Out of Hackney

A new blog from Hackney Lookout. Tired of the sickos in my borough, this is an account of what I do to escape them at the weekend. More posts have been written and will be added over the next fortnight.

Marks Tey to Sudbury

If you want a good excuse not to visit your in-laws in north Lincolnshire, change jobs. Your desire to cut a dash among your new colleagues, not to mention a handy three-month probation period, is an acceptable way to escape a long week of curtain-twitching and watching Countdown videos. And, if you're really lucky, your wife will go anyway; giving you a full seven days to revert to your disgusting bachelor habits.

Then again, I never really grew out of them. So, on Saturday, I got out of bed, jumped into the previous day's underpants, deodorised the outside of my shirt and slung the tent in the rucksack. The rough plan was to walk from Bures, straggling the Essex/Suffolk border, and head up to the campsite at Sudbury.

As always, I'd done my research under the influence so, while I knew I had to get the train from Liverpool Street to Marks Tey, and then another on to Bures, I was rather sketchy about the actual times.

The first leg was fine, but when I got to Marks Tey I realised that I'd have to wait another 45 minutes or so before I could carry on to Sudbury. So I went in search of a pint.

And found a dual carriageway. A ruddy huge one at that and not a boozer in sight. So I got the map out of the pocket, looked for the nearest 'public house' symbol and headed up a sliproad in the direction of Fordstreet.

I went through some unremarkable tracks and fields, but things soon improved and, breaking out through Aldham, I went via Cummins Farm and along to the bar of Fordstreet's Old Queens Head.

I'm unfit. Two miles down, shirt glued to back with ethanolic sweat, nicotine withdrawal round the corner: the only solution was a pint of Abbot. Just right. I decided to complete the cure with bangers and mash.

Now, I'm in two minds about the bangers and mash in the Old Queens Head. While I can imagine the Queen in question being unamused by the sausages, she couldn't fault the gravy: rich and meaty with fragments of the Sunday roast clearly visible under the meniscus. But the effect was good and, after a fag or two, I hitched up the rucksack and headed off.

"Happy hiking," said a clearly-satirical voice as I left.

Just in case I got thirsty again, I cut a mile up to Fordham and then, resisting the urge for another beer, struck out towards what was clearly marked on the map 'Airfield (disused)'.

Disused my arse. As I headed through a field of barley, congratulating myself on shaking off a chatty scoutmaster a few hundred yards back, I heard a huge whoosh that nearly made me bite the end off my tongue. Soaring in front of me, heading moonwards, was an enormous glider on the end of a cable.

Just to set the record straight, let me point out that I am not an inveterate townie. I was brought up in a small town, true enough; but I spent much of my time in the surrounding countryside with my grandfather who, for years, was a forester. So when it comes to the town/country divide I can fairly say that I've got a foot in each camp, even if my crotch is dangling over the middle.

But with aeroplanes, I have to admit I know jack shit. In the book I had as a kid, gliders were pulled along by aircraft and definitely didn't have a habit of jumping out of fields on the end of a steel hawser.

I caught up with the abandoned scouts, who were taking a breather on the edge of the airfield, rucksacks open, water bottles and snacks out, clearly not planning to push on in a hurry. Nice to see the old fieldcraft in action. They're probably still there now.

Out of the airfield, bypassing a non-existent footpath (an overgrown field) I spotted a bench on the corner of the road down to Wormingford Hall. Taking off the rucksack I discovered that about a litre of sweat had taken up residence in the back of my T-shirt so, entering into the aeronautical flavour of my surroundings, I took it off and stood at the edge of the road, using the breeze to make an impromptu windsock of the sodden garment.

Now I know that half-naked, pasty Londoners are rarely a feast for the eye; and I'm no exception. But I did mean this to be a private moment. And I do ask the guy in the red car whether he really needed to drive past quite so slowly, or whether he felt he must smirk quite so much. Even if I would have done exactly the same.

But following in his wake towards the Hall and then out by the lodge, I hit some superb countryside. Unfortunately all the photographs I took of it were out of focus (how?), but as someone who is usually indifferent to scenery I gulped in the view from up on the Lodge Hills before heading the last mile or two into Bures.

The dilemma most people face on entering a strange town or village is deciding which of its pubs is likely to be the best. Luckily, the Three Horseshoes in Church Square, garbed with garish St George's Flags, was the sort I instinctively rule out except for in emergencies. That led me to toss a coin: heads for the Swan Inn, tails for the Eight Bells.

The tails had it and the pub was a good choice, though I was by this point too knackered to appreciate it properly. There was a knot of regulars at the bar (the A-list), a bloke by himself near the door (presumably to fat to stand, too short to reach the bar stool) and a middle-class fellow with a shorts-and-socks combo who popped in from a side entrance for a solitary ale. One of the guys by the bar had that fantastic, rasping pre-emphysemic laugh, which rose and subsided like someone filing the bars of his prison cell.

But a pint of lime and soda, washed down with a pretty good Greene King IPA soon set me up and I left the boys to get on with it.

The next stretch, heading out to Sudbury was pretty boring, sandwiched in between the River Stour and the railway line, but I passed a charming looking pub in Lamarsh (alas, closed) and got a superb view of the village church (right) from the hill to its west.

From there I headed down to Valley Farm, on a path that passes by the house. Someone came out as I was passing and ignored my smile of greeting so, just to cheer him up, I asked him if I was going the right way.

"Yes," he said, then disappeared.

So, after heading across a field I decided to call it a day, rejoining the road to Henny Street, past an awful lot of turnips or something similar and then across Shalford Meadow towards the sewage works and campsite.

