Julian Batsleer on the right to roam, Les Bright on the unlimited joys of being a rambler, and Mike Stein on walkers’ need for public transport
The landless many have always had to struggle for access to land owned by the few in order to engage in their radical recreational walking and climbing. The Kinder Scout mass trespass of 1932, referred to by John Harris (Walking is a glorious, primal pastime – and far more radical than you think, 26 December), was organised by the communist-led British Workers’ Sports Federation (BWSF) as an extension of the class struggle at the time of the hunger marches and Gandhi’s Salt March.
The established ramblers and other outdoor groups fiercely condemned the BWSF’s direct-action strategy of seizing the commanding heights of the open moorlands of the Peak District; they favoured a more reformist agenda of seeking upland access through parliamentary legislation.