Postscript
Severn
P. J. Kavanagh
T et us not make too much of it. We were
within inches of oozy death. Stuck on the crumbling cliff-face (the path had fallen into the river) torn by brambles thick as thumbs, water and mud 20 vertical feet below, there seemed no way out but up. Clinging to ash seedlings, looping our arms gratefully round larger trunks when there were any, we pulled ourselves upwards, while loose shale cascaded into the water. Then my companion paused: 'We seem', he announced thoughtfully, 'in an over-hang situation.' Slowly looking upwards (for fear too abrupt a movement would help my haversack to topple me backwards) I saw the red sandstone outcrop that had looked so inviting had indeed the aspect of an arch, even of a ceiling. Nothing to do but des- cend, and push on; there was no going back the way we had come. So, sweating, bleeding, we inched our way towards possi- ble safety, 45 minutes to cover as many yards, watched by a man with a short pipe, in a flat-bottomed boat who can't have had such an enjoyable lunch break in years. At last the angle began to flatten, the brambles to thin and, reaching the safety of ankle- deep ooze, pink with mud and red with bramble scratches, we marched towards Stourport for lunch. The man in the boat still watched, pretending not to.
We were walking along the Severn. We always do, at least we do every year, Laurence Whitfield and I, starting where we left off the previous year, hoping to
The Spectator 21 April 1984 reach Plinlimmon and the source before," like Anchises, we have to be carried. Marl more cliffs like that and we'll never make it, but there aren't many, though we make the most of them when we return. One of the best things about it is that you don't have to look where you are going except on such rare and heroic occasions. You simply follow the brown river, there is a way all along its banks and you are free to observe, and speculate, and dream. Tile world seems to have ignored the Severn since the war. Sometimes the motorwaY is only a few hundred yards away but Y°t11, cannot hear traffic and it might not exist. " is almost as though there are two Englandsci one tearing up and down out of earshot an another, withdrawn, secretive, brooding. The occasional bank-side houses look like that, as though, even if they are reached u/ the road, the river is their real concern. They cling to the green bank as though their owners have crawled into a good interstice and hope nobody will notice. ;le the bank is indeed green, mile after in'ci's almost endlessly green. The Severn noo,, , every year, and so on either side are flat every dotted with old oaks, and tftde; the flats the ground rises and is wooded. one One is walking inside a wide green cuP- ing had arrived, tentatively; there wee' r primroses and wood anemones, the. es catkins were purple and red and the wn% were sprouting that rather dramatic Yelt felS colour. There were coots and water Mt-- and yellow wagtails; one red cliff contained a cave and in the centre of the cave, ealtnee watching us, was the orange and white fase of a fox. It could afford to be calm beeattw the cave was in a sheer cliff, attainable orl'." by pitons and crampons and all the things we had wished for outside Stourport. Not much happens on these walks, eiceero things like foxes glimpsed in caves, hut as arrive anywhere on foot is to see it .n.
stance, aonucgeh, for the wrecked in time. Tee. you 01114 upon just below the Cathedral, it is all we can see and it is marvellous. This titne,d stumbled on Bewdley. Later, by chance "'at, in the dark, old street, we fell into an ecillvs ly old pub called the Packhorse that gave ord- fresh grilled sardines in the bar and sw fish steaks and good wine at cost priceavv'er, still find it difficult to believe that una at
Bewdley. Sixties, for tised, unilluminated outside, Packhorse We pride ourselves on indepen-e- sport,
A nee SO we always return home by public tranj the if there is any. We leave the river, filluots road, and hope for some sort of bus. faces involves much desolate trudging, mid whipped by the slipstream of 10CrieS 'Jo never a human soul to ask. After only the days on the river it is difficult to helieciv arid impersonality of the road. But WI. tt of fed-up, walking in the vague directio.._5, distant home — 'these are negative director said Laurie, thinking of far Plinlirrunits his face softened in wonder: 'There's 3 as behind you, Patrick,' he vvhisPere.ag' to though afraid of startling it. 'ft is g°1 Kidderminster, and it's stopping.'
Previous page
