Join SOAR & Jamie Mourn on a journey to the legendary moorland of Kinder Scout

2022-12-06 – Feature

Running, Kinder Scout

Kinder Scout is a storied place, barren in landscape but certainly not in legend. This moorland plateau and national nature reserve in the Peak District rises 636 metres above sea level and casts its eye over the Southern Pennines, but don't be fooled by size alone. For outsiders, there is a powerful attraction to this part of the UK. It's a land where temperatures can drop and daylight disappears. It's also where walkers once trespassed en masse to secure access rights to open country, and set in motion the trails we run together to this very day.

Here SOAR x Jamie Mourn present an allegory of this hallowed ground, with a supporting piece of writing by Lydia Thompson.


Your day rain feet flick heather hands on scrubby lands  
Stars in your head bones in your stead crows in your wake  
Try to take as few steps as flocks of rocks will allow.  
They dance now as they danced then, as I have always danced.  
They are new shoots on ancient roots on fallen trees with humming bees a mossy ravine 
If only they would stop, they could breathe. 
My trees yawn to see them and my crisp wings extend as my soft leaves fall I look like (dying) but  burst furiously, fearlessly alive. 

Somewhere the sunset is striking just right. 
I dare you to find it. 
Entire universes in droplets on unfinished cobwebs 
They whip-whoop-glee freely through them.  
A network of footwork the hummmmm of belonging  
(Home sweet everywhere) 
Are you moving fast enough to hear it? 
Moving slowly enough to own it? 

If you love something 
If you truly love something 
You have to let it -  

They dare to stay. Leap lick falling shadow lichen trot  
Streams in your heart stones where you tread  
Toes try to take as many steps as my moors will allow.  
Can we go this way? (Can we try this way?) 
Of course, I let them through. 
I dance now as you danced then as we have always danced.  
You are bright shoots on ageing roots on leaning trees with moths, butterflies, peregrines,  You stop for a second, breathe. 
The ravine leans steeper and their soft lungs crawl  
I smile to be with them for they are furiously, fearlessly alive.  

You run now as they marched then as I have always stood.  

I slip soil steely eyed try to hide but find that the bough begins to bend.  

The sunset cuts just right.  

It breaks through to meet you. 

- go.

Thank you for reading

View More From:
Jamie Mourn

Read More

If you enjoyed this article, we have plenty more to read, take a look through some of our most recent features, interviews and updates.

Then There Was Us

Architecture in photography, an interview with Fred Guillaud

Interview

Then There Was Us

Between Revolution and War in El Salvador

Interview

Then There Was Us

An illuminating portrait of young LGBTQ people in China

Feature

Then There Was Us

Hollie Wiltshire in Conversation with Chanel Irvine

The Process

Then There Was Us

The Portfolio – An interview with Jack Fleming

Interview

Then There Was Us

Belden Carlson: The adolescent experience

Feature

Then There Was Us

Haven explores the effects of gentrification across post-industrial cities

Feature

Then There Was Us

Migration as Avant-Garde

Feature