Welcome to CumbriaJohn Manning, Editor

Icannot look at the photograph above without thinking of Graham Uney and JonBennett. As the Lake District’s felltop assessors, it’s their job to scale Helvellyn

every winter’s day, to report on ground conditions for those contemplating nippingup there for fun. As Cumbria went to press, forecasters were warning of the firstsubstantial snows of 2015: Graham and Jon will have their work cut out.

Many will welcome the change. So far, this unseasonably warm and damp winterhas been one for coughs and colds, for snuggling up by the fire with a copy of Cum-bria and a generous helping of sticky toffee pudding (see page 31). An icy blast willat least clear the air and finish off the bugs.

It will also delight the stalwarts of the Cumbrian ski clubs who’re braced to turnCumbria into the nation’s premier ski resort. Sarah J L Briggs been sampling thefacilities on Raise, and at Yad Moss… and I’m sure she’s been eyeing up a cross-country line along the slopes between Raise and Helvellyn at the same time!

Finally, I’d like to thank Helen Bromley, whose Farm on the Fell column draws toa close on page 55 after fourteen entertaining years. I hope you’ll join me in wishingher well in her new adventures as an assistant veterinary nurse, a role which soundsto me as though it might itself inspire a column … one for the future perhaps!

Helvellyn’s summit under snow (photo: Stewart Smith)

Cumbria Inside this month

Made from

recycled paper

EDITORIALEditor: John ManningProduction: John Lynott, Lisa Firth, PeterEvans, Kevin HopkinsonTelephone: 01756 701381Email: johnm@dalesman.co.uk

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© Country Publications Ltd 2015ISSN 1743 2456

A CUMBRIAN SKIING PARADISE Sarah J L

Briggs find out that you don’t have to travel to the Alps,

or even Scotland, to enjoy the best of winter sport

THE LYON IN WINTER Kent-born Ben Lyon first fell

in love with the Lakeland Fells as a wartime evacuee. Tony

Greenbank tells how he returned as an adult and

founded a business empire

RULE BRITANNIA Sebastian Oake visits an

Elterwater hostelry that’s small on size and big in

popularity

THE CLIMBING TIGER Tony Greenbank meets John

Porter, the US-born climber who wrote the prizewinning

biography of mountain legend Alex MacIntyre

CARRY ON PAINTING Kendal artist Frances Winder

tells Andrew Gallon why she feels she needs to be

painting all the time

LADY ANNE’S LONG FIGHT John Morrison tells

the story of the seventeenth-century noblewomen who

had to battle against the prejudices of the day to claim

her rightful inheritance

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21

26

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41

Page 41

February 2015 , Vol 64, No 11

Page 16

Page 11

THE WATERS OF LIFE Author Keith Harwood

reveals how the great trout of Lakeland have been a big

draw for anglers down the generations

LONG-STANDING REMINDERS John Morrison

guides us around the stone circles of Cumbria

ON THE UP Author Matthew Engel strikes out for the

highest point in Cumberland

THE CALL OF THE RIVER Adrian Rogan reveals

what fascinates him about the sound of running water

WALKING 1: BLEA TARN AND SIDE PIKE Mary

Welsh lets the car take the sting out of this visit

WALKING 2: LANTHWAITE GREEN Keith Wood

gives us one of the best views of along Crummock Water

VISITING WONDERLAND John Sears enjoys the

winter light as he explores Cumbria’s snow-dusted

countryside

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49

60

63

68

72

80

Worth heading for: Side Pike from Blea Tarn – Page 68

Regulars

CoverWinter sunlight onHigh Cup, by Fran Halsall

Passes to the2015 KeswickFilm Festival

20 Silvey Jex Cartoon

31 Cumbrian Kitchen

39 Bloggers How

44Cumbria Curiosities

55 Farm on the Fell

57Notebook

76 Organised Walks

78 Cumbria Yesterday

84 Postbox

88 Crossword

88 Sudoku

89A Question of Cumbria

90 Cumbrian Calendar

92 Subscriptions

98 In My View: Terry Fletcher

Page 49 See page 30

MARCH 20156

7MARCH 2015

MARCH 20158

MARCH 201510

Advertisement feature

FEBRUARY 2015 11

Imagine standing at the top of yourfavourite Lake District fell at sunset.

But it’s not the end of a green and yel-low summer day: instead, as the sunsinks, you are surrounded by snow thatis turning bluey pink. The hills in thedistance aren’t black looming shadowsbut are alight with warm orange.

This, for skiers, is one of the magicalmoments of the winter. Jonathan Cook,from Kendal, has been cross-countryskiing since he was four years old, andenthuses about the ethereal scenes thatmeet your eyes in the winter fells: steamrising from icy streams, little tracksthrough the trees, branches laden withsnow… “The tourists have gone home

and the mountains can seem aban-doned,” he says, “but skiers can con-tinue to enjoy them.”

When most people think of skiingthey probably think of downhill skiing:the thrilling, rushing sport which getsyou from the top of a mountain to thebottom in no time at all. It might comeas a surprise to people who associateskiing with the Alps, or perhaps withScotland, to discover that Cumbria hastwo downhill skiing areas of its own,complete with mechanical tows and all

Skiing in Cumbria: morethan downhill all the way

OUTDOORS SARAH J L BRIGGS

Imagine you are flying. Going off-pistein Yad Moss

12 FEBRUARY 2015

the facilities necessary for a good dayout on the slopes.

The older of the two clubs is situatedat Raise, near Helvellyn. It dates back to1936 when a group of “aristocraticskiers” decided that they wanted to beable to ski in the Lake District. Nowa-days, a 1,180ft (360m) tow (drag lift, orbutton lift) takes you close to Raise’ssummit. The piste map, which can beseen on the club’s website, shows aselection of blue, red and black pisteswhich return skiers to the tow start;when snow conditions are particularlygood, a portable tow is also broughtinto operation, opening up skiing fur-ther down into the valley.

Facilities include a members’ hut andthe ;Powder Room’ – the second-high-est toilet in England. As the club’s MikeSweeney says, “It’s a proper little skiresort in England: it feels a bit unreal.”

However, while it is a proper little skiresort with good facilities, it’s not assophisticated as the large commercialresorts. This is a club, run by membersfor members. It relies on their goodwilland hard work to dig the tow out of

snowdrifts, to carry out repairs andmaintenance. There is no piste basher,no ski hire shop and you’ll need to takea packed lunch. In addition, it’s anhour’s steep climb from the car park atGlenridding. It’s situated in a truemountain environment and needs to berespected as such.

Raise can, however, provide a chal-lenging and exciting day’s skiing with agroup of friendly, like-minded people.The hour’s walk keeps you fit; if youneed to dig out the tow when you getthere then that will get you nice andwarm, and the reward is several hoursof glorious skiing on ungroomed pistes.As Mike Sweeney says, “Every day is asmall but perfectly formed adventure.”No long flights; no boring waits at air-ports; and you can return to thewarmth and comfort of your own homein the evening. Although 2014’s snowdidn’t arrive until February, the clubstill had forty days of fantastic skiing.

Yad Moss, near Alston, is a newer andin some ways more accessible club. It’sjust off the B6277 road between Alstonand Middleton-in-Teesdale, and road-side parking is available just minutesfrom the tow. It offers the longest singlebutton lift in England, taking skiers1,968 feet (600m) up the fellside, fromwhere a choice of well-groomed wide-open pistes allows you to carry out ele-gant swooping turns gracefully backdown, views of mountains and sky

Trekking over Cross Fell

FEBRUARY 2015 13

helping you to imagine you’re almostflying.

While the skiing is more accessiblethan that at Raise (season tickets sell outwell before the snow falls), it is lowerthan Raise and faces west rather thannorth/northeast: snow tends not to lastso long and 2014 didn’t produce asmany days skiing as it did for Raise.Turning that on its head, however, it’sbetter to have the opportunity to ski inCumbria at all than not, and every dayis a glorious and exciting bonus.

The Yad Moss club grew out of theCarlisle Ski Club, based at the dry slopein Carlisle and now operated by a sepa-rate organisation. Gerard Unthank isone of the ‘Yad Fathers’, or clubfounders. He tells the tale of how, in the1970s, he and a group of fellow skiers

were driving along the B6277 one daywith the club’s portable tow, saw whatlooked like a good area for skiing,hopped over the fence, and started.Eventually they acquired two fixed ropetows but the frustrations of the ropessometimes getting buried led to theirresearching the feasibility of acquiring asecond-hand Poma lift from a closedcommercial resort near Grenoble. In1988, with help from civil and mechani-cal engineers who belonged to the club,and with funding from the club, theLottery and the local authority, sevenpylons, a big bull wheel (the top wheelwhich lets the button lifts turn round togo back downhill) and a generator wereerected at Yad Moss. The club also has apiste basher, a Ski-Doo, quad bikes, agarage and a club room, and maintains

The sunset at Yad Moss bathes the snow in a magical pink light

14 FEBRUARY 2015

extensive ski-fencing to ensure snowaccumulates on the pistes.

Where both clubs are similar, ofcourse, is that they are run completelyby volunteers, many members belong-ing to both clubs. Euan Cartwright ofYad Moss laments the drop in the num-ber of volunteers, an issue common tovoluntary groups everywhere. For YadMoss that means many volunteers arein their fifties or older; Raise still has awide age range and has recently had aninflux of younger members, but onegets the impression that a lot of the clubadministration is carried out by itsmore mature members. The positiveside of that, of course, is that it showsthat if you keep fit and healthy you cancontinue skiing all your life: the late

Bernie Warriner BEM, who died abouta year ago, had been instrumental inbuilding the members’ hut and PowderRoom on Raise and was still skiing intohis eighties.

Neither location is suitable for begin-ners: confidence on a button lift is vital,especially at Raise where the groundbeneath the lift is initially on a camberand is particularly tricky for snow-boarders.

What obviates the necessity for anylifts at all is cross-country skiing, wherethe effort put into skiing uphill isrewarded by stunning views at the topin quiet locations, followed by a glori-ous downhill swoop. The great advan-tage of cross-country is that you’re notrestricted to a particular route; while

Taking the 1,180ft button lift up to near the summit of Raise

FEBRUARY 2015 15

downhill skiing is thrilling and exciting,cross-country allows you to see a differ-ent, calmer side of things and to ventureinto realms you couldn’t reach ondownhill skis.

Jonathan Cook and his family are allmembers of the Lake District Cross-Country Ski club. As part of a nation-wide chain and affiliated to SnowSports England, the active club runs fre-quent training sessions and trips, as wellas holidays abroad. It was formed in1977 and not only includes cross-coun-try or track skiers among its membersbut also telemarkers. It stores a widerange of equipment – including rollerskis – for hire. Whenever there is snow,regular weekend trips, usually on a Sun-day, are led out on to the fells.

Jonathan described some of the

club’s most popular routes: “TheHowgills provide a stunning landscapeto ski over; Helvellyn gives a magnifi-cent view; and on Kendal golf courseyou can ski from the top of the hill allthe way into the town centre when thesnow’s good.”

Whichever type of skiing you prefer– and many people who are hooked loveboth – Cumbria can provide it. Goingabroad to ski can cost thousands ofpounds. Getting to Scotland takes time– and when there is good snow theroads are sometimes closed or theslopes crowded. Why not just stay inCumbria and have some skiing daytrips? If there’s snow it’s great but, asGerard Unthank concludes, “It’s a dayout in the hills – if you get some snowit’s a bonus.” n

Lake District Ski Clubwww.ldscsnowski.co.ukFacebook: www.facebook.com/ groups/ldscsnowskiAnnual membership: £55 (or £30for the day)

Yad Mosswww.yadmoss.co.ukSee also vimeo.com/82184755Annual membership for 2014/15: issold out (day tickets £20: checkavailability first).Skis, poles and boots can be hired atAlston Adventure Centre

(www.alstontraining.co.uk, 01434 381886) but most skiers take theirown.

Lake District Cross-CountrySkiingwww.lakelandxcski.org.uk Annual membership: £5 per household, then £12 per adult and £5 per child.The club has a wide range of equipment (boots, various types of skis, poles) which can be hired by mem-bers for just £10 per day and arefundable deposit.

Ski do

16 FEBRUARY 2015

Head-down against the blizzard,trudging ankle-deep through soft

snow and only just managing to keep oncourse along the crest of the Howgillswith map and compass, Ben Lyon is inhis element. The harder it snows, sleetsor rains, the more he loves it. “So youjust keep going?” I ask. “Even thoughyou can hardly see your companion inthe white-out and a wrong bearingcould send you toppling down hun-dreds of feet?” “Absolutely,” he says.“Ha-ha. Absolutely.”

