You will love Lakeland more and more with growing familiarity – the sincerest test of affection – and you will find it equally charming at all seasons. I hope you continue to enjoy your expeditions to the hills, for no experiences are more rewarding. Every day on the tops is different from all others, whether you seek beauty, excitement, lovely views or merely exercise; every day has its individual memories. Even the soakings and weariness and bad moments are pleasant in retrospect!
Thank you for finding the time and taking the trouble to write to me. It was nice of you to do this.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Fancy meeting 31 people on a day’s walk over High Street! I didn’t see that many in two years … by the way, that was a fine walk you did – Shipman Knotts to Loadpot Hill, and a commendable performance indeed. The family must be tough! I should have had to turn back at Nan Bield.
In May 1964, AW heard from the son of an old, though more senior colleague from his Blackburn days. Norman Hamm had been senior accountant, later the Borough Treasurer. Alas he survived only a couple of years in that post, dying in 1952, aged fifty-one. His son Roderick Hamm went on to have a distinguished career in local government, becoming Town Clerk of South Ribble Borough. In his letter to AW he reminisced about his father and the Blackburn office.
LETTER 69: TO RODERICK HAMM, 7 MAY 1964
Municipal Offices, Kendal
7th May 1964
Dear Mr Hamm,
It was a great to surprise to receive your letter, and a pleasure too. Thank you for your kind remarks.
Very vaguely I seem to remember hearing of your schooling at Sedbergh, but the last twenty years are a void so far as news of your family is concerned.
Your letter has recalled for me an event that I think must have contributed to the idea of writing a series of pictorial guides. I remember saying farewell to your father as he left the office on the Saturday I finished work at Blackburn, but within a few minutes he returned to give me a book he had just bought for twopence on a second-hand book stall in the market Hall. It was an ancient but handsome volume entitled ‘Swiss Pictures in Pen and Pencil’. I still have it. This was a book of drawings of mountain scenes and I think it may have been this that first planted the germ of the idea in my head. Alas, I was never able to tell him so!
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
AW had taken a camera out on the fells from his earliest walks and used his photographs when working on his Guides – not copying them, but as an aide memoir. He used a cheap camera and the results were not very good. He was always very disappointed when he got them back from the local chemist, so from about 1950 onwards he started taking them to a local photographer in Kendal, Ken Shepherd. He specialised in weddings and portraits, but he had his own dark room. AW got him to make prints for him and also enlargements. Percy is Percy Duff, AW’s office colleague, Deputy Borough Treasurer.
LETTER 70: TO KEN SHEPHERD, 1 FEBRUARY 1965
Municipal Offices, Kendal
1st Feb 1965
Dear Mr Shepherd,
59 negatives from my expeditions to Caledonia in 1964 are enclosed. I should be greatly obliged if you would kindly make 6” × 4” semi-matt enlargements from these, as before, in accordance with the marked prints also enclosed. At your convenience, of course.
MAY:
Spean bridge, Mallaig, Kyle, Inverness, Braemar + Edinburgh Mainly cold and wet, with heavy rainstorms
AUGUST:
Spean Bridge, Mallaig, Kyle, Inverness, Helmsdale, Melrose. Mainly bright, but with cold strong winds.
Most of the best of the pictures were taken from moving trains on the west Highland Railway.
Percy tells me you are not quite OK at present. I hope you are soon fit and well again.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
With Bob Alker, an old friend and colleague from Blackburn – who had moved to Preston where he became area accountant for NORWEB – he was a lot saucier, reverting to the style of his office magazine. There was still no mention of Ruth, but a lot of suggestive remarks about his sex life, or lack of it.
LETTER 71: TO BOB ALKER, UNDATED, 1965
Dear Bob,
I am a little ashamed to note that your letter, to which this is a reply, was dated as long ago as Sep. 10th, but you cannot expect priority on the strength of past acquaintance (now if you’d been a soft, juicy woman it would have been different). What happens is that I maintain a cairn of unanswered letters on my desk and when it collapses I answer one and build the rest up again. In fact you have been fortunate. I know there are some in the heap dated 1963 and 1964 still awaiting attention, but, of course, none from women, who form the majority of my correspondents. It is my ingrained gallantry (which you remarked in earlier years) that makes me give them immediate attention, nothing else. I offer them no inducements (as a rule), but they keep coming running back for more. All I need to comment is that my knowledge of women’s anatomy is derived purely from hearsay, and they cling like leeches. I like them clinging like leeches. I always did.
Well, thank you for all your kind comments. It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t say they are well deserved. Last time I heard anything about you, you were dying, so that I am doubly pleased to hear from you and to learn that you had started fellwalking. Good lad! After fifty wasted years! You must look out for me – a tall, distinguished-looking figure (to quote one source) recognisable by the long tail of females straggling along behind. How they all hate each other! It’s funny, really.
