it's government approved exercise about to happen
you coming? No. okay I'm going to try and do a jog between, well jog/walk between
two abandoned stations in my allotted to the exercise time period can you do the
same where you live.
so as a recall this it's the 12 of April and this is actually the first time in a
few weeks I've ventured out and use my allotted exercise time as with many of
you I'm sure it's been quite a stressful few weeks
so today I've allowed myself to take in a little stretch of old line from one a
Abandoned station to another so I'm attempting to walk on part of the old
Andover to Redbridge railway the Sprat and Winkle Line and I'm attempting to
walk from clatford station or pretty much close to clap for station all the
way back into Andover so the line will walk on connected andover
to Southampton it was built in the mid 1860s as a single track line and
later doubled and realigned it's a really sunny day today and kind of
reminds me that I'm on a planet I want a board heated by a distant light but the
only is love contingent on but in many ways a direct product of that distant
light we are powered by sunlight sunlight
whether it's stored in fossil fuels we burn or plants we eat every tree every
drop of liquid water every blade of grass every song of every Mockingbird
all of this runs in one way or another on solar power and yet here I am now
pondering the irony that we can't look directly out of the thing that gives us
everything to me though the weirdest thing about the Sun the weirdest thing
is made from his energy is consciousness it us light has made a way of
understanding itself so the furthest point self we're going to walk to today
is just to the north of Clatford station now there's not a lot remains of
clappers station itself so this is effectively where our walk is going to
start now if we walk over this nine arch bridge you'll see just to our left in
some one back garden there still remains a distant signal
for me getting outside in the first person looking up or shows me how lucky
I am but also how small I am however far I walk will be tiny compared to the
expanse of land I live on which itself is small compared to the planet which is
small compared to the Sun which is just one star among the countless we are so
inconsequential a footnote to a footnote to a footnote but how wondrous to be
here in the first place to know that you are not just in the universe but also of
its I'm now walking along water Lane named so for a reason
towards an area that was called upper clap furred siding the road here would
have risen up and over the line but of course neither the bridge all the
railway still exists just to the right hand side of me here would have been a
long siding this was used until 1933 by tasker's agricultural engineers and
traction engine builders of the Waterloo ironworks one mile to the west of here
about turn facing north again and the rest of my journey now walks all the way
along the line back in towards Andover of course so for me thinking on that
scale sometimes gives me a feeling of guilt if I have a bout of anxiety then I
try and remind myself of some of the solutions have helped me deal with that
in the past I always think that the best cure for a lot of mental health problems
especially anxiety in my experience are communities being intentional about
finding or refinding a community this isn't always easy especially in today's
climate but it's part of breaking the cycle it gets easier and it always
always worth the trouble and when I talk of community it can be anything from a
shared enthusiasm and activism or a club even your own local neighbourhood the
line was built pretty much on top of an old canal and if you look carefully you
can still see some remnants of the old toe path itself for now what I've found
is an old ballast box for the railway and let's do a heck of a lot of fencing
along both sides of the line that remains today
here now we're just a few hundred yards away from the end of a town station on
my right prior to the railway would have been the canal basin and Wolf and just
ahead of me on the right hand side as well whereas there is right now
would have been the old Goods yard coal works and of course the large gas works
for the town so our journey ends here and over town station
we've traveled from flat furred just a couple of miles to the south of here
and now our journey ends on the sweeping curve through the old hand of the town
station finishing up on our left hand side by the station hotel public house
for me feelings of meaning and purpose flow from the experience of deep
connectivity and being part of a community that is clearly bigger than me
but nonetheless values and includes me and that's a big reason of why we make
these videos the community and the shared enthusiasm what we can accomplish
together is truly a cause for hope and as Ben
Howard once said "keep your head up and keep it heart strong"
so the question remains is this something that you can do from your own
house during this whole lockdown period can you travel between two abandoned
stations who knows if you can let us know in the comments below I hope you've
enjoyed this week's video we'll be back next week with another historical
transport tale