Write again in 1980 and tell me the rowan is still there. Please!
Yours sincerely, with many thanks,
A Wainwright
In 1980, Tommy Orr sent another drawing and information to AW. By then, he was being inundated by sightings and reports. According to AW, ‘no single feature I have mentioned in my books has brought me more letters’.
LETTER 170: TO TOMMY ORR, 26 JANUARY 1980
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
Dear Mr Orr,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the graphic account of your New Year’s Day pilgrimage and the accompanying photographs and nail biting illustrations. What fortitude, what courage your party displayed in their determination to confirm the survival of my rowan! Congratulations to all, and especially the ageing cripples.
I am so touched by your devotion to the cause that I have sent off to the Editor of ‘Cumbria’ the 20-year saga of the rowan with two of your photos, ‘1970’ and ‘1980’, and demanded that he publishes it.
If any of your party are capable of submitting a report in 1990, please do so. I may have gone to the happy hunting grounds by then. But the rowan will still be there, bless it.
Yours gratefully,
A Wainwright.
In writing back to Trevor Davys, AW gave away his home address from the beginning – which was unusual.
LETTER 171: TO TREVOR DAVYS, 29 AUGUST 1970
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
29th August 1970
Dear Mr Davys,
I must beg forgiveness for what must seem a rather shocking neglect to reply to, or even acknowledge, your kind and very interesting letter of a month ago.
I appreciate your kind references to myself; the rest of your letter takes on the form of a brief autobiography to which my own experiences of life in relation to Lakeland are an answering chord, although the moment of ‘impact’ for me, happened forty years ago. I think you will find, as I did, that although the revelation comes suddenly it is no transient thing that passes away with familiarity, but an experience that recurs, fresh and vital as ever, each time acquaintance is renewed. I sacrificed something to live my life here, and it was the best move I ever made. It could be for you, too.
Thank you for finding the time and taking the trouble to write to me. It was nice of you to do this. I enjoyed reading your letter.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 172: TO TREVOR DAVYS, 5 MAY 1971
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
5th May 1971
Dear Mr Davys,
Thank you for your interesting letter and accompanying sketch.
First let me deal with your enquiry about Rake’s Progress on Scafell and tell you that it is no place for your 2 and a half year old daughter, although I have no doubt she would be game enough to try it. The Progress is a rock ledge, not quite continuous, running across the face of Scafell Crag at a higher level than the pedestrian route, which skirts the base of the crag. You have shown its course perfectly on your sketch. It starts exactly at the point where the Mickledore ridge abuts on Scafell. The pedestrian route here goes steeply down scree along the base of the cliffs; the Progress starts to climb broken ledges upwards to the right before trending down to run parallel to the pedestrian path and some fifty feet above it: the ground between the two is very steep but not vertical as is the crag above. At the far (west) end the Progress descends easier ground to join the pedestrian route. There are a few bad steps along it that rule it out for ordinary walkers, but climbers use this terrace to reach the start of some of the rock-climbs on the Crag. If I were you I would leave it alone.
I have amended your sketch to show the route normally taken up Lord’s Rake. The turn left you show is the West Wall Traverse, a refinement of the original way. Both routes are quite feasible, although extremely steep and rough. It would be as much as you could manage to look after yourself without having a young daughter in tow, so with reluctance I must advise you to let Lord’s Rake wait for a few more years – unless, of course, you have an opportunity of going there alone first to spy out the land. This area is tremendously exciting, and I can understand your eagerness to go there. I felt the same myself, long before the chance came. One other warning – don’t try to come down either West Wall traverse or the full length of Lord’s Rake before you have been up them. This was the mistake I made on my first visit: I reached the top of Scafell up the easy slope from Eskdale, couldn’t identify the head of Lord’s Rake and got into trouble looking for it.
I hope your Whitsuntide is a great success. I am sure it will be if you leave Scafell alone, but it could be a tragic non-success if you ventured there with a young child. She deserves commendation for getting as far as Kern Knotts but Scafell Crag is a much tougher proposition.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Trevor Davys, who lives in Nottingham, says he was grateful at the time to AW for his advice and warnings. ‘My 2 1/2-year-old daughter was Rebecca. She loved the Lake District and made her holidays there in later life. She got an MA in Library studies and read all AW’s books. Sadly she died aged thirty-seven.’
LETTER 173: TO JOHN BOOTH, 12 JUNE 1971
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
12 June 1971
Dear Mr Booth,
I am glad you have found my books helpful on your visits to the Lakes and the Penyghent area and I warmly appreciate all you say. I especially like your idea of the miniature ornamental cairns, and often wish I had brought home with me a single stone from every mountain summit I have visited, and neatly labelled and dated it. But if I had done this, the house would now be cluttered up with stones, so perhaps it is as well!
