The cover to Nature Lover's Companion(1949), published by Ladybird Books. The artist, Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979) was renowned for his paintings of British birds and other wildlife and also illustrated Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter, as well as Brooke Bond tea cards during the 50s and 60s
It's happening!
Marie is building up a walks programme in anticipation of a restart to London Group social walks from 12th April, beginning with one led by Lonica on Saturday 17th. As some of us may need to ease back into longer distances after such an exteded pause, many of the walks will have drop-off points, e.g. underground stations, on route. Ron Williamson will be running Tuesday walks of around 12 miles for a few weeks. Apart from that, Gavin is also organising some weekend walks and in total some 15 social walks are already planned in principle. It looks as if we'll be able to walk in groups of 6 for certain and very probably in groups of up to 30 provided a risk assessment has been completed. Marie has contacted all walk leaders asking for volunteers to cover the available weekends. None of this has as yet appeared in Strider or on the Association’s national site, and they'll be advertised properly only when it's certain we can go ahead. Hopefully, guidance will be available in early April. No evening walks have been programmed as yet. This will happen once people have stopped having to work from home.
Beach of Dreams...
... will be taking place between 26th June and 1st August, finishing at Tilbury Fort. Former LDWA Chair Peter Aylmer has prepared a GPX file for each mile of the route. Participants are asked to take a photo of the mile they have adopted as their own and to write a little about this. From this, London LDWA Chair Ali Pretty will make a silk flag for each person. A digital story map is being created. Guardian journalist Kevin Rushby is very much involved and will be walking a lot of the route. Colin Saunders is doing valuable service as ferry master. The LDWA is a formal partner in this project and members from the Herts and Essex branch are also providing a lot of help. Peter Aylmer is looking for people to recce Tilbury and Thames Estuary sections. In addition, Ali is in the course of recruiting one leader for each day of walking. The whole project will be promoted on the national website of the LDWA courtesy of Julian White. An open invitation is extended to anyone to join in for as much or as little of the route as they wish. If you would like to stay overnight, Colin Saunders has also created a list of all the convenient campsites.
