Length : 30 miles
Started : 19 April 1998
Finished : 12 July 1998 / 17 March 2010
Companions : (all in part) Julie Farrell, James (surname unknown), Janet Rees, Elaine Ellis, Barry Foster, (evening walk only ) Ian Wilding, Andrew McKenzie, Aamir Sabzwari, Julie Summerfield, Alison Oldland
Guide : Leaflet produced by Bury, Rossendale and Salford Councils
After two long solo walks we come to a relatively short one with all but the last fraction done in company . There’s also an eventful four year gap to explain.
Immediately after finishing the West Yorkshire Way I got back together with the girl mentioned in that post and we started making plans to do the Thirlmere Way together. Unfortunately she soon went off sick again- she almost certainly had an eating disorder- and by the end of May she had disappeared again this time for good as it turned out. In my head I knew when I returned from holiday in the States in July that it was finished but as she didn’t have the courage to make a clean break and I didn’t find the backbone to push her until later in the year a forlorn hope persisted.
That being so the Thirlmere Way was put on ice but by September I was getting itchy feet so I started another one in the meantime, the Two Roses Way. I did the first stage from Whalley to Barley which was very good but try as I might I could not make a public transport arrangement work for the next stage so that too fell into abeyance. I was also coming to realise by this time that bar the local historical society (who were friends) no one was really interested in my slides so that impetus disappeared.
As a result of a one-off date with a counsellor (her job was co-incidental by the way !) in November I finally shook the monkey off my back and throughout 1995 I saw a number of different girls but only one had any interest in walking and she and I had no chemistry whatsoever. I was also getting more embroiled in the Christian Social Group. When I first joined in August 1993 it was an absolute shambles, the only attraction being similar to that of watching a car crash but towards the end of 1994 it had drawn in some promising new blood and I was getting more involved in its affairs.
From the beginning of 1996 tensions began to rise in the Group as personal jealousies and genuine differences on how the Group should be run became intertwined. This was the backdrop when, in June 1996, I introduced my new girlfriend, Julie, to the Group. She was just an innocent bystander as the tensions erupted over that summer and in October the Group split in two - a breakaway faction led by the old leader calling itself New Life and a rump which re-christened itself Manchester Christian Social Group and fell ,by default into my lap. A fierce struggle then ensued. We were quite happy for New Life to exist as they were attracting all the more troublesome characters and making us much more homogenous but they wanted to wipe us out completely
Julie and I got engaged in November despite my pre-occupation with “the war” which continued up until a regrettable incident at a barbecue ; one of their hotheads turned violent prompting a mass exodus amongst their members which wiped out their initial numerical advantage. From that point sanity started to prevail and a fairly amicable co-existence became the norm. This was just as well for I had to relinquish the leadership to prepare for my forthcoming wedding to Julie the date being November 29 1997. ( We actually started an LMDP before we got married but that’s for a later post).
Although I had stepped down as leader I still carried a lot of respect in the Group and could get more or less anything I wanted on the programme so in 1998, by which time the threat from New Life had evaporated, I put the Irwell Valley Way in four stages down on the programe. All the evening walks had gone down well, both pre- and post- split so I thought this easy and accessible trail on Sunday afternoons might be a winner. In that respect it was a bit of a flop; not counting Julie each stage attracted just one other person (though it was a different one each time).
Stage One was from central Manchester to Prestwich a mainly urban stretch running through Salford and past The Cliff training ground. Julie and I were joined by one other guy who wasn’t a great conversationalist and hadn’t got the right footwear for an often muddy riverside walk. It was an uncomfortable afternoon made worse by poor weather.
Julie gave Stage Two Prestwich to Bury a miss as did two other guys who were supposed to turn up so that left me with just a girl called Janet. She was still game to do it but the weather this time was oppressively hot and she wilted (probably due to my pace as well) . When we got to Radcliffe she asked if we could call it quits there. Most of the missing part was covered , by coincidence, on a better attended evening walk shortly after Stage Three but not quite all.
Julie returned for Stage Three Bury to Rawtenstall but despite the attraction of a ride on the steam train to get back to Bury we only had one other taker , a girl called Elaine who was attending her first event. Fortunately she was a good talker and she and Julie nattered all the way along.
The final stage from Rawtenstall to Deerplay (with a celebratory meal at the pub there ) took place on a very wet day although the refuseniks cited the World Cup Final instead. I was left with just the longest-serving member, Barry. What I remember most is how vague the guide became on this stretch as if the writer had got bored and rushed through the last few miles. We had a good meal at the pub and I got back in time to watch the second half of the match.
