The best we have to go on

Friday 6th, I knock off work early and drive to Rivington for some air. I try Lever Park Avenue – post-lockdown number two. I’m wondering if the crowds have reclaimed it already. They have, so we head over to Anglezarke instead. It’s busy here as well, and I’m ready to abort the afternoon’s outing, but manage to find a lay-by to myself, and tuck her in. It’s a beautiful, crisp, sunny afternoon, and great to be outdoors, but it’s going to be one of those dodge the covid-crowd days – to whose number of course I am contributing.

I’d also guessed this second lockdown would bring a return of the trash, and I was correct there also. There’s been an impromptu firework display, judging by the remains of pyrotechnical junk littering the roadside. There are other unspeakable items of detritus too, but I shall spare you the details.

I figure the moor might be quieter, so we’ll paste it up through the boggy meadows to where the dun-coloured grasses begin. Along the way we pass pristine mountain-geared hikers, and twitchers who all look strangely perplexed, as if they’ve wandered up with the aid of Google Maps, then lost their signal. So, we climb further, to the nine hundred-foot mark, to the Pike Stones, only to have the twitchers follow, pressing us on towards Rushy Brow. Here too, the moor, normally such a beguilingly forlorn wilderness, is peppered with bodies, like you’d only ever see on a Bank Holiday weekend; they are noisy people, void of hill-craft, shouting.

But this afternoon is all about the air and the sunshine, remember? If I’m lacking a bit of tolerance for my fellow man, it’s my own fault, and beg your patience. Who do I think I am? Lord Graeme of Anglezarke, perhaps? (it has a certain ring to it). No, sorry about that. We all have our narcissistic moments, just like we all need our fresh air, so you must ignore my grumpiness, and get out as much as you can, but stay safe. Follow the rules. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. And don’t navigate the hills by Google Maps.

So here we are, up by the old burned-out plantation on Rushy Brow. There’s a path of sorts that swings you round to Lead Mines’ Clough, brings you down somewhere in the region of James Yate’s Well. The well is a bit of a mystery. It’s named on OS maps from the mid Victorian period, but disappears soon after. Antiquarian researches suggest it was a petrifying well, with a reputation for healing. Nothing remains of it now, the moor has swallowed all trace, but it serves to remind us there were most likely pilgrimages up here in the Georgian and early Victorian period. Similarly, now, the moor gifts us a healing sense of connection with the wild. There’s just one problem; we have become too many, too disconnected, and our demands upon the earth too great.

Just below James Yates’ Well, we find the upper falls of Lead Mines Clough. This is a lovely little cascade, well hidden and always worth a photograph, though it takes care these days to get safely down to the brook amid the plantation’s perpetual gloom – or maybe I’m just not as flexible and sure-footed as I was.  The faery aren’t often discussed in polite company any more. But if they’re still around at all, this is where you’ll find them – though you’d better pray you don’t, because to surprise the faery is a very grave matter indeed.

So we climb back out of the forest’s gloom, and into the last of the day’s sun, and track the edge of the plantation, down to the lower reaches of the clough. Here where we meet the Covid-crowds again, coming up, though goodness knows what they think they’re doing, with so little daylight left.

There’s much talk of re-wilding England now, of turning back the industrialized prairie meadows to mixed scrub and woodland, where cattle and wild boar can grub about in mud. Where people fit into that scheme I don’t know, but we need to – call it rewilding ourselves perhaps? It’s just that people en-mass are such untidy creatures and no amount of education is going to make them any tidier.

As we go along, I snap the scenes with my camera, wondering how much carbon was released in the manufacture of it. I’m no different, you see? I speak of reverence for nature while exporting my pollution to another continent. But it’s such a pleasant afternoon, let’s not spoil it with talk about that. I’m feeling better for the air and the sun, and the autumn gold. We’ll be home in time for tea, then catch up on the drama of the US election. Such a cosy life we’re living, but how sustainable is it?

Already Covid is said to have mutated via the Danish mink farms, that the archetype of mother nature, in her destructive aspect, is gaining on us double quick-time. So what are we to do to placate her? Our worship of money has to go – not money its self, I suppose – just our worship of it. And it’s more important than ever we let our learned friends understand what makes the planet truly tick, grant them the mandate to guide us back into balance, into kinship with our selves, and with the earth. It seems a tall order.

So, finally we come back down to the Parson’s Bullough Road, to the little blue car tucked into its muddy lay-by. There’s a couple up ahead, tut-tutting at the trash the bonfire-nighters left behind. They make me feel a little less precious for their displeasure.

And so, across the Atlantic, the weekend begins with the strut and swagger of the crass, and the monied, being given the heave-ho. Or does it? Is what replaces it going to be any less servile to the corporate lobby, and the obscenely rich? As dismissive of the poor? Not as much on the surface, perhaps. But underneath? Time will tell.

Have we perhaps merely restored the illusion of dignity? In which case the staggering quick-fire lies we’ve grown used to in recent years are revealed to be, in a sense, the unvarnished truth about the reality of the world. In other words, we still have a long way to go. Yet, I’m optimistic. And why? Because the afternoon demonstrates I’m not the only one who doesn’t like litter. It’s a bit weak, I know, but it’s the best we have to go on at the moment.