Big congratulations to Sophie who passed her Lowland Leader Assessment last week.
Sophie is a poet, writer and creative writing facilitator. Sophie leads guided poetry workshops in the Peak District, where she creates a space for connecting with nature within without and turning your walks into words.
During her assessment, Sophie performed a phenomenally powerful recital of her Right to Roam poem, which she has kindly allowed us to share below along with a poem about the place she calls home. It feels particularly poignant at the moment, and especially as the Kinder Mass Trespass has recently celebrated its 90 year anniversary.
You can join Sophie for a Write in Beauty workshop by following this link, or read on for her powerful words.
Right to Roam
They barb-wired her body
and sectioned her limbs
they fenced off her torso
and let developers in
They excavated and extorted
they mined her hollow
tattooed borders and orders
told us not to go
Yet still I roam
still, I roam free
not your country
not my country
nothing belongs to thee
They built higher borders
when no one could catch her
they gave her a name
and told her she must answer
They said the public were savage
warned her of the danger
only they
could protect her
from the violence of strangers
Yet still I roam
my feet are my plea
not your country
not my country
she was born free
They loved the old barns
so converted them new
they liked the horizon
so purchased the view
They scared off the ramblers
with the threat of trespass
bought their freedom
told us to stick to the footpath
Yet, still I roam
my feet are my plea
not your country
not my country
she has always been free
Who owns the lapwing’s song?
the sun’s reflection in the stream?
who owns the deer’s footprints?
who owns the bog oil’s gleam?
Who owns the river’s flow?
who owns the creak of the trees?
who owns the sunrise?
who owns the summer breeze?
Still I roam, still I roam
my feet are my plea
not your country
not my country
she has always been free
©Sophie Sparham
Welcome
We’re heading to my country
where everyone is duck and youth and reet
where they say a yew, as old as 2,000 years,
grows in a graveyard in Darley Dale
where blue john is only found for those willing
to travel below ground to Castleton’s caves
where a dove flows through the landscape
where three counties meet at plunge pools
and Buxton is bottled and shipped across seas
where nine ladies dance and stone circles stand
where lullabies are born and plague was contained
with food parcels being sent to Eyam moor
We’re heading to my country
where they protested the right to roam
made the first national park, my county my home
where dippers dive and curlews call
where red deer run and lapwings land low
where heather and bilberries and bog cotton
grow on moors of gritstone and peat
where there’s acid grassland in the dark peak
where limestone rivers flow between valleys
and steep sided cloughs
where you can stand between dales and
woodlands and hay meadows
where you can climb Kinder and Mam Tor
And if you’re feeling brave, scale a dragon’s back
eat tarts in Bakewell and pick up pikelets
we’re heading to my country
where they still cull badgers and foxes run rife
where litter piles like pilgrims across the roadside
where anyone would make you a brew and anyone
would say hello
where there’s a plane crash left scattered on top of Bleaklow
where the hills will hold you, if no one else will
where money’s flooding the valleys and we can’t afford the bills
where there’s Shrove Tide and ale nights and the King of Rome
It’s my country it’s my country, step inside my home
©Sophie Sparham
Beyond the Edge Ltd is based in Sheffield: two hours by train from London and within easy travelling distance from Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham and other Northern towns and cities.
We are one of the UKs most experienced providers of climbing, walking, scrambling, mountaineering and navigation training courses.
Most of our courses are run in the nearby Peak District National Park which has some of the finest climbing, bouldering, walking and hiking in the world.
