Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 2138 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| THE ROTHWELL RAMBLERS | 1979 | 1979-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: Super 8 Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 13 mins 20 secs Subject: COUNTRYSIDE / LANDSCAPES ENTERTAINMENT / LEISURE RURAL LIFE |
| Summary This film captures two walks taken by the Rothwell Footpath Group in Yorkshire in 1979, one in winter and one in summer. |
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Description
This film captures two walks taken by the Rothwell Footpath Group in Yorkshire in 1979, one in winter and one in summer.
Title: ‘Walks with Rothwell Footpath Group – 1979’
The film starts with a long line of walkers who make their way across some fields on a bright summer’s day.
In the next scene, the season has changed to winter, and a group of walkers meet in the Bluebell Wood car park which is satiated next to a river and a bridge. Here, there are numerous models of cars are parked...
This film captures two walks taken by the Rothwell Footpath Group in Yorkshire in 1979, one in winter and one in summer.
Title: ‘Walks with Rothwell Footpath Group – 1979’
The film starts with a long line of walkers who make their way across some fields on a bright summer’s day.
In the next scene, the season has changed to winter, and a group of walkers meet in the Bluebell Wood car park which is satiated next to a river and a bridge. Here, there are numerous models of cars are parked including Minis, Allegros, and VW camper vans. Many of them have kayaks on their roof racks.
A large group of ramblers walk along by the river where there is still some snow on the ground. They cross a suspension footbridge, with snowdrops on the other side. They are all wearing rambling clothes with rucksacks and hats. On top of a hill, a boy poses on some snow, and the group stop to have a picnic. They then continue along a path covered in snow with dry stone walls on either side. They make their by some cottages before going on over a sty and down a deep incline towards a village, stopping at a farm on the way to have some refreshment. They continue across fields bordered by dry stone walls.
Summer again, and a group walk across a field and across a footbridge over a major road. They continue down to the side of a river where they stop for a rest and refreshment. After which, they pass through a farm with a field of horses, past a colliery and alongside a canal with a lifting bridge. They walk towards Spacey Houses Hotel and through a church graveyard before going through a field of cows and then through a wood and onto Crimple House. Crimple Viaduct can be seen in the distance.
They carry on along a footpath through a wood and follow a sign for Follifoot. They bypass James’ Church and graveyard, before arriving at the Rudding Gate, the stocks, and the Lascelles Arms at Follifoot, Harrogate. They continue through a field of corn, and across more fields with cows and people on horseback. The film ends with the walkers continuing along a footpath.
Context
This film is one of several made by Muriel Booth, a member of the Rothwell Footpath Group, of their walks around Yorkshire in the late 1970s. Muriel got herself a cine camera just for recreational purposes as many did in the 1960s, and filmed numerous interesting events apart from her rambles. Rothwell Footpath Group was formed in the early 1970s and is still going, continuing to organise walks, as well as helping to maintain local paths, sign posting and stiles; with membership allowing...
This film is one of several made by Muriel Booth, a member of the Rothwell Footpath Group, of their walks around Yorkshire in the late 1970s. Muriel got herself a cine camera just for recreational purposes as many did in the 1960s, and filmed numerous interesting events apart from her rambles. Rothwell Footpath Group was formed in the early 1970s and is still going, continuing to organise walks, as well as helping to maintain local paths, sign posting and stiles; with membership allowing for map reading classes and access to their library. The group has recently won an appeal against Leeds City Council, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, relating to footpaths. They were formed as a group on the inspiration of a teacher, calling themselves a ‘Footpath Group’ rather than a ‘Ramblers Group’ because they wanted to keep their local roots rather than becoming members of the Ramblers Association. Rothwell, famous for its ‘Rhubarb Triangle’, comes within the orbit of the Leeds Ramblers Group, which today has over 800 members. In any case, the essential aim of both groups, to walk in the countryside, is the same. One of the early members, Ken Moore, recently wrote a booklet on the walking group, The First 35 Years Of The Rothwell Group. The 1970s was a decade when rambling numbers grew significantly, and Yorkshire has always been a favourite place for walking, whether in the Dales, on the Moors or the Wolds in East Riding. This growth was aided by the Countryside Act of 1968 which had given county councils in England and Wales a duty to signpost footpaths; and the Ramblers' Association helped to strengthen the National Park authorities in protecting walking environments. They also persuaded the Ordnance Survey to show on its popular maps footpaths as depicted on definitive maps, showing for the first time where walkers had a rightto walk in the countryside. The history of walking for leisure is a fascinating one. At the end of the 18th century walking though the countryside was considered something that was only done by those tramping from one place to the next seeking work, or worse. But there