A Summer Afternoon Pilgrimage To Rhu
‘Will yo’ come o’ Sunday morning’, For a walk o’er Winter Hill. Ten thousand went last Sunday, But there’s room for thousands still!” “O the moors are rare and bonny, And the heather’s sweet and fine, And the road across this hill top, Is the public’s – Yours and mine!” Yesterday (21st of June) was the Summer Solstice and at this time of year on the longest day, I like to do two things – Read the enchanting ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ chapter from ‘The Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame which perfectly encapsulates the ethereal loveliness of midsummer and go off on a longish ramble in the far-off (or nearby) countryside. This year, rather than a midsummer hike, I decided to take the short ferry journey from my home in Gourock across the Firth of Clyde to Kilcreggan and cycle around Gare Loch to the bucolic village of Rhu near Helensburgh, where the great social reformer and Congregationalist minister Thomas Arthur Leonard established a holiday home a