Five years ago I set out to walk the South Downs Way. Don’t start at the carpark. Start at the railway station. Or the Church.

I got the train from Hove to Eastbourne. Then found my bearings in Georgios on the High Street, a cafe in olive browns and seaside creams. The customers, older mostly, had come dressed for the weather. All the staff were female. Perhaps I wanted to be persuaded to give up before I began.

I wanted to go to a church. Searching for a blessing or more putting off. So I walked away from the sea and up to the Old Town. At Saint Mary’s there’s a Celtic cross with a small plaque shamelessly admitting it was removed from Cornwall in MDCCCXVII. At the end of the walk, 100 miles off in Winchester is another piece of Celtica: said to be King Arthur’s Round Table.

The walk itself, in stiff winds that day, rolls along some of the most well-known cliffs in England. The world, really: you’re hardly ever alone. Beachy Head, the Seven Sisters to The Cuckmere at Exceat. They change because you’ve walked them. I found the first bus went back to Eastbourne not west towards home, so I ended the day where I’d begun.