The Old Railway Line

There’s an old railway line near my house which has been converted into a path. I walk the dog there every day.

It’s a little strip of countryside that runs through the middle of the town, and it’s used by everyone. Families with children in prams and pushchairs, joggers and runners, couples strolling hand in hand…

People ride horses and bikes down the track. Teenagers sit on the benches and chat, children run around on the grass, or play hide and seek among the trees, or kick a football at each other.

What’s interesting is nobody ever has ever said that this is what the path is for.

There are no signs with instructions on how to take a walk or play a game or simply enjoy the fresh air. Okay, there are signs saying motorbikes aren’t allowed and not to leave any dog waste, but that’s about it. There are only instructions on what not do. Nobody tells you to walk slowly in the sunshine, or to breathe in the scent of the balsam poplar, or to look out for the blossom on the trees.

There aren’t even any adverts telling you that the path is there. There have been no media campaigns encouraging people to go for a walk, no celebrity endorsements, no tee shirts, no merch. Nothing. I see adverts on TV all the time telling me that there is an exciting football match coming up, that I will feel moved by watching it and how drinking a certain brand of beer will maximise my enjoyment of the game. How people are able to find the path all by themselves and make good use of it without the resources of a marketing department is a mystery to me.

It reminds me of the bad old days when I started teaching. Parents would choose to send their children to a school by relying on word of mouth and looking at the exam results. By the time I finished we had a marketing manager on a higher salary than the teachers.

Okay, we had less money to spend on the children, but I think we can all agree it was money well spent. How else would parents know that year 11 played a game of football last week?

In my opinion, marketing is just a way of distracting people from what’s really worthwhile. Keep people’s eyes on glossy pictures and tweets and soundbites and they’ll walk right by the lovely footpaths just a few yards from their doorsteps.