Two pages is as much as any male correspondent gets from me. If you want to write again and expect an earlier and fuller reply, get your missus to write instead and address me as ‘Dear Alf’.
You have been warned
AW
A popular topic in letters to AW was the mountain top cairns. AW usually described them in detail in his Pictorial Guides, but of course as the years went on, they were not always as he described – or even still there.
In 1966, Eric Hargreaves, a maths teacher at Cockermouth Grammar School and chairman of the Cockermouth Mountain Rescue team, wrote to him about the Dale Head cairn being damaged.
LETTER 72: TO ERIC HARGREAVES, 19 JULY 1966
c/o Westmorland Gazette, Kendal
19th July 1966
Dear Mr Hargreaves,
I must thank you for your letter, even though it did bring me the sad news of the fate of the Dale Head Cairn. This is a shocking thing to have happened. The cairn was one of the best in the district, and built by a craftsman. It was far too soundly constructed to suffer from the weather and no gale could have brought it down. The only explanation is that it has been deliberately wrecked.
There must have been some maniac about with a dislike of well-built cairns. The same thing happened to the cairns on Pike o’ Blisco and Lingmell, both outstandingly well built, but these two have been restored by willing hands. Perhaps some working party will do the same for Dale Head.
Sorry news, but thanks for letting me know.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Mr Hargreaves wrote again, this time about the stretcher box on Pillar, as described and illustrated in Book 7, the Western Fells, page Pillar 11 (just published in 1966). AW rarely apologised for anything in his books but he was beginning to realise that objects would not always stay the way were.
LETTER 73: TO MR HARGREAVES, 16 DECEMBER 1966
c/o Westmorland Gazette, Kendal
16th December 1966
Dear Mr Hargreaves,
I am writing (belatedly!) to thank you for your letter of 9th November about the stretcher box on Pillar and to apologise for my long delay in replying – not due, I assure you, to a lack of appreciation of your kindness in putting me in the picture.
Well, of course, the collapse of the box on Shamrock Traverse illustrates the perils of guide book writing – nothing that man does can be relied upon to stay put. Rather oddly, though, when one of yo
ur members (Colin Greenhow?) told me of the placing of the box originally, I expressed the opinion that the foot of the Rock would seem to me a better place since people face down, not up.
Yes, of course, the implications of the vanished box (which I described as a landmark to look for) could be serious to newcomers relying on my notes, and I hope nobody falls down Walkers Gully looking for it. If they do the new site of the second box will be singularly appropriate. In the circumstances, since the fault is mine and not yours, it seems an uncommonly generous intention on your part to pinpoint the place by affixing an explanatory tablet. When I can find time I must either re-write my notes or add an erratum to say that things are not as they were when the book was written.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Larry Skillman of Sevenoaks, Kent, also wrote to AW about the Western Fells – and suggested that AW should now turn his attention to Wales. AW wasn’t keen, but he did say he was working on the Pennine Way and also, unusually, revealed what his real job was.
LETTER 74: TO LARRY SKILLMAN, 13 DECEMBER 1966
c/o Westmorland Gazette, Kendal
13th December 1966
Dear Mr Skillman,
Thank you for your exceedingly kind letter. I appreciate greatly your very generous comments, and am only too sorry that my long delay in replying may have suggested otherwise. I was interested, too, to read of your preferences for the Western and Southern fells, but hope that when you make your intended long visit next summer you will find time to take a look at some of the other districts, especially, perhaps, Blencathra and High Street, which, even at the height of the tourist season, retain much of the loneliness and solitude that constitutes much of their appeal.
Snowdonia has never had the same attraction for me as the Lakes. I concede that the Welsh mountains are grander; but the trees, the lovely valleys, the colours and the dialect of the natives of Lakeland are all contributory to its particular charm. Several people have, in fact, suggested that I turn my attention to north Wales, but the urge is missing and I doubt now whether my legs could stand the effort. The Pennine Way, on the other hand, is very easy (as far as gradients are concerned) and I am enjoying it greatly.
My day-to-day work for the past 46 years has been in local government, and for the last 18 I have been Borough Treasurer of Kendal.
Thank you again for writing. It was nice of you to find the time and take the trouble to do this.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
With all the Pictorial Guides now published, and proving enormously popular, there came an inevitable if minor backlash. Several Lake District experts worried that he was attracting too many visitors to the Lakes, the popular paths would soon become eroded, all these newcomers, the amateur walkers, would probably cause accidents to themselves and each other.
AW got particularly incensed by criticism attributed to John Wyatt, who had become the National Park’s first warden in 1960, and was now the Head Warden and also author of several guide books to the Lakes.
