Just under 75 years ago, Sussex lost one of its greatest writers, Hilaire Belloc. Born in France in 1870, Belloc travelled widely, across Europe and America and far beyond his adopted county. But Sussex became home. He grew up in Slindon and lived for much of his life at King’s Land in Shipley, near Horsham, not far from where I live today. His love of the county runs through his writing: its landscape, its people, its history, its roads and paths and, more often than not, its beer.
Perhaps no book captures that relationship quite like The Four Men: A Farrago.
Published in 1912, it follows four characters (Myself, Grizzlebeard, the Sailor and the Poet) as they walk across Sussex from Robertsbridge in the east to Harting in the west. Along the way they talk, argue, drink, tell stories, remember the past and reflect on a changing Sussex. And this October, I am going to start walking in their footsteps.
Four Women and Belloc
The project is called Four Women and Belloc: In Conversation with Sussex, and in many ways it does exactly what it says on the tin. I will be retracing Belloc’s journey across Sussex, although not in the heroic three stages he and his companions supposedly managed. I’m not entirely convinced they are humanly possible. Instead, I’ll be breaking the route into a series of more manageable stages and, along the way, inviting interesting women from across Sussex to walk sections of it with me. And as we walk, we’ll talk.
Belloc’s four men discussed everything from money and religion to friendship, change, history, landscape, politics, love, death and what it meant to belong to Sussex. On the surface, the book can be read simply as a light-hearted walk across Sussex: four companions wandering from inn to inn, telling stories, arguing, drinking and chewing the cud. But look more closely and it is a remarkably sophisticated and complex book. Almost every page, every conversation and sometimes every word seems to carry another layer of meaning. Ideas are rarely explained outright; they are hinted at, played with, contradicted and left for the reader to unravel. What appears to be an amiable ramble across Sussex is, on closer inspection, a much deeper conversation about place, connection, memory, friendship and the passing of time.
More than a century later, I want to return to some of those conversations.
Which of the things that worried Belloc still matter?
So, this isn’t just a walk. As the name suggests, it is a conversation with Belloc and a conversation with Sussex. Belloc was deeply concerned about change. He worried about modernisation and about what might disappear as the world moved forward. More than a century later, our Sussex is very different from his. Yet some of those questions feel surprisingly familiar.
Which of the things that worried Belloc still matter? Which have disappeared? What has changed? And, perhaps most importantly, what should we be worried about now? What are we in danger of losing? What should we fight to preserve – and what should we be prepared to let change? What is our relationship with the landscape and how has it changed? And, ultimately, do we want Sussex to look and feel like for the people who come after us? Those are just some of the conversations I hope will accompany us along the way. But I suspect there will be plenty we haven’t thought of yet.
There is another important element to all this. Belloc rarely simply walks through the landscape. Stories travel with him. History, folklore, memory and legend continually rise out of the places through which his four characters pass. I want to do the same. As we cross Sussex, we’ll turn over some of the stories beneath our feet – the people who lived here, the events that happened here, the legends that have attached themselves to particular places and the curious fragments of history that survive in the landscape.
Some will be stories Belloc knew. Others will have unfolded since he made his journey more than a century ago. And some will be stories that perhaps deserve to be heard rather more loudly than they have been before.
What about the women?
This is not an overtly feminist project, but for someone raised by women, the female perspective is notably lacking from Belloc’s Four Men. I am sure there are both good, and not so good reasons for this, not least the conventions of the time in which he was writing. But viewed from more than a century later, the omission feels increasingly conspicuous. The world has changed, the conversations have changed and, in many cases, the way women experience the landscape, society and the issues Belloc wrestled with is different too. As a woman setting out to revisit those same questions, a female perspective feels not merely interesting, but essential.
Walk the walk
The project will unfold through a series of walks, conversations and articles here on Sussex Exclusive. There is a lot more to tell you. For now, though, the walking boots are coming out, the route is being planned and the first conversations are beginning. And I’d love you to be part of them.
If you know The Four Men, what do you think Belloc got right about Sussex? What would you challenge him on today? And whether you’ve read Belloc or not, what matters most to you about Sussex, what does Sussex mean to you and what are we most at risk of losing?
Do let me know. I’ll be sharing details of the first walk very soon.
This post is by Lucy Pitts.
