Walking across the sands of Morecambe Bay is something I’ve had in mind for years. The sands shift with the tides and become lethal, sucking unwary walkers down to their deaths. The most well known case of course being the Chinese cockle pickers a few years ago. Because of the nature of the sands no-one should attempt the walk without a guide. Luckily, such a guide exists. Cedric Robinson is the official ‘Queen’s Guide’ and has held the role for over 40 years. He usually only leads walks at the weekend now and only over the summer season. All the walks are also charity walks so it’s not possible to just turn up and join one.
I decided I really wanted to do this walk last year as I’d found out it was probably going to be Cedric’s last year in the job. Although no doubt there will be a new guide to follow him when he does finally retire, it won’t be quite the same. As luck would have it my local hospice (Willow Wood) was organising a charity walk of the sands for the first time. So I signed up and was all set to go. The weekend of the walk, it rained. It rained a lot. It was still raining a lot when I turned up for the coach on Sunday morning. The organisers did a last check with Cedric before we set off and he said he’d have to cancel the walk. Because of the huge amount of rain, the river we would have to wade across was dangerously high and fast flowing and unpassable. As this was one of the last walks of the season it wasn’t possible to re-arrange another for that year. But we were promised that we would be able to reschedule for this year and Cedric would still lead the walk.
Well, my new sponsorship form has arrived and the walk is set for mid September. Surely it can’t be cancelled a second time? It’s got to happen this time.
