The Wainwright Letters

by Hunter Davies

  Dear Marjorie,

  It was a pleasure to read your delightful account of recent wanderings on the Lakeland fells. What memories your words bring back to me! And memories are all that is left to me. I am now in my 80th year and no longer able to get up to the tops and ridges as I used to. Now I have to be content with writing about them. But I still regard days spent on the fells as the best days of all. Today, from my window, I can see them arrayed in mantels of pure white, but for me they are out of bounds. I don’t complain. Instead I count the blessings of a very long innings of infinite delight. So I think you should take every opportunity to return to the beauty of the Lakes while you are still able to enjoy walking on the hills.

  Thank you for troubling to write, and please do so again when you have further adventures to relate. I hope you have a splendid summer and many happy expeditions.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 302: TO MARJORIE, 11 MAY 1987

  38 Kendal Green, Kendal, Cumbria

  11 May 1987

  Dear Marjorie,

  Thank you for another kind and delightful letter, as usual a joy to read. It is good to know that you have enjoyed further expeditions on the fells since you last wrote, and in particular I am glad you have successfully accomplished the Gable Girdle despite unfavourable weather. But, as you say, this walk is a memorable experience in any conditions.

  This summer I shall be busily engaged in Scotland, filming a series of five TV programmes with the BBC, recalling the highlights of my travels in the Highlands over the past forty years. My swan song, surely. It really is time I retired. But for you I wish many more happy expeditions on the fells in the years ahead.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 303: TO ALYN BARNES, 3 FEBRUARY 1987

  c/o Westmorland Gazette, KENDAL

  3rd February 1987

  Dear Mr Barnes,

  Thank you for your kind letter and birthday wishes.

  Your question rather surprised me because I never regarded a camera as essential. I did carry one, though, but only to record features of interest, not with any thought of picturing superb landscapes. My first, 45 years ago, was an Ensign (?), and later I used a secondhand Baldur (German). They would seem antiquated by comparison with today’s cameras!

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 304: TO ROBERT HARDCASTLE, 23 FEBRUARY 1987

  c/o Westmorland Gazette, KENDAL

  23rd February 1987

  Dear Mr Hardcastle (I think; sorry I could not decipher your name)

  Thank you for your letter. It is always a pleasure to hear from others who share my love of the Lake District, as you so obviously do.

  You point out an error in ‘Ex-fellwanderer’ with such conviction that I am sure you are right. I remember the year as 1963 and wrongly assumed that it was the end of that year when Lakeland was transformed into a fairyland by a three-months frost. I remember the conditions so well: it was a glorious winter. Thank you for putting me right and taking the trouble to do so.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 305: TO ROBERT CHESTER: 3 APRIL 1987

  c/o Westmorland Gazette, KENDAL

  3rd April 1987

  Dear Mr Chester,

  Thank you for a very kind letter.

  I can sympathise with you about miseries inflicted by Scottish midges. To avoid their attention make your visits to Scotland before the end of May or after the end of September. They don’t trouble me as I am usually in a halo of tobacco smoke. They never bother people who chain-smoke cigarettes. They are afraid of getting lung cancer.

  I have had dozens of letters and photographs of the rowan tree at Buttermere over the years and am confident that this is the subject of your picture, its stunted growth due to a lack of nourishment for its restricted root system.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 306: TO IAN SAGER, 19 APRIL 1987

  c/o Westmorland Gazette, KENDAL

  19th April 1987

  Dear Ian,

  Thank you for your kind letter.

  In reply to your enquiry, all my hand-written books are reproduced from original manuscripts of exactly the same size, nothing being reduced or enlarged.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 307: TO KEN PROCTER, 20 JANUARY 1988

  38 Kendal Green, Kendal, Cumbria

  20th January 1988

  Dear Mr Procter,

  Thank you for a kind and very interesting letter.

  It is always a great pleasure to hear from others who share my love of the Lake District, as you so obviously do, and it was an added delight to read of your earlier life in Blackburn in circumstances akin to mine. I agree with you that those early times were happy in spite of the many disadvantages of life in those days. Blackburn’s town centre today has lost all its former interest. I go back there only twice a year to watch the Rovers and am always glad to get away.

  Your apprenticeship on the Lakeland fells was also similar to mine. Early visits were like magic, and the beauty of the scenery has never palled even after nearly fifty years of living amongst it.

  I hope you are able to continue your visits and enjoy many more happy expeditions in the years ahead.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  The Milton Mountaineers, referred to in a letter by George Male in January 1988, were a group of blind climbers.

  LETTER 308: TO GEORGE MALE, 24 JANUARY 1988

  24th January 1988

  Dear Mr Male,

  Thank you for your letter and its kind invitation to me to become President of the Milton Mountaineers, which I count as a great honour, having admired their performances over many years.

  My own failing eyesight would seem to be a fitting qualification for the position but after much thought I am forced to the conclusion that old age would not, and must gratefully decline. I am now in my eighties and unable to get around as I used to. I am much too ancient to take on commitments I could not fill properly.

