It feels like late summer: the wind is cooler but the sun still has its strength. Swallows flit overhead flying in arcs showing the white of their breasts. They always seem like they’re having such fun. Suddenly the buzz of a bee is a loud shock in my ear before it drones clumsily away. Out there the sea is a dark blue, creating a straight line on the horizon all the way to where it meets the thin sliver of land that is Portland Bill.
I am on the Monarch’s Way. It seems appropriate that I am here now we have another Charles on the throne. I hope he has better luck than the other two: they both had to endure civil wars and the first one was executed while the second only just managed to get away to France. Despite Charles II’s dramatic escape along these ways after the battle of Worcester he was still only thirty years old when he was restored to the throne. Unfortunately Charles III doesn’t have so much time to play with.
I often think of Charles II walking or riding along these old ways, only twenty one, dressed as a peasant and realising that everyone he encountered was a potential enemy. At six foot he was unusually tall for that time and it made it all the more of a challenge to keep him disguised for those six weeks in 1651 trudging around the South West of England.
I’m on the top of the cliffs where the grass is short and spiky and the sand of the cliffs is visible beneath. The ground slopes away at gentle angles towards the coast. The signposts mark the South West Coast Path and just here the SWCP and Monarch’s Way follow the same route.
I say hello to a man and his wife. They are both in their seventies. He is in rust red trousers with a forked walking stick and a golden retriever. He has been in bed the last two weeks with ‘a rather personal illness’.
As a result he had been watching lots of television. ‘It really gets a bit boring watching all the people file past the coffin.’
Yesterday the queue was four miles long. Today they told people not to leave home as they wouldn’t be able to get to see her in time. At one point people were having to queue for twenty five hours. Everywhere there are flags flying at half mast.
The outpouring has been extraordinary. I wonder if a big part of it is because they are a family with the same problems as any family and people relate to that (I’m thinking of William and Harry being reunited to stand guard over the coffin) or maybe it’s her amazing longevity and ability to keep going. As the shopkeeper in Charmouth said, she’s just always been there.
He continues ‘Prince Charles – sorry, the king – was moving about while he was standing by the coffin. Apparently it’s to keep the circulation going.’
Last night it was the Queen’s grandchildren’s turn to hold vigil around her coffin in Westminster Hall. There has been much in the press about William and Harry being reunited to pay tribute to her and the constant speculation about their relationship.
I heard Nicholas Soames, the conservative peer and grandson of Winston Churchill, on Channel 4 news when asked about her how he would remember her ‘unimpeachable, impeccable 70 years of service to the country. She never put a foot wrong.’
On the way back I stop by a stile below a sycamore tree. Light is flashing through the leaves. Charmouth and Lyme Regis are once again ahead of me. And the sea glitter is flickering on the sea in front of the town. I catch myself wanting to preserve the moment in my memory but then I realise we can’t. We just have to enjoy it while it lasts.
The Slow Walker 