When we were trying to raise the many millions needed to fund Naomi House, our children’s hospice, among  the most successful initiatives was the Clarendon Way walk.  It was the brainchild of Janette Hollingbery, wife of George – one time MP of this parish – and now our man in Havana, having been bag man to Theresa May.   Janette thought it would be a great idea to run a sponsored walk between the two great cathedral cities of Winchester and  Salisbury,  a distance of  26 miles through the best countryside that  Hampshire and Wiltshire have to offer.  From the outset the idea took off and, now in its 18th year, it’s raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for Naomi House.  This year’s walk is on June 2, so get your name down quick for either all of it, half of it from Broughton to Salisbury or break yourself in on just five miles from Pitton to Salisbury.

People like to walk, and in particular along historic routes.  I have had the pleasure of walking the Great Wall of China. Not all of it you understand - in all it runs for over 4,000 miles - but enough to marvel at the ingenuity of this defensive structure with its steps so irregular that you daren’t look up to see where you’re going for fear of tripping.  Even if  marauders  topped the wall they were easy pickings for the defending soldiers billeted every couple of hundred yards or so.

Now there’s a new walk, showcased last week at a charming event at Winchester College.  The Western Front Way runs for more than 600 miles through No Man’s Land. It was the idea of Alexander “Bey” Gillespie who came to Winchester College as a scholar in 1903.  After Oxford he was reading for the Bar when war broke out so he signed up. He was sent to the front in February 1915.  By the end of September he was dead - killed on the first day of the Battle of Loos.

Before he died Gillespie had written to his old Wincoll head master about his idea for a Via Sacra (Sacred Way). “When peace comes our government might combine with the French government to make one long avenue between the lines.   The ground is so pitted and scarred, and torn with shells, and tangled with wires….it will take years….but would make a fine broad road….with paths for pilgrims on foot and trees  for shade and fruit…”

Well, it’s taken a while but descendants   of those who served, including Gillespie’s great-niece, Lal Mills and her friend Iona Priestley, supported by Sir Anthony Seldon, have, after many years of toil, made it happen.

Visiting the War Cloister in Winchester College you cannot fail to be moved by the sacrifice made by young men in the 1914-18 war - 500 Wykehamists alone   - a figure repeated in schools up and down the land.  In March they opened a Western Front Path in the Meads echoing Gillespie’s plan and inscribed Via Sacra.

Last week a delightful evening of words and music, written and performed  by Jan Carey,  great-niece to General George Carey who “held the gap at Amiens,” brought to life once again this important project.  It featured the life and music of Ivor Gurney, “the English Schubert.”  Gassed, he survived Passchendaele but never recovered his mental health.  His music lives on.

To make a walk work is not as easy as it sounds.  It needs mapping and signposting - which costs money.  Initially there was lukewarm enthusiasm for the project on the continent, but now the signposting is up it was announced last week that the French and Belgian governments will support future maintenance. And so it should be. The UK promoters led the way with the Western Front logo, featuring the poppy, cornflour for France, daisy for Belgium and forget-me-not for Germany.

We will remember them.