The Manchester Rambler

"The Manchester Rambler", also known as "I'm a Rambler" and "The Rambler's Song", is a song written by the English folk singer Ewan MacColl. It was inspired by his participation in the Kinder trespass, a protest by the urban Young Communist League of Manchester, and was the work that began MacColl's career as a singer-songwriter.

Since the 1950s, the song has become a standard among folk musicians, as it was for MacColl himself. It has been covered many times, including by The Dubliners and The Houghton Weavers. It has been sung both in clubs and in the open air on a variety of occasions, including at Kinder Downfall in 2009 when Kinder was designated as a National Nature Reserve.

The Kinder mass trespass was a deliberate act of civil disobedience (the law of trespass having already been repealed) by men of the Young Communist League of Manchester, and others from Sheffield. The protest was intended to secure free access to England's mountains and moorlands. The 'ramblers', led by Benny Rothman, walked from Bowden Bridge Quarry, near Hayfield to climb the hill called Kinder Scout in the Derbyshire Peak District on 24 April 1932. A young man called James Henry Miller, better known as Ewan MacColl, was a keen rambler and an enthusiastic member of the Young Communist League. He played a major part in organising the publicity for the trespass, duplicating and handing out leaflets, though this role is disputed. He took part in the trespass, and was shocked by the violent reaction of the gamekeepers who met the ramblers on the hill, and the extremely harsh sentences handed down by the magistrates to the five ramblers who were arrested that day. What MacColl did not know was that the protest was to have a powerful long-term effect, leading to improved access to the countryside in the shape of national parks (from 1949), long-distance footpaths starting with the Pennine Way (opened in 1965) and various forms of the desired 'right to roam' (such as with the CRoW Act, 2000).

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