Remembering Steve – five years on

It’s over five years since Steve – my dad – passed away. However we think about him all the time, and still laugh at his jokes, thinking about the way he howled with laughter at his own punchlines. We talk about him a lot, and the deep legacy he left for Mum, for me, and for many many others.

It’s been a while since either of us have done an official event to remember Dad. But that’s because everyday life is full of ways to remember him, and ways that we can honour and represent him. Mum does an immense amount of voluntary work – for Force cancer charity, for her village – a community that hugely changed for the better as a result of Dad and Mum’s force-for-good impact.  Jon and I fake-squabble over who gets the ends of the Mars bar when you chop it into slices. I’ve sat on the governing board of a school for the last 3-4 years, all the time with Dad’s words ringing in my ears about what schools really need. I have a series of particularly rude passwords for logging in which I know he’d appreciate. We listen to Lovely Day by Bill Withers at high volume in the car and shout-sing along, trying to hold the notes long enough.  As my career develops, I find his words coming out of my mouth, as I try to follow his example in guiding teams and people through problems or changes. And the whole family raises our hands in a jerking movement whenever anyone says “we’d better make a move”, one of those peculiar in-jokes that only people who knew Dad find funny – because he thought it was hysterical, every time.

And we, like everyone who benefited from knowing Steve, make the effort to be fair, and fun, and inspire the people to do their best, as he taught us.

But coming up soon will be a new challenge – one where I intend to honour his memory. I will be running my first ever 10 km race in Bristol on May 7th. This is no small feat for someone who spent most of PE lessons standing on the toilet seat trying to avoid being caught, or sulking on the edge of a rainy astro turf dreaming about what kind of cake to have for lunch. Now, like every other 30-something everywhere, I have discovered the benefits of running and have been experimenting with various 5km options. But next stop – the big one! Will I be able to actually do it?!?!? We will find out…!

This is not a challenge that my dad ever attempted himself. His idea of exercise was a good lungful of air on a country walk with his arms swinging, preferably on Dartmoor. But I know he would be extremely proud to know that I – as a Mear!- am even contemplating the idea.

If you are able to sponsor me – in aid of Force cancer charity – I would be very, very grateful! http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserPage.action?userUrl=walk_for_steve&pageUrl=4

Remembering Steve one year on from the walk…

One year on from our trek across Devon in memory of Steve, my Dad, Mum set out on her own trek, this time over 15 miles of Dartmoor in aid of Marie Curie. Accompanied by Buckerell friend Paul Booth and his son Nathan,17, (otherwise known as Steve’s sidekick and mini-me, who had helped Dad to renovate the Falbot canoe), Mum trekked in a day across some lovely bits of Dartmoor, coming in 22nd place despite a weeny amount older than the other walkers! And she raised £300 for Marie Curie Cancer Care!

I, however, was not with her this time – I was supposed to be in Nepal with Jon Welly at the wedding of old friend Drew, and then trekking the Annapurna range. However, on Friday 13th September, I was blearily getting ready for work, when I opened my wardrobe door and the mirror that was on the inside of the door fell straight onto my foot, slicing the tendon… cue fountains of blood, lots of howling… by 4pm I was under general anesthetic having an operation and was definitely not going anyway – Nepal, Dartmoor, anywhere without crutches! So I cheered Mum, Paul and Nathan on from the sofa in Bristol!

Meanwhile, for those who remember the story of What Kufbert the Tractor Did Next, Dad’s old tractor has been fully renovated by Bicton Overseas Agricultural Trust (BOAT) – a charity which supports people in sub-Saharan Africa to get high quality agricultural training. This summer, Mum and I met six students – all of them professional agriculture trainers and lecturers from Tanzania and Malawi –  after their course at Bicton Agricultural college. They’d had a great time, and really had a lot of learning to take back to their students. That’s the work BOAT do – disseminate learning through the trainers, rather than go out and teach themselves. It’s a sustainable model, and it felt like a great charity for Kufbert the tractor to be donated to.  Dad would have loved it – education, Africa, tractors – what’s not to like?!

At the Devon county show this spring, Bicton college students renovated Kufbert entirely in front of passers-by. Mum went along to see the tractor in its deconstructed state. By the end of the show, the tractor was gleaming and sparkling, and working perfectly.

Then BOAT’s incredibly dedicated team of volunteers, led by Bill Vellacott and his wife June, took Kufbert on the back of a trailer to pretty much every agricultural show in-between Padstow and Peterborough. At each show, the volunteers spent their days yelling, “win this tractor for a pound! Only a pound!” until their voices were hoarse. And because of them, by the time the show season was coming to an end, so many tractor lovers had taken a gamble that their ticket may just be the one to win the 1952 Ferguson, that the tractor raffle has raised £15,796! That’s 15,796 people willing to spend a pound in the hope that the tractor would be theirs. Dad would have sympathised! More to the point, Dad would be overjoyed that Kufbert has been to so many shows, and raised so much money for a cause that will leave a huge legacy of education.

In November, Mum and I made our way to the Leicestershire, to see old friends from Hong Kong days MJ and Julie McMullen and their husbands and families – MJ, Julie and their sister Sharon had been my babysitters, and Mum and Dad had been their official guardians for a term or so in Germany in 1985. MJ and her husband Graeme plastered us with good wine and good food, and so the next morning we wound our way – a little jaded perhaps (me!) – to the Newark Tractor Show. This was Kufbert’s final show, and the one where, in brilliant autumn sunlight, we had the chance to pull the golden ticket out of a giant sack of raffle tickets. Right up till the last minute, the BOAT volunteers were hawking the tickets, and it was quite insightful to see how almost every person was willing to take that chance. Then, at 2.30pm, the great draw took place. I pulled the winning ticket from the 15796 tickets in the giant feed sack – a man from Herefordshire won it! There were many sad faces amongst the crowd who’d gathered to realise that Kufbert wasn’t theirs.

