In a joyful celebration of 20 years spent walking on air, Clare Balding digs deep into the exhilarating archives of Ramblings to share the best moments from her favourite walks. This week she explores the theme of Health and Happiness to discover how walking can provide a real boost to both our physical and mental health. The featured programmes include The Diamond Ramblers, a group who discuss their achievements with weight loss; the positive and uplifting Forget Me Not dementia group; and Dr. ...
May 21, 2020•24 min
In a joyful celebration of twenty years spent walking on air, Clare Balding digs deep into the exhilarating and exhausting archives of Ramblings to share her favourite walks. This week the theme is Friends and Family as Clare finds the moments that best illustrate how walking is a fantastic way of drawing people together. Please scroll down to the 'Related Links' box to click through to the programmes featured: The Nidderdale Way: Gouthwaite to Bewerley Going Wild in the West Country An Aussie W...
May 14, 2020•24 min
Clare Balding walks across a section of The Malverns, from Hollybush car park towards British Camp, with members of the Herefordshire Interfaith Group. In a world that feels increasingly divided, this group draws together Muslims, Quakers, Buddhists, Bahá’ís, Methodists and more. It's a leisurely stroll, with many pauses to reflect and share readings on the themes of Pilgrimage and Nature. Note: when we walked this route, in early March 2020, it was affected by flooding in the lower lying sectio...
Mar 26, 2020•24 min
In one of the rainiest Ramblings we've ever recorded, Clare Balding discovers a brand new waymarked walking route in South Wales which has been established on the path of an ancient pilgrimage. It's called the Penrhys Pilgrimage and connects Llandaff to Penrhys. As Clare hears, while walking (and getting soaked) along the final five mile stretch from Trebanog to Penrhys, a huge amount of work from local volunteers has gone into making this project happen. Penrhys is the site of an ancient well a...
Mar 19, 2020•24 min
Psychotherapist, Dr. Ruth Allen, explains how outdoor counselling works. She takes Clare Balding on a walk near Kelstedge in Derbyshire to discuss the healing power of walking & talking. In this series of Ramblings, Clare Balding is exploring the impact that walking in nature can have on our inner lives. She’s been up Glastonbury Tor with Druids, walked the Wilberforce Way with a Methodist minister, been on retreat in Winchester and rambled across the Malverns with the Herefordshire Interfai...
Mar 12, 2020•24 min
Clare Balding visits the ancient and mysterious labyrinth on top of St. Catherine's Hill in Winchester. Leading the walk is Brian Draper, who runs soulful retreats in nature. Throughout this series of Ramblings Clare is exploring how walking affects our inner life. She is hiking with people of differing beliefs and none to discover how the simple act of being in the natural world can change how we feel. Today, she joins a retreat run by Brian Draper - you may recognise his voice from Thought For...
Mar 05, 2020•24 min
Clare Balding walks with Sikh-turned-Methodist, Inderjit Bhogal, along part of the Wilberforce Way in East Yorkshire. Inderjit created this long distance walking route to honour Wilberforce who led the campaign against the slave trade. They start at Pocklington School, where Wilberforce studied, and ramble canal-side to Melbourne Ings. Inderjit Bhogal has an extraordinary personal story: Born in Kenya he and his family fled, via Tanzania, to Dudley in the West Midlands in the early 1960s. He cou...
Feb 27, 2020•24 min
Clare Balding explores Glastonbury with Druids Penny and Arthur Billington. Throughout this series of Ramblings, Clare is finding out how walking affects our inner life. She is hiking with people of differing beliefs and none to discover how the simple act of being in the natural world can change how we feel. As Penny and Arthur explain, Druids live their lives closely connected to nature and the changing seasons. Glastonbury Tor and the surrounding area is steeped in rich mythology which draws ...
Feb 20, 2020•24 min
Steve Backshall and Helen Glover walk with Clare Balding on Winter Hill in Berkshire. Throughout this series of Ramblings Clare Balding is exploring how walking affects our well-being. She is hiking with people of differing beliefs and none to discover how the simple act of being in the natural world can change how we feel. Today, she’s climbing Winter Hill in Berkshire with the Olympic rower Helen Glover and her husband, the wildlife broadcaster and adventurer, Steve Backshall. They spend their...
Feb 13, 2020•24 min
Clare walks with Jon Whitley and James (Jay) La Bouchardiere, two childhood friends born and bred in Dorset who moved back there after university and began playing folk music. Jon’s father had run a folk club so it was in his blood so to speak as is the Dorset countryside. When they started writing songs it was a natural process to incorporate the landscape and folklore of the county and this eventually led to them producing a book of the walks that they have enjoyed and written songs about. The...