Some of Ben’s exploits might soundlike the ravings of a lunatic. But – asChurchill responded “Some chicken!”when Hitler threatened to ring Eng-land’s neck like a chicken – “Somelunatic!”

Consider Ben’s achievements. Heswivels in his executive chair to checkhis computer screen as the ninety peo-ple he employs at Lyon Equipment inTebay – many of whom have shares inthe £18 million-turnover firm – beaveraway under his direction.

When he was a one-year-old, Ben’shome in Sidcup in Kent, which lay inthe notorious “Bomb Alley”, was flat-tened by German bombers and he wasevacuated to Leyland in Lancashire. On

In the lair of themountain Lyon

PEOPLE TONY GREENBANK

Ben Lyon crawling through notoriousIbbeth Peril, in Dentdale, and (oppositepage) emerging from the pothole tostand in the River Dee

FEBRUARY 2015 17

18 FEBRUARY 2015

clear days, he could see the Lakelandfells, and yearned to be among them.

Ben started out rock climbing inSnowdonia but, on moving south ,found such a paucity of crags that heturned to caving. Before then, his onlyunderground experience had been anair raid shelter that stank of urine, butthese caving experiences opened up anew world. He returned north to takeon the running of Whernside Manor inDent, for the Scouts, and opened upnew caverns in Dentdale and exploredthe vast Easegill system beneath theBarbon fells behind Kirkby Lonsdale.

In 1965 he started making cavingladders, commercially, and eighteenyears later went into the outdoor gearbusiness full time by setting up LyonEquipment. Today, the company dis-tributes a serious array of quality cav-ing, climbing, mountaineering and gen-eral outdoor equipment – everythingfrom caving ladders to hands-free Petzlheadtorches – from a massive £5 mil-lion depot on former wasteland oppo-site Junction 38 on the M6.

He stirs his mug of coffee, and tapshis desk with a spoon. “But we are alsonow a leading provider of training andequipment for work at height and res-cue in difficult-to-access environments.If that sounds a bit of a mouthful, itsimply means we provide the know-how for people dangling off ropes.”

To further that aim his company hasbought a field in Tebay that borderswhere the Lune runs through a lime-stone gorge. This turbulent stretch ofwater pours is ideal for stringing ropes

across, to allow caving and mountainrescue teams – as well as ambulance,fire, police and coastguard rescuers – topractise what Lyon’s tutors preach.

Safety in the hills is very much onBen’s mind, no more than during hisbeloved bad weather hill sojourns. Tothis end Lyon Equipment sponsors theLake District Mountain Trial (LDMT),a throwback to the 1960s when he wasan Outward Bound instructor inEskdale. Basically, he says, it is runningfrom check point to check point, butthe runners don’t know where thosepoints are before they start. They don’teven know where the race is until twoweeks before. At the event, everyone isgiven a map on which to plot routes.

The big difference between theLDMT and similar races is that it is noton paths, nor tracks. Entrants have todevise their own routes over ruggedcountryside. “This year for instance,” hesays, “the first checkpoint after startingfrom Patterdale was midway up St Sun-day Crag. From there the next check-point was way down the far western sideof Helvellyn, north of the summit.

“We could either go down into Glen-ridding, up through the various craggybits of Helvellyn above Red Tarn ormaybe up Striding Edge and over thetop. I am less good on my feet now atthe age of seventy-five and opted to goway round to Grisedale Tarn and upover Dollywaggon Pike, which is anextra four or five miles further.

“I used to run the trial in the ’60s. Ithink it began in 1956 and I rememberrunning for the Eskdale Outward

FEBRUARY 2015 19

Bound Mountain School in 1962. Thosewere the days! We had to carry old-fash-ioned waterproof cagoules and a whis-tle as back-up. We still do! Ha ha. Mypersonal best was coming third in 1966.It’s been downhill ever since, hah ha.”

When Ben was fifty he had a “baddo” with his heart while caving inChina. He thought he was finished butcontinued to walk and gradually got fit-ter. Greystoke-based Ken Ledward, theUK’s leading outdoor equipment tester,coaxed him to venture out each weekand it has gone on from there.

Ben is proud of the annual twenty-three-mile (37 km) Yomp over WildBoar Fell, Swarth Fell, Mallerstang Edgeand Nine Standards Rigg which heorganises for the Upper Eden RotaryClub. It’s the club’s big event, startingand ending at Kirkby Stephen. Thehorseshoe attracts nearly 500 people, ofwhich 200 or so do the half-round, ineffect a mini marathon. There is also a

six-mile (10 km) kiddies’ race for thoseaged five and up – and their parents.

Ben considers Wild Boar Fell a well-tidy outing and his walks with Ken, usu-ally switching between Lakeland andHowgills fells, have given him a newlease of life.

One of their favourites, he tells me, isthe “round” of Haweswater. Startingfrom the reservoir cottages near thedam, they climb the northern slopes upon to Raise, then make a slight diversionover Kidsty Pike, seen like a dorsal finfrom the M6. High Street then beckons,leading to the col from where Kentmerebegins, only for them to press on overHarter Fell, and carry on back along theskyline until they pop out just beyondthe farm at the far end of the lake.

“It’s a lovely walk on a fine day,” says

Regular exercising in the Howgills keeps Ben fit for anything

20 FEBRUARY 2015

“Just how hard can this climb be?”

Ben, “though it was snowing when welast did it. We could hardly see our-selves, let alone the view.”

So if it is misty or snowing, you stillkeep going? “Absolutely. Especially Ken.He loves bad weather for his gear test-ing! The worse the weather, the more helikes it.”

Carrock Fell is another of their must-do hills: from near the Carrock Splashford en route for Hesket Newmarket,they pick a way up the front undercraggy ground via a slanting rake, thenup a steeper-than-it-looks-gully toheather-clad open ground to the top.What an eminence!

Ben takes up the narrative: “As youplod on up you eventually reach thesemassive fallen-down stone ramparts.They are reputed to be an iron age fort,or even earlier – like Bronze Age. Youwonder how they managed up there.Mind, there is a small spring, 500 feet(152m) below the top.

“It’s an absolutely superb ascent, fin-ishing off with a little horseshoe overHigh Pike and back to the ford. Will Ikeep on doing it?

Absolutely,” he says. “I have been seenas being a bit rough and ready, I grantyou that. But I am dogged. I don’t givein and just keep plodding on.” n

FEBRUARY 2015 21

It’s a dull afternoon at an unfashion-able time of year but the Britannia

Inn’s front door keeps opening andshutting. The table in the hallway withthe fine old wooden rocking chair haslong been taken over by a party of walk-ers who are clearly going nowhere for

the rest of the day. The rest of the pub isfilling up too.

Mind you, it doesn’t take much topack out this Elterwater hostelry. Lead-ing off from the hallway, the main bar,with its black beams and low ceiling, issmall and cosy with just four unevenly

The Britannia Inn,Elterwater

CLASSIC CUMBRIAN INNS SEBASTIAN OAKE

The nine-bedroomed Britannia Inn; modest in size but big in popularity

22 FEBRUARY 2015

sized tables grouped around a stonefireplace. Hidden away is a tiny back-bar, more of a snug really, with a warm-ing stove and stained glass partition.More secluded, it’s where PrinceWilliam and Kate chose to sit and enjoysome drinks a few years back.

The inn’s modest size but big popu-larity means things can get pretty busy.Paul Fry is one of the inn’s directors. Hesays that at the height of the summer upto twenty-five staff are needed to copewith all the customers, including thethirsty and hungry hikers whounswervingly set their compasses forhere. In the evening, up to 180 mealscan be ordered – enough to turn theknees of any master chef to soufflé –

and there are nine letting rooms to serv-ice in addition.

Paul explains how his family came tothis great little corner of Langdale. “Myfather David bought the lease in 1978.He and Mum were both teachers inSouth Yorkshire but we always came upto the Lakes for holidays. Until then,Dad had never stuck at the same thingfor very long. As well as being a teacher,he had also been a soldier, a priest and apart-time fireman.”

There has surely never been a betterbackground for someone wanting to gointo the pub trade. The Britannia flour-ished. Sadly, David died almost twentyyears ago but the inn has remained insafe hands. The business is now

Director and co-owner Paul Fry came with his family to the inn in 1978

FEBRUARY 2015 23

co-owned by Paul, his sister Christine,former manageress Clare and currentlive-in managers Andrew and Anna.

In his time, Paul’s father did his bestto uncover the history of the inn.Although the building is around 500years old, it spent its early centuries as agentleman’s farmhouse. “The first doc-umentary evidence of it being a pubwas in the 1860s,” saysPaul. “Towards the endof the nineteenth cen-tury, a cobbler’s shopwas built on the endand this is now theguests’ sitting room.”

Paul assumes theinn was named after the navalship HMS Britannia and there areplenty of pointers to maritime historyhere, from the fierce battle scene on thesignboard outside, pictured, to themodel ship in the hallway to the charton the staircase listing the ships of theRoyal Navy in 1804.

Over time, several ships have bornethe name HMS Britannia but one of themost celebrated was the first rate, shipof the line launched at Portsmouth in1762. On the stairway chart, it’s listed ashaving 100 guns and a crew of 875,exactly the same as the more famousHMS Victory. In 1805 Britannia joinedNelson’s flagship at the decisive Battleof Trafalgar, which secured Britishdomination of the waves for the rest ofthe century. The ship itself was brokenup in 1825 but a later vessel that carriedforward the name was a cadet trainingship at Dartmouth in the 1890s and in

1904 the battleship HMS Britannia waslaunched, later to be sunk by a GermanU-boat.

Despite the nautical leanings, it’sunlikely the Britannia Inn has ever beenfrequented by warring seamen thoughsome of its previous customers camefrom a not-unrelated profession – the

local gunpowder works.For more than 100 years,from 1824, at a well-shielded site nearby,imported saltpetre andsulphur were com-bined with local char-coal to supply up totwenty tons of gun-

powder a week. Much of it was usedas blasting powder at local quarries.

Making gunpowder was naturallydangerous and several explosions wererecorded at the works, one in 1901when a man carrying out repairs tomachinery was helpfully given a candleto work by. It seems inevitable that thepeople who took part in such a haz-ardous operation sought to keep theirhopes high and spirits alive at thenearby inn.

They would have been joined by thequarry workers. Slate production tookoff in the mid-eighteenth century andthere were many active workings in thearea. Elterwater Quarry, on the hillsideabove the Britannia, is still in produc-tion, turning out green slate as decora-tive building stone.

Paul remembers one quarrymancalled Herbert who was a regular in the1970s. “He was a real character. He

24 FEBRUARY 2015

would come in, buy half a pint of mildand then spend the next four hourstelling other customers stories and get-ting them to buy him drinks in return.”

He also recalls that in the late ’70s thepub would frequently be taken over bylarge groups from the North East. “Wewould sell more Newcastle Brown Alein one weekend than we do in a yearnow.”

Other people have stuck in the mindtoo, including the German couple whostayed a whole month so they couldqualify as local residents, allowing themto get married at Kendal RegistryOffice. Then there was the famous actorwho turned up one day but sadly can-not be named. Paul explains: “He gotdrunk and became really obnoxious.We had to throw him out.”

Excepting occasional royalty, today’scustom is more predictable. Althoughlocal trade has fallen away as the resi-dent population has dwindled, it hasbeen replaced by holidaymakers andday visitors enjoying Lake District

scenery that’s second to none. The old gunpowder works are now a

large holiday timeshare, hotel andleisure complex, all traces of gunpow-der hopefully removed. The Britanniaholds events that draw people too. EachNovember, there is a firework display ,followed by a beer festival, which lastyear showcased more than thirty Cum-brian ales.

There is no doubt that Elterwaterqualifies as a Lakeland honeypot. Paullikes it here very much: “I love this cor-ner of the Lake District. What you seearound you constantly changes throughthe seasons. And there is a formidableview up Langdale towards the Pikes. “Itwould be very difficult to find anywherethat comes close to this place.”

Presumably that’s why it’s so popular.Put simply, this is a small but perfectlyformed pub that people just love tocram into.