  However, I am still capable of standing treat for you all on the occasion of your assault of Blencathra and enclose a cheque to pay for the dinner etc. We shall not be able to join you. For the week commencing May 14th we are already booked for a log cabin near Plockton.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 309: TO VALERIE AND JOHN MALLAM, 30 DECEMBER 1986

  c/o Westmorland Gazette, KENDAL

  30th December 1986

  Dear Mr and Mrs Mallam,

  Thank you for a very kind and most delightful letter.

  Your experience in Yordas Cave was extraordinary. In several visits I have never seen lighted candles there and I am curious about their origin. So far as I know the cave has no religious associations.

  Your letter was both interesting and enjoyable, and a joy to read. Thank you for taking the trouble to tell me of your adventures. I hope you continue to have many more happy expeditions in the year ahead.

  With best wishes for 1987,

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  LETTER 310: TO VALERIE AND JOHN MALLAM, 15 AUGUST 1987

  38 Kendal Green, Kendal, Cumbria

  15th August 1987

  Dear Valerie and John,

  It was a pleasure to hear from you again and to learn more of your adventures in Limestone Country (and around Kendal Green!). You are the first to report completing all the walks in my book, and I can well appreciate your regret at coming to the end. I felt exactly the same: it is an area of which I am particularly fond and I thoroughly enjoyed every expedition I made there. All had their delights and surprises and excitements, Ingleborough perhaps most of all. Hunting all the named potholes and caves was my particular joy.

  I have long given up hope of having my lost pipe returned to me. Countless searches have been undertaken according to correspondents. It is stil
l there somewhere.

  I hope Ingleton lives up to expectations and that you find more of the delights of limestone country.

  Yours sincerely,

  AWainwright

  The Mallams of Shrewsbury wrote to AW several times, and received several letters back. At first, he gave his address as c/o the Westmorland Gazette, as he usually did with fans, but when he moved on to revealing his home address and calling them Valerie and John, they became emboldened enough to try to doorstep him. He wasn’t in. However, they did a lap of honour around the Green and then pinched a pebble from his drive. They confessed this in a letter to him, hence AW’s reference to ‘around Kendal Green!’, complete with exclamation mark. It was a warning to him that he should not become too familiar or reveal his real address to often, just in case the hordes descended.

  Part 23

  Tax Dramas and Official Business, 1988–90

  On 21 March 1988 AW got a letter from the Inland Revenue saying that his affairs were being investigated. He was by now a well known TV presenter and author, his latest handsomely illustrated book from Michael Joseph always on the bestseller list. In all, going back to his early guides first produced by the Westmorland Gazette, and still selling well, almost 2 million copies of his books had been sold. Some tax official had clearly been puzzled by the fact that in his tax returns, his income appeared so relatively low. Was some sort of fiddle going on?

  LETTER 311: TO INLAND REVENUE, 27 APRIL 1988

  38 Kendal Green, Kendal

  27th April 1988

  Dear Sir,

  I have your letter of the 25th inst.

  In reply to your enquiry, I submitted my tax return of income for 1987/8 to your office at Bootle, whence it originated, a week ago. This return included the following statement of my income from royalties received in that year:

  Royalties received from Westmorland Gazette: 19, 173 Royalties received from Michael Joseph, Ltd: 8, 427 An amount of 576 was also included from Public Lending Rights.

  My payments to charities out of this income amounted to 577 and is included under the heading of Covenants.

  I would remind you that I have signed the Declaration that the above statements are correct, and frankly I resent the continuing inference that I am evading or avoiding tax. On the contrary I would point out that in more than thirty years of writing for various publishers I have never submitted any claim for legitimate expenses such as postages, films and film processing, stationary, travelling expenses and so on, all necessary in the compilation of my books and which must over the period amount to around 10,000.

  Please let me hear from you soon that you have completed your enquiries to your satisfaction and that the matter is closed.

  Yours faithfully,

  AWainwright

  The matter was not closed, and more letters and requests arrived from the Inland Revenue. What had made AW furious was the inference that he was avoiding payments in some way, which he knew he was not, so he was determined to fight back – even though he had so much proper work to do, in the way of books and films, and at the age of eighty-one, his physical health, if not his mental health, was declining.

  A year later, in March 1989, he finally had a face to face meeting with the Inspector – and AW wrote a letter to himself, describing what happened.

  LETTER 312: TO HIMSELF, 21 MARCH 1989

  On March 14 1989 the Inspector wrote suggesting a meeting, and this duly took place at 38 Kendal Green, Kendal, on 20th March.

  I had formed an image of him as a little bald-headed man with pince-nez but he turned out to be a strapping young fellow with a beard and a friendly disposition. He introduced himself as Mr Ibbs and said he was an Investigations Officer based in the Kendal Office.

