I never realised how painful it would be to go back to 2007, the year I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Over the course of writing the series about my cancer, the treatment, and everything that happened in between, I have found myself remembering more than I expected. Not just the illness itself, but the people who were part of that time — family, friends, doctors, nurses — all of them tied to memories I had not realised were still so close to the surface. Today I walked it off at Harmondsworth Moor.
Today I went for a walk because I needed some distance from all of that. Not distance in miles, really, but distance in my head. Writing about those years has a way of filling every corner of me, and I needed somewhere the memories might loosen their grip a little. While walking around my historic village of Colnbrook, I had discovered a shortcut to Harmondsworth Moor, about a mile away, and it felt like the right place to go.
I think that is what I needed most today: somewhere that asked nothing of me. Somewhere I could sit if I wanted to, or keep walking, and let the quiet do its work. After writing about my siblings, and about all the people caught up in those years of illness, not just in my care but in Harsha’s as well, my mind has felt crowded. Harmondsworth Moor gave me a little space inside myself again.
In writing all of this down, I have ended up reliving so many of the days I thought I had already made peace with. The treatments, the fear, the exhaustion, the uncertainty — all of it has a way of returning when you start naming it properly. That, I think, was what I was trying to walk through today. I would not say the walk reset me, because some things do not reset. Grief does not work like that, and neither does memory. But it did give me perspective. Since losing Harsha in August 2019, I have had to learn how to carry grief rather than get rid of it. Nearly seven years on, it still catches me, but it no longer crushes me in quite the same way. The hurt is still there, but less sharp now, and for the first time in a while I can say that walking helped me feel not cured, not finished, but a little lighter.
I would normally walk from my house through Colnbrook High Street, but today I went the other way, up the hill towards Longford. It is a longer route, but today I needed longer. I needed the time, and I needed the contrast. It starts on a busy road, with the sound of traffic and planes overhead, and then, quite suddenly, that begins to fall away. Within a few minutes, the noise gives way to something quieter, and my thoughts begin to do the same. Usually, I would get distracted by the history of places like Longford, and there is plenty of it there, but today I was not really looking outward. I was trying to make room inside myself. My aim was Harmondsworth Moor, passing through a village I had not properly visited in almost thirty years, and seeing it again felt like stepping briefly into a corner of my own past.
I passed a couple of pubs without going in, and then, tucked away almost unexpectedly, I came across the Church of St Mary. At the same time, I could hear singing nearby — some 1970s song drifting over from a hall where a party was clearly underway. I liked that contrast: ordinary life carrying on noisily in one place, while I stood drawn towards the churchyard and its quiet. There was the graveyard at the front, another at the back, and then a larger one stretching away to the right. I had no memory of it being there. Standing there, I felt that odd mixture of discovery and recognition, as though I had found not just a place, but a mood I had been searching for all day: somewhere still enough to hold memory without letting it overwhelm me.
I spent about forty-five minutes in the church grounds, reading the names on some of the gravestones. What struck me most was the dates. Some were from the 1850s, and perhaps there were older ones too, but I did not feel the need to go looking. I found a bench and sat down, not really thinking about anything in particular. Or perhaps that is not quite true. I think I had reached that point where thinking gives way to something quieter, where you stop trying to manage what you are feeling and simply let it sit beside you. I closed my eyes for a moment, though it felt longer. The sun was out, and the warmth on my face was a comfort.
I got up and asked a woman passing by for directions to the moor, then made my way along a road aptly called Moor Road. By then I had walked about two and a half miles.
But before I reached the moor, a slight detour, to a place of equal quiet. The British Airways headquarters at Waterside sits just on the left, past a small humpbacked bridge on Moor Road. This was a trip down memory lane, and it almost made me forget why I had come out in the first place. I have fond memories of working at BA and visiting Waterside. I felt the need to go in one more time, to take a look around the landscaped gardens and walkways, laid out to please the soul — benches, picnic tables, and trees set out in a circular fashion.
Nostalgia fulfilled, I made my way back out onto the road to the moor. I had been here before, in 2022, when I first took up walking for fitness, and a few times since. I could feel that I was going to enjoy this part of the walk. Everything I had been feeling and going through today had already lightened the load I brought with me.
The entrance to Harmondsworth Moor has a path that winds up past some trees and rough foliage, leading to the large lake, one of a few ponds scattered across the moor. This is a special place.
I sat on the stone bench by the water. I love water, and I take far more photos than I should — the sun was reflecting off it that day, the first proper sun after nearly a week of rain and dark cloud. My mind had felt like that weather for a while. Dull, dark, hopeless. But here I just sat at the edge and listened to the sounds around me, and that is the true me. My thoughts always work better when I sit somewhere like this and take in the surroundings, especially nature.
The moor is a rugged place. No manicured grass, no flower beds. And that is exactly what draws me to it — the ruggedness, the rough ground, the man-made paths. Somewhere real.
I sat there in the cool breeze coming off the lake, and a podcast introduction began playing in my mind. Something I have not yet started, but that has been forming for a while. For the first time, I was not looking backward. I was rehearsing something ahead of me.
I did not stay as long as I thought I would. I was itching to get around the moor and see the new growth after spring — the smell of the grass, the birds, the bees causing their cliché of a buzz. There is a small mound almost in the centre of the moor, and a memorial to a Canadian Air Force crash, but that is not why I am here. There is a bench overlooking almost the whole of the moor, with the faint sound of cars in the distance, reminding me how close I am to the M25 and the M4. Further off, I can see an aircraft taking off from Heathrow. It still seems almost impossible that somewhere so close to the airport can feel this still. Perhaps that is why it stays with me.
I sat a while longer, still thinking out loud. Going over My Cancer Story, and where I am today. I still pinch myself. I am here to speak about survival. I am here to have enjoyed the growth of my children and my grandchildren. And along the way, the remorse of losing Harsha in 2019 came flooding back into my mind, for a short time only. This walk was done especially to get past those hurdles and keep moving forward. I will never get over all that has happened in my life, especially the bad stuff. Perhaps I will never fully move on either. But days like this, and places like Harmondsworth Moor — and the many others I plan to visit — will bring a time of reflection, and not sadness.
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