The Other Place
There’s always been a rivalry between Cambridge and Oxford Universities, best known in the boat race that happens every Easter time on the Thames, but it’s there also in politics, scholarship, theatre, medical and scientific discovery and every sport and pastime you can imagine.
I knocked around in Cambridge for three years in my twenties, at the college thats only claim to fame was that it was next door to Tescos - even that is no longer the case as the supermarket has gone from there. We frequently joked about 'The other place'*.
At each, there was a snobbery wrapped up in the phrase "town and gown" often used to discriminate a different social class - perhaps partially inevitable as both universities had a collegiate system that kept students from interacting very often with residents. And the universities themselves owned much of the property and land about and restricted public access to them. Although I lived away from college for my final year, I didn't put time aside to think much about the town and its residents.
So I’m rather pleased that a sound walk composition that makes an effort to bring a more equitable view of 'The other place' has been chosen as the winner for this year's Sound Walk September Award. Forgotten Stories of Oxford was chosen by our international Grand Jurors, for its elegant poetry, its sumptuous sound composition and its heartfelt descriptions of incidents familiar to the narrator, his growing up and of lived experiences of place. Rawz has created a work that draws you in to a very different place than the 'rose-tinted', tourist filled, fictionally celebrated Oxford.
Babak has written a very good article here about the Award the winning piece and and let no one be forgotten! by Jeremy Knowles, and others, that received an Honourable Mention, with quotes from the Grand Jury, so I am not going to repeat much here. However, I do hope you take time to listen to and read about the shortlisted pieces, and maybe make a resolution for the new year, to submit a sound walk of your own in our 2026 competition.
*I did get some experience of the other place, in studying urban design at Oxford Brooks, the decidedly lesser known other university in the city.
We are celebrating Writing About Walking: For the last 5 years we have run annual poetry and flash fiction writing competitions on different themes. During 2026 we will be spotlighting shortlisted works from each of these by including one in each of our weekly newsletters. Scroll down for the first in this series.
Have you entered our End of Year quiz? Free to enter, fun and less than 6 minutes to complete, with a chance of winning a copy of "Ways of Walking" edited by Ann de Forest - go here to the quiz.
Do remember to share this newsletter with a walking or writer friend.
Happy listening, reading, walking and writing.
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2026-01-20 19:00 UTC
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Too easy to make the assumption that everyone can walk – surely it is the most human thing we humans can do? However, not everyone has the privilege of the sensoria... Keep reading
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What have you been working on? Submit your work to the world’s largest archive of walking pieces. If your work is recent, it is automatically eligible for the Sound Walk September or Marŝarto Awards, meaning you stand to win cold, hard, cash in the process.
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Christopher Kaczmarek hosted a walkshop at WAC25 called Drawing Cartographies of Perception, exploring the personal and subjective nature of navigation and cartography and the diverse ways people perceive and move through space.His work is shortlisted for the Marŝarto Awards 2025. Below, he reflects on the piece. A map... Keep reading
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It’s been an absolute joy to explore this year’s submissions for the Sound Walk September Awards. Speaking on behalf of the Grand Jury, it wasn’t easy to pick which pieces stood out just a tad more in the field that was this year’s shortlist. But, using cold, hard, mathematics, the numbers didn’t lie, and were... Keep reading
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Carlos ‘Luca’ Idrobo produced Love Letters to Walking Art and Science, a cumulative piece that honours pivotal artistic and scientific works focused on walking as both motif and practice, combining photography, drawing, light-drawings, performance, and land art.His work is shortlisted for the Marŝarto Awards 2025. Belo... Keep reading
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2026-01-09 16:00 UTC
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Our interactive, one-day seminar on The Visual March to Prespes: Walking with concepts and images will be held on Friday the 9th of January 2026 from 18:00 to 21:00... Keep reading
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15 - 16 Jan, 2026 UTC
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A two-day scientific and public event marking the conclusion of the “Walking Landscapes of Urban Cultures” EU project. It explores the diverse and dynamic world of ... Keep reading
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2026-01-20 19:00 UTC
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Writing about walking
We are celebrating Writing About Walking – for the last 5 years we have run annual poetry and flash fiction writing competitions on different themes. During 2026 we will be spotlighting shortlisted works from each of these by including one in each of our weekly newsletters.
This week we have chosen Walk, Look, Listen Slow Marathon: Cabrach – Huntly by Claudia Zeiske that was shortlisted in the 2021 competition on the theme of Walking and Listening.
Phone box, red, redundant, bindboots, off, off we go, tarmac, fresh, air, upwards, onwards, cemetery, farm, redundant, pee, up, up, landrover, rowan tree, keeps witches away, kestrel, up, Old Wife of Aldivalloch, down, down, ford, along, along, trot the pace, bridge, mink trap, wood, dense, sitka, map, break, wine gums and water, sitka, spruce, dark here, pee, gate, farm, redundant, sheep shit, landowner, absentee, Scottish Land laws, awful, must protest, when? where? road, Grouse Inn, tea, cakes, thanks Mhairi, thanks, thanks, along, the river, the Deveron, the path, hot, anorak off, Scottish flag, flutter, independence? maybe? one day, raspberries, yum, muddy, farm, sheep, shearing, gate, undulating, the river, bull, scary? onwards, burn, cross, flowers, yellow, pretty, name? deer, gorse, thick, redundant house, what happened? to the owner, dead, left? green, so green, only Scottish green, down, up, up, talk-to-myself, clouds, cumulus, another landscape, step, by step, farm, bins, sheep, mess, tarmac, hate tarmac, sing, song, Die Gedanken sind frei, are they? free, the thoughts, not sure, emerging blister, along, along, along, hi, along, car, bloody cars, sandwich, water, apple, wine gum, up again, up, up, up, down, down, bridge, willow herbs, from France, they say, brought after WW1, from the trenches, in the kilts, up again, berries, yum, up, woods, pee, woods, sitka, compass, map, right, left, right, curry tonight? no view, just sitka, there it is, the Clashmach, house hill, the trig point, the cairn, the view, the Huntly, the home, down, down, path, down, road, ASDA, beer.
Want to read other long and short listed pieces under this theme? Use this link.
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Christopher Kaczmarek hosted a walkshop at WAC25 called Drawing Cartographies of Perception, exploring the personal and subjective nature of navigation and cartogra... Keep reading
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Dear friends and loiterers
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