  First I asked him what had prompted this investigation, which I felt to be entirely without justification as I had always declared my income fully and paid all tax due; further, I had letters from his office every year agreeing my computations of the tax due. So why this investigation? Well, he said, it was known to the Inland Revenue that some of my books had appeared in best-selling lists and were very widely distributed: it seemed to them that possibly I was not declaring all my earnings from royalties.

  He agreed that I had paid tax over the years on all royalties I had actually received. This was not the point at issue. His concern was that I had renounced some of my royalties in my contracts with publishers by signing a clause in the following terms:

  ‘I hereby renounce all legal rights to the royalties from this book and leave their distribution to the discretion of the publishers’.

  He had serious doubts about the wording of the clause. He admitted he was not an expert on contracts but felt that such a clause may not be considered to be legally effective. If such was the case I would be required to pay tax on all the royalties I had renounced (involving arrears of probably over 100,000); in other words if the clause was proved not be watertight my liability to tax would be the same as if not renunciations of royalties had taken place.

  This was the main object of his investigation. I disagreed, pointing out that income tax was a tax on income received and could never be a tax on no income against which he argued that the renounced royalties were nevertheless earned by me and therefore my income which I had diverted elsewhere.

  My Ibbs said that in the event of his doubts about the validity of the renunciation clauses being confirmed when his investigations were completed and I was held responsible for tax on the renounced royalties, it would now be necessary for him to make ‘protective assessments to keep my file open and subject to review over the six years allowed by law for the recovery of debts. He would therefore be sending additional assessments going back to 1982/3.

  The meeting ended without Mr Ibbs being offered a cup of tea.

  - - -

  The protective assessments arrived a few days later, requiring me to pay 20,000 for 1982/3 and 45,000 for 1983/4.

  By imposing these assessments the Inspector made his greatest blunder. It was clear that he had not done his homework properly and had assumed that in both years there had been renounced royalties. But in neither year had I signed contracts with renunciation clauses. The renouncing of royalties did not commence until 1984/5. For the two years 82/3 and 83/4 I had declared and paid tax on all royalties received and no further tax could possibly be due. From then on the Inspector was on the defensive. His mistake was made clear to him but he never admitted it, nor did he countermand his instruction to the Collector to demand payment in accordance with his assessments. This was the start of an uncomfortable time for Mr Ibbs. I had him on the run, as the ensuing correspondence shows.

  AW might have thought he had the Inspector on the run, but the letters and demands continued. One thing which had made them suspicious was their discovery that the Treasurer of Animal Rescue, to which so many of his royalties were going, was a Mrs Betty Wainwright.

  LETTER 313: TO INLAND REVENUE, 29 MARCH 1989

  38 Kendal Green, Kendal

  29th March 1989

  Dear Sir,

  I return herewith your additional assessments for 1982/3 and 1983/4 for cancellation. They should not have been sent to me.

  I already have your assurance, both in writing and verbally, that you are satisfied that I have paid tax on all taxable income received in those years, and your researches will have proved that I had no contracts carrying a renunciation clause in either year.

  I must say that my hackles are rising at this continuing and unwarranted harassment, and although I know from experience that it is not the practice of the Inland Revenue to say sorry for their mistakes I do feel that a profound apology is called for in this instance.

  LETTER 314: TO INLAND REVENUE, 6 APRIL 1989

  38 Kendal Green, Kendal

  6th April 1989

  Dear Sir,

  My wife has told me of your telephone call of two days ago.

  You are demanding from me an additional payment of 65,000 in tax for the years 1
982/3 and 1983/4 over and above the tax paid for those years, and agreed between us. You must now justify the additional assessment, if you can, by stating the dates and amounts of royalties alleged by you to have been received by me in those two years. If you cannot give substance to the additional assessments they should be cancelled. If, as you have suggested, the 65,000 is merely a fiction designed to keep my tax affairs open for those years you should not put me to the trouble of taking part in a paper chase of your own making by requiring me to complete more forms to let you off the hook.

  I find it incredible that your tactics require you to make a charge and investigate later, when surely common sense dictates that you should first make your investigations and then charge only if necessary. Professor Parkinson must be writhing in his grave.

  You say that you are acting in accordance with income tax law. Quote me chapter and verse where the law imposes on you a duty to charge tax on income that has not been received and that you know jolly well has not been received.

  Please reply in writing and not by telephone or interview.

  AW

  LETTER 315: TO INLAND REVENUE, 19 APRIL 1989

  38 Kendal Green, Kendal

  19th April 1989

  Dear Sir,

  I am not in the least surprised that your letter of the 11th avoids my request for details of the royalties forming the basis of your demand for a further payment of 65,000 for the years 82/3 and 83/4. I am entitled to this information and repeat my request.

  It is now almost a year since you started an investigation into my tax affairs and if you had spent a little of this time checking my file for the two years in question you would have found that I declared all my earnings, that your office wrote to me agreeing to my figures, that I had no contracts containing renunciation clauses and that I paid all tax due in full. I do not owe a penny more in tax for these two years and in demanding a further 65,000 you have scored a spectacular own goal.