A COUPLE of weeks ago my wife and I went to Shropshire for a few days to have a look around the industrial archaeology of the area and to wander around a few places we’d never been before, which is always part of the fun of a holiday.

I recommend Bridgenorth and the Apley Farm Shop: a great steam railway and some lovely chutney.

When we’re away we like to buy guidebooks and we like to follow trails and that’s how we found ourselves on the Silkin Way walking from Madeley to Ironbridge through the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.

On each marker post there were details of lots of the trails including the aforementioned ones but also the Coronation Trail and the South Telford Way.

Indeed, it was the South Telford Way (or something like that: I can’t quite remember what it said on the marker post) that we suddenly found ourselves on as we veered away from the Silkin Way.

Oh well, they’ll all lead to the same place, I told myself, unconvincingly.

I’ve got another name for the South Telford Way: the Lots of Mud Way. You know how it is when you’re on a glorious walk round Worsbrough Res and suddenly, even though it’s a clear day and it hasn’t rained for a while, you’re suddenly up to your eyes in mud. Mud everywhere. Proper Yorkshire mud, of course, but still mud.

Well that’s how it was on the South Telford Way. I was at the front, pretending to be a scout leading some explorers and I kept turning to my wife and saying ‘there’s a little bit of mud ahead’ or ‘there’s just a small area of mud round here so be careful’ and eventually we had to admit that there was more mud than path and so we had to turn back to the Silkin Way to get away from the Shropshire Mud which is a bit like Yorkshire Mud but a lot less brussen, to use a Barnsley term.

The Silkin Way was mud-free and we kept seeing signs that pointed to Ironbridge so we knew that we were going the right way except, oddly, the distance to Ironbridge never really seemed to change; indeed sometimes it appeared to get further away.

The path suddenly narrowed. In pictorial terms, it turned from a kipper tie to a shoelace. There was hardly any room to put one foot in front of the other which, let’s face it, is most of the fun of walking.

‘Are we still on the right way?’ my wife asked, her voice a little muffled by the branches that were sweeping close to her face. I replied that I thought so because we’d definitely been following the signs, although it was true that we’d not seen a while.

A couple emerged from a wooded area that seemed to contain the path we were on. They were carrying armfuls of wild garlic which smelled fantastic. The man looked at me as though he’d never seen anybody walking on that particular path before.

‘Are you lost?’ he said. I shook my head, partly because being from Barnsley I never admit to being lost. ‘We’re just walking down to Ironbridge’ I said, cheerfully.

‘Well, you’re going the wrong way’ he said. He pointed to where we’d just been: ‘Ironbridge is that way.’ I was baffled, I said to him ‘But we’ve just walked from Madeley and Madeley is up there and I was convinced that Ironbridge was down there.’

‘Which side is the river on?’ the man asked, rhetorically. ‘On the right’ I replied, convinced I was, like the river, right. ‘You have to keep the river on the left’, he said, and he showed me a map on his phone and he was right.

We retraced our steps, crossed the river so that it was on the left, and eventually found Ironbridge just in time for some coffee and cake in a cafe.

I always try to learn lessons from everything that happens to me in the hope that I might become wise. It’s not happened yet, but I’ll keep trying. The thing I’ve learned from this encounter is, don’t be afraid to ask if you think you’re going the wrong way. Go against your Barnsley instincts and ask for directions from passers-by whether they’re carrying loads of wild garlic.

And always keep the river on your left. Unless it needs to be on the right.

I’m lost again.