Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future

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A couple of days later, I gave a short talk for Writers Rebel in Trafalgar Square, urging other writers to leave their desks and take direct action because, as Jay Griffiths explains in This Is Not a Drill, ‘words (and this is a heavy heresy for a writer) are not enough’. These conversations are written as though the reader is present. Bullough has already used specificity to build our relationship and so we trust the experts too. It is scary and painful to read, but fuels the need to act. As Dr Claire Earlie says, ‘This is our home, and so it’s important to us’.

The problem was that, in 2009, our son Edwyn put in his appearance and all ambition was redefined – principally, as getting any sleep at all.

A book of our time which spoke to me because it provides a local, relatable, perspective on the climate crisis * Modron *

What has changed, I think, is awareness – a question of degree. Age and experience come into it, no doubt, but the change I mean is a wider change, the (very slow) awakening of society at large to the single, central question: how do you make sense of yourself in the face of the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE)? After all, on our current course, we will leave to our children a world whose average temperature will have increased by 3°C or more: a world of conflict and starvation, mass displacement and mass extinction. What, then, is there left to discuss except how we change that course? I read an article once, in which Jan Morris wonders how her life might have been had she remained in Wales – had she kept her attention on the things around her, not on the full expanse of the world. It was a reflection that returned to me often as I was working on Sarn Helen: it is, after all, a travel book. In the end, of course, Jan Morris was not that writer – for all that she wrote of Wales as well. In the end I am, if I like it or not. Wales alone has the hold on me that, now and then, blesses my work with life.He continues to hear the call throughout the final section of the book but no discussion of them is otherwise provided so, for me, it starts to become sinister. Vital, and urgent with concern. You cannot leave this book without its message thundering in your head. It is not enough to walk old routes. This was. Now what? -- Cynan Jones I recount all this to illustrate just how far my concerns had come over the course of the previous decade. As I detail in my 2021 defence statement (following a second arrest), there was evidence that this type of direct action had affected UK government policy and, to me, this made it a moral imperative. To remain beneath the ‘safe upper limit’ of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average – a global necessity on countless counts – required drastic and immediate changes from government, and, like so many others, I was willing to do anything that might make these changes come about. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.

The reader is welcomed on his journey through a language of wonder and adventure, ‘now we arrive in a dell… now we meet a stream of pools…now we scramble over a moss-swaddled wall’. He draws us in. We listen. We are on his side.So wrote poet Edward Thomas of Sarn Helen, one of Wales’ ancient ways. The Romans invaded Wales in 43 AD, and built a network of roads connecting their camps and forts across the country. Some are now busy dual carriageways, such as the A5 – all remnants of its history squished beneath layers of tarmac. But others, such as Sarn Helen, still lie peaceful and half-hidden in the Welsh landscape, their 2,000-year-old stones accessible on foot or by mountain bike. Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe. The joy of the book is in its attention to smaller things, from the flight patterns of birds to the gleaming Subaru Imprezas on housing estates... Bullough is a master craftsman * Prospect *

Sarn Helen also turns an unsparing gaze towards the future. Bullough’s trek is interspersed with interviews with scientists about how Wales – and all of us – must adapt to the climate crisis.Did you come here on an aeroplane?’ one officer asked, his shadowed face appearing above us, his arms held out like wings. Sarn Helen is a beautifully downbeat travelogue that's full of love, rage and humour. A brilliant, pivotal book by one of the most engaged and engaging writers around, it will change you -- Toby Litt And yet, by and large, this is how stories work. There is an individual protagonist, and the techniques of writing allow a reader to care about them and their individual concerns. It might be preferable, given the CEE, for us to develop a new sort of narrative – ‘an account of collective agency’, as Martin Puchner writes in Literature for a Changing Planet. But for now we face an urgent, an existential threat, and we can only marshal every tool and skill we have to the cause of heading it off. This Collection features the route split into seven stages, which you can ride each day, combine or split further as you wish. You’ll find places to stay, get more supplies and enjoy a hot meal in most of the towns and villages on the route, but it’s important that you book ahead for accommodation, especially in the busier summer months.