Team Gurney's Bank Holiday Walks

A photograph from Team Gurney’s first August Bank Holiday walk in 2015. Image Rachel Hammersley.

At the end of this month my family and I will undertake our 10th annual August Bank Holiday walk. We will hike the Hadrian's Wall Path from Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend (in fact we plan to continue on to the sea at Tynemouth). When we began this ritual in 2015 my children were 9 and 6. That year we walked part of the Hadrian's Wall route (from Housesteads to Newburn) over three days. When I think back I marvel at my bravery - or recklessness - in embarking on such an adventure. Though we were not walking the entire route, we did some pretty long days and, as the only member of the party over the age of 10, the navigation and motivation were entirely down to me. Yet it was far from my biggest challenge that year.

Just over a year earlier in May 2014 my husband, John Gurney, was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer. He died before the year was out, cutting his life short, making me a widow and single-parent at the age of 40, and leaving my two young children without their wonderful Dad.

A photograph of my late husband John Gurney from 2014. Image Rachel Hammersley.

The impetus for the walk was twofold. In the first place, John and I had always enjoyed walking and had tried to instil the same love in our children. Embarking on a Bank Holiday walk, then, felt like a way of maintaining a sliver of continuity when so much of our lives had been turned upside down. In planning the walk, I recalled a trip John and I had made several years earlier to Linhope Spout in Northumberland. I was carrying our one-year-old son in a baby backpack and as we reached the waterfall we saw a family with slightly older children skipping along ahead of their parents. We exchanged hopes that one day that would be us with our son - and perhaps a little sibling - running ahead of us, and pledged that we would keep going for walks and would try to make the experience of doing so fun for our children. It did not occur to me at that time that it would be one parent, rather than two, walking behind.

A photograph from 2017 when we walked part of the route on the beach bare foot. Image Rachel Hammersley.

Secondly, the walk addressed a deep need I felt to do something positive in response to our loss, and to ensure that my children were defined by their achievements rather than by the absence of their Dad. Delivering a cheque for £850 (raised through sponsorship for the walk) to the Oncology Day Unit at North Tyneside Hospital, where John had been treated, certainly felt like the kind of positive achievement I had been hoping for.

The money we have raised over the years for cancer-related charities has certainly been important, but alongside this we gained far more from our walks than I could ever have imagined back in 2015. In the years that followed we traversed two reservoirs (Rutland and Kielder) and walked (in three stages) from our front door north to Scotland - an achievement about which we all boast - and (in two stages) from our front door south to Scarborough. We have got lost (on more occasions than I care to remember), walked along a precipice with an alarming drop to our left, encountered fields of bulls, and faced personal demons on numerous occasions, but we have always kept on walking.

The unexpected finds are the best. We spotted this painted stone in the village of Drummore in Galloway in 2020 and felt as though it was left there for us. Image Rachel Hammersley.

Walking, I have discovered, is both a metaphor for - and an excellent means of coping with  - grief. Walking means moving at human pace through the landscape. You cannot move any faster than your body will allow, but if you just keep putting one foot in front of another (without thinking too much about what is ahead) you can cover considerable distances. Grief too is a human process, which operates at its own pace and cannot be rushed. Sometimes it feels impossibly hard, but if you just keep inching forward you do make progress. Walking also forces me to slow down from the frenetic pace of my normal life, and to take in and appreciate what is around me in the present. That too is crucial when dealing with grief.

Team Gurney's August Bank Holiday Walks

2015 Hadrian's Wall Housteads to Newburn

2016 Rutland Water

2017 North Shields to Dunstanburgh Castle

2018 Dunstanburgh to Berwick

2019 Berwick to Eyemouth, Fenham to Lindisfarne, College Valley

2020 Rhins of Galloway Coastal Path

2021 Kielder Water

2022 North Shields to Teeside

2023 Redcar to Scarborough

2024 Hadrian's Wall Bowness on Solway to Tynemouth

Our shoes after a day walking Rutland Water in 2016.

