I was following another odd route, cutting across country to Woodbridge because the ferry that crossed the mouth of the River Debden was not running until later in the season. Sometimes these improvised routes proved disappointing but this day the patchwork of different walks and ways proved quite intriguing.

The suburban road I followed out of Ipswich ran out into a lane, that became a dusty track and then a path. It unwound like a tourist after three days on the beach, relaxing, going native as it snaked its way across the sandy fields. It was on paths like these that I got a whiff of what the world would have been like before the coming of the car. Here it was possible to hear the hedgerow bubble over with bird life and to feel the love of lane that inspired poets like Edward Thomas.

I trickled through the villages of Playford and Little Bealings, heading along the tiny River Fynn, enjoying the riotous singing of the birds who like me were willing to believe that Spring had finally begun.

There was the sense of the sea again. The teasing taste of it on the air as I sat by the tide mill and took pictures of the Thames barge in Woodbridge harbour.

After lunch I crossed the Debden on the Wilford Bridge, continuing east towards the sea. The sense of the sea then vanished for the moment, replaced again by the colours of the countryside. Between Bromeswell and Eyke I walked on quiet country roads which were decorated by a riot of tiny flowers.

The whole flavour of this walk changed again when I entered the Rendlesham Forest. Now I was walking in the shade of tall pines on wide bridlepaths with soft sand underfoot. It was tempting to take off my boots and to enjoy the feel on toes of the soft grains overlaid by a carpet of needles. In the rising heat the whole forest smelt of pine, a rich resiny aroma smell I associate with bathrooms.

My delight in the coolness of the trees however was seriously disturbed by the mean-looking perimeter fence of Bentwaters Airfield that cut its way through the trees to my left. At regular intervals along the path there was a sentry box, adding to the oddness of the high fence. I marched on in military fashion, heading towards Orford and its wonderful old castle. I noted that once again I was walking into the wind.

I remember a couple of years ago mocking, at a particularly fringey festival, an electric Aeolian Harp. This half-baked instrument looked to me to be a cross between a bass guitar and a patio door. At the time it seemed like a good idea to scoff at those that sat for hours listening to the rude resonance of whatever the wind was doing. I must have voiced my opinions a bit too loudly that afternoon as I think I must have pissed off Aeolus himself. Look at the record on the walk so far.

For the four days I had walked north east I had been walked into a North Easterly. Then for the two days that I walked south east, Aeolus the great god of wind conjured up a South Easterly. Next day as I stepped out the door at Orford I noticed that the wind had changed again- this time it had massed into a real storm, blowing fiercely from the North. Needless to say that today I was about to head northwards walking into the wind along the exposed Suffolk coastline. Just to make sure that I got the idea that I had been wrong about his harp music, Aeolus arranged for every twig, pole and wire on my walk to hum inharmoniously in the blast that blew into my face for the day.

Orford is a touristy little town which lies on the banks of the river Alde. I feel sort of sad for the Alde. It is one of those rivers whose mouths has been fitted in the wrong place. Five miles to the north of Orford the river comes to the sea at Aldeburgh but its path is blocked by a pebble peninsular that extends south for miles. The Alde is forced to sneak down the back of the beach before it can finally escape its embarrassment into the North Sea. Orford therefore is not only isolated by the water on its eastern side. Its also isolated from the sea by this barrier of shingle known as the Ness. The view out of my window that morning was a series of long lines cutting me off from my goal of reaching the North Sea.

The tide was almost full when I set out from Orford along the banks of the river. The wind worked up the trapped water inside the estuary into white horses that bucked and reared as they met the charge of the incoming tide. Meanwhile the sun was busy performing keyhole surgery on the fast moving banks of clouds overhead. As walked on, blasted by the wind, I found myself stunned by sunrays ricocheting off the river surface.

About two miles later on the tip of the bank at Westrow Reach I was less than a quarter of a mile from Aldeburgh, though unfortunately, there was no easy way to get across the river here. I stood with my thumb out, my clothes flapping furiously in the wind. Unfortunately my efforts at flagging down the passing yachts and windsurfers were rightly interpreted as the act of a madman, so my journey was extended by about ten miles as I trekked down first one bank of the Long Reach and then back again to a point on the sea shore just North of Aldeburgh.

Although it was not apparent from my erratic efforts to date, I had put in a lot of effort into planning this walk. As well as the long hours poring over maps, I had trained and researched the kind of equipment I might need. The books and guides that I had read put emphasis on good boots and on double skinned socks. Not one of these authorities, however, mentioned what I can only assume is a distance walking secret. The most important piece of kit you need to sort out when you go on a walk is your underpants. Here by the side of the Alde I started to note an uncomfortable rubbing.

You might well think that with underpants it is a case of out of sight and so out of mind, but what we are dealing with here on a 2,000 mile walk is extensive wear on important parts. I know you do not walk on genitalia, but you try swinging your legs about one million times each and then note which bit of body is moving and consequently being worn. After three months of walking, I can tell you with all sincerity that one knows intimately every dodgy seam, every piece of elastic, every itchy stitch in your undies.

Most of the rogues gallery that passes as my underwear passed the Summer of ‘96 test with flying colours. However, this particular pair, my John Major's, failed to make the grade.

I was rather fond of this pair of Marks and Spark’s finest which never failed to get a laugh out of Pauline when I put them on. They were constructed from more material than a Round-the World hot air balloon. They were the most embarrassing thing that I had ever bought, and that includes purchasing the Wombles first LP. Pulled up to their full height they just failed to get up to under my armpits. However as I’m a mean old sod who hates to go shopping, I never threw them away and try to forget that attired in these monsters I look like Rick Mayall in the Halloween episode of ‘Bottom’.

Pauline had christened this particular pair in the first years of our marriage and despite the combined efforts of the Prime Minister and his media consultants, the image, unlike the pants, still fitted in 1996.

By now, the John Major’s were on their last legs. The seams could not take the tough pace and a moth with a death wish had had a go at their gas green coloured material. To tell the truth the John Major’s were simply falling apart. A metaphor for the performance of the Tory party through out the summer of 1996.

It started with the Beef crisis, which was embarrassing enough with the British government threatening dire consequences for any German who did not eat their body weight in British beef. But it did not stop there. The underpants were not the only thing that were falling apart.

There was ‘cash for questions’, sleaze, a foreign policy that resembled a small child sulking, and the ‘don’t know, flip-a-coin’ approach of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Britain’s membership to the European currency. Even when the government did create some sort of policy, half a dozen mad-dog back-benchers would then do their level best to wreck the government’s stand by tea time the same day. Reading the papers each morning was a fascinating experience. In the pages of the Times and the Telegraph different Tory MPs slugged it out trying to impress the country at large with their acts of Hari Kari. Here by the coast I heard for the first time concerns about fish quotas and about the government’s handling EU licences. In truth, I was more concerned about the state of my undies.

As soon as I turned west walking towards the bridge at Snape Maltings the wicked wind seemed to abate. I found myself striding along a low marshy bank beside the estuary, watching boats and buoys bobbing on the tide.

This inland section of the coast was dotted by knolls, old banks and muddy lumps which create tidal ponds between them and the main channel. I watched two local men fishing by the effective method of slinging a net between two of these hillocks and then sieving all the water that poured through their net as the tide went out. Their efforts had been greatly helped by a seal that had been patrolling outside their net in the Reach. It acted like a sheep dog, driving the fish into the fold. As I walked past, the two men heaved on their lines and a catch of about twenty torpedo-shaped fish landed on the bank all around me.

The walk back along the northern side of the Alde was very different from these open marsh lands. I found myself in the shelter of a wood, an oasis of calm on such a windy day. This part of the coast path is never far from the water and where the drainage channels cross the path a carpet of colourful wild flowers greeted my eye. The yellows of the marsh marigolds bright like the sun in the shade under the trees. The proverbial quiet before the storm.

It seemed to take me weeks to walk the two miles to Thorpeness shuffling along on the shingle of the beach, pinned down by the blast of the northerly wind. Any thoughts that I had of celebrating the sea by a quick dip had been blown away by the first blast that had tried to rip off my head.

From Thorpeness looking north one really gets an idea of how open and empty this most easterly part of England is. Before me, the land looked like a thin edge of a biscuit. The view was dominated by the sky and the sullen brown water of the North Sea. Along this coast line I could see for miles, and the only objects that my eyes could pick out was the enormous lumps of Sizewell A and B.

Sizewell Nuclear Power Stations or ‘Meltdown on Sea’. As I walked I felt like I was thinking in headlines.

It is hard to appreciate the scale of these two units from a distance as they dwarf everything on this coast apart from the sea itself. I also found it hard to describe their impact on the view as I had difficulty getting past my deeply ingrained distrust of nuclear power.

As I got closer to Sizewell one thing that struck me was how different the two units looked. Sizewell A is your archetypal concrete cold war bunker whereas B, built in a different era, is decked out in a cladding of blue and white and looks like a local authority sports hall. I guess the design is supposed to make it less of an eyesore but to be honest I don’t think it matters. The fact is that Sizewell A was a mistake, but built in an era when the true cost of nuclear power was not understood. For Sizewell B there is no such excuse and I can only hope that future generations will forgive us for saddling them with our problems. No matter of a bit of bright colour is going to get us past that fact.

I think I walked about ten miles that afternoon. In the blasts of the wind it felt like I walked thirty before I finally reached Dunwich and shelter. Towards the end of the day I became a bit wobbly. I looked a little drunk as I staggered over Coney Hill into the old town.

That evening, after a meal of enormous proportions I slept for twelve hours, the curses of Aeolus still whistling in my ears.

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© Gavin Stewart 1996-2004