Jonathan Thomas (00:01) Welcome to the Anglotopia podcast where we explore British history, travel, and culture. I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas, and today I'm thrilled to be joined by photographer and adventurer Quintin Lake, author of a stunning new book, The Perimeter, a photographic journey around the coast of Britain. Over the course of five extraordinary years, Quintin walked the entire 11,000 kilometers of the coast of mainland Britain, capturing the beauty, drama, and diversity of Britain's shores through his remarkable photography. ⁓ From the White Cliffs of Dover to the rugged highlands of Scotland, from industrial ports to pristine beaches, his journey took him through every type of coastal landscape that Britain has to offer. And he took something like 200,000 pictures. in his book, Quintin documents this epic adventure through over 1300 carefully curated photographs and engaging personal stories that reveal both the challenges of his journey and the profound connection he developed with Britain's perimeter. Today we're going to discuss what inspired him to walk the entire coastline of Britain and the physical and mental challenges he faced and the surprising discoveries he made along the way and how the journey changed his perspective on Britain's relationship with the sea. So welcome to the podcast, Quintin Quintin (01:13) Yeah, great to be here, thanks. Jonathan Thomas (01:14) Thank you. So Quintin and am I saying your name right? Just to make sure it's a Quintin. Yeah, perfect. First Quintin, what on earth gave you the idea to walk the entire coastline of Great Britain? Quintin (01:20) Yeah, that's it. Yeah, Quintin, yeah, yeah. That's a very good question. Well, I'd been a travel photographer for about 25 years and I'd always associated inspiration with the exotic. I traveled to 70 countries. I've been to the Arctic three times and deserts and sort of what I've thought of as exotic adventure. And then about 12 years ago, I got meningitis and was physically very limited. So just walking a few hundred meters was challenging. And when my strength came back, I decided to do a kind of meditative slow walk down the River Thames, which is near where I live in Cheltenham in the Cotswolds and the source. I thought, well, if I get tired and feel ill, I could just kind of get a bus or a taxi home. So I did this very gentle slow walk. And then I took abstract photographs of the river. And it was just for me, just as almost as recovery. And the pictures were some of the best I'd ever produced. And then when I got to the kind of coastal section at London, at the end of the Thames, the stories and the inspiration just kind of seemed to get greater. And when I, when I recovered fully, I then walked the river Severn, which is Britain's longest river. And then that coastal part, there's this crazy kind of 30 meter tide. that, which is second highest in the world. So when the tide goes down, it reveals this entire landscape of, of sand and mud and super beautiful, super inspiring. And, and then it really hooked me and it was only weeks after I finished the Severn walk I thought I want to dedicate the next few years of my life to this because you know I've found inspiration and that's a that's a difficult thing as a photographer so I thought this this is it for me for a while. Jonathan Thomas (03:04) It sounds like it would have been a great adventure. I think it's now just to be clear to the listeners who aren't familiar with this project, he broke it up in stages over several years. He didn't do it all in one go. So he broke it up into different stages and that's how the book is broken up. now you have a wife and kids. So how did you convince your wife that this was a great idea? I need to be gone for weeks at a time, just so you know. Quintin (03:28) Hahaha ⁓ ⁓ I think, I mean, she's an artist. I think she understands that I find inspiration to make my work in the external world and she finds it in the internal world. I mean, I can't say it was easy or without tension, but we want each other to be everything we can be and that's how we express our love for each other. Jonathan Thomas (03:54) Well, we, the consumers of your book and your projects, thank your wife for being so cool with this project because the photography is amazing and we're gonna link to a gallery in the show notes of some of the highlights and I can't wait to share them with you all because the pictures are beautiful. So, setting off on this epic journey, how did you prepare physically and mentally to walk 11,000 kilometers? Because that sounds like a lot. Quintin (03:56) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ⁓ ⁓ It is a lot, I mean, the Norwegians have this great expression, the doorstep mile, the hardest part of any journey is taking the first step. ⁓ I'm a great believer, just kind of go. So it actually, from having the idea, I registered a website, I decided I would do it. And a couple of weeks later I started and I kind of fixed the problems with the journey afterwards. So I didn't want to over complicate it. And it was, I don't know, 10 times harder than I imagined it would be in the end. But at the beginning I had the... Jonathan Thomas (04:31) Huh. Quintin (04:53) naivety of thinking, you know, I just started from London, walking down the South coast and it seemed quite low stakes. And I thought, well, if I have a trouble and I get injured, I could just go home and stop. And then I got fit and learned better techniques and took lighter equipment and improved myself, if you like, as the journey progressed. And then in Scotland where it would be just a few hours of daylight in the winter, almost constant storm, constant wind. carrying over 20 kilograms of equipment, not seeing anyone for five days at a time. I mean, it's just a whole different level of difficulty. But at that point, I'd already been traveling about 5,000 kilometers. So there was quite a lot of momentum behind me. But if I was faced with the difficulty of the North of Scotland on day one, it would have knocked me out. But it built me up gradually, if that makes sense. Jonathan Thomas (05:48) It does make sense because, you know, I'm not saying it was a dawdle, but the south coast of England is very well developed. You're never more than a few miles from any village or town along the coast path, and the coast path is very well developed. But I imagine up in Scotland, where the infrastructure is much different, I imagine it was much harder. Quintin (06:08) It's very different. Yeah. there's no network of footpaths either. it can be hundreds of kilometers where it's kind of bushwhacking and then sort of trying to figure out the way. there's a clear thought, overgrown foliage and you have to backtrack. So it's a whole level of complexity harder. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (06:14) Ugh. Yeah, so so excited visualizing the island of Great Britain in our heads. How did you break up the walk to make it more manageable? Quintin (06:34) Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Well, use the historic counties. ⁓ The fact you've got England, Wales, Scotland, Britain, the island of Britain, United Kingdom, it's kind of complicated anyway, but it's even more complicated with the historic counties. Historically, the counties were geographically more similar sized areas that the country was divided in. In modern times, for example, North Scotland is just called Highland, which is almost all of Scotland. Jonathan Thomas (06:52) Yeah. Ha Quintin (07:06) Whereas in the past it was called things like Inverness Shire or Sutherland or Caithness. So I divided it up into these kind of relatively smaller chunks, although some still had a coastline of about five or 600 kilometres. So that's how I divided the project up. So I started in South London, then went to Kent and Sussex and so on. And I would walk for between two weeks and two months at a time and always with a tent to kind of reduce cost. Jonathan Thomas (07:35) So when, so when were the shortest stretches and where were the longest stretches that you spent on on the road? Quintin (07:40) Yes. It was all really practical travel stuff. I always took a train to the trailhead and then a train back again. I was looking at the map of Britain, which has got this wonderful train network, but it was always from a train stop. When it was near to me, which is near the border of Wales, sometimes I did just a few days. But when I went further north, was ⁓ maybe two days travel even to get to the northwest of Scotland. Then I would go for a couple of months at a time. Jonathan Thomas (08:10) It'd be fun just to go on all those train rides. Quintin (08:13) Yeah, no, I know. It was by far the biggest expense of this journey. I've got this big box of train tickets and that's that. Jonathan Thomas (08:18) Uh-uh. Hahaha So, um, so that will let this kind of negates. We already kind of answered this. So you were used to long distance walking before you did this journey, but was this on a told different scale than you expected? Quintin (08:38) Um, yeah, I mean, have to, mean, when I was, when I was 10, I walked from John O'Groats to Glasgow with my mom, which is about 400 kilometers. When I was 20, I walked from Land's End to John O'Groats, the two furthest points of Britain, which is a thousand kilometers. And then most of, most of my life I've done different long treks in Britain, but weirdly I'd never thought of combining them with, um, with photography, with work. Yeah. Um, but no, but I estimated the journey based on other, other. Jonathan Thomas (08:51) Yeah. With work. Quintin (09:04) writers books and on using the Ordnance Survey Maps. And I estimated the journey being about 10,000 kilometers. And in the actual fact, it was 11,000. So it was a lot further. Jonathan Thomas (09:17) That brings up a good question. What books did you use for research and what kind of inspired as you were planning this? ⁓ Quintin (09:25) Well, John Merrill was the first man who wrote a book or recorded of Walking the Coast to Britain. He wrote a book called The Sea on my Left when I was born, when I was in 1975. That always was on my shelf as a beacon of, you can do it as well. Then 30 years ago, I answered the call. Other books that inspired me would be, don't know, Bill Bryson's. Notes from a Small Island. I always loved that book and Little Dribbling. And then maybe Kingdom by the Sea by Theroux. And it's these kind of great kind of coastal journey or journeys around Britain. I've always enjoyed that as a travel genre. Jonathan Thomas (09:56) Yeah. I can't imagine walking lands in the journal. We drove it in 2018 and took like two weeks to kind of take our time along along the route. And I'm like, that would be a really, really long walk. Quintin (10:18) Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was a truly life-changing experience for me because I was training to be an architect. I did the full seven years, but I think if I hadn't done that journey, my life would have taken a very different path because I did that when I was about 21 and the memories of that journey was so real to me every day. There's nothing compared to it in the rest of my life. So I wanted to kind of capture that again. And in a way my whole life has been trying to capture that how alive I feel when I'm Jonathan Thomas (10:27) Yeah. Quintin (10:53) I've got my home on my back and I'm traveling through the landscape and meeting people and seeing new things. I'm kind of, I'm an addict now. can't, you know, I've got my bag is packed in the side of my room here. I'm away every few weeks. I need to know that in my diary, I've got another journey planned. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (11:00) Ha I'm the same way about my trips to Britain. They always provide a kind of clarity that you're like, ah, this is it. This is why I'm alive, to experience these places. Quintin (11:14) Mm-mm. I'm delighted you feel that way. Yeah. But I think it's, it's travel generally, isn't it? Because, and also when you have something in your diary, even if it's a very modest journey and you've got, if whatever's happening in your life, you know, in the next seven days, I'm going to be here or going there. just keeps you going. Jonathan Thomas (11:22) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I totally understand that. ⁓ So of all these walks, including your coastal walk, what has been your favorite long distance walk in Britain? Like, what would you recommend people do? Like if, if, yeah. Quintin (11:48) What would I recommend people do? Okay. So for the hard, for the hardcore, for your kind of Pacific coast trail hikers and you know, the, cause I get most of my sort of technical inspiration from us hikers because there's a whole different through hiking culture in the States. Whereas, whereas here I mean, it's so wet, but people do tend to go a bit heavy in Britain with gear. Um, I'd say the Cambrian way, which is a, it's a trans, trans Wales for path that goes from Cardiff to Conwy. Jonathan Thomas (12:02) Yeah. Quintin (12:16) it goes over 47 mountains, like a zigzag route through Wales. That's extremely adventurous and challenging for maybe someone going on holiday for a week who wants a taste of England and Britain. think maybe the North Downs Way, which is like the old Pilgrims Way, you end up in Winchester, you get the coast, you get to see all these beautiful, the downs, the pubs, or maybe even the Cotswold Way. which goes across the escarpment and the Cotswolds Jonathan Thomas (12:48) I've always wanted to do Hadrian's Wall. Have you done Hadrian's Wall? Quintin (12:52) I have done Hadrian's Wall. In fact, I've done all that long distance for paths in Britain. was my kind of follow-on project from the perimeter in terms of, because that's like walking. It's a concept really. walking, you're really walking with history. really feel the sense of the Romans being there as a sort of, as an experience. It's probably the most intense one, Hadrian's Wall. Jonathan Thomas (13:04) Right. I've been wanting to do it for many, many years. I need to just do it. Quintin (13:17) No, no, I'd really recommend it. mean, there's no duds. The National Trails, there's about 17. They're all incredible. Jonathan Thomas (13:25) So this question is a bit nerdy, but what equipment do you use in your photography? Quintin (13:31) It's not nerdy at all, I it's vital. I use this, I'm just holding it up. It's a very large camera. It's a five DSR, which is a 52 megapixel camera. And I use a very long lens here, which is a 70 to 300, because I like to pull out the details from the subject. And then I use a wide lens to compliment that, which is 16 to 35. Jonathan Thomas (13:37) wow. Wow. Ha