And now there’s another reason tohead for the inn, particularly if you’vebeen before and still have the bill. Paul

The stained-glasspartition by theBritannia Inn’s back-bar

FEBRUARY 2015 25

explains: “A couple came in and saidthey’d spent their honeymoon at theBritannia fifty years before. They’dstayed four nights for a total of £5 16sand produced the bill to prove it. Sincethey were on a golden wedding celebra-tion, the least we could do was to matchthat price.”

So here’s the offer: if you stayed at theBritannia twenty-five or more years agoand are back now for a weddinganniversary, you can stay a night for thesame price as you did back then. All you

have to do is show the original receipt.It’s good news for archivists, scrapbook-keepers and hoarders but remember: ifyou want a go in the rocking chair,you’ll need to get there early. n

For more information visitwww.britinn.co.uk

At particularly busy times, staff can beserving up to 180 meals in an evening

Competition winner

Many congratulations to Elaine Lewis, of Bishop’s Stortford, in Hertfordshire, whowon our competition in the December issue of Cumbria for a £1,000 two-nightstay for two at Sharrow Bay, by correctly answering that the world-famous hotelstands on the shores of Ullswater. Our thanks to all who entered the competition.

26 FEBRUARY 2015

John Porter lives at the back of Skid-daw, the Northern Fells sweeping

away outside his back door. One ofthem, High Pike, is so exhilarating thatJohn’s nearest neighbour, Sir ChrisBonington, claims that it grounds himon his return from the Himalaya orAlps. The same goes for John, who has

also climbed on the biggest Himalayanpeaks, including Everest.

A co-founder in 1980 of the KendalMountain festival, his much-feted book

The tiger who came to climb

PEOPLE TONY GREENBANK

John Porter, author of One Day as aTiger

FEBRUARY 2015 27

One Day as a Tiger won the 2014 GrandPrize at the prestigious Banff MountainFestival. It tells the story of climber AlexMacIntyre who, in 1982, at the age oftwenty-eight, was killed by the mostappalling piece of bad luck: a fallingstone struck him on the head as hedescended Annapurna’s south face.

Despite his youth, MacIntyre wasone of the leading figures of Britishmountaineering’s most successful era.Porter, part of that same group of auda-cious climbers in the 1970s and ’80s,was himself a top Lakeland rockclimber, for decades. In One Day as aTiger he tells how his friend, like otherleading climbers of his generation,grappled with fate.

And how they pushed their luck. Oneday, driving to Coniston to climb onDow Crag, MacIntyre overtook a car ona bend on the narrow road betweenBroughton and Torver, laughing atPorter’s blind panic. Such a stupid thingto do, writes Porter, yet his friend withthe vast mop of curly hair said hewanted to become “one of the bestclimbers in the world”.

It was, John remembers, a poignantday in the Indian summer of 1980. Theeast-facing buttresses of the queen ofLakeland’s southwest mountains couldnot have been more inviting, and Black-pool Tower could be seen pin-sharpfrom the tops. Below the screes, Goat’sWater reflected fleecy white clouds, and

Alex MacIntyre in the Himalayas (photo courtesy of John Porter)

28 FEBRUARY 2015

ravens dived over the water. Theclimbers ticked off a couple ofextremely hard climbs up the rough,clean precipice then, as they coiled theirrope in the twilight, the sun cast a crim-son fire-bar that stretched for milesacross the Irish Sea. In view of what wasto befall MacIntyre on Annapurna, itbears out the saying “You never knowwhat lies just around the corner”.

Porter, a sixty-eight-year-old Cald-beck business consultant, knows what itis like to meet with crisis out of the blue.Seven years ago, while he was enjoying aday on Langdale Pikes, his left leg’squadricep tendon snapped. He stillremembers the pain, the shock and feel-ing of utter despair as he struggled todescended from Harrison Stickle, high-

est and best known of the LangdalePikes.

There was no one to help him on thestony, night-time descent into Lang-dale. He even fell down a few outcropsalong the way. He reached the NewDungeon Gill Hotel at three in themorning. His recovery took a year afterwhich, true to form, he was craggingagain, even tackling extreme routes likeTrue North on Shepherds Crag in Bor-rowdale.

In 2008 the tendon snapped again,this time while he was nearer to home,descending High Pike. A rescue party,comprising John’s wife, Rose, and SirChris and his brother Gerald, quicklyarrived. This time recovery tookbetween two and three years and nowJohn is content to walk the hills, espe-cially High Pike, which has a welcomeseat on the summit.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts,John had already lived in Philadelphia,Oregon and California by the time hesettled in the region around BlackCombe in Cumbria in 1974. He readEnglish at Leeds University, and becamegood friends with MacIntyre and thatgolden generation of climbers who werechanging the face of British moun-taineering. They would visit John in theFurness area to climb on crags like Dow.His father, a jet engine designer, hadplanted the seeds of Lakeland in his

Still cragging: John Porter

FEBRUARY 2015 29

mind and encouraged him to go to Eng-land at the time of the Vietnam War.

“He would take me into theAppalachian and White Mountains inNew England,” he says. “And say ‘Theseare fine, but they don’t compare withthe beauty of the Cumbrian hills risingstraight out of the seato form a paradise onEarth’.

“It was BlackCombe he was talk-ing about. I realisedthat when I firsttravelled to Millomby the train, knownby locals as theCreepy Crawly. As itchugged its wayaround More-cambe Bay I sawthese mountainslopes fall straightinto the sea. Likehe said I would, Iimmediately fellfor ‘this paradise’.Thank God dad came from Barrow andknew what he was talking about.”

After leaving university John becamethe town’s economic development offi-cer and would spend evenings running,walking or climbing on Black Combe,re-living knotty problems and ponder-ing solutions. If not Black Combe, thenit might be the crags of the Duddon Val-ley, like Wallowbarrow, also easilyreached for a couple of hours’ climbingfrom his home near the Green, a villagenear Millom. All the time he would be

recceing crags to which he would takehis university climber friends.

The ’70s and ’80s saw the sport ofclimbing undergo major change. John issanguine, and talks of how those youngLeeds University hotshots developedthe idea of travelling light to tackle thegreat Himalayan walls. Their approach

contrasted with thatof climbers like Bonington, whoemployed siege tacticswith fixed ropes, andwhose teams of Sher-pas had, it seemed,teams of other Sherpasin support.

The Alex MacIntyreway was for a smallgroup of climbers toascend a peak as quicklyas possible, travellinglight and pushing theboundaries on remote,dangerous mountains. Itwas a kind of “FastAlpinism”, for want of a

better phrase. John was with Alex on anumber of those ground-breakingHimalayan ascents and was acutelyaware of the old Tibetan saying “Betterto live one day as a tiger than live for athousand years as a sheep”. Hence thetitle of John’s book: One Day as a Tiger.John, now in the land of the Herdwicks,can reflect on how fortunate he hasbeen. n

One Day as a Tiger, above, is publishedby Vertebrate Publishing (£20)

30 FEBRUARY 2015

The sixteenth Keswick Film Festival kicksoff on Thursday, February 26 – andCumbria magazine has four passes togiveaway.

Centered on Keswick’s century-oldAlhambra Cinema, the festival continuesuntil Sunday, March 1, with films alsobeing shown at the TheatreBy The Lake and on theIMAX screen at Rheged.

2015’s themes are On YerBike, (dis)ABILITY and thetwentieth anniversary ofavant-garde filmmakingmovement Dogme 95. There will be theusual Best Of Fests, the Osprey Award forShort films, and Keswick Peace andHuman Rights films, along with speakersand documentaries.

On Yer Bike is a collection ofdocumentaries exploring our love of twowheels, and includes three films featuring

bicycles and motorbikes. One Crazy Ride, tobe shown on Rheged’s IMAX screen, showswhat you can do with a motorbike, acamera and a will that defies explanation.

(dis)ABILITY, which features filmsportraying people with disabilities in waysyou do not expect, includes the

unforgettable The Tribe,which film critic PeterBradshaw described as “anintriguing film – I can’t stopthinking about it”.

The programme will alsofeature locally made films,

workshops, guests, screenings and talksarranged by the Keswick Peace andHuman Rights Groups, a free family film,and even a late night frighteners.

Whatever your tastes, there is sure to beat least one film for you. You can sign upfor regular emails updates atwww.keswickfilmfestival.org.

Write your entry on a postcard or on the back of asealed envelope and send it to:

Keswick Film Festival Competition, Cumbria Magazine, Country Publications Ltd,

The Water Mill, Broughton Hall, Skipton BD23 3AG, or email linda@dalesman.co.uk. 

The first correct entry drawn after February 20, 2015, will win.  If you do not wish to receive promotional material, please indicate on your entry. 

Usual Country Publications Ltd rules apply.

Cumbria magazine has four Film Festival Passes to giveaway. Each pass, worth £45, grants the holder entry to all filmsand events over the festival weekend. For your chance to win,

simply answer this question:

Who is the patron of the Keswick Film Festival?  

Festival patron John Hurt

Win passes to the 2015 Keswick Film

Festival, with magazine

FEBRUARY 2015 31

February: Sticky toffee pudding

February is the month of love, when agood snuggle with the person most

dear to you is one way to keep warmon a chilly evening. I amdedicating thismonth’s recipeto my lovelyhusband,Richard –my Valen-tine – andno, I wasn’tpaid towrite that!

I realised veryearly on in ourmarriage that theway to his heart wasthrough his stomach, via avery sweet tooth. His love ofdesserts and puddings has gotme out of many a tricky situation: Iremember the day I threw out his din-ner suit because it was too small – justone of the times I have had to employmy cooking skills to manoeuvre myselfback into his good books.

The bonus of regularly having to getout of the doghouse is that I havedeveloped quite a large collection ofdessert recipes. Sticky toffee pudding ishis – and our family’s – absolutefavourite but it must come with

lashings andlashings of

sticky toffeesauce.

I serveit in aplaindish, as

the scrap-ing of every

bit of saucewould take the

pattern off my crock-ery… I just never make

enough sauce. Thispudding, some say, originated

at the Sharrow Bay Country Househotel and restaurant, on Ullswater, inthe 1970s; it has since been taken tofame and stardom by the CartmelSticky Toffee Pudding Company: this isdefinitely a Cumbrian pud, for sure. Atthis time of the year a visit to your dried

The family favourite that’scovered with love

CUMBRIAN KITCHEN LOUISE FLANDERS

32 FEBRUARY 2015

ingredients cupboard (or, if you arelucky, larder), is all that you need tomake this wonderful wholesomeafters, with the sticky bit coming cour-tesy of the dried dates. Like most of mycooking, it is fairly simple and quick tomake – a needs-must in our busy lives.

So if you are in the mood for someserious romance then make this andyou will be definitely the flavour of themonth.Method: Pre-heat the oven to 160°C

(fan) or 180°C/Gas Mark 4.Stone and chop the dates, then pop

them into a bowl and soak them in theboiling water. Leave for thirty minutesonce cooled, then mash them with afork.

Grease the tins with butter andsprinkle with a little flour to helpprevent the pudding from stickinglater.

While the dates are soaking, you canmix the flour and bicarbonate of sodatogether.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.Beat the butter and sugar together

in a large bowl but not too much: keepthe mixture grainy.

Start adding the egg, a little at atime, beating well with each addition.

Then beat in the treacle. Slowly addthe flour and milk, a spoonful at atime, until it has all been used.

Stir in the orange rind and dates.The batter might look like it has cur-

dled but please don’t worry.Pop the mixture into one deep tin or

six pudding tins and bake for 20-25minutes.Method: Pop the sugar and butter

into a pan, with half of the cream.Boil over a medium heat until the

sugar has dissolved then turn up theheat and let the sauce bubble forbetween two and three minutes, untilit has a toffee colour. Watch that itdoesn’t burn though.

Take the pan off the stove and beatin the rest of the cream.

Once the puds are cooked let themrest for a few minutes before loosening

Toffee sauce ingredients

115g butter115g light brown sugar140ml double cream

Sticky toffee pudding ingredients (serves 6)

225g dried dates175g boiling water175g self-raising flour1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda2 eggs85g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing the tin140g muscovado sugar2 tablespoons of black treacle100ml milkGrated rind of an orange

FEBRUARY 2015 33

them out of the pudding tins. You canserve them with the sauce drizzled overthem.

Tip: To make them even stickier youcan drizzle half of the sauce over thepuddings and leave in the fridge tosoak for a few days. Then, when youwant to eat them, cover the puds withthe rest of the sauce and pop them intothe oven (160°C [fan] or 180°C/GasMark 4) for about 15 minutes, until thesauce is bubbling.

