Don Hunter RIP

When walking the Gloucestershire Way last year, I called at Don Hunter's workshop in Shipton Oliffe. We haven't had any need for furniture repair for a year or two, but over more than three decades Don had always been our man when something antique needed fixing properly: surely nobody took more care or can have been more respected.

Besides our professional contact over the years, I counted Don amongst my oldest friends, having met him in 1973 at North Farm House soon after I arrived in the neighbouring parish of Sevenhampton. Through his trademark smiles and just a few words, I have been able to follow the blooming of his marriage to Pauline, and of the welling pride he had in Andrew, their only child.

That day in March 2009 Don was with a customer: I told his colleague Carl that I was on a mission and wouldn't dally. So I moved over the road to pay a quick visit to St Oswald's before walking on through the village.

Don wasn't tied up for long, however, and came running across to the church after me. "You look different," I said. "Yes, my hair has gone curly: I've been in hospital," he explained, "for Treatment." Of course I knew what this must mean, but Don was in no mood to yield to self-pity. Indeed, he was his usual optimistic self, full of trust in the God he had long known so well and personally.

In Saturday's Gloucestershire Echo, his death was announced - "peacefully, at home.. Wonderful husband... much loved father... dearly loved by many." That last certainly includes me.

More Gloucestershire Way

The forecast was good: I'd dug the garden; so I decided to tackle another section of the Gloucestershire Way today - from Coberley to Notgrove. It was a sublime walk. A gentle climb up the East side of the Churn Valley, through Upper Coberley; across to Needlehole, and down to the Hilcot lane; then up nearly as far as St Paul's Epistle, and down to the Coln via Foxcote.

Sitting with my back to the bridge over the river, next to the still-closed Frogmill, I ate my sandwiches in the sunshine. Then, crossing the A40, I found myself in horsicultural Shipton: not only with a maze of fences, but now about double the number of large houses since my last visit. The builders have had a field day.

The best part of the walk was the final stretch: across from Shipton to Hampen; over to Salperton - horses in front of the big house - and down and up the lovely, grassy valley beyond Farhill Farm, into Notgrove.

Still thinking about the Age of Stupid - see today's 4-star Times review incidentally - I found myself doing a double take at the packs of bottled water delivered to the gates of one of the biggest houses I passed: as we all surely now know what it costs to produce the stuff and its plastic bottles - if not, see here - how about a fine, not only for those smoking in public and failing to belt up in cars, but those drinking anything in the way of water other than what's perfectly good from the tap? (My entry for the most impracticable idea of the year award.)

(More photographs of the walk here.)