For the first time in months, the sun shone, and the high fells of the Yorkshire Dales began waking up from a long, wet winter. The new growth pushed through the flattened cotton grass and winter-brown dry reeds. Tenacious hawthorn, wind-bent branches frothing white, clutched rocky crevasses in the limestone. Sky larks and curlews urgently called and circled overhead or played injured near the path to protect their young. Tiny purple, white and yellow flowers struggled to make their presence felt, almost needing a magnifying glass to see them. Small streams gurgled beneath the peat. It was still cold and very boggy, in the ‘invigorating’ wind, but the scudding clouds and sunshine promised warmer days.
I am at my happiest on Britain’s windy rooftop, seeing, on a clear day, the whole of North Yorkshire and beyond – the grey smear of Morecombe Bay and the fuzzy mountain tops of the Lake District to the west from Pen-y-ghent (windy hill), or the sparkling silver dots of Teesside to the east from Buckden Pike. Up here my body changes. I swing along; I am taller; my chest expands, and I raise my chin higher to capture the huge skies, birdsong and wind.
I sit on a flat limestone rock high up or, if cold and windy, on a churchyard bench in one of the tiny villages along the dale bottom, eating my sandwiches and fruit cake and taking small sips from a flask of hot coffee: an elixir in the open countryside on a cold day but disgusting anywhere else. Sometimes the weather almost defeats me and I’m head down, shrinking away from the wind and rain, barely stopping to look up, and my food remains untouched all day.
Freedom for women refugees
Since Covid I have seen many more women out in the countryside walking together in pairs or in groups. I rarely see women walking alone and almost never on the higher fells. I have never seen a black or Asian woman walking alone up here. Up high, I glory in having these miles of peaks and moorland to myself, the queen of the fells, and yet I want everyone to be able to see what I see – and perhaps feel what I feel when I’m up here.
On the May Bank Holiday weekend, I was walking with a group of refugees. We managed a couple of short strenuous climbs, a gorge scramble and long open stretches along the contours of the hills. The walks were tiring and testing, and the wind, rain and sun took turns to blast us. But they were joyful and exhilarating walks. I saw people stretch out their arms and point their faces up to the sky as I do. Their eyes sparkled and their smiles broadened with the beauty and the expanse of it all.
The women were exuberant that they could walk freely here, something they had been banned from, or was too unsafe for them to do, back home. The days were also tinged with sadness – the sheep reminded many of home and the hills and the beauty of the mountains of their homeland, lost forever.
Whenever I am walking with refugees, I am conscious of difference. The group I’m walking with is highly visible (there are generally no other black or Asian walkers) – and people do look at us: always in a friendly way, but curious nonetheless. Although proper boots and waterproofs are provided and walking is not about wearing the ‘right kit’, the group’s clothes do not conform to the dull maroon and buff-coloured walking ‘uniform’ and so we stand out.
Alive with the sound of music
Nor are we quiet, nor do we silently walk in single file as British walkers tend to do. We express our pleasure fully, sometimes in song and occasionally dance, and we laugh, chat and call out to each other, showing this and that on the route. Every so often, a phone app competes with the birdsong to remind us of when it is time to pray. People will also phone a friend or relative from the hillside to show the views, and the sheep, and the cows, and the rock, and the river, and the tree and everything. This abundance of nature is sometimes overwhelming, and they want to capture every moment in photos and selfies and to share it.
Occasionally, the experience prompts a communal ululation of deep sadness and longing. They grumble at the stiff climbs, wondering if they will make it and how they thought it was remotely sensible to sign up for this weekend. And they get to the top – and joy, relief and satisfaction of having made it this high bursts forth.
Keep calm and carry on walking: health benefits for all
The UK government reported last year that lack of access to nature, and the city-polluted living environments of people of colour and ethnic minorities, were impacting on their health and wellbeing. Many organisations are trying to improve ethnic minority access to the countryside, including a coalition of over 60 organisations, the Wildlife and Countryside Link, but they have been criticised for their efforts. GB News and the Telegraph, for example, have questioned why black and ethnic minority people cannot simply go to the countryside and start walking.
In my experience, the countryside is not racist (although there are pockets of racism). It is overwhelmingly friendly and inclusive, but there is a way of ‘doing’ the countryside that is so distinctively British that it can be alienating. It is only when walking with people from outside the UK that I have become conscious of ‘how we do it here’.
Also, longer, higher walks require knowledge and experience. The tops of these hills are cold, even in summer, and the wind chill can quickly lead to hypothermia if walkers are not properly dressed. Conversely, a clear, hot, sunny day after weeks of cool can lead to heatstroke on a long stiff climb (as northern European walkers have recently found in Greece). The cloud can come down suddenly and a whiteout is totally disorientating. There are limestone cliffs and ghylls to fall down. For many city dwellers the countryside is a foreign land.
Walk leader training: sharing skills and knowledge
It is right that many walking groups for Black and Asian people are skilling up their members with help from mainstream outdoor organisations. The National Trust leads walks (for free) on its land and also trains aspiring walk leaders from minority ethnic communities. The Duke of Edinburgh Award (DoE) and the Scouts are working with younger people to develop countryside skills but much, much more needs to be done. Over the May Bank Holiday weekend, I counted 15 DoE teams of girls, with not a single person of colour amongst them (interestingly, no boys either).
Getting out into the countryside is expensive (we are an hour and a half’s train and bus ride from Bradford, with no bus on a Sunday) and maps, boots and waterproofs are costly. While volunteers, including from the National Trust, gave freely of their time for the residential weekend, the hostel, food and equipment was funded entirely from donations.
How you can help?
The residential weekend was organised by Bradford Immigration and Asylum Support and Advice Network (BIASAN). If you would like to help more refugees walk the hills, please consider donating to BIASAN’s Local giving page and label it ‘walking’.
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