What it feels like… Ageing in the Great Outdoors

Dr Emmanuelle Tulle, Reader in Sociology, Glasgow

Caledonian University

ESRC Seminar Series: More of the same is not enough: New directions in ageing and physical activity

#ESRCAgePA

1. Feeling age

Start with a bit of recent theory about ageing – • Are you old? No, I don’t feel old • How to interpret this? The Mask of Ageing as response to social ageing • Where is the body? How can we access what it

feels like to age? Why is it relevant? Stumbling on Master runners Feeling old in the body? Managing bodily ageing

Using your body for sport or PA when you’re older. What does it feel like?

2. Becoming physically active

• It takes time, years? • It’s full of pitfalls: injuries, ill-health, work, caring

responsibilities • Others might get in the way, including HC professionals • Spirit of competition in some cases • Gendered • Managing risk • It’s not all about health: Running to run (Tulle 2008) –

much more complex and interesting! => Identity – I am a runner, I am a hillwalker…

Becoming and being a hillwalker My first Munro was Ben Lomond in 1994. No, Ben Nevis in 1982. I didn’t know it was a Munro, that Munros existed and that people bagged them. So I wasn’t a hillwalker. I can’t remember when I decided to ‘do the Munros’. Someone else doing them kept taking me with him. It happened gradually. Happenstance. I didn’t know how to use a compass and a map. I had to learn. I needed one-to-one tuition for this = Apprenticeship Once I got the gist of navigating, I became very studious about it. On my first attempt at leading a walk, I noticed we’d parked the car in the wrong place. Some of my female friends didn’t like me navigating because I was counting steps and time and they thought I was frogmarching them up the hill = Gender issues. Once, in Glen Etive, I headed for the wrong hill. We lost at least 45 minutes. Time was a big concern. My son was only 18 months old when I started, and I had a husband who resented the long Sunday absences. I estimate I went out about every 6 weeks. I once cried because I missed a train back to Falkirk. Stress

I did my very first solo climb in April 1999. I borrowed a car, I headed out in a whiteout, it was so windy the needle of my compass burled round and told me to go in the wrong direction. I crawled up to the cairn of the first summit, crossing the snowline, and despite the conditions I decided to continue to the next summit. Keeping it together. Half way along the ridge, I lost the footsteps in the snow that I’d been seeking comfort from. I took my map out again to check the bearing and it blew away. Thankfully I knew that if things go tawdry, I’d head west. I got to a cairn (was this the second summit?), and kept following my West bearing. I got straight to my car. I had a good chuckle but I was relieved. Risk-taking After a few years and some injuries, I decided to abandon completing all the Munros. What was the point of this list-making? Uncertainty And then after a few more years and more injuries, I decided to resume Munro bagging. I had to be serious about going out on my own more regularly and attempt more difficult walks: further afield, doing several in the same trip, perhaps camping. A fragile thing but also sportification?. I don’t know how many hills I’ve done on my own – for the first time and as repeats – but I’ve camped in a field surrounded by a cow and her calves, I’ve swum across the River Shiel because the bridge across it was broken and I couldn’t face going back up to the Western end of the Five Sisters, walk the mile to the road and walk back up the A87 to my car which I could see from where I stood, I’ve led a handful of hillwalks, always women, although my friend Alan and I are equal partners – Team work I love speeding across Rannoch Moor listening to Richard Thompson, I don’t walk as fast now as I used to but I wouldn’t say I feel older, I love picking out the hills around me. Once Alan and I got 360 degree views and recognised most of the major hillgroups of Scotland so clear was the air, neither my son nor my boyfriend are hillwalkers, in fact very few of my friends are hillwalkers Risk taking and pleasure 21 years on, I am a hillwalker, I am a Munro-bagger. It’s been a 21 year apprenticeship and I know that anything could bring my career as a hillwalker, especially a solo hillwalker, to a halt – losing my sight, a bad break, crashing my car, hypothermia, getting attacked by a cow or by a stranger. => Ageing, ill-health or accidents

Mullach Clach a’Bhlair, January 2014: Risk management, feeling the fear

Typical frigid conditions Not many people about either

Pretty lonely walk through the woods

I intended to return along this ridge

Sgorr Giaoth The weather was so clear that I could see this hill, climbed the previous October, which I estimate to have been 5km due north of where I stood

North Western Cairngorms and my summit

360 degree views, white all around Blink and you miss it

Bailing out

• Despite the clear weather and the easy walking, I decided to abandon my plan to return by different route.

• I don’t know why. When the views should have reassured me and kept me wanting more, I became uncertain and I retraced my steps. I’ve been kicking myself ever since.

Why?

Sgurr na sgine, November 2014, striding out… and not wanting to leave.

A contemplation

• I took no risk although I did fluff the start by not bothering to look for the waymarkers!

• I spent an hour on the summit just drinking in the views.

• I took me just over 3 hours to drive to the start of the walk and back again + 6 hours out on the hill.

• Days like these fill me with profound happiness and fulfillment. And yet, despite appearances, they are not risk-free days.

• How many more years ahead of me?

So what lessons can be learnt? • 21 year career – takes time to develop and establish • I don’t do this for health. An extensive literature that the urge to walk doesn’t

come by itself. • Learning to love the hills • maintaining physical capital (running to run) • Hillwalking is a career – unpredictable, contingent, requires planning, takes time

and single-mindedness • The role of others – barriers, hindrance => serious leisure • This is a sort of sport = sportification of hillwalking + instrumental relationship to

the body – hedonistic, concern with self, counting/measurement • I meet very few solo women walkers: limited feminisation and still a masculine

pursuit • Majority of walkers are middle aged and… • Risk is an inherent part of any walk • Future-oriented but with an eye on the past ie awareness that window is shrinking ⇒ Challenge to dominant understandings of ageing and of physical activity?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcpOMyJ_k5E 3.33-4.00 – Demons in her dancing shoes