Serve with cream, custard or both. n

Next month: hot spicy Cumberland sausage casserole

Millom-born Louise Flanders runs the LakesCatering Company, based above the westernshore of Windermere. Using locally sourcedingredients wherever possible, she and her teamprovide home-cooked meals for privatefunctions, corporate events and luxury holidaycottages across the Lake District.www.thelakescateringcompany.co.uk

Swim for the hills

A new challenge launched by Ambleside swim company Head to the Hills offersthe chance for adventurers to swim in all of the English Lakes over two weekends.

The Great Lake District Swim Challenge is split into two halves – east and westLake District. Swimmers will have to cross a width, sometimes twice, of each ofthe swim-able lakes in the allotted time before moving on to the next.

The two weekends are August 8–9 and September 5–6 September. Accommo-dation is included. Groups are small, as Head to the Hills is keen to minimise anydamage to the environment. Details 015394 33826, www.headtothehills.co.uk

34 FEBRUARY 2015

Painting is in Kendal artist FrancesWinder’s blood. With father and

grandfather both painters, she washooked from an early age. “I have aneed to paint,” she says. “I want topaint all the time.”

She recalls, with a wry smile, oncebeing advised by a prospective agentto produce just eight paintings a year.“They really liked my work andthought I could do well but told meto limit my output. I didn’t want todo that. It’s too important to paint,so I carried on painting.”

Frances does about fifty paintingsa year, along with small studies andsketches. That’s fairly prolific, espe-cially accounting for time spent onher other creative interests, whichinclude ceramics, gardening,machine embroidery and printing,not to mention regular commit-ments as a tutor at the Brewery ArtsCentre in Kendal, People’s Hall inSedbergh and – for one week everysummer – near Cómpeta, amid thesun-bleached mountains of southernSpain’s Andalucía.

Her paintings, eye-catchingly litand rich in colour and texture, are

Capturing nature’ssmouldering beauty

PEOPLE ANDREW GALLON

FEBRUARY 2015 35

(to use her description) rooted in thelandscape. Many are inspired by Cum-bria’s coast and mountains. MorecambeBay – notably around Sandside andJenny Brown’s Point – is a cherishedhaunt. “I love the changing atmospherebetween the light, the water and thelandscape. You get sweeping banks ofcloud going across. I enjoy the drama.”

Frances is also fond of visits to thefells in the Grasmere district. “It’simportant for the hills and countrysideto be accessible. I prefer the wilder areasof Cumbria, to the north (of Kendal),

Detail from Frosty Grass, a winter sceneby Frances Winder (opposite page)

36 FEBRUARY 2015

rather than our local landscape, whichis a bit round, soft and tame.”

Frances tends to paint in autumn,winter and spring. Summer is rathertoo green and lush for her taste and,besides, it’s a season best reserved forgardening. As well as fashioning prettymuch from scratch an impressive homegarden, she is a Lakeland HorticulturalSociety volunteer gardener at Holehird.“I prefer the harder things. I love wintrylandscapes, the boniness of the hills andthe moody storms. Autumn is afavourite time. I love the colours andthe way the structures of the treesemerge. You’ve often got that smoulder-ing beauty in the colours, particularlywhen it gets to November. It feels veryprecious to be out then because it’sephemeral. It’s all going to blow awaywith the next gale. I like the water whenit’s really dark and reflecting the coloursof the trees.”

Frances and husband John are keenwalkers. Indeed, walking was one oftheir reasons for moving to Kendal fif-teen years ago. While walking, Francesmakes notes in a small sketchbook andtakes photographs, creating the paint-ings in her home studio. “I use photo-graphs to catch the quality of light butprefer to work from my little, scruffysketches. Working from photographs, Itend to put too much in and I want tobe freer and more abstract: to get moreof an essential quality in my painting.I’m disappointed when it ends up toorepresentational.”

She works in various media but atpresent is using a lot of gesso, a sort of

paste that’s like a mixture of PVA glue,Polyfilla and white emulsion. “It buildsup a textural surface on the paint and Ican get brilliant effects with it. Often,my work is very layered. It starts as asimple thing and gradually becomesmore complex, especially if I’m usingoil pastel and gouache. This is layered,scratched through and distressed, andgets away from the subject; the literalthing I’m trying to do.”

With the gesso beneath, Frances usesrags to wipe on layers of paint thenbrings into play (of all things) a creditcard. It’s the perfect tool for construct-ing the skeletal framework of trees andthe sensuous shapes of wind-tossedgrasses.

Frances’s paintings are becomingincreasingly abstract. “Representationalwork is starting to feel old fashioned tome. I don’t want to keep doing itbecause it’s repeating what I can do tooeasily.

“My work is changing. I want tochallenge myself, to do something thathas a deeper, intellectual quality, whichmay be harder for people to like orappreciate. If I was considering themoney, I would do the more represen-tational ones because they sell moreeasily, but the ones my heart is really inare the more abstract ones. I have beenselling my work well recently and havebeen encouraged that the more modernpaintings have sold.

“I started off painting in a muchmore straightforward way, always formany years using oil pastel andgouache. But I’ve been experimenting,

FEBRUARY 2015 37

with watercolour and acrylic paint,which has got better and better. Thecolours are much more dependable.Watercolour can look rather thin but Ilove its freedom: being able to be quitewild with it, which I enjoy.

“The paintings in my head are sogood; I wish they’d come out over can-vas. I’ve got all the concepts but I’mfighting hard to make it work, to bewhat I want. I want to capture and sharethat fleeting, really special moment; thelove that I have of being in this environ-ment.”

Leicester-born Frances, who has afine art degree and a teaching qualifica-tion from Manchester Polytechnic, andhas exhibited at the Royal Academy,moved to Kendal shortly after marryingJohn. She did a postgraduate studioceramics course while living near Man-chester. Frances introduced John to

ceramics, and the couple is now whatshe calls a “three-kiln family”. In 2013,they exhibited together for the firsttime, at Potfest, Penrith.

Both are members of Green Door, aKendal-based, not-for-profit artists’collective with about a hundred mem-bers spread across South Lakeland. “It’sa group of people who egg each otheron and think, intellectually as well aspractically, about what they’re doing. Idon’t go for art tips; I go for art con-cepts and to broaden my vision. Theexchange of ideas is very stimulating. Ialways have too many ideas. My prob-lem is focusing and following some-thing through, not just skittering off onthe next mad scheme. Having

“I want to paint all the time.” Francescaptures winter grasses on Tarn Hows

38 FEBRUARY 2015

exhibitions with the group is good forme because I can see what its membersare doing and also focus myself to workon something particular.”

Frances enjoys projects. They haveincluded exhibitions of paintingsdepicting Holker Hall through the sea-sons, the Kent from source to sea andGrizedale Forest. “I’ve got a loose ideato do Kendal Yards, perhaps with aslightly abstract, design sense, ratherthan a literal portrayal. I’d like to do adifferent river. With projects, I find I getto know a place and fall in love with dif-ferent aspects of it.”

There are common elements to allFrances’s work. Her paintings, pots,prints, embroidery and even gardeningare bound together by colour and tex-ture, fabric and form. Always, she triesto avoid the predictable. Of the printingprocess, she says: “It removes you. Itadds chance and accident to whatyou’re doing, which makes it very inter-esting; at least in the experimental way Ido it.”

Frances urges a similar approachupon those she tutors. “I encouragepeople to play, explore and learn fromeach other. I never like them to end upwith something like mine.”

Painting continues to run inFrances’s family. Manchester-bornnephew Nigel Cooke has a PhD in fineart from Goldsmiths College, London,and a solo exhibition record thatincludes Tate Britain. “He does exceed-ingly well,” says Frances, “but he reallyrelishes the fact that his whole familyhas always painted.”

To the end of March, Cumbria read-ers can catch two exhibitions ofFrances’s work. The Dover Gallery atFarfield Mill, Sedbergh, features herpaintings, pots and embroidery, alongwith John’s ceramics. A selling exhibi-tion, of about thirty paintings, is dis-played in the coffee shop at CountryHarvest, Ingleton. Frances’s work canbe viewed throughout the year at Fines-tra Gallery, Kirkby Lonsdale, and NewMoon Restaurant, Kendal. n

For more, visit franceswinder.com and davenportceramics.co.uk

Rich in colour: Grizedale Pines

FEBRUARY 2015 39

Life in Hurlmere isn’t all beer and skit-tles. Except on Monday, of course,

which is beer and skittles night. Theseare tough times for those in thelicensed trade: on winter evenings weneed an excuse to put on an overcoat,leave frosty footprints across the villagegreen and stroll into the Feathers. SoTuesday night is quiz night, Wednesdaynight is darts and dominoes, and I canheartily recommend the pie-and-peassupper on Thursdays. By the timeFriday rolls around, the regulars needno inducements to prop up the barexcept good beer, inconsequential con-versation and a plentiful supply of porkscratchings.

It’s exactly 200 years since EdwinEarnshaw sat by the fire in theFeathers, poking the embers and put-ting the finishing touches to his epicpoem. The Prologuewove together hisgreat obsessions: metaphysics, theLakeland landscape and the problemsof finding a plumber at weekends.Though never as well-known as thebard of Grasmere, Earnshaw had asmall but loyal following – mostlyblood relatives – here in Hurlmere. Henever wanted for hospitality as long as

he had a raging thirst and a sheaf ofpoems in his pocket.

Locals were proud, in theory, to havea published poet living in their midst,though, in practice, he could clear acrowded room in minutes.

“Would you like to hear a poem?”he’d say. There was only one thing thatlocals wanted to hear less, and thatwas “Would you like to hear anotherone?” Before anyone could answer –or plead a headache – he would startto recite one of his longer poems in aloud, declamatory voice. If he missedout a verse or stumbled over a line, hewould apologise profusely and startagain from the beginning. Locals werehappy to buy him a glass of porter ifthat would make him stop.

Edwin lived in the village with his sister Miriam who, literally andmetaphorically, supplied the prose tohis poetry. She cooked, cleaned theirdiminutive cottage and looked afterEdwin while his head was in theclouds. She acted as his amanuensis,converting his spidery scribble into legi-ble verse. She paid the bills by taking inwashing, and would walk across thefells, braving the worst of winter

JOHN MORRISONHUMOUR

The bard of Hurlmere

40 FEBRUARY 2015

weather, to renew her brother’sprescriptions. “Another bottle oflaudanum,” she would say to the phar-macist, wearily. “It seems that Edwin’scold is no better.”

It wasn’t easy living with a literarygenius: a man who plumbed thehuman condition in rhyming coupletswhile being unable, apparently, tomake toast, flick a duster round or (thesource of much domestic conflict) cleara blocked drain. If she hadn’t beenlumbered with all the householdchores, who knows, Miriam mighthave had a literary career of her own.Instead, she consigned her thoughts toher journal. “Went for a walk withEdwin,” reads a typical entry. “Welooked for daffodils, but there weren’tany. Edwin caught a chill and retired tohis cot”. Years later this apparently triv-ial incident would inspire Edwin towrite his most famous poem. Downthe years, schoolchildren have had tolearn it, parrot-fashion, with the resultthat all they ever remember is the firstline: “I wandered about for a bit.”

Planned to be merely anintroduction to the major opus he wasplanning to write, The Prologue grewand grew. On publication, in February1815, the book attracted mutedpraise. In terms of critical appraisal itrepresented the high-water mark of hisliterary career.

Poetry is a demanding discipline,

and the muse often deserted him.Edwin wore holes in the carpet as hepaced to and fro, composing his verses.He wore holes in the lawn too, unlessthat was moles. In search of inspiration,he walked the hills, turning over theverses in his head to the rhythm of hisfootsteps. From the top of BloggersHow he looked down on the denizensof Hurlmere, who, from that distance,seemed no bigger than ants. To theselocals – farmers, blacksmiths, leech-gatherers and the like – Earnshaw wasjust a man who talked to himself.

As the great work continued toelude him, Edwin was forced to turnhis hand to more mundane projects.He produced a Guidebook to Hurlmereand the Less Popular Lakes, under apseudonym, and instantly regrettedthe influx of visitors who came to walkthe hills… his hills! In terms of financialreward, however, it represented thehigh-water mark of his literary career.He could finally afford to engage a rep-utable plumber. In his declining yearshe was reduced to penning an irregularcolumn in the Gazette & Advertiser,entitled “Funny things my cat does”.

