Two legs good

In September 1954, Albert Speer decided to walk from Berlin to Heidelberg, a distance of 620 kilometres. As Hitler’s architect still had more than a decade of a prison sentence in Spandau to serve, this might have been seen as problematic. But not so. Speer mapped out a circular course of 270 metres in the prison’s garden, and proceeded to walk it over and over again. He completed the journey in a few months, having done 2,296 laps of the course. Seeking a new destination, he rejected the suggestion of fellow prisoner Rudolf Hess — Asia — on the grounds that it would mean passing through communist countries.

This tale is one of many gathered together by lifelong walker Geoff Nicholson in a book whose subtitle,‘The History, Science, Philosophy, Literature, Theory and Practice of Pedestrianism’, reveals how widely his brief runs (if that word doesn’t imply too great a pace). Prison is one of the few places Nicholson himself hasn’t walked.