Voices on the Path

Sherds does not share the passion for cycling that seems to have gripped so many people over the last two decades. In the words of the self-styled ‘Super-Tramp’, W H Davies, ‘A poor life this if, full of care,/We have no time to stand and stare’, and it is the standing and staring that walking permits, whereas cycling (uphill at any rate, with traffic presenting an ever-present threat) seems full of care. Walking puts you in touch with the past which is, as John Berger (author of Ways of Seeing) wrote, is not behind you at all but in front and beside you – that path you are following, that oak, ash, and thorn, that church tower on the horizon, they all possess time depth, and to wa