I assume, from the mention of your recent marriage, that you have almost a full lifetime of happy hill-wandering to look forward to and I hope you have a great many wonderful days on the mountains in the years that lie ahead. But you must go easy on the cairns. They take a lot of dusting!
Thank you again for finding the time and taking the trouble to write to me and doing it so nicely.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 174: TO JOHN BOOTH, 5 JULY 1971
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
Westmorland
5th July 1971
Dear Mr Booth,
There was a delightful surprise awaiting me upon my return the other day from a holiday in Wester Ross (which explains my delay in acknowledging it) – a replica of the Lingmell cairn, no less, and all in one piece. This gift was completely unexpected, and I assure you is greatly appreciated and will be treasured. It now stands on the edge of a high shelf in my room, so that I have to look up at it as I have looked up at so many cairns in my time. Up on the shelf, peeping over as though on the edge of a cliff, it gives the impression of being about a hundred yards distant, which is just right – I always really enjoyed the last hundred yards to any cairn: the hard work finished, the reward almost within reach. It is a splendid addition to my collection of mountain trophies, and I prize it highly. I look up at it often. It is an inspiration. Thank you so much for the kind thought.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
By his third letter back, AW was addressing the Booths as John and Odette, which was very personal. Mr Booth had tickled AW’s interest by sending him a replica cairn. He made them by taking small stones from the real cairns then gluing them together. He was very pleased to see in Memoirs of a Fellwanderer, published 1993, that on page 151 there is a photo of AW at home with his replica Lingmell cairn on the window sill behind him. It proved that AW was not simply being polite in his letters. Mr Booth worked all his life on the railways, starting as a signalman and finishing as a safety manager. During his years writing to AW, he moved from York, to Chester and to Reading, before retiring in Swindon.
LETTER 175: TO JOHN BOOTH, 11 JUNE 1972
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
Westmorland
11 June 1972
Dear John
and Odette,
Thank you for your letter. It was nice to hear from you again and to learn that you are still building cairns. The one you kindly sent me is still in prefect condition. Not a stone out of place or even loose! I see Lingmell every time I raise my eyes from my desk, however wet and misty it may be through the window. Incidentally, now that you have finished the Three Men of Gragareth I have another to suggest that will keep you occupied for months – Nine Standards, where there is a fine collection of cairns, the best I have ever seen. They are most impressive, and look like Stonehenge as you approach them. Trouble is, you would need a large mantelpiece to display them, and dusting would be a delicate operation. So perhaps you shouldn’t bother. But do go and look at them sometime. You know where they are – between Kirkby Stephen and Keld, and easily reached from the top of the Birkdale road.
I have just finished my book on the St. Bees–Robin Hood’s Bay walk, and thoroughly enjoyed it. This gave me my first introduction to the Cleveland Hills and the North Yorks Moors, which I found a delectable area, largely because most of my walking there coincided with the heather in bloom. I was there again a few weeks ago, to see the daffodils in Farndale and re-visit a few places that had specially appealed to me.
Thank you for your very kind invitation to visit you in your new bungalow. I do not see any early possibility of this, but perhaps if you were ever to report that the Nine Standards had now been repeated on top of your TV set I think I would simply have to call next time I was in your area!
Thank you again for keeping in touch.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 176: TO JOHN BOOTH, 10 APRIL 1973
c/o The Westmorland Gazette
KENDAL
10th April 1973
Dear Odette and John,
Thank you for your letter. It was a pleasure to hear from you again. Before I mention more mundane matters, let me say how pleased I was to hear your big news, although the arrival of the newcomer will certainly mean a stop to cairn-building and fellwalking for some time afterwards, but not, I hope, the end of these activities. You enjoy your expeditions too much, and they should be even more exciting with three in the party. Some proud new parents have reported from time to time that their offspring have bagged a peak before they could walk (carried on father’s back). So let’s set a target for you. Roseberry Topping (the Cleveland Matterhorn) before John Junior is a year old.
I had wondered whether you had ever taken me up on the Nine Standards idea, and am glad to learn that you did and that the work is proceeding well. Thank you for your invitation to call and see the masterpiece. I may just do that sometime when Junior is house-trained. My own Lingmell cairn, on the window-sill beside my desk, looks fine, with not a stone out of place.
LETTER 177: TO JOHN BOOTH, 26 MAY 1974
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
Westmorland
26th May 1974
Dear John,
Thank you for an interesting letter, and congratulations on being not the first but nearly the first to do the St Bees–Robin Hood’s Bay walk. I’m glad you enjoyed it. You probably had super weather conditions – it’s been a wonderful springtime – and it is rather a relief to learn that you did not encounter opposition at any stage except from the Moor House barbed wire. So did I when I was there, as a result of which I wrote to the County Clerk at Northallerton about this particular section and received the most solemn assurances that a through route would be established here and the farmers told of the right of way – obviously nothing has been done. It was clear to me at the time of my visit that nobody had used this right of way for donkeys years, an opinion confirmed by the farmer at Brompton Moor, to whom I spoke about it. Others who have done the walk have not reported any difficulty here and I had hoped that the County Clerk had been as good as his word. Apparently not. I haven’t been to York or its vicinity since last you wrote, but I bear in mind the wonderful array of cairns waiting to be inspected. One of these days! My own Lingmell cairn remains in pristine condition – not a stone loose or out of place.
