The Pennine Way. The grandfather of walking trails in the UK. For over 60 years walkers have been drawn to its journey across wild and empty moorland, murky bogs, cloud covered summits and endless rain. Yet somehow it has a hypnotic charm that persuades people to walk it, even if they never intended to do so.
People like Andrew Bowden. Despite having absolutely no intent at all of walking the whole thing, somehow a two day jaunt in the Yorkshire Dales became an epic journey over several years. The Pennine Way grabbed him by the lapels – or should that be, the Gore-Tex jacket – and made the convincing case for walking between Edale and Kirk Yetholm. Somehow.
And despite regularly being soaked to the bone in heavy rain, almost losing boots in sticky mud, getting stuck in a bog, and – on one memorable occasion – being snowed in, in a remote village in Northumberland, somehow he kept going, got to the end, and lived to tell the tale. See You in Kirk Yetholm is that tale. The tale of a walk that did its uttermost to put him off, but never succeeded.
