The Little Gidding walk 2: Angry skies and TS Eliot

Notes and pics by Tony Attwood

You will have noted from my jolly notes published a day or two ago in relation to the Little Gidding Walk that I was prone to making multiple references to TS Eliot (1888-1965), famed poet and writer of “Murder in the Cathedral” etc etc, and I did so because Little Gidding was one of his haunts, so to speak.  In fact, that final part of the 4 Quartets, one of his most famed works, is indeed called Little Gidding.   And I do want to make it very clear that Little Gidding is not the name of the cow in this picture who is standing on her own to the right of the main group.  No, not at all.  It is the village from whence we kicked off (as the saying goes) to which Elliot refers.

And so it was with minds filled with education and the weather looking more or less favourable, although with just a touch of deeper blue on the horizon, we walked forth to the crossroads.  Or as Eliot himself said, “Who is the third who walks always beside you?”

Well, as you can see, we pondered this in depth as to the colour of the sky darkened.  There were, of course, still elements of the lighter blue, but they were getting fewer and fewer, and there was a general feeling of the Great Darkness closing in upon us.  Although for your own well-being, I should explain that “Great Darkness” is one of my phrases and has nothing to do with Eliot, who I don’t think mentioned it at all, probably because he came here on a sunny day.

Anyway, we marched onwards, since by and large the consensus was that any attempt at walking backwards would undoubtedly lead to someone falling over and would probably take twice as long as the alternative.

Thus, the clouds came down, the dark visions of Eliot floated above, and the brave souls of Peterborough Ramblers marched ever onwards into the gloom.

Was there indeed, I pondered, the ghost of the old man himself lurking while still muttering about the fact that “the last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason,” or was that someone else?   (Actually, it was Eliot, but not from the Little Gidding poem, so my cries at this point that we were all doomed and were in fact a recollection from Dad’s Army and not the Four Quartets).  But it is easy to be confused as the dark closes in and the walk back seems twice as far as the walk there, wherever “there” was at the time.

But then we looked up and lo and behold, there was a lightness on the horizon, and amazingly it grew and grew, and we found ourselves able to stand, look, and consult the charts in the full knowledge that we were not lost but almost there.  I, of course, never doubted it for a second.  I mean all this stuff about Eliot, and the last temptation being the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason…   I walk cos it’s good fun, so there Mr Eliot.  That’s all you and your four quartets need to know!