In December, we will go with BOAT to officially hand over Kufbert to his new owner, who apparently is over the moon. We hope he will love the tractor as much as we did, and especially as much as Dad did. Dad was a frustrated farmer/boat builder/tinkerer and the tractor and Truant the boat were his toys. We know he’d approve of Kufbert’s adventure, touring the UK and raising huge sums for education in sub Saharan Africa.

Holding someone in your heart and head doesn’t go away, it turns out. Taking them with you every day of the life you have and they no longer have it is the privilege you get from having had them there, even if that time was curtailed. Life may never be the same, but it can be saturated with their influence, like a filter on a lens. That’s how we feel about Dad – Mum and I, Granddad, Aunty Jan, his friends, his colleagues – all of us. Every day, whether at work or on the train or sitting in the pub, I hear his voice in his my head and am guided by what he would tell me, and I know others do too.

For those of you who don’t know, Dad’s headstone was installed in Buckerell churchyard this June, resting in a quiet place which you can see from the house. It faces east, looking over the wall of good friend Patricia’s cottage garden, over the lane, across the fields of Buckerell which stretch towards Honiton, in the village where he made such a difference. On his headstone is inscribed, simply,

‘Stephen Richard Mear

18.06.51-09.04.12

Remembered with so much love by so many people, every day, everywhere.”

And the final amount raised is…

£3506.75!!!

Yes, that is right, three thousand five hundred and six pounds seventy five pence was raised due to your generosity and support.

This will be split in two and shared between FORCE Cancer Charity and Marie Curie Cancer Care. We know that both these charities will do great things to support people who have cancer, and to pioneer research to reduce  improve survival rates.

(The keen observer will note that this total amount is higher than that on Virgin Giving. This is due to the number of cheques we received, all of which have been sent on to the charities above).

We would like to say a huge, enormous, sincere and deep thank you to everyone who sponsored us and supported us to complete the Two Moors Way coast-to-coast. We really could not have done it without you.

On a side note, Mum and I returned to Dartmoor for a short break on Boxing Day, (staying at the wonderful Beechwood B&B in Postbridge, definitely one to recommend). We huffed and puffed our way up a slight incline and marveled at the fact that we ever managed to complete the walk, let alone in floods and gales and all the general Old Testament style weather that plagued the Autumn (admittedly peppered with those brilliant sunlit days that made up for it).

So we will leave you with some pictures of Dartmoor and thank you for getting us up those hills, past those fierce-looking bulls, and through those mud swamps. We think that Dad would be proud! And he would be overwhelmed, as we are, by the love, kindness and friendship that has been shown to the Mear family since his untimely death. We remember him every day, in every thing we do, and hope that you can find ways to remember him too.

Thank you.

Kufbert the Tractor Goes to Tanzania

 

Many people who knew Dad will know of his love of boats and tractors, cars, trolleys – essentially anything with a wheel or a rudder that you can steer, that allows you to be out in the countryside or on the water.

Dad’s boat, Truant, and later his tractor, Kufbert, were his answer to the mid-life crisis buy-a-red-Porsche stage that other men have. Truant provided many happy times on the Axe river or out in Lyme bay, and was only sold when Dad couldn’t keep up the maintenance on a wooden boat due to being in Germany for two years. Truant now has a new owner and is moored in Lyme Regis.

Kufbert, on the other hand, was sheltered under tarpualin on the drive, and slowly falling out of repair after Dad died in April. Mum and I knew that Kufbert needed a new home that would love it as much as Dad did.

Then we heard about BOAT, Bicton Overseas Agricultural Trust, founded by Devon farmers and aligned with Bicton Agricultural College here in Devon. The trust trains trainers on agricultural skills, management and business, in countries such as Tanzania and Malawi. It teams up with agricultural colleges in developing countries to ensure that Bicton college expertise is taken out to train the trainer, and then students are brought to Bicton College from developing countries to participate on high level Management courses with agricultural specialisms.

Dad had visited me in Tanzania, along with Mum, in 2001, and absolutely loved it. He joked about his favourite moments being sipping cold Kilimanjaro beer on the rooftop bar of the Kindoroko Hotel in Moshi, looking at Kilimanjaro the mountain peeking out of the clouds above. He had been very inspired by the students and teachers I was working with at Bumbuli Secondary School, in the Usambara mountains, and he had always taken an interest in Tanzania since then.

Mum and I felt that Dad would love to know the Kufbert the tractor had helped in a small way towards agricultural development in countries such as Tanzania, and particularly due to a pioneering Devon based charity.

So Kufbert the Tractor has gone… well, not exactly to Africa, (it would cost far too much to transport an old tractor to East Africa), but has been donated to BOAT, in memory of Steve. BOAT will use the Bicton college students to refurbish the tractor, and make it look good and function perfectly once more. Then Kufbert will be taken to all the county shows, and raffled off to fundraise for BOAT’s activities. One lucky ticket holder will win Kufbert, but the raffle is likely to raise approximately £12,000 for BOAT, which will go a long way to supporting their learning and training programmes.

Find out more about BOAT here:

http://www.boatagtrust.co.uk/

Reaching the end of the rainbow – with a 90 year old roadie, a fitness fan in wellies, and a marine with a dozen pairs of snorkels

There’s  something heartening about being dropped off by a 90 year old for a day’s walking. It’s a bit of inspiration for the long term. Granddad Mear returned to ferry Mum and me about mid Devon, taking us to Castle Drogo to complete ‘Weekend three’, previously postponed due to rain and flooding.  So our final weekend was actually the middle section of the Two Moors Way… don’t get finicky now… it was still muddy!

Dad’s cousin Trisha joined us, her legs already aching from the 100 km she had cycled the previous day. Luckily she was clad in wellies, which slowed her down and enabled Mum and me to keep up with her.

We waved goodbye to ‘Uncle Reggie,’ as Trish calls Granddad Mear, and trooped off around Castle Drogo, a new build relatively as it’s only 100 years old. We instantly saw some jaw dropping valleys,

and came upon a man and his little girls having a breakfast picnic in the morning sun, having come up the hill from Drewsteignton.

Soon we were in Drewsteignton, claiming our stamp for our Two Moors Way passports at the post office.  The young post office worker mentioned that he had done half of the route last weekend, and Mum instantly recognised him from the cafe in Lynmouth. Sadly, he had done in 2 days what took us 5 days, so we felt humbled. Ach, he’s young. Wait till he has a full time job and a mortgage to pay.  That’ll learn him.

Then we wound down hillsides and up hillsides, passing farms

…and sculptures.

Our calf muscles burned with the strain of the up and down – none more so than Trish, who had not thought she was walking until her husband Bill had to dog-sit the poorly Finlay. Dad had told me about Finlay and what a beautiful dog he is – and now his brother Bertie is here to accompany him.

Bill, a former marine intent on vicarious walking despite ill dog,  decided to warn us about a particularly wet and muddy part of the route by standing at a roadside which we had to cross, framed by the British flag and the Devon flag (Vive La Republique) with a table full of snorkels and flippers.

This was a good hint about the soaked ground that was to come…

We said goodbye to Bill and the dogs Finlay and Bertie, and walked on past stumpy little miniature ponies and up the hills of mid Devon.

Then we came across Bill again, waiting for us near a farm and challenging us to make it to the next stop in under an hour.

We took him up on this, marching along hedge-lined lanes to Great Hele. There we found Bill had set out for us a white tablecloth lined banqueting suite, complete with candelabra. We dined like kings.

The use of the land was courtesy of Bill and Trish’s friend Henry who then turned up on a quad bike complete with trailer and child accessories. Thanking Bill for what may be the best lunch of the entire walk, with not a bin liner for a seat in site, we continued our relentless pace through the lanes and fields.

We had to beat the darkness, as with 12 miles to walk and now that the clocks have gone back, there was the very real possibility of ending up in a dark mud pit somewhere.

Trish, Mum and I came to a forest covered in yellow leaves, and climbed over a railway line.

Having climbed up, we came to a plateau where the earth was the most incredible red, making the puddles iron brown.

Trish, who lives nearby, was our tour guide. “This is Redlands,” she reliably informed us. “Blimey, they thought hard about that one,” I replied.

As the light grew dimpsy, we saw an illuminated figure on the horizon. It was Bill, dressed in his ‘in case of emergency’ fluorescent outfit which he’d got out for the special occasion, ready to see us over a road like a lollipop lady. We whipped out our fluorescent vests (which Mum was carrying, of course, in addition to her Paramedic level First Aid, emergency flares and bivvy bag) and attempted to sing at him.

Bill drove on and met us an hour later when we finally made it, in the darkening evening, to Morchard Road.

We said goodbye to them both, and Mum and I settled in for a night at the Devonshire Dumpling with a newspaper and a wood burner and only a flight of stairs to get us from bar to bed. Bliss. Yes I did have the ice cream sundae and yes it was great. The local game casserole  always went some way to warming us up from the freezing night outside.

Sunday was the first time ever that Mum and I have been on this walk alone – a fitting testament to the support we have received from so many people. We still failed to set off on time, however. Morchard Road was surrounded by lakes – which turned out to be flooded fields, forcing us to take the lane at first.

Then we were on a green lane that had turned into a small river, and had no choice but to climb up through the mud swamp and the water, soaking our feet only twenty minutes in.

But then we came out on a plateau and, being in the middle of Devon, could see both Dartmoor to the south and Exmoor to the north. Unusually, it had snowed on Dartmoor the previous evening, and the glimmer of white on the moor was visible to the naked eye.

We walked to Morchard Bishop, a large village with a great claim to fame – Ernest Bevin, founder of the NHS (the UK’s national religion) had gone to school there. We took a photo for Jon Welly, and for Red Reg (as Granddad Mear was once called), safe in the knowledge they will put the world to rights with that photo as inspiration next time they are together.

We passed a house called Coburg, and thought of our friend Ulrike in Coburg, Germany. Then we entered a forest, taking us out of Morchard Bishop and on to the next village, Black Dog, where we said no to the tempting pub,

instead considering an early season swede for 50p…

but we thought better of such bargains.

Then we encountered the worst section of the walk so far for mud – up to our knees, we skied around a field where a lazy farmer had left his gates open, and so we were unable to escape from the advancing cows with their menacing harrumphing. Panicking, we went wrong, climbing rusty gates that could have been opened, unable to find bridges and mis-reading maps. (There are no photos as I was busy running like an astronaut).

When we found the right path, we were faced with either a herd of cows and bullocks busy head-butting each other, or a slurry pit. Mum, by no means  a farm girl, decided to take on those “teenage-ery cows” (her words) and ignored my strained words of advice, diving into the boggy field and waving her arms at the herd to “go away” (yes, really, her actual words).  And they did. Those cows may be busy rutting at each other but they were not going to mess with Mamma Mear.

We trudged on, stopping for lunch at the beautiful little church at Washford Pyne

…where the porch was just big enough for two people to nibble old sandwiches – a slight let down after Bill’s dining experience yesterday.

We knew then that it was only an hour to go till the end. We pushed on, Mum and me, over the steep hills and past one slightly suspicious looking “tree.”

The sky darkened with the threat of rain, and we knew that whatever those charcoal clouds held was going to bad. Please hold off, don’t rain on us, my mother told the sky above.

As we dropped down towards the final destination, Witheridge, we could see the sheets of rain descending on neighbouring hills.

But the sky, like the cows, obeyed Mother – and we were in the main market square of the town, with Granddad Mear’s car in our sights, before the heavens burst.