So the Group had walked the trail but I didn’t forget that we’d missed a bit (little more than a mile). I never got round to completing it until a fortnight ago when I had some time to kill in Bury.
Since the Group walked it it has been re-branded as the Irwell Sculpture Trail with numerous art installations (some inevitably vandalised) along the way but I think the route remains the same.
Immediately after finishing the West Yorkshire Way I got back together with the girl mentioned in that post and we started making plans to do the Thirlmere Way together. Unfortunately she soon went off sick again- she almost certainly had an eating disorder- and by the end of May she had disappeared again this time for good as it turned out. In my head I knew when I returned from holiday in the States in July that it was finished but as she didn’t have the courage to make a clean break and I didn’t find the backbone to push her until later in the year a forlorn hope persisted.
That being so the Thirlmere Way was put on ice but by September I was getting itchy feet so I started another one in the meantime, the Two Roses Way. I did the first stage from Whalley to Barley which was very good but try as I might I could not make a public transport arrangement work for the next stage so that too fell into abeyance. I was also coming to realise by this time that bar the local historical society (who were friends) no one was really interested in my slides so that impetus disappeared.
As a result of a one-off date with a counsellor (her job was co-incidental by the way !) in November I finally shook the monkey off my back and throughout 1995 I saw a number of different girls but only one had any interest in walking and she and I had no chemistry whatsoever. I was also getting more embroiled in the Christian Social Group. When I first joined in August 1993 it was an absolute shambles, the only attraction being similar to that of watching a car crash but towards the end of 1994 it had drawn in some promising new blood and I was getting more involved in its affairs.
From the beginning of 1996 tensions began to rise in the Group as personal jealousies and genuine differences on how the Group should be run became intertwined. This was the backdrop when, in June 1996, I introduced my new girlfriend, Julie, to the Group. She was just an innocent bystander as the tensions erupted over that summer and in October the Group split in two - a breakaway faction led by the old leader calling itself New Life and a rump which re-christened itself Manchester Christian Social Group and fell ,by default into my lap. A fierce struggle then ensued. We were quite happy for New Life to exist as they were attracting all the more troublesome characters and making us much more homogenous but they wanted to wipe us out completely
Julie and I got engaged in November despite my pre-occupation with “the war” which continued up until a regrettable incident at a barbecue ; one of their hotheads turned violent prompting a mass exodus amongst their members which wiped out their initial numerical advantage. From that point sanity started to prevail and a fairly amicable co-existence became the norm. This was just as well for I had to relinquish the leadership to prepare for my forthcoming wedding to Julie the date being November 29 1997. ( We actually started an LMDP before we got married but that’s for a later post).
Although I had stepped down as leader I still carried a lot of respect in the Group and could get more or less anything I wanted on the programme so in 1998, by which time the threat from New Life had evaporated, I put the Irwell Valley Way in four stages down on the programe. All the evening walks had gone down well, both pre- and post- split so I thought this easy and accessible trail on Sunday afternoons might be a winner. In that respect it was a bit of a flop; not counting Julie each stage attracted just one other person (though it was a different one each time).
Stage One was from central Manchester to Prestwich a mainly urban stretch running through Salford and past The Cliff training ground. Julie and I were joined by one other guy who wasn’t a great conversationalist and hadn’t got the right footwear for an often muddy riverside walk. It was an uncomfortable afternoon made worse by poor weather.
Julie gave Stage Two Prestwich to Bury a miss as did two other guys who were supposed to turn up so that left me with just a girl called Janet. She was still game to do it but the weather this time was oppressively hot and she wilted (probably due to my pace as well) . When we got to Radcliffe she asked if we could call it quits there. Most of the missing part was covered , by coincidence, on a better attended evening walk shortly after Stage Three but not quite all.
Julie returned for Stage Three Bury to Rawtenstall but despite the attraction of a ride on the steam train to get back to Bury we only had one other taker , a girl called Elaine who was attending her first event. Fortunately she was a good talker and she and Julie nattered all the way along.
The final stage from Rawtenstall to Deerplay (with a celebratory meal at the pub there ) took place on a very wet day although the refuseniks cited the World Cup Final instead. I was left with just the longest-serving member, Barry. What I remember most is how vague the guide became on this stretch as if the writer had got bored and rushed through the last few miles. We had a good meal at the pub and I got back in time to watch the second half of the match.
So the Group had walked the trail but I didn’t forget that we’d missed a bit (little more than a mile). I never got round to completing it until a fortnight ago when I had some time to kill in Bury.
Since the Group walked it it has been re-branded as the Irwell Sculpture Trail with numerous art installations (some inevitably vandalised) along the way but I think the route remains the same.
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