From Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh, on a hot day in June, Rory Stewart can see his family home in Crieff across the Forth Bridge, 60 kilometres into central Perthshire. No one else can see it – it is not actually visible – but Stewart has a crow’s eyes for distance, believing that pretty much any place can be walked to.
The founding event of his life was his 21-month, 6,000-mile trek across Asia in his late twenties, ending in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Once that proved possible – with two pairs of socks, one change of clothes, antibiotics and, at one point, two miserable guards – other walks were easy. As MP for Penrith and the Border, Stewart combed 600 miles of his constituency with a walking stick. After he lost the Conservative leadership contest in 2019, he spent part of the summer walking from Newcastle to Hartlepool. When he ran for mayor of London as an independent candidate, he planned strolls through all 32 boroughs, until a pandemic made it impossible.
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