We huddled with Granddad, drinking coffee from a thermos, while the rain and hail came slashing down. “It’s funny, it’s just like that hail storm at Dad’s funeral,” we remarked (those of you who were there in April will remember the incredible hail storm the hundred or so people stood outside the church endured, which was widely thought to be Dad’s last practical joke.) Then the rains and hail storm finished, and from nowhere, an incredible double arched rainbow appeared.

Perhaps Dad was treating us to a light show to congratulate us on finishing?

So we ended, Mum and I, and Granddad Mear took us home to scrape the mud off our clothes and boots and get warm and dry.

The walk had taken 10 days, and we had walked 117 miles across Devon, with 24 people joining us in addition to Mum and me, and 6 dogs. Approximately 7897 yoghurt covered raisins are estimated to have been eaten in the process (they were Dad’s favourite, so it sort of makes calorie consumption OK). We have so far raised over £2251 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and FORCE, for which we are deeply grateful to you all – and for being there on the walk and in our daily lives too to support us.

And the sun shone on the good people of Buckerell; yet the rain came down upon the good people of Colyton

This weekend was a lesson in not spending an entire day commenting on how great the weather has been – the following day will inevitably be of epic flood-like, bog-infested proportions.

It was a lesson in asking directions from a shop owner on Exmoor and the consequences of failing to specify you are not in a 4×4 off road-ready vehicle, but rather an 18 year old VW Golf whose undercarriage may complain when your mother insists that you attempt the stone-ridden, diagonally-sloping dirt track when you find yourselves tantalisingly close to your destination.

It was also a lesson in not agreeing a meeting point “on the common, behind the fourth oak tree and near the medium sized sheep.” After half an hour, we discovered we were all about 300 metres away from our companions for the day: neighbours from Buckerell – Wendy, David and 12 year old Laurence (one of Dad’s favourite children ever), Phil and  Mollie, and former vicar Alan plus his dog.

Together with Mum, Jon Welly and I, this large group of us set forth from the common near Landacre, wrapped up against the cold, breaking frozen puddles as we went.

Exmoor was glorious in its autumn cold, and we soon became warm, walking along the ridge of Exmoor.

We saw deer in the distance,  and horse riders far above us.

We walked down through a forest of trees and soon found ourselves ‘geo-caching’ – David, Wendy and Laurence’s hobby – where you use clues to find a hidden trove of treasures.

This geo-cache was to be found near Cow Castle, an Iron Age hill fort which gave us enough shelter from the icy wind to find the treasure.

Buried beneath stones we found an ammunition box, filled with presents from other geo-cachers, including action figures of princess super heroes, and left it with Laurence’s gift to the box, a fake blood-encrusted finger.

Lunch by the river in the sun was greatly improved by the apricot brandy David had brought, complete with mini glasses.

Laurence tried a little sip but quickly decided it wasn’t for him.

On the ridge of the hills surrounding us ran stags and herds of deer,  all going in the same direction on a path they all knew well.

Further on, past meandering rivers that were brilliant blue in the sun, we came to a disused mine.

Obviously, having such a crew of respectable people meant that the warning signs were to be disobeyed – with the vicar making it first over the fence to explore.

Mum decided that this was the ideal group to be shipwrecked on a desert island with – between us, we had smallholder farmers, doctors, teachers, a vicar, one young person to be sent on errands or up chimneys… leaving Jon Welly and I to query what we brought to the group. We decided that as two People of the Transferable Skills Generation we could offer anything, as long as it could be looked up online and put on a SWOT analysis.

Soon, too soon, we were at Simonsbath, our destination to be picked up by the Moorland rover bus. We toasted Dad – as Mollie said, he’d have been there making us laugh with his bright red face and infectious laugh – and we congratulated ourselves on a good walk.

Then it was all aboard the bus and back to the common, with Alan’s dog determined to sit on my lap all the way there – obviously a cat in a previous life. Only at this point did Alan announce that the dog is normally car sick. Thankfully, she chose not to treat me to that particular party trick.

The end of the day saw Mum and I complete an extra mile between Simonsbath and the next ‘lay-by on the road next to the red sign with the dent in it’ meeting point. The sun was setting on Exmoor, and we only just made it through the rusty-gold fields and down through a shady wood before the sun set.

There we found Jon Welly slightly distraught at the hour he was promised of Quality Time in the pub impacted on by the fact pubs in the countryside close in the afternoon. Instead, he’d had emus and aardvarks to look at and a car radio to listen to.

Then it was off to the B&B, run by another farmer’s wife, with a wood burner to warm us up. Dinner in the Poltimore Arms, a pub that has entirely managed to escape any form of gentrification or pretension but can still serve up great home-cooked grub, was reassuring in its devon-ness – the red-nosed locals grouped round the bar and regaled the few women there with chat up lines such as “women like a man with grey hair. There may be frost on the top but there’s a fire down below.” (Those of you familiar with a Janner accent can re-enact this in your heads).

Dad would have liked that line, though I would have been mortified if he’d said it anywhere in my presence. As he said, he could always have dyed his hair black. Actually, he told his school children that he was secretly dark haired but that he had to wear a grey wig in order to be thought old enough to be headmaster. I think they may have believed him!

Sunday was a different day. We heard the rain on the roof when we woke. We had our windscreen wipers on the fast setting all the way to Simonsbath. We saw the streams coming off the fields, and we knew we had to walk through that mud. At the lay-by, we met Kay and Ann, two of Dad’s former colleagues at Colyton Primary, and their husbands Richard (returning for more after Weekend Two) and Nigel and dog Callie.

Kay and Ann had sensibly volunteered to be the chauffeurs, and took themselves off for a hard day of tea drinking and cake eating in some warm dry place. The five of us turned to the boggy, water-ridden fields over which we had to trudge, and began our day, already soaked thanks to the unceasing rain.

First we had to find the source of the great River Exe. I imagined this would be akin to the moment Stanley found the source of the Nile, so was slightly unimpressed by the brown puddle that Nigel promised was the Exe’s beginnings.