Now I have lens envy. Quintin (14:01) What do you use yourself? Jonathan Thomas (14:03) I use a Sony a7 II ⁓ I've got a wide-angle lens and just the kit lens that it came with and then For video wait, it's not glamorous at all the DJI Osmo, but it's on a gimbal. So it's handy It does the job. Yeah so it's and I have a I have an old Sony Nex-7 that I use because what I'll do is because I like to visit a lot of ⁓ stately homes and castles ⁓ Quintin (14:11) Yeah. It does the job, doesn't it? Hmm. Jonathan Thomas (14:32) I'll put the wide angle lens on one camera, put the nice kit lens on the other camera. That way I can get both perspectives of the houses. Cause the rooms usually appreciate the wide angle lenses better. So, well like we kind of answered the next question. So I'll skip that one. you mentioned in your book that walking opens your heart and your mind. Can you elaborate on how this journey changed you personally as you pursued it? Quintin (14:44) Definitely, definitely, yeah. Yeah, there's some kind of magic. think it's the kind of contemplative rhythm of just walking slowly for days at a time that I become much more attuned to what I'm looking at and who I'm meeting. And I feel I can see things with a clearer eye as a photographer. mean, if you suddenly drop me now at Edinburgh and ask me to take some pictures, I kind of wouldn't be able to do it. I'd of, I'd feel every picture I took like a postcard or I was bringing too much baggage with me. But if I've walked there for three days, I see how the landscape changes. I see the city opening up in front of me, how the accent changes. I'm just much more kind of dialed in to noticing what's different. And I think as a photographer, it's noticing what's different is what you need to be able to do. But in answer to your question about how it changed me, I mean, it's the, these thousands of kilometers of calm of being on the trail is kind of in me now. It's in my soul, which I can draw on. Jonathan Thomas (15:59) That sounds really nice. Yeah, and I envy your process because like, you know, as Americans we get very little time off and so when we are able to travel, like it's go, go, go, go, go. So there's not much time to really sit and contemplate and get the right pictures just to capture as many as you can. I'm gonna have to be a little more contemplative on our future trips because maybe I'll get some better pictures. Quintin (16:01) It is nice, it is nice. Jonathan Thomas (16:29) So ⁓ were there moments when you considered abandoning the project? What kept you going all those years? Quintin (16:37) well, long journey like this, I mean, the, there's this sort of weight of pressure, the more you've done it. And I was quite, I was engaged in social media and had had some media interest from quite early on. So I actually felt quite a big responsibility to continue. And I also felt a responsibility for every little part of Britain's coast is someone's special patch. And I wanted to give it equal kind of love and attention as the last one. So the idea that I'd sort of switch off a bit or I'd sort of wouldn't give it as much energy. that felt almost a sort of moral failing. the kind of, you when you've overcome a few problems, it makes overcoming the next problem easier. Jonathan Thomas (17:20) things in perspective right that you know yeah I know one of my favorite genres of social media is British person who does an incredible thing like walking the entire coastline of Britain or visits every train station or visits every bus station and it's like those are my favorites I love those ⁓ because it yeah I love it it's a very it's a very British phenomenon because you know we we don't really do that here Quintin (17:21) It does, yeah, yeah. No Bonkers thing, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's... It's very obsessive, yeah. Yeah. But also in answer to your question, mean, there was moments in Scotland, in Knoydart where was the winter, I was completely soaked through, was lacking in energy. I'd sort of fallen over for the countless time that day. And I kind of collapsed onto the heather and kind of weeping going, I can't take another step. But then, you what am I supposed to do? If I don't move, I'm going to get too cold. you kind of pull yourself together and keep going. Jonathan Thomas (18:15) Yeah, I found on long walks that the worst thing you can do is stop. If you stop, then it makes it even harder to get going again. ⁓ So did you have any casualties along the way with equipment and cameras and anything? Because once it got really nasty. Quintin (18:20) Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, an awful lot. I wore out Seven pairs of shoes, two pairs of backpacks, the shoulder straps just wore out completely. I had two lenses that were damaged. to have, I mean, my camera is like a Frankenstein. All the different bits are broken and been repaired multiple times. You know, it's really tough on gear. Remarkably, my beloved tent is still going. I've probably slept about a thousand kilometers, a thousand nights in it. Jonathan Thomas (18:36) Au revoir. Damage equipment now was there damage to yourself? You experienced several injuries during the walk and how so how did you manage? That like did you ever get stuck where you had to like be rescued? Quintin (19:14) Um, nearly I managed to self rescue each time, but I had, I had, um, I had a torn tendon, um, near Liverpool. So I had to sort of have where I, uh, sort of incapacitating boot and have physio for two months. And then I had a shin splints up in Scotland. Um, so it was, it was very painful, but I could sort of self rescue and get to a hospital. Um, it changed my whole mindset really, because, you know, I think for a journey like this, you need to do some training and eat. well to be able to keep going. it was kind of, it was a bit of self-knowledge there because I was kind of, wasn't doing either of those things and still pounding myself. And then your body just kind of gives up. So each one has been a kind of a lesson. kind of, more, I'd be more physically able to do the journey now 10 years later than when I started for sure. Jonathan Thomas (20:03) Interesting Could you share some memorable encounters you have with strangers along the journey that affected you? Quintin (20:15) So there was this farmer called Farmer Hughes in Dumfries and Galloway and he has this amazing ⁓ accent. Yes, yes please, yeah, sorry. Jonathan Thomas (20:25) Do need to stop for a minute or are you? Yeah, you're fine. Quintin (20:32) Sorry Jonathan, recovering from a flu and it's not gone totally. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (20:35) ⁓ that's yeah, that went through the house about a month ago where we all got it except for my wife. So, you know, she, she was patient zero. Yeah, that's all I'll be headed out. So if you have to stop, it's fine. Just let me know. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're fine. Quintin (20:44) Yeah, so can we edit this out then? Yeah, yeah. Can I just grab some water then and yeah, yeah, I'll be right back. No! Yeah, sorry about that. Pretty annoying. