Climbing the Down,

in June 1983.

Pausing for breath halfway up, you look east along Watership Down. From chapter 18, 'Watership Down':       'They set out up the hillside, going slowly, picking their way from one bush and tussock to another and pausing continually to sniff and stare along the great expanse of grass, which stretched on either side as far as they could see. A man walks upright. For him it is strenuous to climb a steep hill, because he has to keep pushing his own vertical mass upwards and cannot gain momentum. The rabbit is better off. His forelegs support his horizontal body and the great back legs do the work.... The rabbits' anxieties and strain in climbing the down were different, therefore, from those which you, reader, will experience if you go there.'

By 1982 Watership Down had sold over 5,000,000 copies, and that’s just in English. It had already been translated into twenty languages, though not Lapine. The title gives translators nightmares: downs are peculiar to southern England and they have to translate ‘down’ as the rather more generic ‘hill’. Me? Live on Watership Hill? I think not….

You pause to catch your breath and to savour the experience of following in the rabbits pawfall. You really can 'see the whole world from here.', When you have recovered a bit we can continue the climb to the top, when you are ready of course. The film takes the whole thing at a much greater pace and wonderful it is too but I think we had better take our time. Incidentally the track on the 1978 film soundtrack entitled 'Climbing the Down' isn't - it is actually the almost identical reprise used for the epilogue.