Nina Lyon reviews:. We were right: we hit some trees where the houses of the village petered out and walked on into a clearing, mesmerised at the quiet of a place a few miles from central London. Here, you might be anywhere: the meadow was on a gentle southward incline fringed by trees, and, while archetypally English, did not betray the background thrum of the city surrounding it. We stopped and rolled a spliff. A man walked by with a dog; he was nicely dressed and rather handsome. Another man crossed the meadow, with a friend not far behind.
How convivial, we agreed, that people should meet in quiet unchatty ease like this. A further passing man gave us an odd look.
It is interspersed with tales from his lifelong relationship with Epping Forest, which, true to the nature memoir canon, provides a sanctuary and a place for open exploration of some of the darker and more covert influences on his state of mind.
Tugged towards impulsive sex with strangers at the cost of maintaining an emotional and sexual connection with the women he loves, Turner goes out into the woods to look inwards at how he got to be that way. My friend and I returned from our adventure on the Heath amused by the novelty of cottaging, and gave it little more thought. It makes a compelling account of the insidious power of shame in shaping a developing sexuality into something primed for secrecy and danger, and how that in turn dismantles otherwise good relationships.
And, while the forest has its outlaws and its cruising spots, it provides an outlet for physical exertions that no small-town conservative or religious hardliner could take issue with.
