unmentionable events, how he preferred the company of the hills to the women he’d married; or about my father grunting in agreement; or about me hoping that I wasn’t going to turn out like that. I would rather have suffered the consequences of open blasphemy than tell those men that I was going to do a thing a different way from them.
Then there was the other old man, Alfred Wainwright. He was the one who pioneered a walking route from one side of the country to the other, all along public rights of way, and was generally reckoned to be a Great Englishman. I took a conscious decision to do my walk without the benefit of his guide book. In keeping my independence from him I was also asserting my freedom from paternal influence. Childish, I’m sure.
Years ago I met Wainwright a few times, always through my father, and heard him complain about the number of people crowding the hills. I wanted to tell him that many of these people went on account of his recommendations but, as so often, I didn’t quite dare. Then he turned his complaints towards bus fare prices, the performance of Blackburn Rovers, and the decline of ledger calligraphy in town hall finance departments. “You should be able to frame each page,” he said, “and hang it on your wall.” I seem to remember my father trying to humour him, but this was rather like one undertaker trying to jolly another along. I wondered if they were really only happy in the act of complaining. Some time later, on the radio, I heard Wainwright say he’d drawn the hills so that he would be able to recall them when he could no longer walk on them, but now that he could no longer walk he’d lost the sight to see what he had drawn.
Not long after that he died. Everyone said what a fine man he was and seemed frightened of saying a word against him, even when it couldn’t get back to him. I never let on about hearing him say, not long before the unmentionable events, how he preferred the company of the hills to the women he’d married; or about my father grunting in agreement; or about me hoping that I wasn’t going to turn out like that. I would rather have suffered the consequences of open blasphemy than tell those men that I was going to do a thing a different way from them.