137. Into the Woods

Skylines is out and about again this week.

Epping Forest is a 13 mile long strip of wooded land straddling the border between London and Essex. I often visited during my childhood, have walked bits of it since, but I've never done the whole thing.

So last week, I did, with a man who's just written the book on the subject. Luke Turner, with whom I worked briefly a depressingly long time ago, is the co-founder of the culture website The Quietus. He's also the author of Out Of The Woods, which he modestly describes as “a critically-acclaimed memoir of sexuality and nature”.

He kindly agreed to spend an autumn day walking with me from Manor Park to Epping, all the while telling me about his book, the history of the forest and its place in the psyche of the city, and how it came to be owned by the City of London Corporation. We also talk, variously, about hermits, hallucinations, cows and our former boss Jeremy Hunt.

Some excellent production work courtesy of our producer Nick on this one incidentally – while the podcast was recorded on location, the woodland sound effects are sadly a later addition.

Skylines is the podcast from the New Statesman’s cities site, CityMetric. It’s hosted by Jonn Elledge and produced by Nick Hilton

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