Then we went on to weave our way down hills and to a small river that had to be forded.

Mum was piggy-backed across, but I waded through -y’know, what any bloke can do, I can do too etc – plus my shoes were already soaked. Sadly, this feat proved less admirable when we later had to re-ford the same river back to the original side of the river at Hoare Oak. Reading the small print, we saw the bit that said, “if the waters are high, you can always stick on this side…” Oh, wet boots for no real reason are slightly worse than wet boats achieved through gallantry and intrepid-ness.

All the way, Mum and Nigel checked for signs and navigational clues, but we should have just followed the dog. Callie ran ahead, always looking back and checking we were following, but uncannily knew the right turning at every point. Soon we were walking along a path that would lead us north across the moor, an old ridge road. The rain came down again, but held off for us to have lunch in the small hamlet of Cheriton, perched next to a lane on bin liners.

Then we wound down a lane, taking us away from the moor and towards our final destination, the north coast of Devon. Whereas the road wound along the river’s path – the nice, easy, flat option which Richard campaigned for – the Two Moors way route deemed it fit to allow walkers to finish with the ultimate swan song – a hike up, up, up the precipice cliff edge, down it again, up it again, down, up, up some more. Lots of up, generally. The calf muscles of all participants have yet to recover.

Chuck in the rain, the mud, the slippery slopes – it’s a wonder we ever got to Lynmouth.

But we did, reading our final destination on the coast-to-coast route in the now-torrential rain.

There we met by Celia, Dad’s colleague from Hong Kong and Germany (Germany both times – in 1985 and in 2007-9). Celia lives in north Devon so had come to return us to Rolf the Golf, but more importantly, she is also my Fairy Godmother, having got Jon Welly and I out of various scrapes in our lives – such as not having enough car space to move house in – so is driven by some force of nature to rescue us in these situations. Richard and Nigel began to wonder where their wives were, and when they found the one point in Lynmouth which has mobile phone coverage, found out their wives were in Lynton. An easy mistake to make?! Soon we were all drinking hot chocolates in a cafe and wringing out our socks. It says a lot about a day that the obligatory group photo has to be taken inside, but that epitomises the weather!

So the weekend ended as it had begun – surrounded by Dad and Mum’s friends from different stages of their lives, remembering Dad as we want everyone to remember him – funny, full of laughter, serious and reflective when called for, always the epicentre of fun, ideas, plans and groups of people.

And fear not, avid reader,  for although this was our ‘final’ weekend, Mum and I still have the ‘middle bit’ to return to – so next weekend, pray for a little more of that sun for us!

The Two Mears Way™

Weekend Four saw a motley crew assemble in Witheridge, in mid-north Devon.This is a point which, the careful reader will note, would have been the end point of Weekend Three – had Weekend Three taken place.

Sadly, Weekend Three (Castle Drogo to Witheridge) had to be postponed due to the incessant rain which flooded the countryside in the week leading up to it. But with everything booked and planned to walk from Witheridge to Hawkridge on October 20th and 21st, we had to walk Weekend Four and promise to return to do Weekend Three in November.

This deeply offends my need for a sense of consequential, logical walking – from A to B to C. We will be doing A, B, D and E and returning to C. But I will just have to live with it – having spent the last two days with an entire field of mud clinging to my boots, I concede that avoiding a worse mud bath was necessary.

Starting out from Witheridge, we waved goodbye to Granddad Mear – Steve’s dad – possibly the UK’s coolest 90 year old, who still thinks nothing of driving his much younger family members around.

My friends who’d been with me in Tanzania and later London – Jennifer, Jon Harle and Daisy – had come down from the Big Smoke, and Mum’s cousins Gillian and Robert, Gillian’s daughter Cathy, Cathy’s son Tom and various dogs joined us from different outposts of the Westcountry.

We were quickly up the hill and into the fields – first through one field of an un-harvested, apparently rotting crop – a sign of just how bad the summer has been for farmers.

Then we carried on through flat fields, passed idle rivers, and squelched through boggy terrain covered with reeds.

Mum is never happier than with a herd of people to organise. There was endless map reading, navigational debates, compass readings, demonstrations of the position of the sun in the sky in relation to compass readings, feeding of mouths with an endless stream of snacks, offers of the provision of first aid even when there was no injury… But even Mum could not provide a ‘yes’ answer to all those participants who wanted to visit the Naturist retreat we passed by… or tell us what the acorn was supposed to cover.

We camped under trees in an ancient green lane that would once have been a private toll lane for carriages, and compared packed lunches like seven year olds, three minutes into the school trip.

The two dogs, the well-behaved Parsnip and the impish Darcy, ran ahead of us, exploring the puddle-filled terrain and getting gradually more bedraggled. The lane led us out across the ridge of the land, eventually ending up on tarmac lanes – a welcome relief to bog wading.

But there was one more challenge – a boardwalk that didn’t quite manage to cover the mud leading up through a forested area as we climbed up the final ascent.

Soon – almost too soon – we were in Knowstone, (pronounced ‘Nows-dun’ in the way only the Devon version of English manages), our stop for the night.

It had taken us only just over four hours of walking to get there, which was less than half the time of previous days.But with the mud adding an extra stone in weight to all of our shoes, we were happy to stop. We had a pint at the local pub and toasted Dad.

We then shuffled back to our B&B in a 16th century farmhouse nearby. There, we devised a host of methods to remove the mud from ourselves and our clothes, (including leaving boots out on the step used by ladies in days gone by to get into carriages from, to be guarded by the farm’s cat) then settled in front of the wood burner to relax.

The farmer’s wife cooked us up a roast dinner followed by trifle, which along with the day of fresh autumnal air, the silence on the farm and the warmth of the fire coaxed us all into an early bedtime.  Oh, and maybe the copious bottles of wine had something to do with it.

