Southend U3A

April 2023

The Walk of Life - Marie Day

I’m nearly 70 and when I think about it, I’ve walked a long way in that time. I was told by my mother that I ‘walked early’. Impatient maybe to start finding out about whatever was outside. Didn’t know where I was going but once up, I put one foot in front of the other to see where it would take me.

As we had no car, I walked to primary school and back twice a day. Perhaps that’s how my attitude to walking became set into my mind. When I went on to secondary school my friend used to call me ‘greyhound’ as she said she could never keep up with me. I didn’t think I was going that fast and I suppose I put it down to her fondness for high heels and not any increase in speed on my part.

My walking took a variety of directions in my teens. I used to walk from home in Rainham to school in Hornchurch and back to save my 4d each way bus fare. I remember a walk to Romford once with my Mum. The buses were on strike. Mum had a letter to say she had won 2nd prize in a competition run by the local paper. Rather than wait a day and travel by bus Mum decided to go and collect it even though she didn’t know what it was. After our trek to the newspaper offices, we came away with a book. The title; ‘The Complete History of the Lavatory’. It felt like a long walk home.

The longest walk of my teens was a 26-mile charity walk one Sunday set up by pupils from my school to Southend on Sea from Hainault. We were raising money to build and equip a jeep with medical supplies to send to Ethiopia in a famine much in the news at that time. I can remember walking confidently for the first 18 miles and then my body started to what I can only describe as ‘seize up’! It started at the waist and gradually descended to my feet. The last 6 miles were walked with no actual feeling below the waist. The effort was made even worse by the signs as we reached the outskirts of Southend. The first one proclaimed ‘Southend Seafront 3 miles’. We followed the sign to the next one which also declared ‘Southend Seafront 3 miles’. We finally arrived at the end of the promenade and collapsed into the deckchairs set up beside two teachers with clip boards marking down which brave souls had managed the full distance. The headmaster wasn’t pleased on the Monday when half the school’s pupils were absent but we raised the money for the jeep. Not quite ‘Live Aid’ but I’m sure Sir Bob Geldof would have been proud of us. My friend of the high heels fame was one of the absentees as she’d got into the bath the previous evening to ease her aching limbs and found she couldn’t get out. Her Mum and sister had to lift her!

Moving on to college I continued to walk almost everywhere. In the holidays I worked in Ford’s offices which were in a huge building down by the edge of the Thames in Dagenham. It looked like a gigantic, blue shoe box which opened and swallowed you up every morning. The walk from the main road was long and straight and the sounds of vehicles gradually disappeared as if giant sound excluders had covered my ears the nearer I came to the office building. It seemed odd considering how many thousands of cars were being made all over the rest of the Ford site. After college I walked to and from home to the first school I taught at, dragging bags of books to mark. I really should have counted how many calories I used up and how much bus fare I saved!

In my middle years on holidays in Lincolnshire I would take myself off to walk around the village while the others fished. We returned every year for 25 years to the same cottages so I think I was able to cover every inch of the pathways in that time. My circuits helped me note the changes and curiosities of the village seen from year to year. I often wonder now if the ‘lady’s leg’ is still sticking out of the bush in the front garden of the house in the main road through the village or if the four Lincoln imp statues still guard the driveway of one of the more luxurious village homes. Only one year thwarted me. In the early 2000’s the footpaths and lanes were closed off to prevent foot and mouth crossing borders from Yorkshire. Lincolnshire was guarding its boundaries from unwanted invaders.

Now I still walk but the distances are definitely getting shorter. I can no longer walk the full length of the High Street in one go without a rest and a cup of something hot. I can walk one way to the end of the pier but gratefully take the train back. I no longer sit in the circle or gallery of our theatres. No lift, so the stalls are where you’ll find me. After all I’m nearly 70, I have arthritic knees and I’ve walked a long way since 1953!