Our Bank Holiday walks also served to remind me that despite being thrust kicking and screaming into single-parenthood, I was not alone. The success of the walks has always relied on a small band of loyal family and friends who not only made them possible, but also supported me and my children in so many ways all year round. Central among Team Gurney's support team have been my parents who have driven us to starting points and collected us from end points on multiple occasions. They have been our cheerleaders, our most generous donors, and have listened patiently when - fuelled on adrenalin - we told, and retold, the stories of our exploits. Our first walk also could not have been completed without the kindness and support of my then colleagues and friends Keith and Claire who volunteered to put us up for two nights en route. This not only involved providing us with comfortable beds and delicious meals, but also collecting us from our end point in the evening and dropping us back the next day, and - on our second day - walking over an hour to meet us bringing water and tons of moral support when my poor navigation skills had resulted in a rather long detour. The following year it was my Aunty Cathy and Uncle Stewart who offered to provide bed, breakfast, and evening meal for our walk around Rutland Water. They also walked with us on our final day. On later walks we have been joined by my new partner (now husband) who, as an honorary member of Team Gurney, has completed several walks alongside us.

Bereavement and grief can be a very lonely process. The back-up teams for our walks are representative of how fortunate we have been in the support we have received from family and friends over the last ten years (including John's wider family with whom we have remained close).  Without all those people who have stood shoulder to shoulder with us we would have struggled much more than we have.

Walking part of the Yorkshire coast in 2023. Image Rachel Hammersley.

Finally, walking annually has been a means of charting our progress. This came home to me very strongly last year when we were walking part of the Yorkshire coast between Staithes and Whitby. At the far end of Runswick Bay we had to climb up a small waterfall and I was struggling a bit. My daughter turned and instinctively held out her hand to help me up. In that moment I realised that the tables had turned. It was no longer me leading the way, navigating, and motivating the children. I had become the slow one at the back needing inspirational talk and a hand to guide and support me.

Much may have changed since Team Gurney set off on the first walk ten years ago, but there is also much that remains constant - not least my, perhaps reckless, desire for a challenge. This year the Bank Holiday walk is not the only big event in Team Gurney's summer diary. We are doing what we are calling the 'Geordie Double'. Less than two weeks after completing our Hadrian's Wall Walk we will be running the Great North Run (my daughter as a junior and my son and I in the half marathon). I have a feeling that on both the walk and the run I will be relying heavily on the other members of Team Gurney to keep me going.

[This year we are raising money for Maggie's. It is an amazing organisation for people living with cancer and their families, which did so much to support me in those early months after John had died. If you want to sponsor us you can do so at Just Giving: https://www.justgiving.com/page/team-gurneys-geordie-double-2024?utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=page%2Fteam-gurneys-geordie-double-2024&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share]

Popular Initiative in a Parliamentary System

The internet has already started to transform our democracy. For instance, websites like change.org, which claims to be the world's largest petition platform, allow members of the general public to mount campaigns, generate - or express - support for particular proposals, and initiate political debate.

Some years ago I signed a petition on change.org which asked the Health Secretary to lower the screening age for bowel cancer to 50 - I had just lost my husband (aged 54) to that devastating disease. Since then I have keenly observed the progression of this issue through the labyrinthine passages of the UK parliamentary system, coming to respect the persistence and tenacity of Lauren Backler, who initiated the petition following the death of her mother to bowel cancer aged just 55. This is a good example of an initiative for the wider public good that was born of individual pain and suffering, and facilitated by this type of website.

Yet there are, of course, problems with online petitioning platforms. Issues are rarely clear cut and open to simple solutions. Even in the case of lowering the screening age for bowel cancer, it is necessary to weigh up the potential benefits, in lives saved, against the costs. These include not just the financial costs of screening more people and providing treatment to those who are diagnosed, but also the cost of the anxiety generated by screening and by the higher number of diagnoses it inevitably brings. Moreover, given the open nature of the website, not all change.org petitions are necessarily wise, properly informed, or in the wider public interest. Finally, one might wonder about the business model of change.org itself which is, after all, a for-profit company.

'A True Copy of the Petition of the Gentle-women, & Trades-men wives in, and about the City of London', reprinted from the LSE Digital Library, class mark R(SR) 11/L23, under a Creative Commons License.

'A True Copy of the Petition of the Gentle-women, & Trades-men wives in, and about the City of London', reprinted from the LSE Digital Library, class mark R(SR) 11/L23, under a Creative Commons License.