On the Sunday, after a farmhouse cooked breakfast, we ventured back to Knowstone to start the walk to Hawkridge.

Setting off across lanes and onto rough paths, we settled into a pace.

We left Mum and Gillian behind frequently, as they debated the correct map reading, based on either Mum’s finger-in-the-wind-but-it’s-the-fourth-sunday-in-which-the-moon-is-waning methods or Gillian’s map from 1970 (borrowed from Robert, who doesn’t believe in upgrading maps – why would you need to know about the A30 byass?!).

The rest of the party would then kindly point out the clearly signed ‘MW’ showing our direction, but not before Gillian and Mum had spent twenty minutes or so deciding. At one point, Jon  suggested we put a time lapse camera up to monitor the falling of the leaves and change of season in relation to their lack of movement as they discussed the merits of north-by-north-west versus north-by-north-north-west.

At lunch, Mum presented Tom, possibly the most patient and good-humoured teenager in the world, with a cup made out of the tin foil from her sandwiches. Oh the joys of the recession.

After lunch, we went on St Petroc’s church, where we all dutifully signed the visitor’s book despite being too mud-caked to be able to go inside.

Walking onwards, we stumbled upon the destination we had been walking towards all weekend – Exmoor. Dramatically different to Dartmoor, as it is less wild, more cultivated and yet retains its own mustard-tinged ruggedness, Exmoor is the place of Lorna Doone and all those stories of seventeenth century racketeers and tribal warfare.

As it had done on our previous trip here, the sun came out now and treated us to a light show acrossthe hills, playing with the clouds.

With Hawkridge, our end point, tauntingly visible on the other side of the valley, we lost the path, and instead were soon wading through thorn bushes and grasses.

The yellow tabards worn to promote Marie Curie flashed in the brown bushes as people roamed off in search of the way out.

Then Tom spotted, watching us from a hillside nearby, a stag, and ignored the calls of his grandma and her cousin to make sure Daisy got a photo.

We soon found the path (though Mum was adamant it was the wrong path), which led us down and then up the steep hills.

Finally, we arrived in Hawkridge, and my Uncle Andrew awaited us with a cheerful smile and a lifetime’s supply of plastic bags to combat the mud everywhere.

We kicked ourselves that we haven’t been re-writing the Two Moors Way guidebook as we have walked, as there are so many little snippets of information that would prove useful to future walkers. It was suggested that we write our own version – the Two Mears Way – which I think could be both a walk and a method… By coming away to walk on the moors or through Devon’s beautiful landscapes, you get to think, stop worrying and just be absorbed in the countryside. Dad would like that – his version of getting away from it all was his garage, where he would hammer and bang nails into things and mutter to himself throughout. Dad liked anything that got people to enjoy life and have hobbies and interests and not be bogged down by work and paying bills. Most of all, Dad loved Devon. Forget the naturists, I see a new kind of retreat – the Two Mears Way!

NEWSFLASH – Weekend three postponed due to floods

Due to the incessant pouring rain hurtling down on us from the heavens, and the consequent mud bath that Devon has apparently morphed into, we have had to decide to postpone the walk scheduled for this weekend (13/14 October).

We’ll stick with the legs of the walk scheduled for weekends four and five, (don’t rearrange the plans!) and come back to the Castle Drogo to Morchard Road/ Morchard Road onwards leg in November.

So if you were planning on surprising us this weekend – please don’t, you may find yourself alone in a car park in the rain with only a National Trust gift shop for entertainment. Oooh, National Trust gift shop… maybe I will be there after all (choosing a pencil case is always a big decision).

The weekend we walked backwards and ended up ahead

Those of you who have never been on a Mear family excursion will not know just how much stuff can be justifiably included as Essential. There is no such thing as a picnic – there will be a banquet, which caters for all allergy needs and tastes. A stroll merits three changes of clothes for all concerned – and that’s just the adults. As for a walk of 20 miles over two days over the moors – well, let’s just say that my mum’s car boot would have the Army Logistics Corp quaking in their boots. There is not an eventuality that has not been anticipated and cannot be catered for.  Dad always used to make jokes about it and claim it would be impossible to leave the house without three hours warning and at least three changes of Airing Cupboard Systems.

However, this weekend – weekend number two – Mum met her match. My friend Jon Harle (of the former Berwyn Road gang, my old housemates from London) accompanied us. We found Jon on Friday evening, hiking up a remote lane in a place he’d never been to before, having managed to accurately predict our exact location and orientated himself towards us, foraging for blackberries on his way. Later on, Mum found out that she hadn’t needed to carry her Bivvy bag – a bag for wrapping medical casualties in – as Jon already had one on him. That’s right. One walk merited two Bivvy bags.

The scene was set – there was nothing this Dream Team of pioneering types couldn’t manage. For once, Mum had an accurate response to her constant refrain, “Well, what time of day is it and where is the sun?” (I usually grunt and kick a stone on the ground at this point, muttering something about not having done Geography). Baden Powell would have been left behind in the dust.

Yet no one could have predicted how long it would take us to Get Sorted Out on Saturday morning. Despite staying in a farm B&B on Friday night on Dartmoor, we still managed to take ages to get going (all that fry-up eating…) Complex car juggling systems meant that by the time we reached Warren House Inn, the point at which we intended to end up on Saturday evening, it was 11 am – much too late when a long day of walking lies ahead. Then the Dream Team had a brainwave – why not walk backwards, going from the final destination (Warren House Inn) back to Holne (the starting point). Genius. We can get a taxi back later on, right?

So we set off – walking backwards to the start point – and instantly found ourselves immersed in the rocky tors and the sparse, wild landscapes of Dartmoor. Suddenly, a herd of highland cattle and the ponies that Dartmoor is famous for came running along the ridge above us. A farmer was herding sheep through a stone gate; and the cattle and ponies had allowed themselves to be herded along too.