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, fantastic. Jonathan Thomas (21:32) No worries at all. I said, magic of editing, no one will ever know. So ⁓ I'll roll back to the last question and then we'll go from there. can you share some stories of memorable encounters with strangers that particularly affected you along the way? Because I'm sure you encounter lots of people. Quintin (21:39) Great, yeah. Many people, I think the most incredible for me would be a farmer called Farmer Hughes, who I met in the Rins in Dumfries and Galloway. And I'd come off the mountains behind his field. And there's a photograph of him in the book and he's over 80 He's just been mucking out his cows. And in the farm around him, there are all these crofts these small cottages, and they're all derelict. And he told me about when he was younger, how all those five families, they all worked for him. one by one they kind of left. And it was a bit too far away for tourists to want to live in these cottages. So he was just like the kind of the last of the Mohicans and it's really energetic ⁓ sort of specimen. But yet it felt like I was witnessing the kind of end of an era. Jonathan Thomas (22:42) Do you have a, well, I think actually I'll ask that question later. How did your perception of Britain change after seeing so much of this coastline and encountering so many people along the way? Quintin (22:57) Well, it is very wild as you alluded to at the beginning, the South coast, you know, you're never very far from an ice cream and a fish and chip shop, but Scotland, it's like five days between for seeing anyone. It's also half of the journey, half of my book is about Scotland. it's, mean, the scale of it is kind of epic. It's kind of wild and it's kind of connections to the Norse culture, to Vikings, to kind of Christianity from Ireland. So there's just so many fascinating different. influences that I wasn't aware of at the beginning. And each zone is so distinctive, whether it's the phrasing, whether it's the accent, whether it's what people are interested in, and everyone seems to kind love their own patch. So that patchwork nature of the island, I've got a real new respect for it. I can't believe if I'm in London traveling on the tube, I'm actually on the same piece of rock where the kind of great cliffs of Scotland are, which is kind of... It really does change my perception of what it is to be British, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (23:59) Yeah, it's and that's one of the things I love most about Britain is that it's a small island. I don't mean that in an insulting way. It is a small island, but it is so incredibly geographically diverse. And. You know, I where I live in Indiana and the US Midwest, it's pretty much the same landscape for hundreds of miles of every direction, and there's no variety other than, there's a big lake. Quintin (24:07) No, it is a small island. yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (24:28) You but in Britain, know, you go to, you you've got like, you like, you know, you've got the Cumbrian Lake District where there's tons of lakes. You've got the mountains of Scotland. You've got, you know, river valleys and coastlines and there's even desert sun on the coastline. it's, it's, it's crazy. You can find pretty much every little, little micro geography that, that, that the earth can manage in one little compact package. Quintin (24:28) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. mean, I think that's why so many geological discoveries were here and not, all these terms like Cambrian and come from different parts of the British coast. When you look at the geological map, it's just this crazy, it's everything. It's everything. I mean, there's a part of South coast, is, traveled in Namibia a few years ago and I kind of recognized that kind of rock, which, because that used to come, that used to be from that part of the world. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (25:07) Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, they say that the Scottish Highlands are actually the same mountain range as the Appalachians because they used to be part of the... ⁓ So, ⁓ I think I know the answer to this question, but what was the most challenging terrain? Quintin (25:28) That's right, yes. That's right, yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the rough bounds, which is the area around Knoydart which is adjacent to the Isle of Skye in Northwest Highlands. There's no roads. There's very few paths. It's huge cliffs, but also there's micro cliffs of five, 10 meters. It's an extremely challenging terrain to move through on foot. It's also my favorite part. the most inspiring photographically. I met extraordinary people. It kind of felt like it's not often that a journey, sort of is quite symbolic. It's hardest, but it's also the most profound or the most beautiful. my favorite image is the book, which is of a cottage called Skiary next to Loch Horn, this tiny cottage with this huge snowy mountain behind it rising up. That was taken after five days of walking around Knoydart Jonathan Thomas (26:34) and the hardest terrain has the prettiest pictures. Quintin (26:38) I mean it's a cliche but I mean yeah. Jonathan Thomas (26:40) Yeah, yeah, you would you get when listeners look at the book, like he worked for these pictures. They're great. I have I've looked through the whole book and I would say the Scotland bits are just they're epic. And yeah, and I have lots of photographic books in the library about Britain and Scotland. And your pictures are are just world class. I mean, Quintin (26:47) Yeah They are epic, yes, yeah. Mm. Mm. thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of it. Jonathan Thomas (27:09) They really, go ahead. Quintin (27:13) what it kind of is a love letter. I just love Scotland. think it's the most beautiful place in the world. And I hope that comes across in the images here. Jonathan Thomas (27:21) It definitely does. And you've really kind of given a new perspective on Scotland that hasn't been done before. again, you're so remote. You've really worked for those pictures. Quintin (27:36) Thank you. because I think it's also, yeah, I agree. kind of, I don't like it when a picture looks like the photographer has come out of their air conditioned camper van and just, you know, it's just, think it's sort of this, there is something about it. And also you kind of make your own luck, think, walking as a photographer, because you're there often in Scotland, as you well know, you only get maybe five, 10 minutes of beautiful light in a day, but every day that does, that moment happens. Jonathan Thomas (27:45) Ha Quintin (28:04) And if you're ready to capture it, then something special happens. Jonathan Thomas (28:08) Yeah, and that's something on photographic expeditions I've been on, ⁓ like, ⁓ many years ago. I connected with a local photographer in Dorset. ⁓ We took the most beautiful landscape pictures of Dorset. And I was like, I'm coming to Dorset for Christmas. Can you just take me out for the day and just take me around and show me how you capture this landscape? And he did it. And he was perfectly happy to. And we spent all day chasing the perfect light. Quintin (28:32) Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (28:37) And I had never thought to do that. he knew exactly, because he knew the landscape so well, he knew exactly which part of the day to go to which place. Because the sun and the low winter sun would be perfect. it's, yeah. Quintin (28:38) Yeah. Yes, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (28:54) ⁓ So conversely, ⁓ what was the most enjoyable section of the walk where you're like, this is great. Everything's going perfect. Quintin (29:07) I think it would be Northumberland because that's the county adjacent to Scotland. And actually my first impression, I was pretty sad to leave Scotland and I'd never traveled to Northumberland. And that's where you've got Holy Island, which is this tidal island, which is big part of British history where the Vikings first came and raided. And then you've got Bamburgh Castle. That's another amazing epic bit of British history. And ⁓ when it was a separate Kingdom before the kingdoms were merged to become England. I loved it. was one thing after the other. The Holy Island was incredible. Bamburgh was incredible. The huge expansive beaches with sea grass and the sense of freedom. It was pretty easy walking and people were great. Food was great. get these nice kind of traditional pies up in Northumberland. It was the whole thing. was going, this is fine. I like this. This is good. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (30:08) I can confirm we Northumberland is is beautiful yeah the the rich history up there is so deep and such yeah did you now did you walk to Holy Island and do and brave the tides and all that Quintin (30:18) It is so deep, I really had a truly cosmic experience because as you well know, the tides have to be right or you get stranded. And it was a full moon. So the tide was very strong and it was dark. And when you describe it in words, it sounds a really dangerous, crazy thing to do, but I could see perfectly by moonlight. So I walked to Holy Island, those six kilometers and moonlight. in the chapter on the book, there's the Jonathan Thomas (30:30) Yeah. wow. Quintin (30:53) I've got these moonlit pictures of those escape. If you get stuck by the tide, can huddle up on these kind weird platforms. And I've got these strange pictures of these things in moonlight. And then I camped on the bay there where the Vikings landed on the north of the island in the sea grass. Jonathan Thomas (31:15) So speaking of camping, did you ever run into any issues while camping like that? Because I know you can't actually camp just anywhere. You have to be very careful about it. Quintin (31:23) Yeah, I'm a big believer in the right to roam that exists in Scotland. in Scotland, for your listeners that aren't familiar, you have the right to walk wherever you want as long as you don't disturb a farmer or a landowner. And you have the right to camp wherever you want in the same reason. Whereas in England, you can't. It's tolerated maybe above 300 meters in certain national parks. There's unwritten acceptance, but essentially, To do it, you need to stealth camp and there's a community of thousands of us that do that. So that means you're pitching late at night, you're not making any noise, you're not leaving any trace. And that's how I did it for the hundreds of days in England. So it's not that sort of difficult if you're careful, especially as a sole traveler, but it does make you feel like a kind of a vagrant. And it's weird for me as someone born English to then to actually feel more that it's more my country. in Scotland. So I didn't run into any problems like that. Sometimes I got lost, my approach is non-confrontational. So if an angry landowner comes towards me, I just apologize or say I'm lost. And nine times out of 10, they just point me in the right direction. Jonathan Thomas (32:38) Good strategy. I'm lost. I could get away with it as an American that easily. Quintin (32:39) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just a little anecdote. I my first day at Gretna Green into Scotland, I was pulling this I'm lost line when the farmer beckoned me over. But all he wanted to know is if he could advise me the best way across his field, if I needed any food and if I wanted any water. So it's just unbelievable. It's wonderful. It's totally different. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (33:00) I I love that. Yeah, that is, that's a wonderful story. Cause it, that you really, it shows that, you know, if you give people enough time to talk to them, that, that there, you find there'll be very interested in what you're actually doing. Um, you know, and I'm sure you, you saw that on, on social media, cause you had a huge following on social media as you did this journey. And did you find that social media kind of changed your journey as you took it? Quintin (33:15) Yeah, yes, yeah. ⁓ That's a really interesting question. mean, in the acknowledgements in the book, it's truly heartfelt. really thanked the kind of Twitter as it was then back in the good old days, ⁓ community, but because I would talk about an area I was traveling to and people would share the stories of their grandparents that got married here or some interesting story and people's comments guided me. probably maybe even a quarter of the things I found in this book. which aren't in your kind of TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet guides, as it were. I was guided to them by kind of the generosity of people on social media. ⁓ So it kind of had a kind of travel enabling aspect to it, but also it was kind of practical. Sometimes people would put me up or people saw me having a really hard time. People would offer me their kind of caravan or a meal. So I made some kind of friends and it did help. And obviously, doing a journey when you know you have an audience, it does make it different. But for me, it was positive because it made me kind of try harder to make sure I was sharing content of value. And it also helps edit it because if I kind of got facts or observations wrong, people were quite quick to tell me that. So it's quite good to learn that as I was traveling rather than later. Yeah. ⁓ Jonathan Thomas (34:45) Believe me, I know. I've been writing and editing on the internet since 2007 and I've been told I've been wrong more times than I can count. Quintin (34:51) ⁓ wow, okay, a veteran, Yeah, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (34:59) it's helpful because it just makes you better in the end. And then really mad when you make a dumb mistake too, because you're like, I knew that, I knew better. So we covered that. Let's see. Quintin (35:02) It does, Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (35:21) So you photographed everything from sublime natural landscapes to industrial infrastructure. What drew you to these contrasting subjects? Because a lot of photographers kind of focus on one thing or the other. And in your book, there's a lot of interesting infrastructure. And I'm an infrastructure nerd, so I'm like, I, you know. Quintin (35:33) Yeah, I mean. Yeah, good, good, good. I I hope that's almost the take home of this whole project. mean, I've never understood why people don't visit kind of nuclear power stations with the same reverence as cathedrals. To me, I don't see a difference there. They are the kind of modern wonders and they're kind of extraordinary and they're visually extraordinary. And without them, we couldn't live our lives. And to me, they have the same... same value as Stonehenge or something equally interesting and valid. And I strongly resist the idea of Britain being entirely a sort of historical palimpsest. mean, the fascinating thing is that you have these layers of history of Norman Tudor, the