Sussex based rights-of-way charity pays tribute to founder who passed away at 101: The Monday Group’s Harold Rowling had a ‘buccaneering approach to life’

Harold Rowling of the Monday Group died in October at age 101.

The Monday Group, an organisation of volunteers, builds and maintains stiles and other wooden structures on public footpaths in the Sussex countryside.

In ‘A Tribute to Harold Rowling MBE (1922-2023)’, the group said Harold ‘was of the war time generation’ with a ‘buccaneering approach to life’.

They said: “He was a real character, capable, self-assured, very much a ‘can-do’ person. He abhorred bureaucracies and ‘pen-pushing’ with a vengeance. He emerged from the war with a first-class degree in engineering and knowledge and experience of engineering from his RAF service in India. He settled in Westmeston, where he built his own house on a plot in Underhill Lane, and brought up a family of five girls with his wife, Pam.

“He courted Pam in the war years while studying in London, thinking nothing of regularly cycling from London to Lewes and back to see her. His trips involved dodging wartime restrictions in a clandestine way that typified his defiance of authority and characterised his independence.”

The group said Harold had a successful career as an engineer with Shell. After his wife expressed disappointment about not being about to take their dogs for a walk on the Downs due to wartime footpath closures, Harold decided to open up the footpath network around Ditchling and Hassocks.

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The Monday Group said Harold started on his own by laying a concrete path through North End, Westmeston, before a gathering a team of volunteers.

The group said: “When retirement allowed, it became routine to work on Mondays, hence the ‘Monday Group’. The Monday Group pioneers were a hardy and resourceful group, undaunted by obstacles and challenges. They designed constructed and installed bridges stiles and other structures and hacked relentlessly away at scrub and thorny undergrowth to reveal the local rights of way network and ensure its accessibility to all.”

The group said the organisation grew into a number of teams with Harold ‘deciding key matters in his kitchen’.

“Harold also invested his skills and experience into developing and refining the designs of the structures, particularly stiles,” they said. “He established a tradition of working only in green oak as being durable, locally sourced (well before environmental sustainability was an issue of popular debate) and integrated aesthetically into the rural landscape.”

Harold continued developing stile design into his 90s, stepping down from his leading role in 2018 at age 96.

The group said Harold had ‘a ready, dry wit and a wry, often mischievous sense of humour’. They added that he was ‘ahead of his time in recognising the social benefits of volunteering, of working as a team in the outdoors, often in challenging conditions, and requiring significant physical effort’.

The Monday Group said: “His legacy is the enjoyment of countless walkers over the years, and many years to come of the paths the Monday Group have made and will make accessible, the moments of wonder and exhilaration enjoyed by many in our beautiful countryside, and the secure future of the unique heritage of our rights of way network, the envy of walkers from far and wide. Harold’s influence and legacy will be deeply felt for many years.”