Petitions were also a common feature of seventeenth-century political life, especially during the period of the English Revolution. Like those of today, they varied greatly in focus and scope. Some were drawn up by an individual or small group of people and focused on a very specific case. James Harrington's sisters petitioned the authorities on his behalf in February 1662 asking that they and their tenants be allowed access to their brother who was then being held in the Tower of London.

Petitions could also be drawn up on behalf of particular interest groups. The 'Petition of the Gentle-women, & Trades-men wives in, and about the City of London', which was presented to the Commons on 4 February 1642, for example, expressed the fears of these London-based women about the presence of 'popish lords' in Parliament and the continuing performance of the Catholic mass at court. These women proved particularly adept at exploiting their 'frail condition' and their position as wives and mothers as grounds for their intervention in politics, justifying their call for action against the Irish Rebellion with reference to their fear that they would be raped or their children massacred.

Some also used petitions to advance their own political ideas. Harrington and his friends produced The Humble Petition of Divers Well Affected Persons, which was delivered to Parliament on 6 July 1659, and which called for a new constitution to be established modelled on Harrington's ideas. The Levellers, too, made much use of petitioning, setting up networks to facilitate the collection of signatures and subscriptions, and submitting at least one petition that boasted almost ten thousand names.

'The Humble Petition of Divers Well Affected Persons', The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Private copy.

'The Humble Petition of Divers Well Affected Persons', The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Private copy.

When Harrington drafted his model constitution in The Commonwealth of Oceana he decided that a more formal mechanism for popular initiative would be beneficial, going beyond petitioning. Not only did he propose the establishment of a Council of Prytans 'to whom it was lawful for any man to offer anything in order to the fabric of the commonwealth' before the constitution was finalised (The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, London, 1737, p. 79), he also instituted within his model a body known as the Academy of Provosts which was to operate as a regular and permanent means by which members of the public could make legislative proposals.

 
Extract from 'The Commonwealth of Oceana', The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington. Private copy.

Extract from 'The Commonwealth of Oceana', The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington. Private copy.

Harrington set out his idea for an Academy of Provosts in the nineteenth order of the model of the commonwealth of Oceana, which dealt with the work of the four governing councils that were devoted to matters of state, war, religion and trade respectively. Each week three provosts would be chosen from each council to service the Academy of Provosts for that week. Since members of the council were chosen from the senate, these were men of considerable political experience and expertise. This academy was to assemble every evening in a pleasant room. All sorts of people could join the provosts for conversation on matters of government, news or intelligence, or to propose new ideas to the councils. Anything proposed would be discussed by the assembled group, unless it required secrecy - in which case it could be presented to one or more of the provosts in a separate room. Provision was also made that if a someone had advice to give 'for the good of the commonwealth', but was unable or unwilling to come in person to the Academy,  a letter could be left with the doorkeeper for the attention of the provosts. Any ideas brought to the Academy by these means that were deemed by two or more provosts to be potentially useful to the commonwealth could then be proposed by them to the appropriate council. If the council saw fit it could propose the idea to the senate, which would then be required to debate the issue. This institution ensured, Harrington explained, that 'the ear of the commonwealth be open unto all' (The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, p. 128). It was important to Harrington that the provosts governed and organised the academy in such a way 'as may be most attractive unto men of parts and good affections unto the commonwealth, for the excellency of the conversation'. Harrington was evidently pleased with his idea since he repeated it in later works that contained abridged versions of his model including Brief Directions, The Art of Lawgiving and The Rota, and he endorsed the principle behind it in Aphorisms Political, insisting: 'It is not below the dignity of the greatest assembly, but according to the practice of the best commonwealths, to admit of any man that is able to propose to them for the good of his country.' (The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, p. 522.)

One cannot really imagine an 'Academy of Provosts' being established at Westminster today, but a twenty-first century equivalent could adopt a virtual rather than an actual form. At the very least, Harrington's Academy of Provosts, reminds us that the internet need not simply recreate forms of popular initiative, like petitioning, that were already in existence before the digital age. Rather, just as Harrington did in his Oceana, it might be worth inventing new forms more appropriate to our political circumstances that could be made possible by advances in technology.