23 APRIL 1954, Page 6

where he was and the docility with which his directives

were received, I took him for the leader of the expedition. It was* he told me, a Conducted Ramble organised by British Rail, ways. The ramblers, who detrained at one station in th° morning and entrained at another in the evening, welt supposed to stick to footpaths and rights of way, but were if! practice rather difficult to control, as individual rates Ot advance tended to vary. One reason for this was soon apparent Treading firmly but not, I suppose, very deleteriously on rnY tenant's wheat, an unusually large and compact group of nature' lovers came downhill to the gate where we- stood. In their midst, uniting them by an invisible bond, strode a youth wile carried, in the slightly ritualistic way that a butler carries salver, a very small, flat wireless set. As the young ladies and gentlemen passed by, the cries of a pair of peewits whom theY had disturbed were drowned by the voice of a crooner /0 a distant studio.

"Tulips and heather "_ (she sang) "Mixed up together. .

That was as much as I heard, but the words didn't seem 3 bad comment on British Railways' Conducted Rambles.