There’s a copy of The Prologuebehind the bar in the Feathers today,wedged between the Good Pub Guideand the Yellow Pages. We rememberEdwin every February, by drinking hishealth and not reciting any of hispoetry. n

When t’ day begins to lengthen, the cawld begins to strengthen. Old Cumbrian saying on the weather

FEBRUARY 2015 41

Lady Anne Clifford was fifty-threeyears old when she finally claimed

her rightful inheritance. She embarkedon a long legal battle and overcamemany obstacles in the process –defying the judiciary, two husbands, OliverCromwell and KingJames. No wonder theword most commonlyused to describeLady Anne is“indomitable”…

She was born in1589 at SkiptonCastle, the daughterof George Clifford(third Earl of Cum-berland, a favourite atthe court of Queen Eliz-abeth) and his wife Mar-garet. Her brothers died ininfancy so, according to long-stand-ing family tradition, the extensiveestates should have been bequeathed toher, as the oldest heir. But she was justfifteen when her father died and theproperties were willed instead toGeorge’s brother, Francis Clifford, with

Anne receiving a cash sum in compen-sation.

Stung by the unfairness of herfather’s will, Anne fixated on righting

the wrong. Her first husband,Richard Sackville, third Earl

of Dorset, took charge ofthe lawsuits and won theright to inherit half ofthe properties.

For Anne, how-ever, it was “all ornothing”. WhenRichard negotiatedanother cash settle-ment, he pocketedthe money himself.

The king confirmedFrancis Clifford’s right

to the family estates andenjoined her to give up her

claim but to no avail. AfterRichard’s death Anne married her

second husband, Philip Herbert, Earl ofPembroke and Montgomery, in 1624.

Innocent pleasures of acountry life

HISTORY JOHN MORRISON

Lady Anne Clifford fought long andhard to claim her rightful inheritance

42 FEBRUARY 2015

He was more sympathetic to his wife’scampaign, and provided her with thename – Anne Pembroke – that she wasto use for the rest of her long life. But hetoo failed to aid her cause. There weretimes when her mother seemed to beher only ally, and still there was no reso-lution to her claim.

It wasn’t until the death, withoutissue, of Francis Clifford’s son, in 1643,that Anne finally inherited the familyestates, which included 90,000 acres ofland, five castles – Appleby, Brough,Pendragon, Brougham and Skipton –and other properties around the North.The Civil War was still raging, however,and she was living in London. She hadto wait another six years before she wasable to travel north and assume her new

responsibilities. By 1649 her monarchwas dead, she was estranged from herhusband, and her daughters were mar-ried. Finally, she was free. Even thoughshe was then sixty years old, it musthave seemed like her life was only justbeginning. She celebrated by commis-sioning a painting, in the form of a trip-tych, which depicts her on the left as afifteen-year-old girl, and on the right asa matriarch of fifty-six, with the centralpanel featuring her parents and broth-ers. The painting now hangs in theAbbot Hall Museum in Kendal.

She came north to find the castles ina poor state of repair – some throughneglect, others by intent – and Annespent the next twenty-six years restor-ing them to their former glory. Oliver

Brougham Castle where Lady Anne passed away in 1676 at the age of eighty-seven

FEBRUARY 2015 43

Cromwell had ‘slighted’ the castles atBrougham, Appleby and Skipton, toensure that they should never again beused in a defensive capacity. Anne’s ren-ovations met no opposition fromCromwell, despite her support of theRoyalist cause. “Let her build what shewill,” he is reported to have said. “Sheshall have no hindrance from me.”

We can imagine her making slow andregal progress along rough roads, in theworst of weather, usually in a coachdrawn by six horses. She travelled with aretinue of servants and dozens of cartsfull of furnishings – even her bed – asshe moved from one castle to the next.It must have been quite a sight; no won-der her memory lives on. As one of thewealthiest women in the land, and withno husband to rein in her ambitions,she enjoyed her latter years to the full.

“I do more and more fall in love withthe innocent pleasures of a countrylife,” she confided in her diary.

Her travels around the North weremarked by philanthropy; hand-madelocks, bearing her initials, were afavourite gift for her tenants. She builtalmshouses in Appleby for poor wid-ows. She restored bridges and erected

Almshouses in Appleby, an example ofLady Anne’s philanthropy

The triptych Lady Anne commissioned which shows her as a young girl on the left,as a matriarch on the right, with her parents and brothers featured in the centre

44 FEBRUARY 2015

monuments. As a devout Anglican sherepaired churches and set up trusts toensure the upkeep of important build-ings after her death. She didn’t hide herlight under a bushel, marking eachrestoration with a plaque detailing hercontribution. The High Cross, at thetop of Boroughgate in Appleby, bearsher apt motto: “Retain your loyalty, pre-serve your rights”.

Lady Anne Clifford died in 1676 atBrougham Castle, at the advanced ageof eighty-seven, in the room where herfather had been born. Her tomb, whichshe designed herself, is in St Lawrence’sChurch, Appleby. She certainly left hermark, particularly on the old county ofWestmorland, even though her castles –apart from Appleby and Skipton – areruinous again, and many of the build-ings associated with her can still be vis-ited today. n

A lock at Dacre parish church bearingLady Anne’s initials, A P (AnnePembroke)

ONE of the most at-riskindustrial sites in Englandwith a large part of it declared a ScheduledAncient Monument,Backbarrow ironworks wasin operation for more thantwo hundred and fiftyyears. Established in 1711 its main products were guncarriages, cannon and cannonballs. Its blast furnace (above), fuelled bycharcoal, was one of the first to be built

in the county, and it isbelieved to be the lastremaining example of itskind. Iron ore from LowFurness would arrive at thequays in Haverthwaite andthen be transported toBackbarrow by horse andcart. Work ceased at the

site in 1967 and it fell into disrepair.Plans were put forward last year whichwould preserve the site, incorporating itinto a holiday park.

Cumbria curiosities

FEBRUARY 2015 45

Not surprisingly, perhaps, since theheadquarters of the Freshwater

Biological Association is situated onits shoreline, the brown trout of Win-dermere has been the subject ofgreater study than trout elsewhere inthe Lake District.

Windermere trout, like most otherLake District trout, do not spawn inthe lake itself but in the tributariesrunning into it. Spawning normallytakes place in late November, althoughthere is some variation and Winder-mere trout have been observed

The voraciousWindermere trout

FISHING KEITH HARWOOD

Photo by Angela Maynard

46 FEBRUARY 2015

ascending Trout Beck as early as August.The spawning migration usually takesplace during a spate and the female fishnormally spawn and return to the lakewithin a twenty-four hour period. Malefish, however, often stay in the spawn-ing stream for longer in order to fer-tilise other females. A study of thegenetics of young trout in some of thetributary streams suggests that eachstream has its own unique genetic stockof fish.

The young trout hatch in the springand remain in the stream to feed for upto three years before taking up resi-dence in the lake itself. The majority oftrout, however, are two years old whenthey first enter Windermere. On enter-ing the lake the young trout tend tooccupy the littoral zone (the shoreline),although some trout feed in the openwater of the lake. Indeed, the Winder-mere fish that feed around the shorelineappear physically different from theones that feed in more open water. Theshoreline fish are sometimes referred toas “yellow bellies” on account of theiryellow colouring andred spots. Thetrout that feedin open watertend to have silveryflanks and black spots.

The diet of Lakeland brown troutvaries from month to month and fromwater to water. However, studies ofWindermere trout show that, for feed-ing purposes, the year can be dividedinto three periods:

October-February: During this

period trout largely feed on bottom-dwelling fauna, ie, molluscs and crus-taceans.

March-July: At this time of year thetrout feed principally on insect larvae

and pupae.May-Septem-

ber: During thisperiod the trout

feed largely uponterrestrial insects found at

the surface of the water.A good knowledge of these feeding

periods is very useful to the fly fisher-man in pursuit of his quarry. A numberof trout in Windermere and other largelakes, after reaching a foot or so inlength, become exclusively piscivorous

FEBRUARY 2015 47

and live on a diet of minnows, perch,charr and even juveniles of their ownspecies. These trout, often referred to asferox trout, can grow to a large size andfish up to fifteen pounds in weight havebeen caught in Windermere. JamesClarke in his Survey of the Lakes (1787)tells an interesting story concerning thevoracity of these Windermere trout:“On the 28th of October, 1784, I was

upon the shore about Cunza, when Iobserved a boat coming towards me, andnear the same time perceived it stop andthe men in it take something out of thewater; on their coming ashore, they toldme that in coming they saw two largetrouts floating upon the surface of thelake with their bellies uppermost, close

alongside each other, and seeminglydead. On laying hold of one of them theyseemed to be entangled, but in lifting itout of the water the other made its escape;then they discovered that they had seizedbetween them a small trout, and eachseemed determined to lose its life ratherthan its prey; they had struggled till lifewas almost spent, and both might haveeasily been taken if the fishermen hadbelieved either to be alive; the lesser,which they took, weighed about a poundand a half; the other they supposed toweigh above two pounds.”

During the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries the ferox trout of Ull-swater was believed to be a separatespecies and was often referred to by ear-lier writers as the “great grey trout”.James Clarke believed it to be peculiarto Ullswater and Buttermere and statedthat it could grow up to thirty or fortypounds (13.6/18kg). He even claimedthat a specimen of fifty-six pounds(400kg) had been killed. Since the cur-rent British trout record stands at 31lb12oz (14.4kg), for a fish taken in LochAwe in 2002, I think Clarke’s fifty-six-pound fish may be nothing more than afisherman’s tale!

These larger Lake District trout areusually caught by anglers trolling froma boat using Rapala lures or similar

Fishermen on Crummock Water in themorning (photo by John Sherwen). Inset,brown trout (photo by Lizzie Harper)

artificial lures. Nowadays they are occa-sionally taken by anglers trolling forpike. Traditional charr fishers, too,catch a number of large trout as theytroll the lakes. In former times, trollingwith Devon minnows or natural min-nows mounted on a spinning flight wasa popular method of catching biggertrout. Both George Foster Braithwaiteand John Watson enjoyed trolling fortrout on Windermere and elsewhere.Indeed, in The English Lake DistrictFisheries (1899), Watson waxes elo-quent with regard to trolling on Win-dermere:“Let me state that there is a great

charm about trolling on Windermere,and the angler will never forget a summernight so spent. As the light fades thesounds on the lake become fewer andfewer, and by midnight one is alone onthe lake. There is no sound save that ofoars in the rowlocks and the soft swish ofthe water. The experience is pleasantenough in itself, but trout fishing, andwith good sport, one realises that life is adelightful thing.”

For the modern fly fisherman, usedto fishing waters densely stocked withrainbow trout, fishing on Windermereor one of the other larger lakes can be adaunting prospect. Although fishingfrom the bank can be productive, themost effective method is to fish from aboat. Unfortunately, unless the anglerhas his own boat, hiring a boat at touristrates for a whole day can be prohibi-tively expensive. The best months for flyfishing on the larger lakes are fromApril to June and then again in

September. Again, Watson’s advice onwhere and how to fish on the largerlakes is as useful today as it was when itwas written over a hundred years ago:“The best trout ground is along the

shallow margins of the lake, and it is herethat the fishing is done. A boat (not toonarrow) is almost invariably used, prefer-ably one with a fair amount of stability.This is kept moving slowly, the anglercasting towards the shore. During the daythe fish mostly lie just where the bankshelves down to deeper water, and theangler cannot do better than follow thisplan. Roughly speaking, the line indicatedis about forty yards from the shore. Theangler should always fish with the wind –not against it – and if the boat is rowedslowly parallel with the shore a greatextent of ground can be covered… A longline is quite unnecessary. When a fishrises, do not snatch the flies away; it isbetter to be too slow than too quick.Nearly every good fish will hook itself ifallowed.”n

Keith Harwood’s new book Fish & Fish-ers of the Lake District,from which this extract istaken, is published by theMedlar Press (www.medlarpress.com) at £20hbk (plus p&p of £3.50within the UK).

Cumbria magazine readers areentitled to a ten per cent discount on theprice – £18 plus £3.50 p&p (UK). Tele-phone 01691 623225 and quote “Cum-bria Magazine”. Offer valid until Febru-ary 28, 2015.

48 FEBRUARY 2015

FEBRUARY 2015 49

The setting is spectacular: thirty-eight stones of metamorphic slate

arranged in a flattened circle on a grassyplateau above Keswick, surrounded bySkiddaw, Blencathra, Clough Head,High Seat and the Derwent Fells.Nobody knows who created the circle,or why, though there has been plenty ofresearch – and inspired guesswork –over recent years.

