Sea on Our Left, The: a Couple's Ten Month Walk Around Britain's Coastline

The bestselling story of a husband and wife team who walked clockwise for 302 days around the coastline of mainland Britain. Both 52, they gave up comfort in Tunbridge Wells to spend the next 10 months trudging 4,300 miles. Contending with blisters, stomach cramps, Highland midges and life together in a tent, the trip came close to destroying their health and their marriage. However, their lively humour and sheer determination gets them through – just! Shally's walk around Britain has inspired Volunteer Coastguards to conduct a walk during 2002 based on her book.

'I'd like to walk all of it,' Richard said.

'All of what?' I asked, curious.

'The whole coastal path, from Poole to Minehead. We're so familiar with this stretch, I'd like to see the rest.'

I reflected on this suggestion, hypnotised by the deeply scored granite cliffs. I heard my voice say, 'Why stop there? Why don't we walk all the way round.'

'Round what?'

'Round Britain,' the voice said quietly. 'What a challenge that would be!'

It was May 1993. Richard and I were walking a familiar stretch of the coastal path in West Penwith, the real 'toes' of Cornwall. Richard was silent. He is often silent, while I vocalise my thoughts almost before they are thoughts at all. Just as there is 'a time to speak and a time to be silent', so there is 'a time to live and a time to die'. What better way to 'live' than to do something totally different, something challenging that would mean lifting ourselves out of our mainstream ordinary lives, with a chance to get to know our own kingdom by the sea better.

Richard had worked in the same dental practice in Tunbridge Wells for thirty years, and I had been a Chartered Physiotherapist in the same hospital for nearly as long. We were both in our early fifties, still fit enough to contemplate such a project. Our two daughters were 26 and 24, both financially independent. Last year we finished paying the mortgage. My hospital might give me a career break, Richard could get a locum, and we could walk off into the sunset.

These thoughts flew through my head as we walked along those awesome cliffs. The silence on my left finally broke. Richard must have been doing mileages in his head for he replied slowly.

'It would take nearly a year. I'll have to ask Nick'. Nick was Richard's dental partner who feared Richard might be abandoning ship for good. When he learned it was only a year, permission was granted. A possibility became a probability. Why the coast? This was a question asked us by Frank Bough in a radio interview before we left. The sea washes all Man's ills away was said by the ancient Greek Euripedes. It is ironic that this 'cleansing' water includes vast quantities of effluent, detritus and toxic waste. Economic fortunes rise and fall as Man exploits his natural resources. Yet the sea is still man's last wilderness and Britain's coastline is varied and beautiful. Richard and I crave space in our over-crowded little island. The sea's space is hypnotic and powerful; a paradox and an enigma; friendly and hostile. The rhythmical sound of the sea became a pulse which we missed when inland. Up on the cliffs we felt an empathy with the ancient rocks, a feeling of continuity, a humbling ability to appreciate that we are just a tiny part of an immense ecosystem.

It was a secular pilgrimage. Travelling on foot, we saw the results of Man's disproportionate impact on this fragile environment; we also saw how rapidly nature heals scars and redresses the balance. Spiritual amphibians threading our way along the margins, on cliffs, beaches, sea-walls and promenades, we felt an integral part of our 'Kingdom by the sea.'

Last, but not least, there were the people. Round the edges, traditions stick. G.K Chesterton said, The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land. It is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. Walking is a good pace both to see and to meet the locals. We met 'foreigners' from Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Northumberland and Norfolk. To a degree, every area has its own customs and specialities. Everyone, without exception, gave us something of themselves, whether that something was overnight hospitality, charity money, a freebie, or even just a smile. We were vagrants of no fixed abode; a middle-class middle-aged couple travelling hopefully. So it was, with a lot of help from family and friends, we were able to cut ourselves loose from the self-imposed net of our everyday lives and enjoy a taste of structured freedom. Our own land, if not the world, was at our feet.