One summer, Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way – a challenging 256-mile route usually approached from south to north, with the sun, wind and rain at your back. However, he resolved to tackle it back to front, walking home towards the Yorkshire village where he was born, travelling as a ‘modern troubadour’, without a penny in his pockets and singing for his supper with poetry readings in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms.

Walking Home describes his extraordinary, yet ordinary, journey of human endeavour, unexpected kindnesses and terrible blisters.

The companion volume, Walking Away, is published in June 2015.