Date: 16th – 18th January 1987
Participants: Graham Beevor, Malcolm Duff, Alan (Curly) Durrant, Howard Hillier-Daines, Martin Hime, Drew Rush, Malcolm Rush
and John Schmitt.
During the planning meeting for this hike reference was made to previous comments Peter Cox had made about last years hike involving a lot of closely grouped contour lines. As a result, and in his absence, a route was selected with just the one. In the end Peter was unable to take part, so the joke was unfortunately a little wasted.
Also absent was Geoff Wright who had been snowed in at home. Yes, the cold and the snow had returned, and for anyone thinking he had taken the easy option, here is his response:
“I would like to point out that I did not ‘opt out’ in 1987. I was stuck in
with snowdrifts. I tried to clear the drive up to the garage, but the strong
north wind kept blowing the snow from off the fields. As a result all the
fields were clear and the lanes etc deep in snow.”
Despite the weather eight of us, including another new face - Martin Hime (22nd Finchley), set off on the Friday evening for Blackthorn. A circular route just to the east of Bicester on the Oxfordshire and Bucks border had been chosen.
Once again the landlord of the local pub was kind enough to let us camp in the garden and although a bit cramped we found enough space to put up the tents. The usual nightcap also enabled us to sleep well.
On the Saturday morning there was the usual flurry of activity – breakfast, checking the route, clearing the site and sharing out the gear that was then carefully packed into our rucksacks.
With so much snow on the ground walking on roads or footpaths was unlikely to make much difference. Nevertheless, we decided to try and stick to the original plan as best we could. We therefore set of in a southerly direction along the B4011 for about three quarters of a mile, before turning onto a footpath that started next to Bridge Farm.
This is where we encountered a major problem. The snow had drifted up around the fence we needed to cross and had hidden from sight the ditch around its base. As each of us attempted, in our own way, to get to the other side, we found it almost impossible to do without either ending up on our backs or with snow up to our waist. Although a little embarrassing to start with, it was not long before we saw the funny side and just enjoyed the moment.
Having regained our composure we headed on to Piddington, where we crossed the railway, before picking up the footpath that led us it Ludgershall for our lunchtime break.
After leaving The Plough we followed the footpath, as best we could, north to the A41. We crossed the main road at Gallows Bridge, where the road crosses Tetchwick Brook. From here we took the road north aiming initially for Grendon Underwood.
Upon arrival we came across a group of teenagers playing ‘hockey’ on a frozen pond – it was not long before we were invited to join in. For the second time in that day some of us were making fools of ourselves – sliding about on the ice and using brooms and spades as hockey sticks.
Following this short interlude we turned our thoughts to completing the day’s hike, so we bid our farewells, put our rucksacks on our backs and continued up the road towards Edgcott.
We made for the PH on the map but upon arrival immediately realised that The Fox Inn did not have a garden. Plan B came into operation - we crossed the road to the Farm House and asked we if could camp in one of their fields. Permission was immediately granted and we were shown to an area that was more than suitable.
As we started to get ourselves organised the lady of the house reappeared offering us some cake.
The evening followed the usual pattern of dinner, washing up and then a couple of drinks in the local before retiring for the night.
There was no more snow overnight but it was still cold. Breakfast came and went and as we relaxed before taking the tents down the farmer’s dog put in an appearance. Curly then provided the morning entertainment by demonstrating his dog handling skills.
Having cleared the site and thanked the farmer we set off on the footpath to Marsh Gibbon. There were no extra curricular activities on this stretch and upon arrival in the village we had a choice of two pubs. We entered the first and were not impressed so made our way to the second.
As we entered the landlord rang the bell for ‘time’ but he was obviously just messing about. In fact this was an excellent friendly pub, where we were able to line our boots up in front of the open fire and dry our feet. Furthermore, John thought the place was so hospitable that he made a point of returning on a cycle trip at a later date.
We could not put off the final leg of the hike any longer and left the pub. We headed south along the road eventually crossing the A41 at the same time as we passed under the railway bridge shortly before entering Blackthorn.
We arrived back at the van where Graham took a group photo before Malcolm drove us home.
Although this had been a fairly lazy hike it had also been a lot of fun.
Nobody had missed the lack of contour lines. [NB Nobody except Peter, for whom the route had been specifically designed...]