whole thing, it's all there, wherever you look, but then you also have these modernist things. love landscapes with, not love, but I'm fascinated by landscapes with pylons in, the steel industry, plumes of smoke from the smoke factories. And to me, that's as British and as honest an observation of the landscape as looking at the White Cliffs of Dover. And so I think visually, I really did not want this book to look like a cliched image of the British landscape, like you'd get on a butter packet, rolling fields. I mean, that is a part of it where I live. Sometimes it can look like that, but I like the honesty that work is being made here now. And also you have the remnants of the colonial era of all the work and industry in the past. And it's a huge part of it. It's kind of quite melancholy part of it, especially on the coast, because there's these huge pieces of industry which are now no longer relevant, say down the Clyde and Glasgow, which used to be one of the greatest shipbuilding places in the world. And now there's just a handful of ships. So that's a big part of our British identity, I think, which I didn't want to ignore. And when you had something modern, fascinating, like say the offshore industry where wind turbines are being built. So now the shipyards are often used to build the wind turbines, the jackets, which are the steel structures that hold up the turbines, which are massive, the size of oil rigs. And then those are being built now. So I found all that really very interesting. Jonathan Thomas (37:53) Yeah, it is super interesting. that's what a lot of people don't realize is that Britain's landscape and everybody's landscape is a living landscape and it changes with every generation. ⁓ you know, we get a lot of stick when we feature modern architecture and articles about great British buildings and stuff. yeah, people are like, well, I don't like the modern stuff. I like the Victorian stuff. Quintin (38:14) Really do? Yeah, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (38:18) I'm like, well, you know what? The Edwardians said the same thing. They didn't like the Edwardian stuff. They liked the Victorian stuff. There was a whole wave of people who wanted to knock down all the Victorian buildings. So this appreciation for architecture, it's not static. It's a constantly evolving thing. Quintin (38:18) Yeah. Exactly, exactly, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, St Paul's Cathedral where I started the journey, it has a dome like St Peter's in Rome. And at the time people thought that was outrageous, that was scandalous. The British church had to have a spire on it. A few hundred years later and it survived the blitz. Everyone loves it. at the time it was scandalous, as you say. Jonathan Thomas (38:37) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of, ⁓ in my own area, I live just a few miles from the Lake Michigan coast and, ⁓ there's a huge power plant right on the middle of the coast. And it's the power plant part is kind of an eyesore, but it has a cooling tower that everyone thinks it's a nuclear power plant, but it's not just a big cooling tower for, for cooling water. And it's, it's a, it's a, it's become though. Quintin (39:02) Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (39:20) A landmark in the area people know everybody knows where it is because you can see it for miles around and well the power plant is going to be decommissioned in a few years and Now the conversation is well should we knock the the tower down? It's a symbol of the community now and I'm in the camp that no we shouldn't knock it down it keep it as an ornament even if it's useless because it's it's it's part of our built landscape now and you can't just knock it down. It's Need to keep that heritage Quintin (39:29) Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. Yeah. It actually touches on a point that's kind of fascinated me since I finished the walk that there's, think there's three power stations I photographed, which have now been decommissioned and have been knocked down. And then the, Britain's biggest steelworks in Teesside, did the whole double spread in the book and that's been completely flattened. So it's all gone. So the things you think are permanent are kind of quite transient. mean, That's one of the weird magical things about photography. You never quite know if you're photographing the end of something. Exactly. Jonathan Thomas (40:20) It's yeah, yeah, impermanence. that's, that's something we've run into even in our own travels over 25 years is you think a place is always going to be there for you to enjoy. And we'll actually know it's not. know, owner ownership of buildings changes, priority, local priorities change. And all of a sudden a favorite thing is gone. Quintin (40:33) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (40:44) So that's why it's all the more reason to enjoy things in the moment because it might not be there in the future. And I think that you mentioned the steelworks. I think it's interesting because I think Britain now only has one steelworks left and the government just did an emergency legislation this past weekend to basically nationalize it so that you maintain that steelmaking capacity because once you lose it, it's gone forever. Yeah. Quintin (40:47) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (41:13) We have ⁓ Lake Michigan is where a lot of steel plants are. it's like, once you turn a blast furnace off, it can't turn it back on. So don't want to. Quintin (41:22) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know what it's like in the States, but here, whether it's Teesside or Port Talbot, mean, the people in those communities, it'll be fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers all working in the same place. And it's not just the fact that it's an industry. It's just you're eviscerating the whole culture of the area. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (41:34) Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, and it's not to get into the weeds, but it's that stuff that leads to economic and political crises and because those people aren't happy and you want those people to be happy. So anyway, more positive things. ⁓ So we already talked about wild camping, so I will skip that question and cut this out. So. ⁓ Quintin (41:52) Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (42:07) You took almost 200,000 pictures in this project. How on earth did you whittle it down to the 1,300 that are in the book, which is already a lot? Quintin (42:10) Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I'm very good at taking bad pictures, my technique is a photographer will be, kind of ask, get to the subject. So if I was say photographing you, would try, I'd move around you. I'd try different angles, different lighting, different focal lengths. So maybe if I was doing a portrait of you pretty quickly, I'd generate 30, 40 images. And by doing that, I'd have an idea of what focal length and light I liked with you as a subject. And then I'd sort of. Jonathan Thomas (42:22) Yeah Quintin (42:45) dig harder into that to make a better image. So when I'm editing them in Lightroom, say, if there's a subject matter, say a lighthouse for sake of argument, can put, I've got 80 shots, I can pretty immediately take out 50 because they were just kind of sketches to get