Helen Thomas was first Edward Thomas's wife and then she was his widow. And she was speaking late in her life and she was reading the path, which Thomas wrote on 6th March 1915 from draft to more or less complete version in a single day. If the poem can be said to be about one path, it would be the path that Thomas's own children walked to school through the wooded chalk uplands of the south down,. near the well-named village of Steep in Hampshire.
For several years and more than a thousand miles, celebrated travel writer Robert Macfarlane has been following the vast network of old paths and routes that criss-cross Britain and its waters, looking at their connections to countries and continents beyond.
In this event, recorded at the Tabernacle in London On the 12th of June 2012, Macfarlane tells us his enthralling accounts of the ghosts and voices that haunt old tracks, of songlines and their singers, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of rights of way and rites of passage.
This event was produced by Executive Producer Hannah Kaye with editing by Executive Producer Rowan Slaney.
To hear the full length episode of this event and to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, head to intelligence Squared.com/membership or subscribe on Apple Podcasts
—
We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.
Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.
And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared..
Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices