I hope you will grant him the favour of an interview.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 268: TO BILL MITCHELL, 21 JUNE 1988
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
21st June 1988
Dear Bill,
Thank you for your letter and enclosures. Sorry to have taken so long to reply but have been run off my feet lately with one thing and another.
I have looked through your Scottish narrative with interest – and some misgivings. Your choice of title is intriguing and inventive, but I have a doubt about its impact when seen in a bookshop window. Nobody has ever heard of Muckle Flugga and people’s reactions would be the same as mine, that it is another yarn about Ireland, not a popular subject, and it really needs a subtitle (journeys in Northern Scotland).
The map is awful. I cannot understand your selection of place-names nor the locations you have given them: Crianlarich in the North Sea, the Caledonian Canal apparently issuing at Aberdeen. There is no clue as to the black patches and the sprinkling of dots and no scale of miles. It is dreadful, badly-drawn, misleading and unintelligible. You must omit it or substitute a much better one.
You need to check your spellings in the narrative. Bonar Bridge is not spelt Bonner Bridge and this is not the only mistake.
I am honoured by your invitation to write a foreword and am pleased to accept provided you cut out the map and any others you may think of including and correct some of the places names in the narrative, which is otherwise interesting and especially good on the natural life of the northern districts.
As I say I am very busy at present and would like to see the book in print with your illustrations, before thinking about a foreword.
Yours sincerely,
AW
As an alternative title what about ‘It’s a long way to Cape Wrath?’ which everybody has heard about? If I were to see this title in a bookshop I would pounce on it and so would many others.
The letters to the Ainley family continued: to Margaret and daughter Catherine. AW affected to be furious, cutting her off, when Margaret announced that she was now a railway fan, rather than a fells fan.
They continued to live in Brighouse till 1984 when Richard, her husband, lost his job. They moved to Norwich – which AW warned would not be to their liking, but after two years or so, they returned to Brighouse.
LETTER 269: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 20 DECEMBER 1981
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL, Cumbria
20th December 1981
Dear Margaret,
What on earth has come over you?
Not a word about Cathy’s ambition to be the first woman on Everest without oxygen. Not a word of the joys of the open countryside, of conquering savage peaks. You talk only of nasty smoky trains.
I must write you off as one once akin to me, one who thought as I did, but alas does so not more. Trains are a pre-occupation of advancing years. The fells are for the active and young in heart. You have suddenly become middle-aged.
This being so, lamentably, your next holiday must be to North Wales, where little steam trains run all over the place, not only to the top of Snowdon (which will revive memories of the days, now gone, when you loved to tread the summits) and into the depths of slate quarries, but also through the most glorious country. Enclosed is the guide to the Festiniog Railway, one of a dozen lines open to the public, which is utter joy every yard of the way and must be sheer ecstasy for an elderly train spotter.
A happy Christmas, anyway, in your new abode. Sorry I haven’t a card with a train on it. Mine are all of mountains.
Sincerely,
AW
LETTER 270: TO CATHERINE AINLEY, 17 JULY 1983
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL, Cumbria
17th July 1983
Dear Catherine,
Thank you for your long and interesting letter – and congratulations on your splendid performances on the fells during your stay near Keswick. And I suppose I must congratulate your mum and dad for keeping up with you because they must be quite old now. I didn’t fall out with your mum. What happened was that she went a big strange and started to love nasty steam engines instead of mountains. And she began to be frightened of lovely caterpillars. She must have been very difficult to live with. But I am glad to learn from your letter that she seems to be normal again, and it is good news that you are going back to Keswick next year.
I notice that you have a new address and I hope you like it and have a nice school. I don’t like Brighouse. It makes me think of nasty steam engines.
Thank you for your photograph. You are getting to look like your mum but I hope you never suffer from the same strange ailments she has had to endure recently.
Do you remember the first hill you ever climbed? I do. It was Smearsett Scar in Ribblesdale. In those days your mum used to like me.
I must say you do write well! Not a single spelling mistake. Now that your mum has stopped writing to me, perhaps you will kindly send me a letter again after your next visit to Keswick and tell me about the lovely mountains you climb while you are there.
With love, just for you.
AW
LETTER 271: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 29 JULY 1983
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL, Cumbria 29th July 1983
Dear Margaret,
Doesn’t it say somewhere in the Scriptures that a little child shall lead them? Your Catherine seems to have done the trick. She has restored your soul.
It was nice to hear from you again and find your news all of happy days on the mountains. I am reassured. You still love me despite your recent wayward behaviour. I am prepared to forgive and regard your lapse from rational thought as merely temporary, probably something to do with change of life, and accept that you are now back to normal. I was right all the time. Mountains are so much nicer than mucky steam engines. I must say I was astonished, even outraged, by your desertion of mountain tracks for railway tracks. However, this phase is past. You have returned to the fold and will not stray again. Days spent on the tops are the best days of all, and your enthusiastic account of your adventures during your stay at Keswick and eager anticipation of the next convinces me that you have seen the light. May it never grow dim again. No more gaping at nasty steam locos on the Worth Railway!
I am glad you like your new house so much, but what a tragedy that it should coincide with Richard’s loss of his job. However, a man who can climb Easy Gully has obviously enough fortitude to overcome setbacks, and I am sure things will turn out all right for you.
Catherine has promised to write to me again after her next visit to Long Close and tell me about taking her old mum and dad up the hills.
Yes, OK, you can too.
AW
X (for Catherine)
LETTER 272: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 7 JULY 1984
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL, Cumbria
7th July 1984
Dear Margaret,
I received your fat parcel of goodies with anticipatory pleasure and for the most part the contents bore glad tidings of another week of high adventure amongst the Lakeland peaks, with some splendid performances, notably the direct ascent of Grasmoor End. You surprise me by reporting that a clear track has formed up this formidable buttress. When I did it all was virgin ground and I didn’t expect any followers. Great Gable, too, provided another expedition, as it always does.
I can well understand that your elation at these successes was disturbed by doubts about your proposed move to Norwich. This is a lovely city by all accounts, but the contours are dismaying; in fact there aren’t any. Norwich is 50 feet above the sea, according to my map, and a journey of 20 miles is necessary to reach a height of 100 feet. Good country for cycling, but not the sort of landscape that suits me. I would rather stand and look at Great Gable than Norwich Cathedral. If I were you I would delay moving house until Richard is absolutely settled in the new environment with a congenial job and a guarantee of permanency, and in the meantime commute once a fortnight. Brighouse has its faults
but you are amongst your kin folk there and within reach of moors and mountains. Norwich is foreign country. And is even without steam locos.
In May I had my first ever holiday in Galloway, and found it delightful, the scenery good, the people friendly and the roads very quiet. I’ve got a good farmhouse cottage address if you ever want it.
I hope your doubts will soon be resolved. Let me know what happens. Sincerely,
AW
LETTER 273: TO CATHERINE AINLEY, 7 JULY 1984
7/7/84
Dear Catherine,
Thank you for a splendid letter, well written and without spelling mistakes, and telling me of the exciting adventures you had on your holiday. Clearly you are now an accomplished climber. Not many people can claim to have stood on Grasmoor Pinnacle! And I am glad to know you have been on Great Gable and seen the wonderful view.
You are right in thinking that I have some cats. Seven – Totty, Tina, Pixie, Daniel, Dillon, Ginger and Jeffrey – plus two just brought in as strays – one of them, found injured, is just like the one in your photo.
AW
LETTER 274: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 18 OCTOBER 1984
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
18th October 1984
Dear Margaret,
Thank you for a very kind letter and effusive praise for the new book. Some of the pictures don’t deserve it, a few (notably the Helvellyn and Blencathra frontispieces) being much too green (a fault of the printer).
As for your Mosedale Horseshoe article, I think ‘Cumbria’ is the best vehicle for it. The Gazette wouldn’t be interested. It must, however, be typed. Send it to Mr Bill Mitchell, Editor. I found it so entertaining that I am very hopeful he would publish it. Just to show that the subject is currently topical you might preface it by saying ‘having read the chapter on the Mosedale Horseshoe in “fellwalking with W” I have written of my own experiences on this magnificent walk’ lay off the personal idiosyncrasies of your companions a bit and enlarge on the descriptions and emotive effects.
Hope you have now settled down well in the flatlands of Norfolk.
Sincerely,
AW
X (for Catherine)
LETTER 275: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 24 MARCH 1985
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL, Cumbria
24th March 1985
Dear Margaret,
I don’t want to say I told you so, but events in your new environment seem to be turning out as I expected. Norfolk is not the place to fritter away your life. You are a creature of the hills and should be among them. Norfolk is a foreign country and you are in exile. Nor are the people the same. I only once ventured into East Anglia, by train, and it was significant that none of the other passengers were looking out of the windows: there was nothing to see. I felt suicidal. Not a hill in sight.
Come back home, to where you belong.
I hope you will soon be able to tell me you are doing just that.
Yours sincerely,
AW
LETTER 276: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 26 JANUARY 1986
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
26th January 1986
Dear Margaret,
Great news!!
Back to the hills and moors and steam engines.
Now you can start living again
AW
LETTER 277: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 15 JUNE 1986
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
15th June 1986
Dear Margaret,
Thank you for a long and entertaining letter from beautiful Brighouse.
We made a flying visit to Norwich a month ago to see the cathedral and the environment from which you escaped. I can appreciate your feelings, although, to be fair, it is better than Lincolnshire, which is deadly.
