From the Author
Hello. While teaching map and compass courses over a number of years I have refined my understanding of the navigation process – as they say: if you want to learn a subject, teach it. Knowing too that using a map to do a walk is much better than taking one from a guide book, it occurred to me that a book might bring the mysterious art to wider audience. Thus I hope that many people will now feel they can gain the freedom that only maps can bring to explore the UK’s magnificent public footpath network. This book is aimed primarily at people starting to do their own walks, or maybe graduating from guide books to maps. It offers quite a bit too if you want to brush up on basic skills.
The chapters build up logically from “What is a map?” through visualising the countryside, and reading the route, to navigating a walk. We look at using a compass to set the map and to point the way. There are chapters too on planning a walk, the extra techniques of hill and moorland navigation, and strategies to use if lost. Over the years on my own walks I have assembled numerous attractive photographs which illustrate map-reading points, and these appear with the related map extract alongside so you can compare the two, this being the bread and butter of map reading. The extracts come from Ordnance Survey maps at the two main scales for walkers. I wanted the book not only to do a thorough job but also to look good with profuse colour illustrations. And I wanted the book to be fun to use.
Here are a few snippets from some reviews: “Will embolden even total duffers.” The Times. “Unusually well organised and well illustrated.” Manchester Evening News. “And most impressively, how to translate lines and symbols into the living landscape.” Birds (RSPB) Magazine. “Delicious photographs.....massively competent.” The School Librarian.
Julian Tippett
by Chris Bagshaw