Oct 28, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding walks part of the Elan Valley pipeline: 73 miles of Victorian engineering running water from mid Wales into the city of Birmingham. Clare is walking with artist Kate Green who has spent the summer walking the pipe and getting to know people and places along the way. They're walking a stretch that runs around the town of Ludlow in the Welsh Marches. Joining them are Andy Holman who runs a horse rescue centre on his land which holds part of the pipelines, and Tim Hipkiss part of a gr...
Oct 15, 2019•24 min
David Blunkett takes Clare Balding for a walk across Beeley Edge in the Peak District. Joining them are his wife, Margaret, and his guide dog, Barley. Despite being blind from birth, Lord Blunkett has always been a keen rambler and is President of his local Ramblers group. En route they encounter half a dozen cattle, which have to be navigated carefully as David once had three ribs broken by a cow which, he recalls, came towards him with a 'primeval bellow' and knocked him over. They also pass t...
Oct 10, 2019•24 min
Clare is climbing Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham in today’s Ramblings. At 330 metres above sea level it’s the highest point in Gloucestershire, and of the Cotswold Hills. With her are Chas and Sue Howes who live at the foot of the hill, and have a strong connection to it. Until 2012 Chas was the Finance Director of a major international clothing company. When he left he spiralled into a severe depression, something he now realises he had suffered from for many years. He says the business world is s...
Sep 26, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding is with a group of young LGBT+ ramblers who meet once a month to explore the green spaces close to Manchester. Run by The Proud Trust, the outdoor adventures group is for 18-25-year-olds and is designed to combat social isolation and build both confidence and physical fitness. They always meet within striking distance of public transport and, today, are starting on the Chester Road in Stretford which is a mile from Trafford Park station. From there they walk partly along the River ...
Sep 19, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding is joined by singers Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh of the band Deacon Blue to walk one of their favourite coastal routes in Fife. Starting at Elie they walk along the beach passing through the village of St Monan's ending in the picturesque fishing town of Pittenweem. Ricky and Lorraine have been married for over thirty years and perform together as part of the band, as well as having their own careers in broadcasting and acting. They say the secret to their enduring relationshi...
Sep 12, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding joins a unique family ramble in Dorset. She is walking from Osmington Mills to Weymouth with Simon Waley and his three Dutch sons-in-law. They are here, from their home in the Netherlands, for a three day hike along a stretch of the South West Coastal Path. Simon is British; he met and married a Dutch woman and moved to the Netherlands more than twenty five years ago. They have three daughters and each met a Dutch man. For the first time, Simon – a very keen walker, who regularly c...
Jun 20, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding walks with sisters Georgina and Rebecca - both mothers of young children - who started a group called Go Wild Go West to help inspire other young families to get out and enjoy the outdoors. They have happy childhood memories of exploring and adventuring in nature and are concerned that children today are losing touch with the thrill of walking and playing outdoors. They take Clare on a circular route around from East Harptree in North Somerset. It's a walk designed to delight and e...
Jun 13, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding meets a group of native American women who live and work in the UK. A sense of isolation and homesickness led them to the Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol seeking connection with other indigenous people. They now meet regularly. Clare joins them on a walk around Henley in Arden in Warwickshire and hears how despite different tribal affiliations, the common cultural and spiritual backgrounds they share bring great comfort to them thousands of miles from home. Leandra Nephin is from the ...
Jun 07, 2019•24 min
Clare gets lost in the rain as she walks to meet two extraordinary sisters in their 90s. Both were code-breakers during WW2, and one invented the TV classic, Ask the Family. Pat Davies and Jean Argles both worked in espionage during WW2. Pat helped the Royal Navy intercept German Naval Traffic at coastal stations, while Jean was a code and cipher officer based in Cairo, then Italy. Throughout the war, their father was a Prisoner of War. He was Lt Colonel Cary Owtram who was in charge of the infa...
May 30, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding joins singer Feargal Sharkey for a river walk on the south London/Surrey border along the River Hogsmill one of just 200 chalk streams in the world. He's always been a rambler and is currently walking all of the river routes of London. He is often dismayed and pleased in equal measure at the state of our rivers as he is a passionate advocate for water health and quality. The walk is part of the London Loop and starts from Ewell West Station and ends at Kingston upon Thames passing ...
