Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 225: TO CHRIS JESTY, 18 NOVEMBER 1977
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Westmorland
18th November 1977
Dear Chris,
I have just been looking at your Scafell Pike panorama, and am quite overwhelmed at the magnitude of the task you have set yourself, the amount of distant detail you have included being amazing. Perhaps the wealth of information rather tends to crowd out the Lakeland part of the panorama in the headings, and much of it will never be seen on most days of the year; however, I have no doubt that all the items you give are visible in exceptional conditions and should therefore be included.
I had expected the titles to synchronise with the drawings, but of course they are on different scales and I couldn’t determine that there will be perfect alignment in the finished job, so I must leave that to you. Nor have I attempted to check the distant horizons nor the names outside the Lake District.
I return everything unaltered. My signature is affixed to this letter; perhaps you would place it as you wish.
I enjoyed looking at your slides. Some of them, especially those from Ben Nevis, are out of this world, really excellent. Why not a book of your best mountain photographs?
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 226: TO CHRIS JESTY, 3 FEBRUARY 1978
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria 3rd February 1978
Dear Chris,
I have examined the proofs of the Scafell Pike panorama and now return them. This is really a tremendous effort (on your part, not mine) that has obviously required amazing concentration and research and painstaking penwork. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to include all the detail you have managed to squeeze in. You must be the only person in the country with the dedication and patience to attempt such a panorama, let alone complete it. The printers too deserve credit for their contribution.
The distant views merge into the Lakeland scene very neatly. I have not checked anything outside the Lake District, but your accuracy on the places I know inspires confidence in the whole.
If the blank spot on Sheet Four is touched up, the printing should come out all right, and probably the faint lines missing on the proofs will register in the finished job.
I have not made any notes on the proofs but attach a list of items at which you might look again. These, however, are trivial and possibly not worth correction.
People are going to wonder how you tackled this remarkable task, and I think a summary of your experiences (number of visits, time spent on the summit, nights out, number of photos taken, etc) would be of great interest: however, there seems no room for this – a pity!
I hope the sale does well enough to repay your expense and provide a deserved reward. I continue to be sceptical about its success, but I think it might help if you were to include my name in your publicity and especially when visiting the Lakeland shops. You should let the magazine Cumbria (Dalesman Publishing Co. Ltd) have a copy for review, and I am sure Border Television would be glad to give you an interview and feature the panorama.
Perhaps you would kindly let me have half-a-dozen copies of the finished panorama when the time comes for publication.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
SHEET 1:
My signature looks much too prominent compared with yours. Either it should be reduced in size by one-third, or your own should be given much more emphasis in larger type.
SHEET 2:
Grisedale For is rather an unfortunate abbreviation. There seems no room for the word Forest and perhaps it should be omitted. A message from the publisher to the reader: writing in would be better than writing up
SHEET 4:
On the map on Sheet 4 SFP is an unfortunate abbreviation (remember that 90% of your readers are dull-witted). Is it necessary to include it, bearing in mind that all the lines converge at this point?
LETTER 227: TO CHRIS JESTY, 14 MAY 1978
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
14th May 1978
Dear Chris,
Many thanks for the copies of the Scafell Pike panorama. These were awaiting my return from a visit to the Outer Hebrides, hence the delay in acknowledging receipt.
The finished product is excellent and I hope you do well with it. There is one spelling error I forgot to mention: note 34 on Sheet 4 – unlikelyhood should be unlikelihood. And I think you have given my name too much prominence and your own too little.
But it really is a magnificent achievement, one of which you can feel very proud, and great tribute is due to the printers, who have done a difficult job very sympathetically.
You will be sending out review copies, no doubt, to publications such as ‘Climber and Rambler’. I think the editor of ‘Cumbria’ (Dalesman Publishing Co., Clapham, via Lancaster) might be glad to give it a mention, especially if accompanied by an article on your trials and tribulations and methods and general experiences during compilation of the data. I will send a copy to the Editor of the Westmorland Gazette for comment in his newspaper. It would be worth your while to make a tour of the Lakeland bookshops and get them to display the sheets in their windows.
I hope it is successful. You deserve success.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
I seem to remember Mark Richards telling me that your cottage at Dolgellau is available for holiday lettings. If it is, I might be interested in a week next year (for a book of Welsh Mountain Drawings).
LETTER 228: TO CHRIS JESTY, 14 JANUARY 1979
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
14th January 1979
Dear Chris,
Please book me for the week commencing 23rd June this coming summer. My cheque is enclosed. If this week is not available the following week will do equally well.
I hope the Scafell Pike panorama is doing all right. You seem to have a good distribution system! I notice it on sale in many unexpected shops!