Yours sincerely.
AWainwright
LETTER 178: TO JOHN BOOTH, 31 DECEMBER 1974
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
Westmorland
Dear John,
Thank you for your letter and kind references to the Scottish mountain book, I have taken all my holidays in the Highlands for donkeys years, latterly making three visits every year, in spring, summer and autumn, and, without doing too much walking, made myself very familiar with the terrain. These visits are proving the highlights of my retirement and I greatly look forward to them, especially now that I am working to a set plan of campaign. I envy you the experience that awaits you, of a first expedition, a first tour of those wonderful mountains north of the Border. The two cardinal rules to observe are, first, to get into Wester Ross and Sutherland, because the further north you go the greater is the reward, and, secondly, to keep to the west side rather than the east.
I must congratulate you on your promotion, although personally I would prefer York to Chester, but at least the move will bring within range a whole new series of mountains tops and a fresh decade of cairn-building, although I think it unlikely you will want to reproduce Snowdon’s highest inches, which looked quite a mess when I was last there a couple of years ago. However, I hope all goes well in the new job and that the added responsibility leaves you free to get out into the hills as much as ever.
The Lingmell cairn still adorns my desk and remains in pristine condition. Not a stone has fallen from it, not a stone is loose.
Thank you for repeating your kind invitation to me to drop in to see you someday. I rarely turn my face south, but perhaps I will someday. Chester is high on the list of places I must see when the call of the hills becomes less insistent, but, touching wood, that has not happened yet.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely
AWainwright
LETTER 179: TO JOHN BOOTH, 26 JANUARY 1976
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
26 January 1976
Dear John and Odette and Jamie,
I’m sorry that I cannot let you have a copy of WESTMORLAND HERITAGE. This was a strictly limited issue, one thousand copies only, and I was not even given a simple complimentary copy. In fact, all I have is a printer’s proof. You will be less disappointed when I tell you that the book was priced at 11.50!
Sorry to hear that cairn-building has come to a full stop, at least pending a change of environment. Nine Standards still awaits attention and is, I assure you, a much better subject than Ill Bell. My own Lingmell cairn still stands proudly on the window-sill above my desk, the perfect monument. Not a stone out of place. Not a stone even loose. Better than the original!
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 180: TO MR BISHOP, 7 MARCH 1974
c/o The Westmorland Gazette
KENDAL
7th March 1974
Dear Mr Bishop,
Thank you for your very kind letter, which deserved a more prompt reply but unfortunately was held up in the Gazette office and has only just reached me. Sorry about the delay!
I read of your travels from Coast to Coast with considerable interest, and especially so because yours is actually only the second letter I have had that reported completion of the walk, the first coming some months ago. This apparent lack of interest has surprised me, because I receive literally hundreds of letters a year from walkers who have done the Pennine Way. Maybe more will be following in your footsteps this coming summer. The book has in fact sold extremely well.
However, as I say, I was most interested to learn that you had accomplished the walk and am pleased to note that you enjoyed the experience (even the Vale of Mowbray?). Of the two diversions you made, I approve the Ullswater-Howtown alternative, which is pleasanter than my own route over the tops, but am sorry you preferred to follow the Swale downriver from Keld. My own preference here is cert
ainly to cross the hills by way of the old lead mines, a splendid walk of fascinating interest; indeed, apart from the crossing of the Lake District, I considered the Swaledale lead mines and the North York escarpment to be the highlights of the journey.
Congratulations on doing the walk; I hope it is the forerunner of many more expeditions and that you enjoy happy seasons on the fells long into the future. And thank you again for taking the trouble and finding the time to write to me.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 181: TO MR MORRIS, 8 APRIL 1974
c/o The Westmorland Gazette
KENDAL, Westmorland
8th April 1974
Dear Mr Morris,
Thank you for your extremely kind letter and generous comments.
I have noted your ambition to climb all the 214 Lakeland fells, and I have checked your arithmetic and found it to be faultless, but I am mightily perplexed by your intention to repeat the performance 15 times. There must be a reason for this but it eludes me. You would certainly qualify for inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records if you accomplished the feat, but I don’t honestly think you ever will, certainly not from a base as far away as Essex. What I would advise is that you tackle every one of the 214 over the next few years, plus 56 lesser fells I have listed in a book called the The Outlying Fells of Lakeland due to be published in a few weeks, thus making 270 in all. This task is enough to keep you actively engaged until the ’80s, after which there are 560 mountains in Scotland over 3000’ awaiting your attentions.
The Wainwright Letters Page 30