KEMPSTON HARDWICK The secret diary of B ed ford shi re’s g rea t est a d vent u rer Story | Kempston Hardwick
Illustration | Dan Milner
Kempston Hardwick is a keen-as-mustard-adventurer and dad, in that order. Old enough to remember when car interiors smelt of petrol, Hardwick defies his rapidly amassing years by seeking outdoor recreation, and the mind-expanding escape from domesticity it offers at every
opportunity. His irrepressible readiness to embrace al-fresco challenges has delivered him with worldly-wise opinions that he applies to every turn in life, whether bagging Munros or browsing the organic frozen pizza aisle of Waitrose. He sports a curiosity-of-self that’s akin to most adventurers, something that is largely attributed to Tipi-dwelling holidays on Anglesey with his carefree parents. It is believed he was named after the place where he was conceived, a disused railway station somewhere in Bedfordshire. He is good friends with Dan Milner.
Part 3: On Trend
A
couple of weeks ago, with a big mountain bike ride into
So I love the fact that every life experience, every tiny hint
the great outdoors looming, I decided to work on my
of adventure’s rewards, is deserving of the most magnificent
that if I replaced the term ‘work on’ with ‘dial-in’ then it all
incredibly amazing that hyperbole has never before found a
bike. It was a task that I wasn’t relishing. That is, until I realised
sounded a whole lot more attractive. As in I’ll ‘dial-in’ my ride. I even verbalised it, out loud, so Kate could both hear me and
be impressed with my taking back control. Kaboom! Suddenly
the irksome prospect of a tedious hour wielding a set of Allenkeys instantly became an ‘Exciting Opportunity to Hone my Cockpit Set-up’.
And so I dived in, unleashing a whirlwind of enthusiasm
fuelled by the kind of doublespeak that would make Orwell proud. It was deep. Heck I even missed Line of Duty while
Freeing Up some Real Estate on my Handlebars. Okay, I’m not sure why adjusting my brake lever positions is Freeing Up Real
and creative word re-purposing. Our adventurous lives are so
more deserving home in which to gestate. When I contemplate the immersive experiences offered by the protagonist that
is the big outdoors, I know the payback is worth scaling a paywall of pain for. And I also know that payback is a million
times better if it has been enveloped in a literal, re-focussed curation of our efforts. Know what I mean? C’mon, I know
you do. We’re on the same page, right? We’re cohabiting this
moment. Together. We love jargon. Jargon is powerful. Jargon
slingshots the trivial into the upper echelons of emotional connectivity. Doesn’t it?
Sometimes I even call my friends ‘operatives’ when I reach
Estate, or why I’d want more ‘Real Estate’ on my handlebars, but
out to them to share a ramble or a paddle. It just seems to
knows about this stuff. And it seemed catchy and appropriate
and a more earnest engagement. And engagement is good, isn’t
I’d just read the term in a bike magazine, written by someone who
and, well… it made the job more purposeful. More empowering. And I love that.
I really love the way our world of adventure is so positively
emphatic. Truly. Life is good and adventures are even good-er, especially when empowered by jargon. If you’re like me, you live
and breathe adventure. And as today’s adventurers we are lucky people; surely there is no other demographic whose self-focussed acts of reward-seeking are so encouraged and emboldened by creative terminology. Unlike our predecessors who squinted
nervously through blizzards or puffed with uncertainty over
demanding peaks in the hope of a mere sniff of adventure, we, the people, now literally own our adventures. 48
fit and gives our jaunt redefined purpose, or at least a deeper it? And now my fellow adventure operatives and I roll out the
jargon together, ring-fencing a buoyant raft of cool-speak and deploying it in our quest to summit our individual endorphin peaks. It all seems so symbiotic. When we’re wild-swimming
in the River Avon or bartering for prayer flags in Pokhara we’re not just adventuring, but are exploring the very fabric of our emotional drives. Okay we’re all out there doing our own thing, pushing our own individual envelopes individually
(but with space to grow) but simultaneously we’re all on the same page, brokering the same visceral experiences during our
outdoor moments of magic-me-time - or memory gestation productivity (MGP) as I like to call it.
