Wanderers from Westminster – John Philipson
Submitted by: Sally Brewis - 26th November 2021
Following the last World War, it was, for a number of years, the practice of a party of Labour Members of Parliament to walk, each Whit weekend, successive sections of the Pennine Way. They had begun in Derbyshire and by 1950 it fell for them to complete the final stretch in the Cheviot hills.
Arthur Blenkinsop asked me if I would plan their route and join them as a guide.
My brief was to begin at Wooler, within easy reach by taxi from a London train stopping at Lucker of Belford, and to end at Cottonshope. It was specified that we should end each day at licensed premises as Hugh Dalton, the most prestigious member of the party, wished it so. I added a refinement of my own in arranging that each day, about lunch-time, we should reach a farmhouse in the hills. Both parties, I thought, would benefit when Members of Parliament met the people who lived and worked on out-bye farms.
The party assembled, on Whit Friday, at the Black Bull at Wooler and included Hugh Dalton, Barbara Castle, George Chetwynd, Geoffrey de Freitas, Fred Willey, Arthur Blenkinsop and myself. We were surrounded by a horse of reporters and photographers, many from national papers, but the following morning as we walked by Broadstruther to Goldscleugh, they thinned out, no doubt needing to meet deadlines and to restore themselves with refreshment in Wooler. By Goldscleugh, only the Kemsley Press and the Daily Herald were still with us, and they vanished shortly thereafter. We ate our sandwiches somewhere on the Lambden burn, and were refreshed with tea at Throwupburn. From the College Burn we crossed by the White Swire to Yetholm where we spent the night.
The second day we crossed by Clennell Street to Alnwinton, stopping at the mid-day a Uswayford to meet the Telfer family where Mrs Telfer made us a welcome pot of tea. It was a very friendly occasion. At Alwinton most of the party were accommodated in the Rose and Thistle by Mr and Mrs Foreman. In the glorious sunny weather I seem to remember that we had our meals in the garden. For two of us there were not beds enough at the Rose and Thistle, so Fred Whilley and I were whisked away to sleep at the Star Inn at Harbottle.
Our last morning, taxis dropped us at the Shilmoor and I led the party up the Usway Burn to Battleshiel. Thence we crossed the hill back over to the Coquet valley, dropping down to Lounges Knowe. The fine old school building at Windyhaugh was still in use then and the hum of school activity could be heard through the open door. The temptation of a ready-made audience was more than the politician in Hugh Dalton could resist: he entered, and addressed the surprised assembly.
Eliza Murray gave us her customary warm welcome with tea all round at Barrowburn and we were sped on our way up the Coquet. It was in the late afternoon that the first hitches in the staff work occurred. It had been arranged – at a high ministerial level – that the Army would not be firing into the target area we hoped to skirt to reach Cottonshope from the Coquet Valley. Unfortunately it had been arranged at such a high level that the instruction had not reached down to the man actually in charge, and there were the artillery vigorously pounding the area abutting on the proposed route.
In the circumstances, I felt obliged to reach out rendezvous by a slight – if rougher – diversion. It was now late afternoon of a very warm day and we had walked many miles, so we were rather non-plussed when we reached the rendezvous near Cottongshope to find, owing to some confusion between Cottonshope and Cottonshope Burnfoot, no motors there to meet us. Arthur Blenskinsop resourcefully got in touch with the Military who sent two cars to waft us down to the Burnfoot. Here Lady Trevelyan and Miss Bulmer were waiting to drive us to Wallington where we dined in their noble dining-room, in piquant contrast to the simplicities of our pilgrimage through the hills.