Friend of FINDRA, writer and teacher Kerri Andrews, shares her journey from academic writing to uncovering forgotten stories of women who walk. Based in Peebles, Kerri reflects on how frustration at women’s voices being ignored in walking literature led her to write her acclaimed books Wanderers: History of Women Walking and Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom.
In this blog, she talks about the inspiration she finds outdoors, the balance between motherhood, writing, and walking, and the lessons she’s learned in self-compassion. From night hikes fuelled by chips and chocolate buttons, to finding peace in simply watching clouds drift by.
Hi Kerri, please tell everyone where you are based, what you do, and perhaps a little about your background.
I’m based in Peebles and I am a writer and teacher of creative writing. I moved to Scotland fifteen years ago and have spent much of that time in the Scottish Borders (Netherurd, Stow, always circling round Peebles). I grew up in Worcestershire.
When did you first realise you wanted to write, and how did you get started?
I trained in academia - I have a PhD in English Literature. So, writing was part of what I did for my work, but journal articles and books on obscure topics. I didn’t know I wanted to be any other kind of writer - it was the topic that pushed me in that direction. I’d had the idea for my first book, Wanderers, though it wasn’t until my friend Polly (mentioned above as a poet I really admire) suggested I might be writing about women walking that I really knew what the book was going to be about. Its first several dozen drafts are very dry and academic, but gradually I started to wonder if I might want to write for a broader audience. It took a long time, and a lot of trial and error, to work out how to tell a story for a general audience. I don’t think I nailed it with Wanderers, actually, but I think I got closer with my most recent book, Pathfinding. Now I couldn’t go back to writing in the dry way I used to have - I love telling stories about forgotten histories.
Where do you find inspiration for your writing — do you draw on your time outdoors, your family life, or something else entirely?
I get angry! Both of the books I have published for a general audience grew out of a sense of annoyance that those (mostly men) writing about walking so consistently and deliberately ignored women. I didn’t know initially that there were accounts by women walkers, but it didn’t take much detective work to start finding them (one I found on Google Books and used the highly-sophisticated research technique of typing in ‘walking’ to see where the writer discussed her walks). The only difference between me and the other writers about walking was I’d bothered to look, to be sceptical about sweeping generalizations and pat claims, and to go and look for myself. The same thing happened with my second book, as I realised that if women’s stories were marginalised, stories by women who had mothered were completely ignored. I felt that needed to change. The weaving in of my own walking came relatively late, and was suggested by a friend of mine who said, ‘You know you’re a woman walking too, right?’ So now I am much more conscious when I go walking that I might want to use that experience somehow or somewhere. But even if I don’t use my walking experience directly I enjoy the empty space I get in my head when I walk - it’s a great place for ideas to percolate.
What’s your favourite way to spend time outdoors?
Controversially, perhaps, its a toss-up between going for a long bike ride with some sweeping descents, and going for a long walk. I love the descent into Innerleithen along Leithen Water if I’m on my bike.
Can you share a particularly memorable outdoor adventure or walk that has stayed with you?
I think the time I walked the Buchan Way at night was pretty special and memorable. I started from Peebles while the chippy was open and so I had a nice hot bag of chips for the first part of the walk. The sun set somewhere over The Glack. I’d read about doing night walks in a walking magazine, and the Perseids meteor shower was due, so I was hoping to see that while out in the hills. I had a nice bag of giant chocolate buttons while sat at the deserted house in the middle of Broughton Heights, looking skywards and seeing absolutely no shooting stars. The last part of the walk, down into Broughton, was very eerie. I’d done the walk several times by then so knew the route well, but the dark made everything strange, including distances. It was disorienting and a little scary, but also very magical and special.
How do you find a balance between your writing, walking, and life’s other responsibilities like work and family?
The writing and the family sort of happen okay, but the walking has tended to get a bit squeezed over the last few years. I’ve not really been on any big walks for a while, and with young children it’s tricky to combine that love with being with my kids. Writing I’m somehow better at protecting. So, I don’t think I’ve found the balance yet - it’s a work in progress.
Was there a person, book, or moment that first sparked your love of the outdoors?
I remember being fourteen or fifteen years old and reading about the Offa’s Dyke Path. I looked it up in my parents’ Reader’s Digest atlas and thinking ‘wow! I want to do that!’ but my parents didn’t and don’t walk and I didn’t know anyone at all who walked, and I just had no clue where even to start. That idea died, and I didn’t really get walking until I was in my twenties. I always felt a hankering, but it wasn’t until I moved to Yorkshire to study at the University of Leeds that I really began. The beauty of the Yorkshire Dales was a major part of me getting outdoors.
What role does nature play in your mental well-being?
I’m sceptical about the idea of nature being curative - I have a lifelong genetic condition that will never be improved no matter how much time I spend in nature. But I certainly need to move my body to feel well, and there’s something about the lines and colours of trees, and the sound of running water, that I find very soothing. I think what helps me sometimes is being reminded - by standing on top of a big hill with a big view, perhaps - that I am very small. And it helps, too, to be reduced to being a body with bodily needs when I’m out walking.
Is there one piece of gear or clothing you never leave home without when heading outdoors?
My walking shoes, and ibuprofen. I have very strangely-shaped feet that require orthotics everywhere else, so a pair of walking shoes that feels good is very precious to me. I need the ibuprofen because the strange feet are prone to extreme pain, so taking some anti-inflammatories before a walk means I can get out and enjoy my body rather than being in fear of it.
What’s the best piece of advice — about writing, walking, or life — that you’ve ever received?
Best piece of advice ever was, ‘Plants grow in spite of you’, from an allotment-holding friend when I started growing my own food. While it wouldn’t probably count as advice, I think one of the best things I’ve read for shaping how I see things is Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, which gives permission, if you need it, to be in and among the mountains in whatever way makes sense to you. You don’t need to be climbing things or suffering to have an important and meaningful experience. And I love the idea of looking at the world upside down, as she does.
Do you have a ‘writing ritual’ or habit you turn to when you’re stuck for words — perhaps a walk, a favourite spot, or even a particular snack?
My writing ritual is to write in the morning (I aim for 1000 words), then I’m free to do whatever I want after that. If I can get out for a walk in the afternoon that seems to help tee up my brain for the next day’s writing. I’ll do this sooner, though, if I reach a difficult place or I’ve written myself in a corner. I’m usually able to come back the next day and figure it out (the solution usually involves deleting stuff).
On writing this blog, what do you feel is the key motivational or inspirational message you would like to highlight to our followers that would inspire them to get outdoors more.
I guess what’s been important for me is learning self-compassion. I’m a driven person and that’s been very helpful in getting up big things and doing hard stuff, but it’s not appropriate on all occasions. I’ve had to learn to accept my body’s moods and ‘limitations’, and doing so has made me happier. I no longer fret so much if I don’t ‘achieve’ a goal. So, I guess my message would be, get outdoors in whatever way you can. If that’s sitting on your back step watching the clouds shift, that’s important. If it’s climbing all the Munros, great. It all matters.
Sunday Inspiration
Inspirational Person
The poet Polly Atkin has done a lot to make me think about what a body walking might need or might look like. She has written very powerfully about working with our bodies, rather than against them - and of resisting the pressure for ‘wellness’ or ‘nature cure’. Her poem ‘Unwalking’ is a favourite of mine.
Favourite Trail
The Yorkshire Dales will always be very special to me as the place where I started to get outdoors and figure out that I loved to walk. The Yorkshire Three Peaks was an epic day and the culmination of big life changes.
Favourite Song
My favourite hill song is Winter Hill by Doves