Glad you enjoyed the TV series. Everybody seems to have done, but it has had serious side effects. To get away from pressures we went to the north of Scotland last week and I was recognised and accosted five times, at Achiltibuie, Poolwe, Torridon, Spean Bridge and Abingdon – and found 100 letters waiting for me when we got back home. BBC now want me to do a series of five programmes on Scotland next year.
AW
X (for Alfred, not Cath, I’ve gone off girls who weigh 8 and a half stone)
Thank you too for the catmint bag. Our six cats pounced on it in ecstasy, and, alas tore it to shreds. It was their highlight of 1986.
LETTER 278: TO MARGARET AINLEY, 31 AUGUST 1988
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
31 August 1988
Dear Margaret,
Thank you for your graphic account of a wet week in Lakeland. The weather really has been dreadful lately. We were lucky to get a beautiful week in May near Kyle of Lochalsh. The old magic is still there.
I was interested to learn of the new path to the Pike from the Corridor Route, and particularly of the state of the West Wall Traverse as described by Richard, his report confirming others I had had.
Catherine’s kindness in nominating Animal Rescue to receive her sponsorship donations is appreciated. Our thirty cats and kittens and eight dogs now in care wish me to say a big thank you to her.
Next Sunday, the 4th, I shall be on Desert Island Discs. The BBC are to do a television documentary on the Coast to Coast walk. So life goes on.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
AW had turned down Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 several times in the past but in 1988 agreed to take part. He wanted to see if Sue Lawley’s legs were as good as everyone said, but he refused to go to London to record it. Instead, Sue Lawley came to Manchester. He was driven there by Andrew Nichol of the Westmorland Gazette and afterwards they went to Harry Ramsdens for a slap-up fish and chip supper. The programme was broadcast on 4 September 1988.
Part 22
Readers’ Letters, 1979–88
Even in his late seventies, AW was acquiring new correspondents, though with his eyesight getting weak and his body frail, and still doing so many books and TV programmes, he was not keen on long correspondences as he had been in the old days.
Judy Naylor, however, received a regular stream of letters starting in 1981 when she wrote to him with what he said was an unusual request. Mrs Naylor, of Appleby, was a member of a conservation group called Eden Field Club. It was the Year of the Disabled, so she decided to take a group of disabled people on a field trip – but where?
LETTER 279: TO JUDY NAYLOR, 15 JULY 1981
38 Kendal Green, Kendal, Cumbria
15th July 1981
Dear Mrs Naylor,
Thank you for your interesting letter of July 6th.
Your enquiry is so different from others I receive! And it poses a problem I must confess I have never even thought about – until now. I do so applaud your kind intention to give a party of the disabled a day in the country – a splendid gesture – and your choices of venue are excellent.
The Westmorland Borrowdale: from the gate at the Tebay end the road into the valley is narrow and tarred for a mile, and if you wished to start the walk here you would find it almost traffic-free and easy going for wheel-chairs. It leads gently uphill between mature trees with glimpses of Borrowdale Beck down on the right. At the end of the tarmac, just beyond a little bridge over a stream, the open fell on the left is the habitat of many flowers, including birds-eye primrose (not in flower in August) and marsh orchid. The road continues as a rough farm track and soon descends to a bridge over the main beck where there is a delightful bathing pool. As far as the end of the tarmac the road is public and cars used to be parked on the verges there, but the farmer protested and the County Council planned to make a small car park there – whether his has been done I cannot say, not having been in the valley for some years. If it has you could take cars along instead of leaving them by the gate (there will be a notice there stating whether you can proceed further).
Bretherdale: similarly unfrequented. The tarmac road ends beyond the last farm at a couple of barns where cars can be parked. From this point a rough track continues upstream, proba
bly too rough for wheel-chairs.
Neither valley has any history of note. It is thought that the Roman road from the camp at Low Borrow Bridge entered Borrowdale for a short distance before climbing over the fells. And Borrowdale is the valley where a huge dam and reservoir was proposed a short time ago, a plan that has happily been abandoned or at least postponed. Bretherdale is the place where a golden eagle was first sighted on its return to Lakeland about 15 years ago.
Another outing to suit your requirements would be to Shap Abbey, in a lovely quiet hollow alongside the River Lowther, where the party could perambulate or sit by the river, and of course inspect the ruins. If the Abbey has not been seen by the party before, this is the outing I would most recommend as the one least likely to lead to difficulties.
Let me say again that it is most kind of you to plan this little treat for others less fortunate. I should be interested to learn in due course how you fared.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
LETTER 280: TO JUDY NAYLOR, 19 AUGUST 1981
38 Kendal Green, Kendal
19th August 1981
Dear Mrs Naylor,
Thank you for your report on the outing to Borrowdale. I was so glad to learn that the event, blessed by a nice day, was such a success.
The Wainwright Letters Page 40