The previous Sunday had seen the worst storms at this time of year in 30 years, but the kind of luck only Dad ever had was on our side. The late September sun blazed, treating us to a light show across the hills that we looked upon, and the wind pierced into us, keeping us cool.

Soon we were looking out onto Grimspound from Hookney tor, a Bronze Age (c. BC 1300) settlement whose remains mark the hillside clearly, reminding us of lives lived before the moor was a wilderness. Dad had taken many a bus load of children round Grimspound on school trips – any excuse to be on Dartmoor – as it is such a remarkably well preserved settlement.

Mum made a lot of jokes about the lack of worksheets on this particular excursion. Jon , Mum and I rested in a perfectly formed stone hut, admiring the shelter from the wind that the front door would have created.

Onto the next tor, I treated myself to a photographic record of the 360° view to capture the feeling of being god-like, on top of everything, surveying the world below:

The Dartmoor landscape continued to astound and quieten us as we walked on – rocky granite tors in the distance standing resolutely on the horizon, troops of horses and ponies solemnly sliding past us as if we were invisible.

We sheltered behind rocks from the wind to munch on pear and almond cake bought in the Buckerell Harvest festival auction. And then we followed the pathway of Dr. Backall’s drive – built by a rich Exeter doctor in the 1880s to allow a carriage around a circular route to view the astounding views of the River Dart valley.

Then we dropped down through gorse covered hills into Newbridge, crossing under the arch of the decidedly not-very-new bridge, pondering what would happen to the route if the waters were higher…

And then we were back in Holne, in the pub we’d been in the night before, responding to the landlord’s “did you get lost?” jokes with a patient explanation of the merits of Time Maximisation and Walking Backwards.

The final challenge remained – finding a taxi at 7pm on a Saturday night on Dartmoor. There are probably only 3 taxis in Devon anyway, and Saturday night is their busiest day. So we were surprised that only the second firm we called could come in 30 minutes. Sadly, when the taxi did turn up, it quickly transpired why – the driver had no idea where Warren House Inn was, and reckoned he could squeeze it in before his next customer in 30 minutes time. Given that it was a round trip of an hour, I should perhaps have not volunteered to sit in the front. Soon we were being treated to a fearful feat of crazed driving, as he flew over the moonlit roads of Dartmoor, taking corners as if he was going onto two wheels, creating rollercoaster effects on our stomachs over ancient bridges, narrowly missing the sheep on the road, and causing this not-normally-terrified person to close her eyes, reach her foot out for a non-existent brake and develop a new-found certainty in the power of prayer.

It’s not all hard slog on this walk however – a warm B&B and a pub meal allowed us some restorative charm. The B&B was seriously wonderful and Mum and I decided that we may have to move in. http://www.beechwood-dartmoor.co.uk/

Jon, down the road in the youth hostel, lurched home from the pub full of Jail Ale ( a pun on the brewery near Princeton prison) and reported that the moon was so bright in the cloudless night sky he had to turn his torch off.

The next day, we met Dad’s great friend and colleague Kay and her husband Richard in a windswept car park at Warren House Inn. Kay too had spent many a cold day going round Grimspound with Dad on a school trip. Kay was in hysterical fits of laughter about how cold it was and couldn’t bring herself to get out of the car, taking herself off for some quality time with the Archers omnibus and a thermos in the car. Richard was ready for action and joined Jon, Mum and I as we faced a colder and bleaker version of Dartmoor. Richard recently completed the Way in Spain – El Camino di Santiago – and so also provided another walker’s mind to complete the Dream Team.

We set out from Warren House Inn – this time going the right way – over the squidgy peat ground, coming upon a Stone Row that no one can really explain – one of the many of such inexplicable things on Dartmoor left over from another time, a different people.

The four of us were soon walking along the neatly stacked stone walls surrounding Fernworthy reservoir – a place Mum, Dad and I used to visit throughout my childhood.

Then we came off the wild part of Dartmoor and were winding away our way around rivers and tree lined lanes.

Geese, cows, and one exhausted looking bull watched us pass by.

Having left at 10, we were in Chagford – our official end destination – by 1. Unsure just how we were so ahead of ourselves, we perched under a stone surrounded tree by the river for lunch (Richard’s stollen cake went down nicely) and cowered in the wind.

The river paths took us through green tunnels and even past one piece of sculpture on its very own river island.

Dog owners bounded past us, so many that we wondered why Chagford had so many dog walkers. Then we came to one of the most bizarre sights – over twenty dogs swimming in Chagford’s outdoor swimming pool, eyes wide in amazement that they were allowed to do so. A passerby told us it was Chagford’s annual doggy dip, allowing canines the chance to swim before the pool is drained for the winter.  I was so shocked I forgot to take a photo.

And soon we were approaching Castle Drogo, our new destination. Perched on the hilltop, this castle was built by a Victorian with great aspirations. We flogged up the hillsides, and just before Mum was close to giving up and getting the bus, we reached the top. There, amongst the people in World War two costumes for a special event, was Kay – waiting with a pot of tea to welcome us and ready to chauffeur us home, via, of course Warren House Inn.

Next weekend – October  13th and 14th – will now start from Castle Drogo rather than Chagford.

Will you be there, to walk with us, to remember Steve?  We would love to see you. If not, we hope you will be there in your thoughts.

The first weekend – we made it!

Weekend One: Wembury to Ivybridge, Ivybridge to Buckfastleigh

We made it! 25 mile in 2 days, a climb of 410 metres in 40 minutes, and a few aching muscles, but we completed weekend one of the walk in memory of Steve, my dad. Jon Welly, Mum and I, three backpacks, a barmy B&B, a VW golf packed to its roof with Items in case of Emergency, a dinner of crisps, the complexities of alternating 2 different fundraising outfits (the white t-shirt for FORCE, the yellow tabard for Marie Curie) but we still made it through…

Day One:

Despite the 7.30am departure from the house, (Jon Welly has previously thought this time in the morning was a Myth), we managed to start off with a spring in our step from Wembury as the sun was blazing and the sky was blue.