there. And then I'll probably whittle it down to four or five, which I think is kind of strong. And then I'll do some kind of post-processing on them. I'll adjust the tone and the color and do gradient fills, things like that. And hopefully the... the best one will rise to the surface, but sometimes I might need to sleep on it or think of it. So that's the kind of micro process. But as I went, I blogged all this on a website. So I produce about 20 to 30 images per day on my blog that I thought was sort of okay as images. And then when it came to producing a book, it was just really taking the... ⁓ very, very best images. But with the graphic designer, a woman called Claire Skeats, that was kind of really brilliant to work with. It's not just about having the best images. It had to be some images that gave people a hook that was visually accessible that people could know, okay, we're in Scotland here, we're in Wales there. And then others where some of the spreads might look like it's purely aesthetic. And others where we wanted to get some history or geology or some factual element in it. And then there's hopefully an element of humor as well. want some of sort of British passive aggressive sign features quite close in this book. So there were kind of different, each chapter we assessed it. So is it beautiful? Is it interesting? Is there an element of humor? Is there something which is unexpected? And then sometimes we went through a few iterations to get to that point. So yeah, as you say, there's 1,300 images in the book, but with the graphic designer, we worked on about 3,000 shortlist in order to make these. Jonathan Thomas (44:26) Well, yeah. Quintin (44:35) at each page work because she needed different options to make each page look good together. Jonathan Thomas (44:41) Well, I applaud you guys because you succeeded and because it's very easy with big landscape books to just like, another landscape, another landscape, like the way you have selected and laid out the pictures, it stays very engaging throughout so that there's always something new. Quintin (44:53) Thank you so much. that's Claire Skeats' amazing work. I agree. really believe, I think it's sort of achieved something impossible because when I was talking to the editor at the beginning of the project, I couldn't actually believe they wanted to do 1,300 images. It seemed kind of bonkers, but in a way that's a unique selling point. But yeah, as you say, it only works because the images work together on the page as a piece of poetry. Jonathan Thomas (45:20) Yeah, they tell a visual story and a visual journey that isn't just, here's a famous thing that I saw. Well, no, here's this famous thing in a new light that you may not even ever seen because there's intent here. The photographer has spent quality amount of time to get it, to get the light right, get the shot right. Like it's not just, you you didn't just snap a bunch of pictures as you, as you went for a walk. It's there's, yeah. Quintin (45:27) Yes. Y-yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So is what I hope it achieves is the kind of lived experience of what it's like to do a walk like that. That you can walk through a firing range and see blown up tanks. Then you can walk onto a beach and see kind of a bunch of kids windsurfing. Then you can see some piece of ⁓ classic picturesque England with thatched cottages and and pubs and people with dogs. then you can walk to your nuclear power station and that is what it's like to walk the coast. get that maybe half an hour, one hour, half an hour. that's very disorientating really and inspiring, but that's what I tried to convey with the pictures. Jonathan Thomas (46:28) So in the book you mention an incident with cows. What other, charging at you, what other wildlife encounters did you have on your journey? Quintin (46:32) Yeah. Yeah. don't know if the listeners will find that funny, there are like a quite disturbing number of casualties from cows charging people in British fields and often farmers. ⁓ mean, the biggest problem is probably, mean, beasties is kind of midges in Scotland because they're very irritating and then Lyme disease is a big problem in Scotland. Jonathan Thomas (46:46) Yeah. Quintin (47:00) ⁓ I didn't meet a single outdoor worker that hadn't had someone who had suffered badly from Lyme disease, which can be fatal. And I had antibiotics a few times myself from it. It's very hard to not get bitten. But in terms of inspiring encounters, it would be probably near Ben Nevis. Two sea eagles flew over the top of me with a ⁓ fish in their talons close enough. And I photographed it close enough to see their fish supper ⁓ I saw a lot of otters in Knoydart Often I'd walk until the evening and then I'd make a meal with my stove to get bit of warmth and energy to do some more walking. That's often quite a quiet time. I'd become invisible in landscape and I'd see lots of wildlife then. One night, a family of otters just walked past me. There was five just right past my feet. I said, I had my hand on the jet boil stove and I just said, gently turned the sound down and just kept completely silent and they walked past me. ⁓ Jonathan Thomas (48:04) of sublime moments like that that you just can't even replicate, know? Yeah. So your journey ⁓ concluded ⁓ right as the pandemic happened and that actually affected how you ended it. That's actually when I discovered you. I heard about you from somewhere and started following. how did that experience change your perspective or even how did it change your project? Quintin (48:06) Yeah. You can't, you can't. No. Yes. I cannot tell you how frustrating this is because I've been traveling for four and a half years as well as the shin splints and the torn tendon. I'd been in of embayed under the cliffs in Holderness, which is the fastest eroding cliffs in Europe. They've five, seven meters a year and I've stuck below these kind of clay cliffs. So all these different things I'd overcome. And then it was like a manmade problem. And so, mean, the first feeling was that I was sort of socially distancing with fine style because I could sleep in my little tent in the dunes. And I was in, I was in Norfolk when the lockdown came. And Norfolk is, you know, lots of people from London have holiday homes there. So it, there began to be a sort of bit of a tension at that beginning where people didn't really understand what was going on with COVID. So like locals might resent the fact that there were incomers coming in and I could feel that sort of tide turning of people changing from. being very friendly and welcoming to being a little bit wary. And I had this strange thing of a couple of days eating in pubs entirely by myself. And then the day before Boris Johnson, the prime minister announced the lockdown, I thought that this is, need to go home. This is the wrong thing to be doing on a public journey like this to be essentially endorsing, breaking the social distancing. So I had this strange journey. I was the only one on the train. When I walked home from the train station, it was not no one but foxes and then like everyone else I just took all the months of lockdown being trapped inside which was you know it made it even more acute to suddenly go from yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Jonathan Thomas (50:03) Yeah, right. Yeah, after all that walking and all that being outside just to be cooped up inside, I imagine that one is much harder than a lot of us dealt with. ⁓ Quintin (50:14) It felt it, yeah. Jonathan Thomas (50:16) So then, but then you were able to finish the walk once the lockdowns lifted. Quintin (50:19) Yes. So then it was the gap between the first lockdown and the second lockdown. So there was an immense sense of time pressure. yeah, because I only finished, I actually only finished two days before the second lockdown. So I could have been stuck again. