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The Saturday Walkers Club

The Saturday Walkers Club (SWC) organises country walks in Southeast England, about an hour or so by train from central London

See this week's walks for the current schedule of club walks

The clubs principles are:

All club walks are free, and everyone is very welcome.

Membership of the club is free (apart from the cost of the Walking books).

Neither the club, or the walks, have a leader

Everyone is expected to have a copy of the route (either the appropriate book or a printout)

It is pefectly acceptable for people set their own pace, or leave the main group.

Anyone can organise a walk of their own, from either book, or from neither. They may have a theme, e.g. silent walk, children's walk.

Walks usually start and finish at train stations, and stop at a pub for lunch.

History

The Saturday Walkers Club was started sometime in 1997 by Nicholas Albery, the author of the original Book of Country Walks. He devised a self-organising club without leaders. Walks took place according to a rota published in the book.

People turned up on the walks because they had bought the book and worked out the train times for themselves (though a weekly listing in Time Out helped). The walks quickly became a big success, with as many as 40 walkers turning up in some weeks. This, of course, placed a strain on pubs and tea rooms, and soon 2 and later 3 walks a week came into existence, all based around the upon the book 1 rota. These were the vigorous, main, and relaxed walks.

Nicholas later made the original rota walk into a "Nature" walk so he could learn from Mike Taylor, a friend of his, about trees and birds. A problem was that whatever walk Nicholas did tended to attract a lot more walkers than the others: as all who knew him will attest, Nicholas had a magnetic personality, though he was also in many ways a rather shy and unassuming man. He had an infectious -almost boyish - enthusiasm, a fascination with meeting new people and finding out what made them tick, and unconventional views on topics ranging from the ideal size for a country to the joys of dental flossing. Woe betide walkers who did not follow the directions in the book closely, because Nicholas would never correct them. Instead he would gleefully let the group get lost and declare it an adventure.

Nicholas had previously set up a charity, the Institute for Social Inventions (ISI). The charity received royalties from sales of the walking book. In return, it provided administrative support by looking up the train times, and sending out a weekly email to several hundred club members

A crisis year for the walking group was 2001. Foot and mouth disease shut most footpaths from March to June, and for a while walk options were very restricted. When Surrey was the first county to re-open its footpaths, we spent five or six weeks doing walks there. In early July, a day after one of these walks - Holmwood to Gomshall - Nicholas was tragically killed in a car accident (as a passenger: he did not drive himself).

A year later, his creation was still going strong, but walkers were beginning to tire of doing the same book one walks at the same time each year. There had long been idle talk about doing a second book, and in late 2002 a group of walkers led by Davide Cooke and Peter Conway decided to do something about it. They asked the Albery Foundation to approach Time Out and got agreement from them that they would publish the book. 2003 - luckily a gloriously sunny year - was then a frenzy of walk researching and checking, with the latter involving almost everyone in the Saturday Walkers Club. Book 2 finally came out in August 2004. The book is dedicated to Nicholas' memory, and its royalties continue to support his charities

In 2003, Andrew Murphy took over the running of the club's website from Windhover. The "This Week's Walk's" page enabled walk organisers to be able to communicate with everyone. When the club had lost the clerical support of the ISI (see below), a team blog was used so that several walk organisers could share the work of lookup up train times, and organising the various walks. About this time, regular Sunday walks started by a group of walkers from Brent Council.

2007 was the 10th anniversary of the first edition of 'Book of Country Walks'. Today, the club continues to thrive. We estimate that something in the region of 70 or 80 walkers turn up each week on the various walks.

The Nicholas Albery Foundation (NAF)

After Nicholas' death, ownership of the books and the walking club passed to the Nicholas Albery Foundation (NAF), a charity set up to continue with his life's work. For several years, the NAF organised the walking club and updated to the book. The NAF sent out the club's mailing list, with several hundred members.

In 2005, the NAF had a reorganisation, and decided to concentrate on other projects and stop actively supporting the walking club and walking books. This lead the end of the administrative support in collating and sending out the weekly mailing list. NAF still pays for the hosting of this website.

The club now runs itself, with several members sharing the task of updating the list of walks on the 'this weeks walks' page.

Time Out Books - Publishing History

The club maintains both books, and collates updates for future editions.

Volume 1

The book was published in 1997 with a red cover, and actively updated for several years by its author.

When lunch on the original walk 3 became difficult to obtain, it was replaced by Netley to Botley.

Following Nicolas's death, blue and green editions followed, these were edited by NAF, with updated provided by members of the walking club.

Following NAF's reorganisation, book 1 has become neglected, with many of the walks needing updating

The SWC is currently updating the walks, but there are no plans for a new edition. As such, Time Out has consented to the revised walks appearing on the club's website.

Volume 2

The first edition of volume 2 was published by Time Out in summer 2004.

It is being actively maintained by it original authors, with updates available on this website

It is now in its 2nd edition

SWC (Free) Walks

Although Volume 2 has now been safely published for some years, many club members are still developing new walks. There is no current prospect of a "volume 3", so for now, the walks are only available of the club's website

Last Updated: Dec-07 by Andrew and Peter