Leaving the sea behind us, we walked up through agricultural land and through fields of newly-cut hay, round winding lanes and onwards over the hills that lead down to the sea near Plymouth.

This was the Erm-Plym trail, which makes up the first part of the Two Moors Way, connecting the river Erm to the river Plym. Early on, a sign reminded us of one of Dad’s favourite jokes (“Slow children playing? What about the bright ones?” followed by guffaws at his own jokes…)

We stopped for a ‘midday snack’ at Brixton (no, no, not the place in South London I used to live near, we’re not that bad at map-reading) but a quaint village where the post office/newsagent/greengrocer/cafe-in-one did a fine line in coffees and iced buns. This was unnecessary of course as Mum had packed everyone enough food to keep a small Scandinavian army going for an entire campaign. This was to prove useful later on…

Onwards through fields striped with wild flowers and full of multi coloured cows.

A minor mishap when I managed to lose my lens cap had us retracing our steps, incredibly managing to find the small black disc in a gigantic field of grass… but only confirming Mum’s suspicions about my Organisational Life Skills. Lunch under the shade of trees watching combine harvesters racing round fields gathering crops into the giant bundles of hay lined in neat plump rolls in the fields. We only got lost once and this was, we concluded, due to a sign being 180 degrees the wrong way around. Totally.

We came across a shrine in a wall in Dunstone of St. Dunstun, and as we went up, up, up the hills we discovered herds of sheep, patchwork quilt fields, and as we climbed over a stile, a horse rider practicing his trap skills.

We went through a number of dark green tree-encased lanes, and at one point a tractor came crashing through the gaps in the bank. One lane led us, winding down a hill near the Flete estate to find a cricket ground, complete with active match occurring – but we walked on.

Later on, as we approached Ermington, (Jon Welly’s impression of Stephen Gerrard saying ‘Ermington’ was still going at this point) we passed through a kissing gate, only to find an enormous bull, complete with (Mum’s words) “obvious tackle” staring at us, five feet away. We hastily went back through the kissing gate and ended up having to climb under and over various electric fences, barbed wires and steep thorn ridden banks to get back to the path without being mauled. Mum at this point metamorphosed into the female Indiana Jones, swinging down the banks, cutting through wires with her penknife, egging on the nervous pair half her age (us), and all the time adding to the bullet pointed list in her head of Things to Complain to The Council About Once Home.

Eventually, at 7.30pm, we sloped into Ivybridge, where we had left Rolf the Golf at 9am that morning. We were completely exhausted, but the final challenge remained – finding the B&B. This was far out on the moor, up a series of pot-holed lanes and behind stern security gates, and turned out to be a massive new farmhouse complete with imitation Spanish villa decor and marble floors (lethal!).  Too knackered to even consider leaving to find food, we dined in style in a cuddly toy-lined bedroom – crisps, cake and more Tunocks wafers, topped off with a bottle of red wine that Jon Welly ‘just happened to have’ in the back of the car. A truly fitting way to end the day!

Day Two:

We woke on Sunday to a view of endless rolling hills from our window, and a large fry-up delivered in the slightly laborious style of Julie Water’s waitress-with-the-shaky-hands character. Then we set off up the hill out of Ivybridge, past the old Victorian paper mill, onto the Two Moors Way proper, and up a steep lane that re-awakened our leg muscles, already throbbing from the previous day. Suddenly, we were there – on Dartmoor, climbing up the ruddy red and brown hills into the cold wind. Looking back, you could see the sliver of sea bordering the flat land leading up to the moor, and from there,  turn 360 degrees to take in the crest of the moor leading you away from the low country to something much less known.

We followed the path of a ruined old tramway that used to transport china clay from a quarry, and – my favourite ever guide book direction – we “turned right at the Bronze Age stone circle.”

Then it was just us, the moor, and the wind slicing into us, following the tramway’s path. Once on Dartmoor, you realise how unusual it is – the glimpses of the surrounding landscapes are all of enclosed fields and pastures. This must be one of the few places which never was enclosed. Small tors on the top of hills looked as if they had been stacked there, like a giant’s game of jenga.

It grew more remote, and colder, until we reached the plateau at the top where it started to look almost lunar.

Then we walked on the Abbot’s Way for a short time, an ancient pathway for priests and monks going to Buckfast abbey. We came down to a valley where the hut circles had left their mark, etched into the hillside from a time when Dartmoor was covered with trees and inhabited by people.

Rejoining the Two Moors way, we crossed an old clapper bridge and waded through boggy marshland which the rainy summer had failed to dry out.

Then we came up near a tor to be greeted by a spectacular view down across Buckfastleigh.

Up the hill, coming towards us, were the Rescue Party – my cousin Phil and her boyfriend James – who were our lift from Lud Gate to Buckfastleigh.

In Buckfastleigh, we demolished rounds of tea and crisps (yes, more crisps) in the local pub, The Globe, and as we left, the landlord and customers plied us with hefty and generous donations towards Force (which just happened to be the t-shirts Mum and I were wearing).

Their generosity was so touching, coming out of the blue as we were leaving, that we have decided we will probably start there on the weekend of September 29th!  It was also a fitting reminder of why we set out on this walk the previous morning, and why we will come back to start the next stage – because it is not just us who cancer has impacted on. There were many people in that pub who probably have been affected, and the more we can do to fundraise for the research and care systems that supports people with this disease, then the more hope it gives to people like Dad as they face the devastating news. Dad never really gave up hope of what science could come up with, and he drew a lot of strength from knowing how much science had progressed to increase the survival rate. Although cancer beat him, tragically, in the end, we can focus on knowing how important that knowledge was to him and how he would want others to benefit from that sense of hope and optimism.