Derek Webster pictured recently in Sabden near Pendle Hill, Lancashire

Derek Webster writes:

When I say I like to go walking it’s never about competition, mapping distances or counting steps. You won’t find me doing the coast to coast walk, pushing my limits for the sake of endurance, that’s too much like hard work!

No, my walks are about slipping quietly into the world and enjoying those wide open spaces. As Cole Porter wrote in the song Bing and The Andrews Sisters had a hit with

🎶 Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don't fence me in 🎶

Some walks demand effort like the climb up Snowdon - or Yr Wyddfa as it’s known in Wales. The air shifts as the altitude rises, cooler, thinner, sharper. There’s a satisfaction in reaching the summit, in looking down at the world spread out below. But it’s not the achievement that calls me, it’s the journey itself, the rhythm of the climb, the slow reveal of the landscape.

Other walks take me through history. Churchyards whisper their stories in the worn inscriptions of old graves. Nearby Heptonstall with its leaning headstones and quiet permanence, holds echoes of the past—the Coiners, Sylvia Plath resting beneath the Yorkshire sky. There’s something grounding about walking among those who came before, a reminder that we are all just passing through.

And then there is the sea on the North Wales coast. The salt wind at Beaumaris, the restless waves at the foot of the Great Orme. Water stretches out infinitely, shifting and shimmering, always the same, always different. Walking by the sea carries a different kind of freedom—the kind that comes with wide horizons and the knowledge that the tide will roll in whether I am there to witness it or not.

Closer to home in the West Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge, my steps follow familiar paths: around the park, along the Rochdale Canal with Lisa, my partner. These walks don’t have the drama of mountain ascents or coastal cliffs, but they have their own quiet comfort. They are spaces of reflection, of breathing, of watching seasons change. Ducks glide over the water and the world moves at its own unhurried pace.

Each walk, no matter the location, is about presence. The rhythm of footsteps, the changing light, the sense of being held in a moment. It’s not about the miles covered, not about racing from one place to the next. Walking, for me, is simply about relaxation.

Derek

Derek Webster. Monday to Friday on Boom Light at 9am - and Night Ride Tuesday to Friday mornings on Boom Radio