What are we looking at? A temple? Amarket? A forum? A celestial calendar?The mystery remains. We can, at least,

be on firmer ground about when thecircle was created: around 3200 BC(defined, by archaeologists, as the LateNeolithic or Early Bronze Age), whichmakes Castlerigg one of the earlieststone circles in Britain.

The first written account was by anti-quarian William Stukeley. What hedescribed in 1725 was clearly what can... cont page 52

Moving in ancient circles

LANDSCAPE JOHN MORRISON

Long Meg, near Little Salkeld

Castlerigg stone circle framed bya cloud-wreathed Blencathra

52 FEBRUARY 2015

Worth the effort to visit: the stone circle at Swinside

From page 49be seen today, except that he also men-tions, in passing, an even bigger stonecircle in the next field! Following a visitto the stones with William Wordsworth,Samuel Taylor Coleridge described “aDruidical circle where the mountainsstand one behind the other, in orderlyarray as if evoked by and attentive to theassembly of white-vested wizards”.

Castlerigg’s appeal has only increasedin the intervening years, and it is nowowned by the National Trust. Visitorsinclude photographers like me, hopingfor dramatic light to illuminate thestones, aficionados of ancient sites andpeople with over-active imaginationswho confidently expect the stones to becrackling with neolithic energy!

To the east of Castlerigg – in theEden Valley, near Little Salkeld – acoven of witches was turned to stone bya Scottish wizard called Michael Scot,for the crime of profaning the Sabbathwith their wild and wanton dancing.The story might be fanciful but thestones are still standing; if you cancount them twice, and come to sametotal both times, you will either breakthe spell or get bad luck… or possiblyboth. Long Meg and her Daughters isthe second largest stone circle in thecountry – at least in terms of diameter,at 330 feet (100m) – and dates back toaround 1500 BC.

Meg, named after a seventeenth-cen-tury witch, Meg of Meldon, is a tall(12ft/3.6m) sandstone monolith, deco-

FEBRUARY 2015 53

The circle at Birkrigg Common overlooks Bardsea and Morecambe Bay

rated with cup and ring markings,which stands sixty-five feet (20m) out-side the circle. Her “daughters”, by con-trast, are granite boulders. Wordsworthwas a devotee. “Next to Stonehenge,” hewrote, “it is beyond dispute the mostnotable relic that this or probably anyother country contains.” I don’t sharethe poet’s certainty but, even with afarm track driven through the circle, it’sstill an impressive earthwork. Look outfor the signpost to the “Druids Cir-cle”…

The circle at Swinside – five miles(8km) north of Millom on SwinsideFell, and 1.5 miles (2.4km) from thenearest road – requires visitors to put ina little more legwork. The effort isworthwhile. More compact than LongMeg, with a diameter of 100 feet (30m),the circle also goes by the name ofSunkenkirk. According to local folklore,

the stones had been used in the buildingof a church. However, the plans wereregularly thwarted by the devil, whocreated the stone circle instead.

Last – and least impressive – is astone circle on Birkrigg Common, nearUlverston, at a junction of pathsthrough the bracken. Though the circleis small, the view is splendid: overlook-ing the village of Bardsea and the glis-tening sands of Morecambe Bay. Thereare other circles and standing stones inCumbria but these four represent thebest examples, with most of their stonesstill intact. Perhaps this is the biggestmystery of all: how these intriguing cre-ations have survived the millenniaunscathed. n

lMap references: Castlerigg NY292236,Long Meg NY571372, SwinsideSD171881, Birkrigg SD292739.

FEBRUARY 2015 55

According to the way I work out theyear, this is the last month of win-

ter. I know there are plenty who say it has to be the equinox of March 21 but so many spring stirrings have hap-pened by then that it seems a littleridiculous to leave it as late as that. Bythen the daffodils are in full swing, thesnowdrops have been and gone, thesloes are in flower along with the earlybullaces, and the witch hazel has longfinished.

Here on the farm there will be lambseverywhere and the cow shed will bestarting to fill with new arrivals. It’s thesame come summer: why say it is juststarting on the June 21, when this isthe height of the daylight hours and istraditionally called “Midsummer’sEve”?

The truth is that the seasons blendseamlessly into each other, and varywith each year. There is no set day onwhich winter becomes spring or sum-mer becomes autumn – it justsomehow happens, and can beheralded by something as simple as achange in the robin’s song or a certaintang in the air. Trying to order nature is,as I have learned, futile. It is better just

to go along with her and be asprepared as possible!

As the final month of winter iscounted down, and the promise ofspring over the horizon becomes evercloser, it is a time for thinking aboutnew things, changes, new directions. Itcould be that the wonky patio whichhas annoyed you ever since youclapped eyes on it just has to go; or,now that there is a glimmer of extralight in the evenings, it’s time for a fit-ness regime that will enable you toscale our best fells and mountains withease come the summer. Or perhaps it’stime you resolved to never put thatbloody cow in calf again as, onceagain, you had to assist it at calvingafter which it chased you around thepen and rammed you in a corner. Anywhich-way, now is the time to start thechanges; to let your new plans anddreams gain momentum with the stir-rings of a new year.

I for one will be doing just that. Myelder son, William, is fourteen. I startedwriting Farm on the Fell sometime dur-ing his gestation/infancy – I am unsureexactly as to when – but I have enjoyedrelaying my thoughts on many things

FARM ON THE FELL HELEN BROMLEY

May all your dreams come true

56 FEBRUARY 2015

rural, and in general, to you everymonth. Marking events that occurcyclically in the farming calendar aswell as other events like foot andmouth in 2001, which was an horrifictime. The seasons have waxed andwaned; two more children were born;sheep were bought and sold; weacquired our first Blonde d’Aquitainebull, tractor and, of course (still muchto my husband and father-in-law’sintense irritation) bought the firstponies.

A constant in Farm on the Fell hasbeen an admiration for our simplylovely county, an appreciation ofwhich, of course, draws people to visitCumbria in their thousands and yet,sometimes, that brings its own bag oftroubles…

The other constant has been thevagaries of the weather. I would love tosay that over the last fourteen years theweather has improved somewhat –and yet that would be a lie. As I typenow, it is absolutely bucketing it downand has been all day. My hens are look-ing most cheesed off – they alwaysblame me for inclement weather – andthere is nothing more pitiful lookingthan a soaking wet, bedraggled hen.We have tonnes of rain but,fortunately, we live on a hill so theflooding that inflicted so many was notour fate: we just have all the nutrients

in our soil leached away instead andseem to be cultivating some impressiveand expanding bottomless bogs. Afriend has recently passed on to me apair of size eight mid-thigh lengthwaders – James thought they lookedmildly kinky (only he would) – and I amseriously considering wearing themwhen fetching the horses in tonight, asa safety precaution.

Anyway, to stop beating around thebush (I’ll leave that to the gale that isalso inflicting us today), my time atCumbriamagazine has drawn to aclose. My new job as assistantveterinary nurse takes up a hugeamount of time and, though I enjoy itimmensely, my brain is exhaustedwhen I get home! The three offspringdemand more and more of our time(and money), and my responsibilitiesregarding my various livestock have notdiminished in any way. In order not todisappoint you with writing utterdrivel, I have decided to call it a day.Many thanks to all those of you whohave read and enjoyed Farm on the Fell– I hope these last fourteen years havegiven you an insight into a fairly normalfarming family and the ins and outs ofwhat goes on in a South Lakelandmixed livestock farm from month-to-month.

Best wishes to you all, Helen and family. n

No tufted verdue graces its banks, nor hanging woods throw rich reflectionson it surface; but every form, which it suggests, is savage and desolate.

William Gilpin on Thirlmere, 1772

FEBRUARY 2015 57

NOTEBOOK JOHN MANNING

Marmalade’s in the public eye at themoment, what with the recent

box office success of the PaddingtonBear movie… don’t be surprised, there-fore, if Dalemain’s tenth annual home-made marmalade awards have a hugespread of entries.

The award ceremony – more of afestival – will be held at Dalemain Man-sion and Gardens, near Penrith, overthe weekend of February 28 andMarch 1.

Last year’s competition attractedmore than 2,400 golden jars from as

far away as Australia, Japan, SouthAfrica, South Korea, New Zealand andAlaska (though not darkest Peru) andthe categories this year are as diverseas the mix of nationalities that enter. Aswell as the traditional Seville variety,there are opportunities for “merry mar-malade, “The Stirring of the clans” andeven a “Marmalade MacNab” (a citrusmarmalade to be eaten with savouryfood). Other classes include children,clergy (all denominations welcome),military, ... cont overleaf

Sticky business

Photo by Hermione McCosh

58 FEBRUARY 2015

From page 57campanologists (to tie-in with a global bell ringingcelebration to mark international marmalade week,March 1–8) and even a man-made marmalade. Myfavourite though has to be the “Peers & PoliticalMarmalade” class… I wonder whether thosecontestants will come away without sticky fingers?

Even those in the beginners’ category are in witha chance of pulling one out of the hat (to borrow aPaddington analogy) and lifting the festival’s topprize, the Double Gold Star. The winner’smarmalade recipe will be produced commerciallyand sold at the world-renowned Fortnum & Masonstore in London for a year, with some of theproceeds going to charity.

The closing date for entries is February 15; entryforms and full details are available at the websitewww.marmaladeawards.com.

Over the last ten years the event has raised morethan £150,000 for charities; last year alone £20,000was raised. Beneficiaries in 2015 will again includeHospice at Home Carlisle and North Lakeland, acharity which provides free nursing for people at theend stages of life in their own homes, within ruralNorth and East Cumbria and the city of Carlisle.

As for Paddington Bear, the world’s most famousmarmalade connoisseur, well, he’ll be at the festivalof course, presiding over a marmalade tea party anda special screening of his film, which my ownchildren heartily recommend! n

The Wainwright Societyhas announced thatfilmmaker and photog-rapher Terry Abraham,below,will give itsannual memorial lecture.

Terry’s award-winning

film Life of a Mountain:Scafell Pike, recentlyreceived its network tel-evision debut, in anabridged form, onBBC4. He is currentlypreparing the follow-up,a epic based onHelvellyn, and clips willbe shown during theWainwright MemorialLecture, set to be givenon October 17 at 6pm,at Rheged, near Penrith.Tickets will be availablefrom Rheged (01768868000) from April 1.

Terry’sWainwrightdate

FEBRUARY 2015 59

A welcome onthe fellside

Of all our official bodies, nationalagency Visit Britain perhaps ought toknow its Cymru from its Cumbria.Still, it used a photograph of one ofthe best-known, classic Lakelandviews – Ashness Bridge aboveDerwentWater – on itswebsite, in abid to temptAmericans tobook day tripsto the BreconBeacons.

AshnessBridge is a250-mile, five-hour drive away from the Welsh hills.

The hiccough brought a rash ofchuckles from Cumbria’s hoteliers andtourism chiefs, along with nationalpress coverage, and was blamed onhow the image was tagged – presum-ably with such identifiers as ‘Lake’,‘Mountain’ and ‘National Park’. I cansympathise: at Cumbria Towers weoccasionally do a double-take whenconfronted with Grizedale andGrisedale, Troutbeck and Troutbeck,Harter Fell and Harter Fell, and evenStaveley (in Westmorland, near Win-dermere) and Staveley (in Cartmel,practically on Windermere).

Many thanks to everyone whosuggested possible locations forlast month’s mystery photo.

The image, sent in by JohnAustin of Durham, was taken bythe late Ulverston GP Dr TomWatkins while walking with hisgranddaughter Sarah.

Wynne Cliffe emailed to say hethought it might have been taken“from the slopes of Wetherlam,overlooking Tilberthwaite Gill andbeyond?”

Chris Bullard, of Kendal,pinpointed a similar area, suggest-ing that the photograph mighthave been taken lookingnortheast, from just belowWetherlam’s southern ridge

“The hilltop to the left would beBlake Rigg, with Hawk Rigg justbehind in shadow to the left, bothabove the clearly seen deep gashof Tilberthwaite Gill,” said Chris.“The rounded hills in the centre ofthe picture are the extensive Con-iston Moor with part of YewdaleMoss below the gully, with a redberried rowan tree on the right.

“In the far distance Helvellyn isbehind Hawk Rigg and, centre-left, the Fairfield–Hart Crag–DoveCrag ridge.”

If anyone’s snapped a recentimage there I’d love to see it (ifnot, I’m thinking I have the perfectexcuse to slip out of the office fora few hours…)

A mystery solved?