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 229: TO CHRIS JESTY, 26 OCTOBER 1980
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
26th October 1980
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your letter and interesting suggestions for revising the Lakeland guides. I think, not yet, and probably not until after my death (now surely imminent), when Westmorland Gazette might well be interested. I agree, however, that some revision is desirable and will bear your ideas in mind. The specimen pages enclosed are certainly very nicely done and I would have no doubts on that score after seeing your painstaking and accurate work on the panoramas, which I hope continue to do well. In the meantime I will let the Gazette see your efforts.
This year, blessed by good weather, I have had two splendid mountaineering holidays based on Beddgelert. My book of drawings is now well in hand and will be published in the spring next year.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Part 19
Letters to Ron Scholes, 1979–84
Ron Scholes, a primary school headmaster living in Staffordshire, came into AW’s life by giving to AW’s favourite charity, Animal Rescue, rather than the normal way as a fan: writing a fan letter. Ron, aged fifty in 1979, married with two sons, gave an illustrated talk in Kendal in 1979 about a long-distance walk he had done and donated the fee to Animal Rescue. AW was fascinated by Ron’s long walks, his attempts to write a book about them, and also of course his interest in Animal Rescue.
LETTER 230: TO RON SCHOLES, 8 APRIL 1979
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
8th April 1979
Dear Mr Scholes,
Very many thanks for your kind donation of fees for lectures.
It was good of you to do this, and your generosity is greatly appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 231: TO RON SCHOLES, 5 NOVEMBER 1979
38 Kendal Green
5th November 1979
Dear Mr Scholes,
Thank you for your further remittance to Animal Rescue, a receipt for which is enclosed.
And for your generous offer to give an illustrated talk on the Cambrian Way. I was immensely interested to learn that you had done this walk because some five or six years ago a Mr Tony Drake of Cheltenham asked me if I would do a detailed guidebook to a Cambrian Way he had devised and for which he was then trying to get the blessing of the Countryside Commission and the necessary permissions from landowners. I was mildly interested, sufficiently to get 2 and a half inch maps of the whole route as he described it to me, but told him that I thought the distance much too great for the average walker and suggested that the less attractive southern section should be excluded entirely, starting the walk at Aberystwyth, and further that an alternative to the Rhinogs should be adopted, feeling that the inevitable novices and school parties may run into trouble on this rough ground. I never heard from him again. Two or three years ago I met a friend of Mr Drake who told me that he was making little progress with the idea, since when there has been silence about the whole project.
It was therefore a surprise to find that you had in fact done the walk, and indeed the whole of the original route as he planned it. I had not heard of anyone else doing the full walk, and it does appear from your letter that it has now been recognised as ‘official’.
For this reason I should be very interested to hear your talk and see your slides, another reason being that I am planning a book on Snowdonia: really a portfolio of mountain drawings, and with this in mind spent a week in Dolgellau this past summer and have booked a cottage at Beddgelert for next May.
Now about your very generous offer. I hesitate to ask you to give your talk publicly until I have sounded out the possibilities. My Committee on Animal Rescue is wholly female and probably have little interest in the Cambrian Way, but there is in Kendal a group of CHA and RA members and also a long-distance fellwalking club, as well as a Mountain Rescue team, from all of whom I would expect support. I would hate to ask you to come to a sparse attendance. May I therefore suggest that we leave the matter in abeyance until I have made some enquiries?
Thank you again for your continuing help for the Charity.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 232: TO RON SCHOLES, 24 FEBRUARY 1980
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
24th February 1980
Dear Mr Scholes,
My ‘agent’ has now reported a sufficient enthusiasm amongst local walkers to warrant my going ahead with arrangements for your proposed talk on the Cambrian Way. I think we may expect an attendance of around 100, and I intend to have this number of tickets printed for selling in advance at 50p.
Assuming you are still willing to do this for us despite the long delay, perhaps you would kindly give me a few dates (in order of priority) so that we can look for a suitable room. Booking may not be easy at short notice and I would suggest April as the best month if this is also convenient for you. Presumably you will want a room that can be blacked out?
I believe you said you could provide all necessary equipment but if there is anything at all I should be doing, do please let me know.
Again many many thanks for your kindness in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 233: TO RON SCHOLES, 12 MARCH 1980
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
12 March 1980
Dear Mr Scholes,
I am terribly sorry, but after taking a Gallup poll amongst the supporters likely to attend your lecture I find that the three dates you give are unsuitable to them. They point out that April 3 and 4 are Eastertime, when many will be away, and that the Saturday April 19 is not a good date either, Saturdays being their usual day for expeditions. I am glad to report, however, that there is considerable enthusiasm for your lecture and none seem to want to miss it.
