FORMER gamekeeper turned naked eco-warrior Walter Tickner has turned his attention to the mystery of the vanishing footpath.

Sixty-three-year-old Mr Tickner, who bared all to save Slate Meadow in Bourne End, is battling to prove that the public footpath has been swallowed up by Harleyford Golf Course.

Mr Tickner gained notoriety when he stripped naked, hiding his modesty with just a small tin foil food tray.

He led dozens of robe-wearing Bourne End and Wooburn residents in a protest at proposals to build homes on the meadow.

Now he has turned his attention to the footpath on his old stomping ground between Marlow and Medmenham.

He claims the existing footpath from Hooks Farm Cottage to the A4155 continued south on the opposite side of the road down to East Lodge.

Bosses of the Harleyford Estate say this is nonsense and there had never been a public footpath south of the Henley Road.

Mr Tickner, now of Brookfield Road, Wooburn Green, says he worked as a gamekeeper on the estate for 35 years and is not mistaken.

Mr Tickner said: "I was born in a house in the woods opposite.

"The footpath has always been there, even during the war. There was a gate and a stile and the path went all the way down to East Lodge and to the river.

"During the war they took the sign down to collect the metal. After the war a couple of RAF boys got drunk and pulled the sign off and it was never put back right. Now there is a gate and they have planted trees right through the middle."

But Nick Folley, a director of the estate who has also lived on it all his life, said: "There never was a path there. People might have walked across. It's been a golf course for six years.

"I cannot speak for the war years but, as far as I am aware, there has not been public access down there for 40 years."

Ted Swan, Ramblers' Association organiser for Wycombe district, said he was not aware of a southern path.

He said that, if a path was not on the 1950s definitive footpath map held at Buckinghamshire County Council, it would be difficult to prove it existed.

"People do forget about paths. We have lost a lot of paths in the area over the years," he added.

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