developed a fundamental change in attitude towards nature, strongly associated with romanticism, around that time. A number of writers have traced back to the last two decades of the 18th century this change, when some sections of the middle class began walking for leisure in the countryside. One important writer on this subject, Robin Jarvis, argues that at least in part, "their walking was a radical assertion of autonomy" against their upbringing and education, which had dictated “a circumscribed self" (Jarvis, pp 23-28). Robin picks up a theme from Leslie Stephen’s (the father of Virginia Woolf) 19th century In Praise of Walking, on the benefits of walking for imaginative creativity in general and writing in particular, and not just romantic poetry, a la Wordsworth. There was a rise in peripatetic literature at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, which Robin puts down to the “the rhythms and modalities of walking”; namely, that one can just ‘ramble’. In fact the word ‘ramble’, as opposed to just plain ‘walking’, is an appropriate one. It is defined by the OED as ‘without definite route or other aim than recreation or pleasure’. This ties the physical act of walking in with the effect this can have on the mind (or spirit), and the OED definition ‘With reference to mental pursuits or studies: to contemplate in an unsystematic manner, often without a definite aim; to wander, to digress’, or ‘to wander or travel in a free, unrestrained manner, without a definite aim or direction’. Although this association with mental stimulation is perhaps more relevant to those solitary walkers such as Rousseau or Nietzsche, or Emily Brontë walking on the Yorkshire moors, even in a group one can always keep to oneself. As early as 1824 an Association for the Protection of Ancient Footpaths was formed in the Vicinity of York. Later in 1865 the Commons Preservation Society started to campaign for access to common land (today the organisation is known as the Open Space Society). It ought to be remembered that vagrancy laws, going back to the persecution of gypsies and the Vagrancy Act of 1597, and greatly extended in the 19th century, could act as a deterrent force, even though aimed at those seeking work and not those walking for leisure. Nevertheless, towards the end of the 19th century walking clubs appeared, such as the Sunday Tramps in 1879 and the Forest Ramblers Club in 1884. Although many of these were made up of professionals, increasingly working class groups were being started, such as the Co-operative Holidays Association, formed in 1893 and offering organised walking tours. This movement was fuelled by a desire to escape the horrible conditions of many industrial cities, such as Leeds, and the growth in railways. In 1905 representatives met from about a dozen of these English groups to form the Federation of Rambling Clubs, seeking to preserve ramblers' rights and persuade the railway companies to grant concessionary rates for ramblers – in which they were partly successful. In 1926 the Sheffield and District Federation Rambling Club was established and a head of steam was building up leading to the formation of the National Council of Ramblers' Federations in 1931. This had over 300 affiliated rambling clubs and a membership of nearly 1,200 in its first year. The following year came the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in which several ramblers were arrested and subsequently imprisoned, although this was opposed by the National Council of Ramblers' Federations. The National Council of Ramblers' Federations published a Yearbook and a journal, Rambling, from 1933, and the next year changed their name to the Rambler’s Association. However, the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932 has been over-hyped (they never even got on to Kinder Scout): a fascinating account of the background to this, and the battle for access to the countryside, can be found in the excellent article by David Hey, Kinder Scout and the legend of the Mass Trespass. Throughout their lifetime the Association has been constantly involved in campaigning for the expansion of walker’s rights. In 1939 they fought the Access to Mountains Bill and even in the war they campaigned for the creation of long-distance footpath routes. After the Second World War they helped bring about the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, in 1949. In 1965 a proposal put forward by the Ramblers' Association's first full-time secretary Tom Stephenson thirty years earlier, for a Pennine Way, was finally realised. More recently the Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000 granted freedom to roam in open countryside in England and Wales. A fuller history can be found on the website of the Ramblers' Association (References) Today the Ramblers' Association has around 8oo groups and 143,000 members in Britain. Walking has for some time been promoted for its beneficial effects, and at long last this simple pleasure is being made more accessible thanks to the efforts of the Disabled Ramblers Association, which organises a wide range of rambles that are specifically designed for disabled people, and SUSTRANS (the sustainable transport charity) creating a network of cycle, wheelchair and walkers' paths around the country. References Ken Moore, The First 35 Years Of The Rothwell Group, Rothwell, 2006. Robin Jarvis, Romantic Writing and Pedestrian Travel, Macmillan, London, 1997. David Hey, Kinder Scout and the legend of the Mass Trespass, AgHR 59, II, pp. 199–216 Christopher Morley’s essay on the ‘Art of Walking’ (on Google books) Go4awalk The Ramblers Association Leeds group of the Ramblers Association Disabled Ramblers Open Spaces Society SUSTRANS |