60 FEBRUARY 2015

One morning in early June I awoke inRosthwaite on the edge of Derwent

Water. It is just a couple of miles fromSeathwaite, the wettest habitation inEngland. The sound outside was that ofincessant rain, mitigated only by inter-ruptions from the cuckoo, a bird nowincreasingly confined to damp corners.Obviously our plans would have to beaborted. That was agreed: if the weatherwas ridiculous the mission was off.

Slowly I opened the curtains. The sunblazed in. The supposed rain was thewater in the beck tinkling over the rocks.There was no possible excuse now. Afterkippers, we drove – my old school friendAnselm and I – to the car park at Seath-waite, which was another national land-mark ticked off. I had already been to thesouthernmost and westernmost place inEngland, the easternmost, the northern-most and the lowest. To come: the driest.Ahead of us, though still far out of sight,was the highest: Scafell Pike.

“C’mon,” said Anselm gently, in thefatherly tone he would use when I wasnine and he was ten. He had always donemountains, including this one, severaltimes; I didn’t. He was a lawyer; but I wasa great respecter of the Law of Gravity.My back and right knee had been hurt-

ing for days, but I had been desperate notto cancel even though I was quite petri-fied.

Scafell Pike is an odd record-holder:everyone in Britain knows about BenNevis and Snowdon. But the highestmountain in England is strangely anony-mous. Many people – and even thememorial at the summit – call it just“Scafell”, which is another mountainentirely. This certainly confuses thewalkers and may cause occasional chaosat Mountain Rescue HQ. Even most ofthose who know the name pronounce it“Scaffle Pike”, while the aficionados gofor “Scawfell Pike”. It is a very Englishkind of confusion.

In his Pictorial Guide to the SouthernFells, the sainted Alfred Wainwright isambivalent. He also doesn’t make itsound attractive – “tarns are noticeablyabsent on the arid, stony surface … thelandscape is harsh, even savage, and hasattracted to itself nothing of romance orhistorical legend. There is no sentimentabout Scafell Pike.” But he adds, “Theascent of Scafell Pike is the toughestproposition the ‘collector’ of summits iscalled upon to attempt, and it is the oneabove all others that, as a patriot, he can-not omit.”

The ascent of Mount Toebang

CUMBERLAND MATTHEW ENGEL

FEBRUARY 2015 61

Seathwaite did not look as though itgets 140 inches of rain a year. There waseven a sign by the campsite banningground fires, as though this were theAustralian bush in a drought. Andindeed it hadn’t rained in a week. Youcould spend a hundred summers in theLake District and hardly find such anideal day for climbing: we had layer afterlayer in our rucksacks but we neverneeded more than a T-shirt.

There are at least half a dozen routesto the summit, but Wainwright calledthe route up Borrowdale “pre-eminent”.So we marched along the narrow valley.Even now I was nervy. But it was not justa commitment, it was evidently mypatriotic duty. Onwards.

At first, along the valley, the view wasdominated by the green mass of GreatEnd ahead of us. It was Great, but veryfar from the End. All this time, ScafellPike, instead of dominating the land-scape, was maintaining its distaste forpublicity, remaining totally invisible. Butthen we reached the mountainside Pic-cadilly Circus of Esk Hause. Anselmpointed to an outcrop beyond a stony

plateau. “There it is,” he said.Herein lay my one bleak but indis-

putable triumph. I knew nothing of theterrain, but consider myself expert inidentifying the too-good-to-be-true. Iseized the Wainwright: “Ill Crag isprominently in view from the sectionbetween Esk Hause and Calf Cove. It isthe highest thing in sight, and wishfulthinkers will assume it to be the summit– until the Pike itself is finally revealed,indisputably higher and still far distantacross a waste of stones.” Moral superi-ority was some compensation for thehour that preceded the final ascent,which comprised mostly what Wain-wright called “delectable clambering”.

Someone had told me you couldalways find the summit of Scafell Pike,even in thick mist, by the sound of cheer-ing and popping champagne corks. Butit wasn’t like that. There were thirty orforty people up there, and a few dogs (onleads, as per the only instruction). Themood was contented, excited even, but

A winter view of Scafell Pike. Photo by Simon Miles

62 FEBRUARY 2015

not triumphalist. There was a pervadingsense of respect for the place: hardly anygraffiti on the stones even – one said“dean & ste”, as though the writer hadbeen caught in the act and urged todesist.

There was also, very touchingly, aframed wedding photo, late 1940s at aguess, placed on the flat-topped cairnwhich is much favoured for souvenirpictures and takes the 3,209 feet of thesummit to about 3,213. Otherwise therewere just a few windbreaks, roughly con-structed from the stones, and the trigpoint. No information, other than themisleading sign built into the cairn,which serves as both a First World Warmemorial and a record of the land beinggiven to the nation by Lord Leconfield.No café, no railway station – the Englishleave such fripperies to Snowdon – noteven a guide to the view: Wainwright’smonopoly of the wisdom is unchal-lenged.

So everyone just ate their sandwichesand pointed to the panorama. There wasa touch of heat haze rendering MontBlanc, Everest and Australia invisible, butstill: Skiddaw and Derwentwater to thenorth; Windermere and the Pennines tothe east; Morecambe Bay and the realScafell to the south; Sellafield and the Isleof Man to the west. Then people beganpointing upwards, puzzlingly, towardsthe few fluffy clouds. And there, way, wayabove us, was a lone paraglider. Bloodytypical. No matter how high you get,there will always be some swine whooutdoes you.

The descent was very untriumphant.

I queried Anselm’s navigation, this timewrongly, thus forfeiting the moral highground while still hugging the actualhigh ground by lagging behind. I hadlong stopped worrying about my backand knee but everything else was hurt-ing, most particularly my left big toe.

There seems to be some kind ofmountain truism here: the descent isalways harder. Mentally, you’ve done itand imagine yourself home. The worldstarts to intrude on your thoughts. And,gravitationally, a slight stumble is nowmore likely to be disastrous, as suggestedby the fate of the satsuma. We tooklonger going down than up.

But, as Sir Edmund Hillary put it inmore trying circumstances, “we knockedthe bastard off”. Anselm was congratula-tory. No one back home seemedimpressed by what I had done; I was,though. Next morning I sat, achey butself-satisfied, in the garden by Crum-mock Water belonging to the Lakesmanand writer Hunter Davies, who oncepublished three bestsellers in a year. Imentioned the difficulties of descending.

“It’s a metaphor for fame and life,” hesaid sagely. “The fun and satisfaction isgetting there. But coming down is hard.” n

This edited extract is from MatthewEngel’s book Engel’s England: Thirty-nine Counties, One Capital, One Man,described as “the guidebook for people whodon’t think they need a guidebook”. It ispublished by Profile Books (www.profile-books.com) at £20 (hardback). Nextmonth: Westmorland.

FEBRUARY 2015 63

We are flying south from Carlisleon a Pendolino train, travelling

towards the rivers of the Lake Districtpeninsulas: the Lune, the Kent, theLeven, the Duddon. Within what seemslike moments we glimpse the tiltedsummit of Kidsty Pike in the west,flanked by High Street with ragged rem-nants of snow and, in the steep-walledvalley below them, unseen, liesHaweswater.

Then with tremendous velocity, thetrain hurtles into the long curves of theLune Gorge, tilting and swaying to such

an extent that one second we see theriver frothing among the rocks and thenext the bowls of sky above the brownHowgills, sweeping upwards from hillyfarms and myriad sheep. And backdown to earth, seeming to swingbetween the heavens like a shootingstar, or meteor guided by its very power.

There is something about rivers deepin our consciousness that calls, or rather

Spawn to be wildRAMBLING WITH ROGAN ADRIAN ROGAN

Lakeland light on the Duddon. Photo byMark Laird

64 FEBRUARY 2015

echoes, because it resounds in us. Peo-ple say the sound of running water isthe most perfect in the world because itis perfectly peaceful and harmonious.In fact, falling blissfully asleep by a sum-mer’s day riverbank is something I’vedone once or twice in my life. But it’snot a good idea, or even possible, whenthe river is running a flood, a raging tor-rent, or when it is almost silent, as nearto death as can be, in the ice and snow ofwinter.

At this time of year, on the cusp ofspring, the weather is unpredictable.Candlemas Day, on February 2, is theold Celtic feast of Imbolc which cele-brates the coming of spring and the newlactation of ewes. The seasons are turn-ing, even if in February we can still get agood blast of winter. Rivers begin to losethat dead winter-look and become aliveagain; we can imagine the young troutgrowing in the deep pools and stream-ing water. The river assumes, almostimperceptibly, a lovely sheen of colourthat was absent before.

The river Duddon in Dunnerdale is awonderful stream, rising in the highcraggy country beneath Cold Pike. Itruns by the roadside along the bottomof Wrynose Pass where the Three ShireStone stands, marking the meetingpoint of the counties of Lancashire,Cumberland and Westmorland. Twoother streams rise near here: theBrathay, which flows east into West-morland and the Esk which risesbeneath Scafell and runs west throughHardknott and into the sea at Raven-glass. The Duddon itself mends its way

southward and its entire length of aboutfifteen miles (24 km) was once theboundary between Lancashire andCumberland.

Below Duddon Bridge the riverbecomes tidal and it seems to fill andsurge into the estuary between Askamand Millom and the wide expanse ofDuddon Sands at low water. Wealighted there that day from our jour-ney of trains, at low tide, on the Askamside, and strolled down to a little carpark on the headland, and walked out.We could see the steeples of Millom andthe far shore quite clearly and, standingout, Duddon Villa, the big house thatlooks out over the estuary. People werewalking on the sands with dogs runningabout, and we passed a man with a kitewho was flying something that lookedlike a dragon; red and white against thehigh clouds and blue sky.

“Coo!” said one of the children as shestood staring at the fabulous creature.“I’d like a dragon kite.”

We could hear the dragon’s wingscracking and straining against the wind,as though eager to be free and soaraway.

“Perhaps a smaller one,” I said, spoil-ing the moment.

If we looked out south and west awayin to the breeze and the ever-wideningsands we thought we could glimpse thesea: a silvery blue surface rippling in thesunlight, mirage-like, a long way off.What an extraordinary flat and levelplace this is, within the bowls of moun-tain and sky. Black Coombe is massiveand dark in the north west.

Sahara on Sahara, brown ripples of dune.Photo by Trevor Ronson

FEBRUARY 2015 65

66 FEBRUARY 2015

There seems to be two main channelsin this stretch of the Sands, and it’s upthese tidal channels later in the year thatthe salmon and sea trout make the jour-ney to their spawning grounds in theclear pools and gravelly beds of theriver. The first channel is very shallowwith occasional deeper pools that arefringed by hard, tide-rippled beds ofsand. The poet Norman Nicholsonwrote this in his poem Tide Out:

Sahara on Sahara, brown ripples of duneRecede in metallic low relief,And glimmering, salty teaspoon oasesSimmer and mirage in the frothing dusk.

He was born in Millom and lived inthe same house for most of his life. Hedied in 1987. In the photographs I’veseen of him he always sported the mostluxuriant side whiskers; and deep-seteyes with a steady stare. He bears aresemblance to Hartley Coleridge, thewild son of Sara and Samuel Taylor.

There are several ancient rights ofway across Duddon Sands, fromKirkby-in-Furness to The Green andThe Hill, villages north of Millom, andalso from Askam to Millom itself. Peo-ple used these tracks across the sands asa matter of course before the advent offast coaches and motor cars. They werepart of the road across the southernpeninsulas starting at Hest Bank northof Lancaster and ending, in fact, at Mil-lom. These estuaries can be dangerous;the safe paths can vary with the seasonsand the tides are fast-moving.

We walked as far as the second

channel, a much deeper one, that of theDuddon itself, and were now standingperhaps three or four hundred yardsfrom the rising banks of the far shore,filled with gorse. We could see the darkslates on the roof of the big house andits gleaming windows; impossibly close.

“We could wade across,” one of ussaid.

“If we really wanted to…”“Luckily, we don’t.”And so we turned for the long trudge

back over Duddon Sands, the sun nowobscured by clouds. The tide was mov-ing from its ebb, the silvery blue seaseemed closer, and the dragon-flier hadgone.

We followed the road up the valleytowards Ulpha, where crag on crag riseslike lunar rocks in the landscape. Herd-wicks roam, hefted, half-wild in thewiry grass and along the boulder-strewn glimmering river.

