The good lady refuses to enter the King Lud these days after what she describes as ‘that evening’ and I describe as ‘a magisterial tour de force of heavy metal karaoke’. This was quite a few years ago now but I’m sure that people are still talking about my rendition of the ‘Ace of Spades’ – something inexplicably that she seems to hold against me. Anyway, as she is now boycotting the venue I am also by definition boycotting it as well…….however, in the name of research (and safe in the knowledge that by this point she will be half way through a margherita pizza with extra sweetcorn) I took this opportunity for a quiet sit-down. I reflected on sweetcorn as a pizza topping, which in itself doesn’t seem too offensive, but when applied to such a degree as to obscure everything else seems odd. Not as odd as pineapple on a pizza. I pondered the marginally less controversial issue of Brexit and it struck me that this walk could also be an opportunity to take a sounding of island views on this hot potato topic. Imbued with this new journalistic spirit I headed for the bar.  The Lud has changed considerably since my last visit, largely as a result of being closed, refurbished and re-opened as a relatively family friendly sport orientated bar. It’s not the first pub on the site either, replacing the ‘Original Inn’ (built 1845) sometime in the 1930s hence the mock tudor look. Almost the entire row of buildings facing the pier and Ryde seafront used to be pubs, but the Lud is now the only survivor. Inevitably I’d thought it was somewhat oddly named after the Luddites but after a bit of digging it transpired that the name actually references a viking raider of the island also associated with Ludgate Circus in London. Or he could have been a pre-Roman English king according to Geofrey of Monmouth……Either way I doubted that the small group of mid-day drinkers arguing over which shot to have next would have been too bothered so I mentioned this fact to the barmaid instead. 

“Really?”

“Yeah it’s weird where these names come from don’t you think?”

“Did you want a drink?”

“Oh. Yes, a pint of Landlord thanks”  

I decided against my Brexit related conversational gambit. In fairness the beer was very good and surprisingly cheap for a seafront bar. So good and so cheap that I had another and stroked the dachshund that appeared from behind the bar. He was wearing a blue and black striped coat and seemed quite pleased with himself. I’m not a fan of clothes on animals – seems a little bit demeaning. I threw him a pork scratching and he chased it around the floor of the pub…..

The daschund’s name was ‘Wood’ it turned out and the barmaid was a damn sight more friendly to him than me. I wonder how Karl Marx faired?

My first experience of the Isle of Wight was Ryde Pier. After a lengthy train journey and some confusion over the train stations of Portsmouth I finally managed to catch the catamaran that crosses the 5 mile stretch of water known as the Solent. It was June. I travelled on the open top deck of the vessel and Ryde looked like a postcard. Houses came tumbling down the hill, several church spires rose above the houses and the sun was shining. Walking down the half mile pier it seemed more like a holiday than a job interview. Brent Geese bobbed in the water, cormorants perched on the pilings running alongside the main structure and even a couple of swans drifted past. Now it was November. The tide was out so the majority of the water present was falling out of the sky – walking down the pier I was accompanied by a light but chilly breeze. Ryde was a grey mass and the Church spires were hidden by low cloud. The trip by foot down the pier always brings a mixed emotion when the train goes by. Jealousy at those peering faces sitting smugly throughout their two minute yet always warm journey and low level pride at not being so lazy. The trains on the island are old London Underground stock – the result of an engineering mishap in 1966 that lowered the height of a key tunnel by ten inches thus rendering it impassable to normal stock. The pier was first built in 1814 prior to which visitors to Ryde were carried ashore by local fishermen wading out through the shallows to hopefully ensure a dry landing. Such was the trade that the local lord of the manor had muscled in by the mid seventeenth century, establishing fixed rates for the passage and introducing a cart system for the wealthier guests. Ryde itself (from the Old English rith – place at the small stream) was at this point two separate settlements at the top and bottom of the steep hill. This would all change at the end of the eighteenth century as Ryde became a fashionable regency destination, Union Street was built linking the settlements and became clear that if it was to grow then brawny fisherman lugging dandies and their mistresses through the waves was not going to be good enough. And so in 1812 the Ryde Pier Company was formed, under the restriction that no foreign visitors could be landed, and construction began. Restriction notwithstanding, and given the south Wight’s cross-channel smuggling based economy, the pier opened the island up to the wider world. Perhaps the most distinguished visitor to travel the pier was Queen Victoria, arriving by private yacht in 1843, by which time the pier was reaching its full half mile length. Unlike today with it’s ubiquitous Costa, the pier would have offered the Queen a full cornucopia of entertainments including a bandstand, refreshments pavillion and large numbers of sheep (so many indeed that they required their own cleaner to keep the pier amenable to promenaders). Such was the volume of traffic that company had also hired a policeman by the mid-1830s to regulate the flow – something achieved today by electronic barriers and a touch card system. A working fishing village, with countryside villas stretching up the hill beyond would have welcomed the Queen and her influence on the town is still visible today. Queen’s Road heads towards Newport, Cowes and Osbourne House, the Queen Victoria Shopping Arcade contains a variety of specialty shops and a bust of the Queen herself looks down upon the local Co-op – unfortunately covered in the ever present seagull poo and surrounded by those members of the town that prefer their cider al fresco. The plaque next to Victoria’s bust, commemorating Theodore Racine Searle, a local homeless man who passed in 1987 after 28 years in Ryde, is a modern echo of the changes that were already reaching Ryde by the time of Victoria’s visit. Modernisation and industrialisation would provide the pier with first a tramway and then electrification in 1881 and yet free labour from the Newport workhouse would build the causeway at the pierhead in 1829.  Reaching the pierhead today Ryde’s split personality emerges not just from the rain but from the buildings along the seafront. Initially an indistinct stretch of seaside vendors and fast food outlets three buildings stand out – refreshments offered by the mock Tudor King Lud hint at relief from the cold and a pre-pier past, to right the Royal Victoria Yacht Club suggest a holiday hey-day of royal and aristocratic celebrities and off to the left the ever audible hoverport shows Ryde at it’s modern best. What Karl Marx thought when he arrived at the pier for a holiday break in 1874 is not recorded, but his patronage of various local ale houses is recorded and is enough of an excuse for an early break in the itinerary.

It is an odd thing that we often wish to travel and see other places in all their minutiae, but then ignore what we have upon our own doorstep. I have walked numerous paths across Britain and Europe – Hadrian’s Wall, the Dingle peninsula, the Jura Way – but the Isle of Wight Coastal Path has eluded me. Sure, I’ve undoubtedly walked sections of the path on various excursions with the boy and the dog, but never in a conscious sense of completing the walk as a whole. And it is a path that encapsulates this little island both physically and metaphorically – history, geology, food and mini-golf courses abound. In some ways it encapsulates Britain as well – an island apart, linked to it’s larger mainland cousin by proximity, but separated by a narrow stretch of water that can make all the difference in so many ways. I am an ‘overner’ (from the mainland) not a caulkhead (born and bred upon the island for several generations). I moved to the island 18 years ago from Manchester with not the faintest idea of the culture shock that awaited. From the wet, urban, hundred mile an hour life of a major northern conurbation, to the relatively mild, seaside, ‘it’ll happen tomorrow’ lifestyle of the Wight. Having commuted nearly 50 miles a day both ways in Manchester I laughed when people told me I’d soon find the 5 miles from Ryde to Newport a trip too far. I hate going to Newport now – it’s just too far. Given that the urge to begin this walk came along in mid-November the boy, the dog and the good lady decided to give most of the effort a miss.