Of course, that was the last of the sunshine. Over the last mile the stormclouds (right) had gathered and, by the time I was hobbling into the campsite, I felt the first spatters of rain.


Map(s): OS Explorer™ 184 (Colchester, Harwich & Clacton-on-Sea); OS Explorer™ 196 (Sudbury, Hadleigh & Dedham Vale)

Chips, cider and the Daily Telegraph

It pissed it down as I put up the tent, and the only consolation I had was that I had picked up a rock outside Bures to knock the tent pegs in. But I stretched the outer tent too tight as I erected it, letting the water seep through to my sleeping quarters.

But I got it up in the end, sat inside and kicked myself for not bringing any food or drink. The longest distance I've walked for about 15 years and I forget the provisions. At least in the cadet force we had petrol-soaked Rolos and "Biscuits Fruit" (as opposed to "Biscuits Brown") in our Compo Rations.

So I put on some dry clothes and looked at the map again.

If ever you go camping in Sudbury, don't get carried away and think that the campsite is actually in Sudbury. It's not. It's a good mile and a half outside it, right on the outskirts of Great Cornard. Just ask for the road to the sewage works and you'll find it.

On went the boots again and I went for a dispirited trudge into town, just as the sun was setting over the church. Normally I would have taken an interest in the fact there's a statue of Gainsborough outside it, but all I really wanted was a consignment of saturated fat.

I got it all right. After turning my nose up at various unpleasant fried chicken joints I found a place selling those chips that, while astonishingly greasy, have the ability to suck every last bit of moisture out of your mouth.

But it was too wet to sit down and eat them, so I had to shuffle past crowds of locals cannoning from one boozer to the next. My favourite group was of a bunch of women on a hen night, all wearing deely boppers and t-shirts, which had sequinned slogans indicating their place in the herd. The most pissed off looking woman had "Bridegroom's Mother" studded into hers.

But then I had a stroke of luck. I found an offy-cum-minimarket, where I stocked up with four tins of Strongbow, six Price's nightlights and a copy of the Daily Telegraph. The candles made the condensation in the tent intolerable, but reading the Telegraph in a mild cider haze was a delight.

Wimpy breakfast

Woke up, packed the tent up and got ambushed by a squadron of ducks. But as all I had to offer them was two unopened tins of cider or a cigarette they went off to breakfast elsewhere.

Which didn't solve my problem. Sudbury on a Sunday doesn't much cater for the hungry traveller, and as the supermarket didn't open until 10 o'clock I had to fall back on the local Wimpy.

The last time I went to a Wimpy was when I was about eight. My father used to take me and my younger brother to one after he'd been round to give my mother the maintenance money. In those days it was just a greasy spoon where you could see a bloke flipping burgers. The one in Sudbury is cleaner and smells a bit less but the idea's the same.

So I ordered an enormous breakfast and a cup of rather ersatz coffee and started looking at the map. But I soon got interested in the conversation going on behind me.

Because it was going on behind me, I can't give you much of a description of the two interlocutors. But I soon became an expert in their past history.

Chap number one had served in the Navy during the Second World War. He deplored the behaviour of young men today and, in particular, their drinking habits. What they needed was a good bout of National Service to bring them into line.

Chap number two didn't state his occupation, but made it clear that he was well travelled. He too felt that the young men should drink less, adding that - if they would only work - then asylum-seekers wouldn't come over here and take all the jobs. He was the younger of the two and Irish.

But the dialogue improved as soon as the Naval chap admitted he was hoping to go to Ireland. From then on he said little, and the little he said spurred his companion onto higher and better things.

I wish I had had my notebook with me to get the flavour of the dialogue, but it would need a Joyce to render it anything like I heard it. But, to give you an outline, within ten minutes I heard about the following:

• The potato famine
• How the population never recovered since the above
• The westernmost parish in Europe (nothing between it and America but the Atlantic)
• The Easter Uprising
• Guinness
• Giving up the drink
• The desirability of avoiding Ulster

But as I doubt you'll believe such a list of stereotypes, I'll just ask you to believe me, join me in a post-breakfast cigarette and push off on the second day's walk.

Round Sudbury, via Long Melford

While the Wimpy breakfast and the chatter of its tolerant patrons left me feeling quite refreshed, my legs still felt as though they'd been set on by a couple of paramilitaries. So I decided to take it easy, wander up to Long Melford for a spot of lunch and make my way back in time to catch an early train.

But it was a dreary day. I duly headed up the river to Borley Hall, down the Valley Walk and into Long Melford. I saw nothing of interest apart from a walker wearing a kilt without a sporran. Yeah, that interesting.

So I got to Long Melford, up towards Melford Hall and found a bench at the bottom of the rise leading up to the church. And sat there for half an hour.

By then it was lunchtime so, after a cursory glance at the church (a wonder, and one I would have appreciated on a better day), I headed into The Hare for some food.

Unfortunately only one half of the doors opened and my rucksack got stuck it them. And the Sunday roast was very much in the school-dinners-but-with-microwaved-carrots vein. So not an unmitigated success.

But that, with a couple of beers, refreshed me enough to head back - via the shortest route my pride would take. So I headed down the King's Lane, through Newman's Green and into the east of Sudbury via a disused airfield (it was disused this time) and an abandoned church. Leaving me a final stretch through the council estate and along to the station where - first bit of luck all day - the train was waiting, ready to leave.

Note to recovering slobs who have taken up walking: take the bus on day two. You won't regret it.

Map(s): OS Explorer™ 196 (Sudbury, Hadleigh & Dedham Vale)