My life
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MAN AND BOY
Making a splash
Phil Goodwin and James, seven, attempt a hiking trip
efore our son was born, my wife and I often spent weekends hiking around the rugged cliff tops and windswept moors of west Cornwall. Penwith is a wonderful landscape, especially outside the tourist season when you can almost have the place all to yourself. This all stopped abruptly when parenthood came knocking seven years ago but just recently we decided to try again, this time around the wonder of the Westcountry that is Dartmoor. We kicked off with a magical trek from Fingle Bridge, high up through the woods past Castle Drogo and back down the banks of the Teign. The boy nailed a four-mile hike, was enchanted by the river and left us wondering if we might break out the boots proper. The second trip brought us down to earth with a bump, or should I say a splash. A work colleague had told me about Wistman’s Wood, a dwarf oak forest near Two Bridges, and I fancied I could convince the lad that the ancient, moss-covered woodland was none other than Tolkien’s Mirkwood, where Bilbo encounters and slays giant spiders. Perhaps foolishly, I drove south from Exeter along the winding road through Moretonhampstead, a picturesque journey if a little long for impatient youngsters and nauseating for sensitive souls like my travel-sick wife. Then, having ventured out without a map – opting instead to use the ever-reliable combination of bloke know-how and the Force – I got lost. Well, not so much lost. Let’s say we overshot the runway. It didn’t seem to matter though because the high moor was a staggeringly beautiful carpet of golden grass. We decided to pull in and climb up to what
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I know to be Sharpitor. The first sign of trouble came when James slipped on a boulder and scraped his knee. It was nothing more than a grazed red patch but his frustration boiled over a bit. He lost it when I (correctly) reminded him to take it easy and not to jump. My only other advice had been to keep out of the marshy ground, which might be deeper than it looked. “You don’t want to walk back with wet feet,” I warned. Talk about famous last words. From the tor we spied a lake, which I figured must be Burrator reservoir, the source of drinking water for the good folk of Plymouth. Just a gentle stroll down through the woods and we could sit at the water’s edge and eat our lunch. All went as planned until we decided to leave. The lad is perched on the lakeside, holding a stick, telling me how to attract alligators when he loses his balance and topples into the water. It is barely a foot deep there but he was soaked neck to foot. Then all hell broke loose. It was a warm day, but the water was icy and he had a cold. It is hard to remove wet clothes, especially when the subject is crying, resisting and even hitting you. He was more concerned about how he looked (we had no spares so a top was wrapped around the waist). Amazingly, he was also worried people might think he had broken the rules and gone swimming. To make things worse, opinion as to how to proceed was divided. My wife wanted to flag down a car. I didn’t think anyone would want a soaking boy on plush leather seats. I just wanted to get him back up the hill into the van and home. Harsh words were exchanged, even screams. In the end
we trudged and squelched back in less than forty minutes. “I am NEVER going to Dartmoor again,” he told me. Okay, so that’s that then.
[[ The water is barely a foot deep there but he was soaked neck to foot. Then all hell broke loose
NEXT WEEK: Chris McGuire on life as a new dad in the Westcountry 46
Man and Boy_April 22.indd 46
13/04/2017 08:09:25