For the last year and a half, my dad has been shuffling from his nursing home onto the byways, tracks and commons of his neighbourhood.
This has been a miraculous, late strolling period for a man who has always walked – roaming Somerset lanes as a 1950s hedge kid, clocking up 1,1051⁄2 miles of English towpath in retirement (he counted).
Dad has an atypical form of dementia (aren’t they all?), and he’s been with it enough to be the only care-home resident allowed out unaccompanied for a wander.
Gradually, however, his stuttering stride – known as gait-freezing – has worsened. Eventually, he wasn’t safe even with a wheeled walker known as a rollator. So, six months ago, I acquired a second- hand Shoprider, an electric mobility scooter in a tasteful shade of maroon.
To my amazement, this demented technophobe with an able-bodied walker’s disdain for mobility scooters has embraced his wheels with alacrity, and extended his ‘walking’ season.
During this magnificent recent run of sunny spring days, we set out together – I was walking, he scooting – for an ambitious mile to Horstead Church and the River Bure in Norfolk.
‘I feel not quite with it,’ he said, as he motored along Mill Lane.
But he seemed on fine form. He paused beside a crumbling brick wall to inspect ‘an eye-level weed’ bursting into creamy flower. Hairy bittercress. He still identifies more plants than I can; still hears bird song I miss.
Chiffchaffs called from high boughs as we reached the busy main road. After six months of trouble-free scooting, Dad kept veering to the left.
‘Stop!’ I shouted, lunging to remove his thumb from the ‘forward’ lever.
We halted just before a stream of cars, which parted deferentially at the sight of a white-haired old gentleman on a scooter. We trundled on, past The Recruiting Sergeant, a pub we’ve already earmarked for Dad’s wake. He likes to know everything is organised.
When I was a boy, Dad walked faster than anyone I knew. He scoots in a similar fashion, turning the speed dial up to 11, as in Spinal Tap.
I power-walked to keep pace as we neared the pretty 13th-century flint church. It sits on a wooded slope, leading to a particularly beautiful stretch of river. White doves gathered on the old tithe barn.
We took a grassy route through the churchyard, where Dad will be buried among a succession of snowdrops, daffodils and cow parsley. A great spotted woodpecker ‘chip-chipped’ in the trees as we bumped down a rough, narrow path to the riverside.
He closely examined a mound of a pruned holly. ‘It’s just the perfect place for a song-thrush nest,’ he said, as if he was a boy ‘nesting’ once again.
We sat beside the green river, overhung by willows and sallows, patrolled by pike and kingfishers.
‘I can’t think of anywhere I’d want to be more,’ said Dad. ‘I’d never considered just doing old-age things before. Pottering. Seeing the world in a very different way. It’s constant learning.’
That’s as long as a thought lasts for Dad now. Mostly, he stops mid-sentence, his train of thought disconnecting like a carriage without an engine, freewheeling into a siding until it stops.
We turned for what became a fraught journey home. Dad carried on veering to the left. He crashed off the kerb. I worried he was no longer safe to go out alone. And he didn’t.
A few days later, he fell – onto his left side, naturally – and broke his hip. He survived an operation, and hospital, and is now recovering at home. He needs a sling and a hoist to move. He won’t shuffle or scoot again.
I took him out in a wheelchair the other day, though, and he was still marvelling at the song of a Cetti’s warbler, the vivid green leaves of spring and the warmth of the sun on his face.
Park at Horstead Church, what3words: rocks.deserved.chariots. Walks include a little loop and longer riverside walk north-west to Mayton Bridge and back via Coltishall
