There are two areas that visitors to Britain seem to love. One is Scotland; the other is Cornwall. But not all visitors know that there’s a connection between the two. Cornwall, in the southwest of England, is home to Land’s End, Britain’s most southwesterly point. Scotland, on the other hand, is where you’ll find John o’ Groats, Britain’s most northeasterly point. The name “Land’s End” is fairly obvious, but apparently John o’ Groats is named after a Dutchman, Jan de Groot, who ran a ferry from there to Orkney.
on foot
If you go to either Land’s End or John o’ Groats you will find road signs that tell you that the other place is 874 miles (1406 km) away. This is mainland Britain’s longest journey and travelling between the two is a challenge. Not by car – that’s too easy – but by walking, running or cycling. One person even made the journey in a wheelchair, while others have travelled on horseback or by skateboard.
charity
The tradition of walking from one end of the country to the other began in 1871 with two brothers, John and Robert Naylor, who even wrote a book about their experience.
Nowadays people often do it to raise money for charity. If you follow the main roads (see the map on page 21), it takes about a month; longer if you choose a more scenic route. The most famous charity walker is probably the TV personality and former cricketer Sir Ian Botham. He first walked between the two places in the 1980s. He was also hoping to improve his violent, “bad boy” image, and it’s a pity that he got into an argument with – and punched – a policeman while making the journey.
Other people prefer to raise money by travelling the distance by bike: this typically takes nine days.
on the buses
But not everybody goes from Land’s End to John o’ Groats – or vice-versa – for charity. Some people just want to explore the country. Author Mark Mason (see interview), whose previous exploits include walking (above ground) the length of the lines of the London Underground (chronicled in his book Walk the Lines), decided to travel from Land’s End to John o’ Groats by bus. There isn’t a single route: he had to take 46 different buses over the course of 12 days. The story is told in his book, Move Along, Please, an entertaining account of an English – and Scottish – journey in which he interviews interesting characters, eavesdrops on bizarre conversations and discovers fascinating pieces of trivia (his other speciality) about the UK.
CON AUDIO:
move along, please
If you’ve travelled the 874 miles (or 1406 kilometres) from Land’s End in Cornwall to John o’ Groats in Scotland, then you are entitled to become a member of the Land’s End to John o’ Groats Association, also known as “Lejog.” Mark Mason, who tells the story of his particular journey in the book, Move Along, Please, explains this acronym:
Mark Mason (Standard British accent): The acronym is Lejog, Land’s End to John o’ Groats. There’s an association for people who have done this because people do it in all sorts of different ways. They do it very often by walking, or by cycling, or by running. I think the most unusual was in a fighter jet. Someone took, I think, 40 minutes to do it in a fighter jet! People have swum it, people have swum round the coast of Britain to do Lejog, Land’s End to John o’ Groats. And the Association were a great help during the book, and I mention them in the book, and I’m now a member of the Lejog Association, but of course if you do it the other way round, some people, they go north to south, they go John o’ Groats to Land’s End, and then it’s a “Jogle,” of course; J-O-G-L-E.
an island nation
So what is the appeal of travelling from Land’s End to John o’ Groats?
Mark Mason: I think the fascination is that it only occurs to us to do it because we live on an island. Our country is an island. Great Britain is an island; the United Kingdom is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland, which is on a separate little island! But Great Britain, being England, Wales and Scotland, all the same land mass, it’s only because that’s surrounded by water that you look at the map and the idea occurs to you that you could go from one end to the other. People in Germany, because Germany is surrounded by other countries, they don’t have the idea of walking from one end of their country to the other, or getting local buses, as I did.
silly names
And Mark Mason certainly enjoyed the journey:
Mark Mason: It forces you to slow down. Normally, if you’re doing a long journey you do it as quickly as possible; you get the train or you fly, or you drive yourself, but stopping off in all the local towns that I had to stop off in, it sort of opens up all the stupid little place names that you have. For instance, I went past a sign to one village which was Tongue End, which I can’t imagine having to phone up someone and give that as your address over the phone! And there are places called Great Snoring, there are places called Lusty Glaze, Pant and Prat’s Bottom. And of course these are all words from centuries ago and they were named before their words took on their modern meaning that makes schoolboy humour-style people like me snigger!
Hannibal: Many people make the journey to raise money for charity. This is what media personality and former cricketer Ian Botham did, for example:
Mark Mason: Ian Botham did it for charity, several times in fact. And I remember him talking about just how big a task it is. I think one of them, he did John o’ Groats to Land’s End, and he said, “I remember walking for four days, really long distances every day,” and he said, “And you’re still nowhere near getting out of Scotland, never mind all the rest of England that you’ve got to do.” So, yeah, he did it for charity. He also, of course being him and wanting to go one better all the time, did a journey through the Alps with an elephant, to mimic Hannibal’s trip through the Alps, but that’s Ian Botham for you!