A fortnight or so ago, my two teenage kids and I set out on a three-night visit to the Peak District where temperatures were hovering at a comparatively tepid 28C. We stayed at a youth hostel – more of which in a moment – and began the trip with the 20-minute ascent of Mam Tor, a modest peak that pulls in both dedicated ramblers who then yomp along the ridge beyond, and newbies who mostly want to get to the top and immerse themselves in the jaw-dropping view.

The next bit might sound self-parodically Guardian-esque, but what the hell: in its own way, the most striking sight was the diversity of the scores of people rambling up, down and along. Women in their 20s wearing hijabs picnicked on giant rocks, while multiracial gaggles of young men attempted to race to the top; solo and shirtless white fitness freaks and retirement-age dog walkers took their places alongside them. With plenty of justification, country walking has long been typified as one of the most monoculturally white pursuits there is. But here – presumably because of the relatively close proximity of Manchester and Sheffield – things looked different.

The scenes didn’t quite suggest Britain in microcosm, but they weren’t far off. I began to wonder, in fact, whether I was witnessing the (extremely) belated next emancipatory phase of a story that began with the mass trespass at the nearby Kinder Scout in 1932, led by the Jewish anti-fascist Benny Rothman: the protest in which hundreds of men and women defied the law to walk on privately owned Derbyshire hills and moorland. Five of them received prison sentences, but the way was thereby opened to the creation of the UK’s first national parks.

The latter-day people and organisations working to make walking more inclusive – in response to national statistics that remain depressing, and often in the face of straight-up prejudice – surely deserve as much praise as Rothman and his comrades. Black Girls Hike was founded in 2019 by the brilliant Mancunian Rhiane Fatinikun, aimed........

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