#SwanseaWalk4EU - Walking from Swansea to London 6-23 March 2019: Personal reflections - 5 years on

Five years ago, from March 6th to 22nd 2019, Edmund Sides (the current Chairperson of Swansea for Europe) walked from Swansea to London to express his annoyance about the way that Brexit was being handled and to join the People’s Vote March on Saturday 23^rd March 2019 which was organised to call for a referendum on the final deal.   Along the way he was hosted by members of several different pro-Europe campaigning groups located along the M4 corridor.  Many members of these groups joined him on the different legs of his journey, but never numbering more than 10 or so people at the time so that it was classed as a walk rather than a march.  One of the underlying themes for his initiative was that of "walk and talk", in that Edmund wanted to listen to the views of people from the other side and have had many reasonable discussions with people who hold opposing views.  Despite some concern when planning the walk, at no times on the walk was there any physical hostility towards him.   There were perhaps some motorists who hooted their horns to object to the European logos on the banner he was carrying, but in those cases he just waved back and thanked them for their support !

To mark the 5th anniversary of the completion of his walk and the People's Vote March in London, and to coincide with NRM's National Day for Rejoin on 23rd March 2024,  Edmund will give a presentation to illustrate some of the highlights of his walk, including images of some of the natural and historic sights seen along the way; encounters with different pro-European groups and comments on history, archaeology, geology (Edmund is a geologist) and other points of interest.

This event will be a Zoom meeting which will start with a 30-40 minute presentation by Edmund Sides, followed by a question and answer session where other people who he met en route may wish to share their memories of the walk.