I really think now that we had better leave it until later in the year, perhaps when you can conveniently combine it with a visit to the Lakes.
There seems to be a good choice of suitable rooms in the town, and a Thursday evening is the popular choice.
Have a good time in Wales. I shall be there May 10–17 and greatly look forward to it. I shall be looking at sections of the Cambrian Way.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 234: TO RON SCHOLES, 3 SEPTEMBER 1980
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
3rd September 1980
Dear Mr Scholes
I am writing to inform you that I have booked the Kirkland Hall in Kendal for your talk on the Cambrian Way on Thursday evening, 23rd October.
I am not familiar with this Hall, which was formerly a Primary School, but I understand that it is quite nice, having recently been decorated, and seats about 80–100 people. The Natural History Society in Kendal often use it for lectures.
I propose to have tickets printed for sale in advance and to charge 50 pence for admission.
I will write you again nearer the date to see if you want any arrangements making. I assume you will not want hotel accommodation or overnight hospitality, being only an hour’s run from your base in Wensleydale, but hope we will be able to have a meal together before the talk.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
After almost two years of correspondence, AW invited Ron to pop in, should he be passing, an honour indeed. A year later, he was even addressing him as Ron. Ron did go on to visit AW and Betty several times – and once stayed overnight at Kendal Green.
LETTER 235: TO RON SCHOLES, 11 JANUARY 1981
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
11th January 1981
Dear Mr Scholes,
Thank you for your cheque and letter.
As regards the three books on loan, I am in no hurry to have them back and it will be quite all right for you to keep them until you are next in the vicinity of Kendal.
As regards the project you had in mind, and which we discussed during your visit here in October, I am now of the opinion that you have missed the boat as far as a comprehensive summary of all the long-distance walks is concerned. My attention was recently drawn to an article in Climber and Rambler in which it was stated that Pan Books had commissioned a young fellow of the name of Westmacott to do the sort of thing you had in mind, and although I do not like his style of writing, the vast resources of the publishers and their wide distribution agencies could kill off competitors. There has also just been published ‘The Big Walks’, an absolutely superb volume in colour of 56 of the toughest walks in the U.K., priced at 16 pounds and worth every penny for the pictures alone. You could not possibly compete with this. Further, I think I told you that Geoffrey Berry’s book of long-distance walks had had a disappointing sale. From my own experience, it is guidebooks that sell, books giving intimate detail that walkers can take in their pocket, not the books that give only a scanty indication of routes and are intended for fireside reading. Therefore, if I were you I would abandon the idea of a brief description of all the long distance walks and concentrate on a detailed step by step guidebook to one only – and that one should obviously be the Cambrian Way, for which there will soon be a big demand and for which you already have much of the detail. You must, however, be first in the field, for there is no doubt that other writers will have the same idea when the route is declared official.
I hope you have now settled in your new address, and like it.
Do please call when next your travels bring you to this part of the world.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 236: TO RON SCHOLES, 25 JANUARY 1981
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
25 January 1981
Dear Mr Scholes,
Very good! You
r detailed and interesting descriptions make me want to follow in your footsteps.
I certainly think you should go ahead with the idea and be first in the field as soon as the Way is approved officially. Then you should get Tony Drake to vet it.
Westmorland Gazette would be interested in publishing but have so few distribution agencies that it might be better to try Pan or Penguin.
However, we can discuss these points when you call. In the meantime I will retain your papers and photos.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 237: TO RON SCHOLES, 10 FEBRUARY 1981
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
10 February 1981
Dear Ron,
Bad news, I’m afraid. Mark Richards, who is in regular touch with Tony Drake, called to see me last weekend, and reports that a RICHARD SALE already has prepared a complete manuscript of the Cambrian Way, which is to be published as soon as the route is made official.
I think you should speak to Drake before doing any more work on the book and I should be interested to learn his views.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 238: TO RON SCHOLES, 1 MARCH 1981
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria
1 March 1981
Dear Ron,
Your interview with Tony Drake seems to have been much more encouraging than I feared. Apparently he is not committed in any way with Richard Sale, and from what you say seems to agree that you should go ahead with your own manuscript. He appears to be pessimistic about early prospects on an official blessing, but of course there could be no objection to the publication of a guidebook without the sanction of the Countryside Commission so long as you keep to rights of way and areas of open access, and describe the book by some title other than ‘the Cambrian Way’, e.g. ‘A Long Walk in Wales’. From your report of the interview it certainly appears that you have the green light to go ahead.
The Wainwright Letters Page 36