May 23, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding goes walkabout with a group of Australian women who call themselves The Norfolk Broads. They include a Colman, of mustard fame, and one ‘honorary Aussie’, actually a Texan who once dated John Wayne’s son. They’ve all ended up living in this eastern corner of England and have discovered fun and companionship by exploring their new home on foot. They walk a stretch of Norfolk’s Boudicca Way from Diss to Shimpling. On the way, Clare discovers what brought them here, how they've adapte...
May 16, 2019•24 min
Clare is walking to a land-based lighthouse on today’s Ramblings. Smeaton’s Tower was originally on the Eddystone Reef, twelve miles out to sea on Plymouth Sound but when it was replaced by a new structure in 1882, the Tower was moved onshore and now stands on Plymouth Hoe. Tom Nancollas is Clare’s guide. He has written a book - Seashaken Houses - which tells of his passion for lighthouses and their many extraordinary stories. Also joining them on the walk is Tom’s friend Michael O’Mahony. He jo...
Mar 28, 2019•27 min
Clare Balding is taking a poem for a walk on today’s Ramblings. Joining her is Jean Atkin, the newly appointed Troubadour of the Malvern Hills. Jean takes Clare, stanza by stanza, to each of the locations featured in one of her poems. Joining them is Peter Sutton who has translated into modern English the famous mediaeval poem ‘Piers Plowman’ which starts with the poet asleep on the Malvern Hills. Also walking is David Armitage who works for the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; ...
Mar 21, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding walks across Dartmoor with a former soldier whose retirement has taken him in a surprising direction. Andy Salmon is a former soldier who now runs creative events which he hopes will inspire peace and reconciliation. As the former Commandant General of the Royal Marines, Andy has much experience to draw upon. He spent 36 years in the Marines and served in many global conflicts. It might sound unlikely, but the ‘Journey Through Conflict’ events he now stages are a mixture of art, mu...
Mar 14, 2019•24 min
The writer, Emma Mitchell, takes Clare Balding for a walk around the woods at the back of her house in Cambridgeshire and explains why exposure to the natural world can have a mood-lifting effect on us all. While acknowledging that she relies on antidepressants and talking cures to prevent her depression from becoming overwhelming, she says that walking several times a week, even on days when she feels well, has a cumulative effect and helps to make the dips in her mood less vertiginous. She say...
Mar 07, 2019•24 min
Why climb a snowy Cumbrian hill in a long dress, cloak and bonnet? Clare Balding finds out. It's all down to Dorothy Wordsworth, the sister of poet, William. In her own right Dorothy was a writer and a pioneering walker. Just over 200 years ago she and her friend, Mary Barker, became the first women to both climb and write about Scafell Pike in the Lake District. This wouldn’t have been easy in their long dresses, cloaks and bonnets. To mark this achievement the artist Alex Jakob-Whitworth and s...
Feb 28, 2019•24 min
Our original plan for today’s walk fell apart. David Bradbury had invited us to join his lunch-time walking group. Instead of eating a sandwich at their desks, he and his colleagues would make the effort to go for midday rambles which were bonding, supportive and great exercise. He says the group held him together when some difficult personal problems arose. But then David left the company and, therefore, his walking group. However, he remains a keen walker, so we kept our date to walk with him ...
Feb 21, 2019•24 min
Clare Balding starts the 20th year of Ramblings by walking with a listener who is so committed to exploring the countryside that she creates and publishes her own walking routes. Elaine Steane ran out of walks, so decided to invent her own. She's published a number of books including Milestones to Millstones and it's a route from this that we follow today. It skirts the Oxfordshire/Berkshire border and takes in Mapledurham Watermill - a working Mill that not only produces its own flour but also ...
Feb 14, 2019•24 min
Clare joins a group of recently graduated students of Agriculture from Newcastle University who are walking and canoeing along the Speyside Way from source to sea in memory of their friend Rob who was tragically killed in their final year. Their summer wild camping trip is a way to bring the group of friends together once a year to talk and remember Rob who was such an integral part of their university life. Producer: Maggie Ayre
Oct 16, 2018•25 min
Clare Balding meets the writer Tom Cox for a walk on Dartmoor, the setting for many of his musings on walking and nature that are a humorous sometimes spooky take on the countryside and the creatures that inhabit it. His book 21st Century Yokel is full of Devon folklore, haunted landscapes and humorous observations about the people and animals he encounters. Their walk takes them from Manaton Church near Bovey Tracey up to Bowerman's Nose and Hound Tor, stopping off to pay their respects at the ...
Oct 16, 2018•24 min