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (50:26) Like, oh, it gets done. Wow. So this is also kind of into the weeds, but what was your typical daily routine on the trail? Like how many hours did you typically walk versus working to photograph? Quintin (50:48) Okay, so it averaged out at 25 kilometres a day walking. The longest day was about 45 kilometres. The shortest day in the hardest terrain like Knoydart would be about eight kilometres. And I would tend to walk from dawn to dusk, which in the summer would be hugely long time and in the winter would be less time. And then I would sort of allow for about three to four hours of photography a day. But that it did vary in that some days were. Jonathan Thomas (51:07) Yeah. Quintin (51:16) super inspiring visually and I wouldn't cover so much distance. And I would, did a lot of walking at night. I quite enjoy that because I'd put my head torch on. I wouldn't have to worry about taking photos. I could just walk. It felt like a kind of break. Obviously I was missing things, but that happens on a journey like this. And then days where it was stormy or very bad weather, I was struggling to get two minutes of photography. So it kind of balanced out. And then I take a rest day every five days. And then that gave me a bit of leeway so I could like eat into that sometimes or push that rest day. every day I planned to walk, I had to walk because of booking train tickets. Jonathan Thomas (51:58) Was there any point where you had a day where you photographed something and you're like, the photograph just isn't right, I'm gonna stay and get it right the next day, or did you just keep plowing? Quintin (52:09) I just kept plowing on them. At the beginning, I thought I sometimes consider that kind of thing, but I mean, it is frustrating if there's something which is spectacular, ⁓ say Durdle Door in the South Coast, it's this beautiful rock arch. I was there and the light was not good at all. And ⁓ I was tired. I just wasn't in the zone. The pictures were not a success. And I did consider, should I camp? Should I wait? But I mean, I think... Jonathan Thomas (52:21) Yeah. Quintin (52:36) I think a journey like this, some days everything aligns, you're inspired, the light is right, everything's perfect. Sometimes you can't capture everything. So I soon learned to just kind of go with the flow, with the weather more. But that said, I made my own luck if I'd often camp near. So there's a photograph of the Minack Theater, which is an open air theater in Cornwall. That's kind of really incredible. And I camped near there for the night before so I could photograph it in the evening light, in dusk, at night, and then the next morning. Jonathan Thomas (52:56) Yeah. Quintin (53:06) So I had kind of like five different light conditions, one was the dusk one was really successful. So that's something you could do as a photographer walking like this to kind of make it more likely you're going to get something good. That one's in the book. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. So yeah, but that's sort of where I go. This is amazing. I really want to capture this. So I would adjust the day to try and camp near that. Jonathan Thomas (53:18) And that one's in the book. ⁓ It's very good. So well done. So, are there any places you discovered along the way that you have since returned to or plan or really want to return to? Quintin (53:41) ⁓ I have returned to Knoydart. I led a course out there ⁓ as an instructor. I just really love that. I've been back to the Yorkshire coast, Cleveland. I walked the Cleveland way. ⁓ I go on holiday to Cornwall with my family every year. I still love Cornwall. I think Northumberland would be somewhere that triggered something in me I want to explore more of. as a next reunion. whenever I travel by train in Britain, you nearly always end up by a coast. Everywhere is nostalgic because I've sort of been to all of it. whenever I'm on the train, I look on the map, on the Ordnance Survey map, and all the memories of when I was there last kind of flow over me. Jonathan Thomas (54:33) and you could do a whole book on Northumberland alone. You're like, don't tempt me. Quintin (54:36) You could, you could, yeah. Yeah. Jonathan Thomas (54:41) So, after completing this epic journey, what's next for you? Do you have another ambitious big project or are done with 11,000 mile walks? Quintin (54:51) No, after I finished, because it took five years to walk it and five years to edit it. It's been a 10 year journey, but only five years was physical. So the last three years I've competed all the national trails, the 16 national trails of Britain. And currently I'm about halfway through climbing and camping on the top of all the mountains of England and Wales. There's 442 mountains and I'm doing it in the same way as the perimeter. So train station, beginning and end. four or five days with tent and food, camping up really kind of somewhere high, taking some pictures and getting to understand. This one's really fascinating because there's no official way to do this. So I'm just kind of figuring out, joining mountains together on the map and then figuring out where it leads me. mean, this is just a map of the mountain region. So most of the mountains are in Wales and then North England and then they're grouped. it's just, I mean, all these journeys are. just an excuse to discover interesting things. And often the most interesting things aren't the top of the mountain, it's the pub the person you meet on the way there. That's why I like these kind of list things. It's not like kind of list ticking thing. It's just a means to explore something new and give it some structure. Jonathan Thomas (56:08) Well, if your publisher is watching, they better make books about the national trails and the mountain thing too, because I'm sure they're going to be great. So ⁓ that brings us to the end of our conversation with Quintin Lake and his extraordinary 11,000 kilometer journey around the coast of Britain. I want to thank Quintin for sharing his insights, challenges and discoveries and his remarkable adventure. Your photographs truly capture the soul of Britain's diverse coastline from its wild, untamed spaces to its industrial heritage. Quintin (56:16) Thank you. Jonathan Thomas (56:38) The Perimeter, a photographic journey around Britain. Hold it up, Quintin, is available now from Hutchinson and Heinemann. It's not just a beautiful coffee table book, but a testament to human endurance, artistic vision, and a deep love for the landscape that define Britain. So we will put links in the show notes to Quintin's social media and for the book and everything. And thank you so much for joining us on the Anglotopia Podcast, Quintin. Quintin (56:42) Stay a shook. Thanks, Jonathan, it's been great, thank you. Jonathan Thomas (57:03) Thank you.