27th April, 2022. I thought I had planned my walk reasonably well. It was fourteen miles between the rail station at Weymouth and Lulworth Cove where I had booked a tent pitch at a campsite. While I had definitely anticipated an arduous journey I hadn’t expected the extremes of the ups and downs of the path ahead. The South Coast Path is like a rollercoaster. One moment I was at sea level and the next I was hundreds of feet at the tops of cliffs. I wanted to reach the campsite a Lulworth Cove before the end of the afternoon so that I could pitch my tent and get my head down for early sleep. I needed to be up and walking again by about 4am the next morning and prepared for the much longer stint of about twenty four miles to Swanage. I was really focused, head down and walking hard. The guide book had suggested a seven and a half hour walk but I really didn’t know how to pace myself. I was a reasonably healthy sixty year old but I didn’t want to overestimate my strength or endurance.

I followed the path to the top of the sloping hills beyond Bowleaze. To the south Weymouth Beach stretched out to the Isle of Portland tethered to Dorset by a thin spit of causeway while to the north King George the third was etched into a hillside far to the north astride his horse. It occurred to me to take photos. If I was to die then it might be of interest to others to trace my final journey. I switched my mobile phone on and immediately saw that I had received another text message, 'Thank you for your response, Mark, can you please confirm your current location? Hampshire Police'. I had no intention of surrendering to the police. I switched off my mobile phone and stowed it in my rucksack. No more photos.

The sound of the waves crashing onto the beach of Weymouth Bay was dulled by distance and the boisterous wind as I continued climbing. I passed across a wide open field, the edge of Black Head far off to my right until the path plunged into thickets of bush and small trees. It was in that quiet place, sheltered from the excesses of the elements that I came across a remembrance stone set beside the path to mark the spot where somebody else had been lost to suicide. I paused for a while and things felt sharply real. I cannot remember the name of the lady inscribed on that stone but I was reminded of Mandy, a former work friend who had succumbed to severe mental distress and jumped off Beachy Head. Mandy was truly a sad loss even for those casually acquainted. I hadn’t known Mandy intimately but I had long carried a pervasive sense of sadness at her loss. And now, standing by that remembrance stone I felt intimacy, first for Mandy and then for the lady whose name I have regrettably forgotten. I belonged with them. I belonged here. The cliff edge was to my back, cordoned by around 500 hundred feet of bush and tree. If not for this obstacle I could close my eyes, turn around and carry on walking into thin air.

Thereafter I was somehow changed. All desire to be rescued had evaporated under the hot sun. I was happy to die and felt a wonderful peace that I had seldom felt before. Gone were all my worries. I was free of burden and free of pain. And by pain I mean emotional pain. My muscles were beginning to hurt but that was a welcome feeling. Each new slope I trudged, every new hill I encountered and every incline that I bowed my head to drew me away from all the cares of one world and delivered me into a new one of bright blue sky, wide expanse of rolling grass and turquoise ocean.

I was a little lost when I reached Smugglers Inn, a pub and restaurant originally built in the 13th century and needed to ask for directions. I picked up the path again behind Smugglers Inn, climbed again to the headland of Bran Point and back down sea level at Ringstead Village. I was tempted by the shingle beach but thought better of it. I took a small swig of water, just enough to keep my mouth moist, and pressed on.

Then came the slow climb up into White Nothe, an impressive chalk headline that rises 525 feet into the skies. I plodded the steep track, head bowed, looking much like a snail with my rucksack high on my back. By the time I reached level ground my sinews were protesting. I took another mouthfull of water to freshen my mouth and spat it out. The path across the top of White Nothe lies well away from any precipice, threading a course that passes the garden walls of the former coastguard cottages on the left. I carried on walking.

The high path felt dangerously narrow at times. Whenever I met fellow walkers passing me in the opposite direction I chose the left side, almost hugging the barbed wire fence that marked the boundaries of farms, to be away from the cliff edge. I now clung to my pop up tent but not so tightly as the buffeting wind wanted to make a sail of it. I was prepped to abandon it should it turn into a kite. I must have looked strange and oddly unfit for this excursion judging by the quizzical looks aimed by passersby.

Further along the path rounded a wide bowl of grass some five-hundred feet across and tipped towards the edge of the void. I was already beginning to mistrust my shaky legs and now a creepy sense of vertigo turned that bowl into an irresistible black hole. One eye was fixed on my feet and one eye to my right until I spied the obelisk in the distance. The obelisk near Durdle Door is one of two markers thought to be old navigational aids for sailors. To me that obelisk seemed prehistoric and foreboding. I refused to acknowledge it or even look at it as I passed under its brooding countenance. Thereafter I grew more unsettled on the cliff side path and decided to detour into the country at my left at the earliest opportunity. I crested one final high cliff and saw the path undulating into the distance like a snake. To my left I could make out a caravan park about a mile or so away. ‘My campsite’, I thought and hoped over a barbed wire fence, glad to be away from cliff edges.

I rested awhile in sea of soughing long grass gratefully alone but for hundreds of tiny mice scurrying around me. After about twenty minutes I got up and trudged the last half a mile or so and set tired foot onto the campsite. I had arrived at Lulworth.