Here is the day 1 walk as seen from Richard White’s phone and tablet and from his Flicks account, so this pics are not always taken by him
Via Viewranger:
http://my.viewranger.com/track/widget/1582249?locale=en&m=miles
and via Social Hiking
this hooks up with a number of other walkers twitter feed and shows some of the tweets retweeted
Peter Macfadyen has kindly agreed to allow us to share the notes for the comments he made at the start of the walk in Frome on April 14:
Peter Macfadyen, Mayor of Bath.
Wearing ‘Amnesty’ Chain of Office
Forced Walks
Peter Macfadyen…Mayor Welcome to Frome and C&G.
I’m going to start us of by saying something about walking and something about inhumanity
As Mayor I spent time with a chap climbing Kilimanjaro who was in Frome a few weeks ago. So what, lots of people of that… he’s is walking to Kenya from here, part fundraising and part considering his place on the planet.
Another Frome friend is currently walking 600 miles of SW Coastal paths with his brother – entitled Black Dog Walks – again a mix of fundraising and reflection on his own and the mental health challenges of others….
Annabelle has been conducting Universe Walks near here – 1000 steps tracing the story of the Universe…. Doing this has helped me better see how incredibly recent humankind is….
Understanding we are only early in the design phase as a species perhaps makes it easier to understand these lapses when we turn upon ourselves in the most horrific acts of self destruction? And, as we start this walk, 70 years since the staggering inhumanity of Belsen I am very aware that while that was a peak of horror, it was not a one off…..
Indeed there is a constant level of terrible cruelty, then every now and then something especially inhuman.. Except, as I say, it seems such things are not ‘inhuman’ in the sense that they are part of who we are.
I came to Frome to work for an organisation supporting the rights of disabled people including in Rwanda where I spent some time. Shortly after, the Rwandese genocide saw the disabled people’s organisation leader orchestrate the slaughter of his fellow members, before being killed later in revenge. This is the closest I personally have come to the knife edge between neighbourliness and slaughter.
Part of this project is to look at how trauma in one generation impacts upon another, so I need to mention Alice Seeley Harris (who spent many years in Frome and whose husband and daughter are buried in the Dissenters cemetery).
Alice was an extraordinary Victorian who as the wife of a missionary travelled to the Belgian Congo (not far south of Rwanda) and, appalled by the horrors inflicted upon slaves there, took photos and – carrying them back to Britain – campaigned so vigorously that her message was a key part in bringing to an end Belgian rule there. She founded the Anti Slavery and Aboriginal Protection Society – a precursor to Amnesty.
And that takes me to this my Amnesty inspired Mayoral Chain. This chain was made to bring focus on the local Amnesty group’s letter writing campaign. Letters written in support of individuals often subjected to terrible cruelty because of their stand for freedom.
As we set off in a moment, on a glorious Spring day, through land recently brought by the community to keep it forever as meadows, I wish this project well……. and perhaps this focus on one act of monumental cruelty will help us better understand humankind’s capacity for enacting the unthinkable.
We invited others to take up the model and walk-in-witness with us.
Here an email from Canada, reproduced with permission, from Esther’s nephew Phillip. Esther and her brother Perec were the only two members of their family to survive the Holocaust. Her oldest brother and her father joined the resistance but did not survive. Her mother was killed at Auschwitz. At the weekend Phillip walked the length of the death march Perec was taken on in April 1945.
Interview with her great granddaughter, Rebecca, at the Brutal Exposure exhibition in the International Slavery Museum, Liverpool
[vimeo 85248277 w=500 h=375]
Rebecca Seeley Harris from National Museums Liverpool on Vimeo.
This haunting exhibition presents what was probably the first photographic campaign in support of human rights. It documents the exploitation and brutality experienced by Congolese people under the control of Leopold II of Belgium in the 1900s.
Alice Seeley Harris lived much of her life in Frome. We will remember her work in bring slavery and genocide to the attention of world when we are walking on Tuesday. A local resonance.
The exhibition in Liverpool runs until June 7
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/exhibitions/brutal-exposure/index.aspx
Walker registration is now closed but there are still many ways in which you can support the project:
If you can help please contact us using the form on the front page of the website
….and yes we are still short of cash…..
We are on target for recruiting our team of walkers by the end of March. Walker registration closes at the end of the day today. Watch this space for details of a supporting short walk-in-witness for the liberation of Belsen and all victims of genocide and slavery in Bath during the afternoon of Wednesday 15 April.
We still are still looking for stewards, drivers with cars and are desperately short of cash.
The local resonances surface. The walk crosses another trail in the long struggle for human rights.
The Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 began in Lyme Regis and was crushed in the same year on Sedgemoor. Following a set back at Keynsham the ‘Pitchfork’ army headed east, they were refused entry to Bath and headed for Norton St Phillip. We walk towards their ghosts.
picture credit Geoff Williams.
The George Inn: in 1685, for a few days, the headquarters of Duke of Monmouth
On the throne in 1685, following the death of Charles II, was James II, Charles’ brother, a Roman Catholic. Charles had regained royal power following the collapse of the Commonwealth and quickly dismantled the political and religious freedoms established following the Civil War. Republican ideas were still strong in the country and the accession to the throne of James, was feared by many to be a further drift towards a return to absolute Roman Catholic rule. This was especially true in the West Country, The Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s bastard son, hoped to lead a Protestant uprising and overthrow James.
Monmouth was supported by republicans as well as those supporting a constituional monarchy. People from Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire joined the rebellion some of them were nonconformist Christians who had suffered persecution under Charles II. Others were disaffected because of the economic recession which had recently hit the south west, most were labourers and artisans. Amongst their number were workers from the mills and workshops of Frome.
At Norton St Philip a further skirmish had this ‘Pitchfork’ army falling back to Frome, possibly along the roads we walk. Ultimately they headed off to Wells and across the Somerset levels towards their last stand at Sedgemoor.
A vicious and terrible repression followed, famously known as the Bloody Assizes, in Wells alone on a single day 500 men were tried and most sentenced to death. 12 executions took place at Norton St Phillip. Frome rebels are reported to have also been hung, drawn and quartered at Gore Hedge, just past the top of what is now Bath Street. Others were transported to the West Indies. The families of the Taunton schoolgirls who had presented a banner to welcome Monmouth had to pay a ransom for their release.
More info here: Monmouth Rebellion and Bloody Assizes
Productive planning/briefing meeting in Frome this week. Second generation survivors and liberators met: we heard powerful stories of survival and resistance:
A walk across Europe escaping the pogroms over a century ago from Oddesa to Palestine.
The retraced steps across Liverpool Street station of a family whose history begins at the arrival of the Kindertransport train.
Reminders on the network of the legendary yiddish advocate, poet and socialist Meyer Bogdanski.
And today a powerful Kurdish woman tells the story of a life in exile.
Join us for more on the walk, share your stories and lets see how this strange journey in the mind and walk on the ground will speak to us.
The project was launched in Bath at a briefing for artist associates at the 44AD Gallery in Bath. We return to update supporters and brief walkers on Wednesday March 25 at 6.30.
Join us on
Wednesday March 25 at 6.30
44AD Gallery, Abbey Street, Bath
Find out the latest on the project from the artists leading it.
