Prose: Day 0, Home to Abbotsford

How does the form of the red notebook change? The first pages of the notebook detail Armitage’s journey from West Yorkshire to Abbotsford, the home of Walter Scott and the venue for the first reading. This journey was made before the walk started, by train and car. The prose here is fluidly written, in medium-sized paragraphs and with few amendments.

This entry anticipates the walk, unlike future entries which are largely reflective. As such, the entry includes two lists: one of journey poems, which might be read at events during the walk, and one of things Armitage is / is not afraid of.

The final paragraph, which does not appear in the published book, hints at the personal transformations that an encounter with the landscape of the Pennine Way might bring:  ‘it feels as if I am about to pour myself into a long watercourse, which will filter me through its geologies and landscape and dialects, until I emerge at the southern end, purified and sieved and with all impurity removed.’

Image credit Leeds University Library