Mr Wyatt’s criticism was reported in the Westmorland Gazette sometime in 1966, and AW sat down to write a strongly worded Letter to the Editor. He retained a carbon copy of the letter – but it is not clear if in fact he ever sent it.
LETTER 75: TO THE WESTMORLAND GAZETTE, 1966?
Dear Sir,
During a long life I must have read statements more stupid than those attributed to Mr Wyatt in your paper, but I cannot bring them to mind. To say, as he appears to do, that my guidebooks to the Lakeland fells are the cause of countless accidents and are potential killers is really too ridiculous to warrant a reply, but I have been persuaded by indignant readers of his remarks to answer his accusations.
Having regard to the position he holds, My Wyatt must surely know that fellwalking involves rough scrambling, and the joy of it is to get up off the tarmac roads and find excitement and adventure and beauty along the stony tracks and in the lonely places amongst the hills.
Accidents occur, not because of ‘out-of-date’ guidebooks but because some walkers do not watch where they are putting their feet. Out of date? They will be out of date when the hills are out of date.
I claim that my books have often saved people from benightment and injury, and that there would be more incidents without them.
Does his criticism also extend to the Ordnance Survey maps, which also show the footpaths, and to the guidebooks of other writers? If not, why not?
Really, Mr Wyatt, Give fellwalkers credit for common sense. They are not lemmings!
Part 8
The Pennine Way, 1965–8
In May 1965, AW decided to use four researchers to help with a book he was planning on the Pennine Way. He wanted them to go ahead and walk a particular stretch of the route which he would then cover.
One of the researchers was Len Chadwick of Dobcross near Oldham with whom he had been in correspondence a few year earlier (see Letters 61–4) When it was suggested to him, Len was immediately very keen, and was willing to do it for free, but wanted to involve other members of his walking club KS (Kindred Spirits). AW was against this, saying it should be done alone, sending exact instructions on what to do and what to look out for.
LETTER 76: TO LEN CHADWICK, 12 MAY 1965 (PLUS INSTRUCTIONS)
12 May 1965
Dear Mr Chadwick,
Thank you for your letter and poems, which latter I now return.
All the Pennine Way stuff is here, so if you are rarin’ to go you can make a start. Instructions are enclosed.
I note you suggest this is a job the K.S. can do as a party, but in my opinion it should be done without distractions by one man travelling slowly and alone.
I will expect to hear from you around Christmas.
Yours sincerely
AWainwright
A PICTORIAL GUIDE TO THE PENNINE WAY
Collaborators
Sections
Mr Len Chadwick, of Oldham
Edale to Todmorden–Halifax road
Mr Lawrence W. Smith, of Bradford
Todmorden-Halifax road to Malham Tarn
Mr Harry Appleyard, of Wigton
Tan Hill Inn to Cross Fell summit Mr Cyril Moore, of Morecambe Cross Fell summit to Kirk Yetholm
(A. Wainwright will do the middle section, Malham Tarn to Tan Hill Inn)
INSTRUCTIONS
A complete set of two and a half inch maps for your section is enclosed. On them, Mr Moore has indicated the course of the Pennine Way by a faint green line, according to the best information available to him. Also enclosed are the related 1 inch maps in the latest editions, which indicate the Pennine Way.
The line of the Way is to be checked carefully. Where there is no evidence on the ground (by signpost or distinct path), the approved route should be verified, if necessary, from other sources – by the various official publications on the subject, by local ramblers’ associations or the local authority for the area, or by the farmers over whose ground the route passes. Doubts will arise in only a few places, as a complete right of way has now been established. Where a certain amount of discretion is left to the walker, such as in crossing a pathless moor, the best line should be worked out. Where there are ‘official’ variations, as with the start at Edale, all variations should be given the full treatment, as below.
The plan is to indicate on the two and a half inch maps the nature of the course to be followed. Where the way lies along a motor-road, an unbroken black line should be used _______; where the path is clear underfoot, a broken line ------; where the path is intermittent, a line of dots .......... These must be indicated neatly on the maps provided, in black waterproof Indian ink.
It is not intended in the book to give detail more than a hundred yards on each side of a well-defined path, but where there is discretion a wider area will need to be detailed. Objects of interest in the vicinity of the Way, say within a mile, such as Roman Camps, tumuli, good viewpoints, waterfalls, etc, will be mentioned and thes
e items numbered to agree with numbers written on the two and a half inch maps at the appropriate places. Apart from the classifications of the footpaths as mentioned in the previous paragraphs, and these reference numbers, no other markings should be made on the maps.
Please return the completed two and a half inch maps, the list of notes of interesting places, the 1 inch maps, and any correspondence collected on doubtful matter, by Christmas 1965. A.W. will then go over all the ground, a bit at a time, during 1966 and 1967. Publication date: Easter 1968.
The Wainwright Letters Page 14