The Duddon is running fast; thepools look deeper, darker without thesun. But this valley has an ancientmajesty about it, no matter what theweather. And then, the clouds break anda few minutes of sunlight seems tobleach the rocks to white and the riveritself glows like beaten silver.

Near here we fell into talk with adairy farmer who told us of the poolswhere the salmon lie, when they haverun up from the sea.

“And do you get good runs of fish?”we asked.

“Yes,” he said, “perhaps less in recentyears, like everywhere, but it varies. Lastyear was good.”

FEBRUARY 2015 67

“And is it a late run, in September,say?”

“Yes, for salmon. Sea trout can becaught earlier, from July. There’s notmuch in spring – apart from the nativebrown trout, of course, which are fewand smaller than you’d expect becauseit’s such a fast-running beck.”

“And do you fish yourself?” I said.“Used to; do you?”“Aye, up on the Eden.”“Ah, well,” said he.“I know of four and five pound trout

that are sometimes caught on the upperEden.”

“Well,” said he, “you’d be lucky with aone or two pound fish here. But I doubtyou’d get many salmon up your waythough?”

“Very few – and very late: Novemberperhaps – by which time the salmon areuneatable, as well as illicit, anyway.”

“Ah, well,” said he.Further up the valley, above the ham-

let of Seathwaite and its little inn, lie thewild pastures of Turner Hall – home toflocks of hardy and fertile sheep and alittle campsite. An ancient and beautifulfarmhouse sits firmly on the higherground; the building seems almostrooted to the earth, or indeed, part of it,so snug it fits. It is rocky here, the samedusky limestone, lustrous in sunlight,that guards and balances the river as itfalls fast through its “sinuous bed”; withfields of grass that must have taken

human hand centuries to clear, of cragsof rock and twisted roots of hawthorn.

And higher yet, up past a little carpark by the beck, just off the road to theleft; where there are flat grassy spacesfor laying out the picnic on dry days,and wooden tables too. The childrenrun about, exploring the footpaths andhidden trails in the woods; the world isyoung here.

From a footbridge over the beck wecan study the pools below, searchingvainly for the swirl of a trout. I don’tknow how far up the Duddon salmonwould swim to spawn, but it’s easy toimagine the fish finding home at last inthis remote spot: from where theycame, and where they first had seen thewater and the light, perhaps four or fiveyears ago. n

Tarn Beck, near Seathwaite. Photo by David Mart

Hill walking can be strenuous and it is up to you to approach it with caution and if you are inexperien -ced to do so under appropriate super vision. You should also carry appropriate clothing, equipmentand maps and wear suitable footwear. The details given here were believed to be correct at the timeof going to press but neither the author nor Country Publi cations Ltd can accept responsibility forinaccuracies. Please stick to rights of way at all times.

Scramble for Lakeland’starn jewel

MARY WELSH

68 FEBRUARY 2015

START/PARKING: National Trust car park, BleaTarn (GR 296044), accessed from Great orLittle Langdale. National Trust membersenjoy free parkingMAPS: Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 ExplorerOL6, English Lakes, South-western areaDISTANCE: 3 miles/5kmTIME: 2-3 hours

HEIGHT GAIN: 430ft/140mTERRAIN: easy walking by Blea Tarn and up tothe pass. Much more challenging whenclimbing Side Pike; easier descentREFRESHMENTS AND FACILITIES: Elterwater orSkelwith Bridge© Crown copyright 2015 Ordnance Survey Media 003/15

START/FINISH

12

3

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WALKING 1: BLEA TARN AND SIDE PIKE

FEBRUARY 2015 69

To many people, Blea Tarn ranks asthe favourite of Lake District’s many

tarns. William Heaton Cooperdescribed the tarn and its setting: “tocrown it all, the giant family of theLangdale Pikes, magnificent in allmoods, looking down on this jewelthrough the northern dip of the fells.”

Most Lakeland walks begin from thevalley but this route lets the car takethe sting out of the early climb.

After a glorious walk beside thetarn, the hard work starts up the slopesto the pleasing summit of Side Pikewith an easier return after all your

scrambling. Of course you could go upand down the easier way if you don’trelish a long scramble.

1Start from the parking areaopposite Blea Tarn and cross the

road linking Great and Little Langdale.Go through the gate to overlook thelovely pool that lies in a shallow hollowgouged from the bedrock by glacial icewhich once spilled from one dale intothe other. Pause by the tarn’s shore toenjoy a superb view of the LangdalePikes. Tall pine and larch lining thewestern bank reflect in the silvery

Looking down on Great Langdale

70 FEBRUARY 2015

water. Cross the footbridge overBleamoss Beck and turn right along thewoodland track. Pause, perhaps, onone of the wooden seats to enjoy thisglorious corner.

2The stony path emerges from treeson to open fell, below Rakerigg’s

eastern flank. Immediately ahead isshapely Side Pike, the walk’s goal, and,beyond, more spectacular views of thePikes. Go through the gate at the endof the long winding track to the side ofthe pass between the two Langdales.Views are stunning: Crinkle Crags,Bowfell, Pike of Bliscoe, and the Lang-dale Pikes – Pike o’ Stickle, Loft Crag,Thorn Crag, Harrison and Pavey Ark.Spend a little time looking down intothe lovely valley far below, with itsseemingly tiny walled fields.

3Cross the road to a signed pathjunction. Ignore the left turn down

into Great Langdale and continueahead up the worn path towards alarge cairn, which soon becomes ascramble up a rocky way. Go on clam-bering as it curves right, continuing upto a narrow grassy area with a smallcairn. Note this cairn for your return.Head on up, scrambling through theoutcrops, to walk beside chunks ofrestored low wall on your left. Eventu-ally you can move left to follow a pathon the other side of another shortstretch of wall. Alternatively scrambleon up to the summit (1,187ft/360m).This is the place for a break: views fromhere, including that of Blea Tarn shim-

mering below, are magnificent in alldirections.

4Ahead the crags are sheer: do notattempt to descend from the sum-

mit in any direction other than thattaken to get there. When you reachthe small cairn, standing on the grassyflat, turn left and continue on the path,following the ledge-like way roundbelow the cliff face on your left. When

FEBRUARY 2015 71

your way appears blocked, take offyour rucksack and squeeze through therestricted gap, passing behind a hugeboulder and under the overhang of thecliff (perhaps regretting that extra barof chocolate).

5Continue a short way to a wall thatclimbs away from the Pike: ignore

this (unless you wish to continue toLingmoor). Our walk turns right here,

to descend a grassy path beside a wall,then a fence, to your right, towards thetarn. The path is good and is pavedhalf-way down. Join the narrow roadand turn left to stroll back to the carpark. n

Blea Tarn, “magnificent in all moods”

72 FEBRUARY 2015

WALKING 2: LANTHWAITE GREEN KEITH WOOD

A trail of threeLanthwaites

Hill walking can be strenuous and it is up to you to approach it with caution and if you are inexperien -ced to do so under appropriate super vision. You should also carry appropriate clothing, equipmentand maps and wear suitable footwear. The details given here were believed to be correct at the timeof going to press but neither the author nor Country Publi cations Ltd can accept responsibility forinaccuracies. Please stick to rights of way at all times.

START/FINISH: Lanthwaite Green car park, byCrummock Water (GR: NY158208)MAPS: Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 ExplorerOL4, The English Lakes, North-westernarea; OS 1:50,000 Landranger 89, CockermouthDISTANCE: 2.5 miles/ 4 km)

TIME: 1-2 hoursHEIGHT GAIN: 500ft/ 150mTERRAIN: Moderate fell walk on clear paths. REFRESHMENTS AND FACILITIES: various in Buttermere© Crown copyright 2015 Ordnance Survey Media 003/15

1

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START/FINISH

FEBRUARY 2015 73

This short and easy walk is none theworse for taking in a trio of Lanth-

waites. Gently rounding the north-eastern end of Crummock Water, it is asuitable short outing for all the familyand makes an ideal winter stroll. Start-ing from Lanthwaite Green there ischance to get a closer look at imposingGrasmoor. Further on, a visit to the topof Lanthwaite Hill presents one of thebest views along Crummock Water,with Mellbreak in the background. A walk along Lanthwaite Woodcompletes the Lanthwaite trio.

1From the car park by the farm atLanthwaite Green, cross the road

and follow the green track heading forthe narrow valley between Grasmoorand Whiteside, which rises gently

across common land. Ignore the Gras-moor path off to the right andcontinue towards the valley to crossLiza Beck via a footbridge.

2Turn left on a narrow rising trodalong the fell edge beneath White-

side. Approaching a large drystoneenclosure, veer right, around the topcorner, then follow the path with thewall on your left. There are good viewsof Low Fell and Fellbarrow ahead-left,with the hummock of Lanthwaite Hillin the foreground. When the pathforks at a rock, bear left, continuing by the wall.

3As the path aligns with a white valley bottom building, a gate

through the wall comes into view,

Grasmoor above Liza Beck

74 FEBRUARY 2015

through which steps carry you downthe field; keep left of the enclosurenear the beck. Cross a stream on step-ping stones; in fifty yards (45m) passthrough a gate and across Liza Beck onanother footbridge. Pass through asmall stand of trees and, in another

twenty yards (18m), through anothergate on to the road. Through a gateopposite signed “Public Footpath toScale Hill” head through a field swing-ing left to pass whitewashed PickettHowe, and on to the gate in the fieldbottom corner.

4In the next enclosure the path con-tinues with the boundary on your

Across Crummock Water to Red Pikefrom Lanthwaite Green

FEBRUARY 2015 75

right. Passing an oak copse, the wallswings right and the path continuesahead, gently rising to a drystone wall,enclosing trees, at the far end. It nowrises more steeply, past the trees toemerge on to the slopes of LanthwaiteHill (“Brackenthwaite Hows” on OSmaps), with a great view ahead toMellbreak. For the best view, make aminor detour up left, on to the hilltop,before returning to this path junction.Turn right and, in another twentyyards, (18m) pass through the wall, via a stile, into the top of the woods.

5Twenty yards (18m) into the woodsa clear path branches off left,

initially losing a bit of height. It followsthe wall, bearing you along the

woodland edge. There are viewsthrough the trees to Kirkstile and theLoweswater Fells, with CrummockWater below.

6Bear left at a crossroads of paths,through a gate to head back

towards Grasmoor; Lanthwaite Greenand the car park are in sight. The pathswings right through another gateand along an ancient enclosed lanebetween the fields.

7It emerges through another gateon to the road. Turn right to walk

back along the road to the start, pastLanthwaite Gate. Cross the cattle grid,past the farm buildings of LanthwaiteGreen, back to the start. n

Mellbreak from Lanthwaite Hill

76 FEBRUARY 2015

ORGANISED WALKS TO ADD YOUR WALK CALL LINDA ON 01756 701381

JANUARY

28 MELMERBY SCAR CIRCUIT. 12 miles.Meet 9am, grid reference NY615373.Details 01768 862970www.penrithramblers.org.uk

29 ARNSIDE CIRCULAR. 6 miles. Meet9.30am B&Q car park, Burton Road,Kendal. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area), 015395 60249.

31 BROWN HILLS, GREENSIDE, ANDSELDOM SEEN. 7 miles. Meet 9am PenrithRugby Club car park. Details RamblersAssociation (Lake District Area), 01768862330.

FEBRUARY

1 WANSFELL FROM AMBLESIDE. 8 miles.Meet 10am Ambleside Medical Centre (GRNY374048). Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 07787 517123.

3 WETHERAL CIRCULAR. 8 miles. Meet9.20am Sands Centre car park, Carlisle.Details Ramblers Association (Lake DistrictArea), 01539 597255.

3 LOUGHRIGG AND TERRACE. 7 miles.Meet 9am B&Q car park, Burton Road,Kendal. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area), 015394 47357.

4 DALE HEAD TO ROBINSON. 12 miles.Meet 8.30am Penrith Rugby Club car park.Details Ramblers Association (Lake DistrictArea), 016974 73674.

4 WHINLATTER. 10 miles. Meet 9amPenrith Rugby Club car park. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area),01768 892806.

4 PENDRAGON CASTLE. 10 miles. Meet9.30am. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area). 01768 898880.

4 MELMERBY. 5 miles. Meet 9am Penrith

Rugby Club car park. Details RamblersAssociation (Lake District Area). 01768881082.

5 BRUNT KNOTT. 5 miles. Meet 9.30amB&Q car park, Burton Road, Kendal. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area).01539 724454.

7 SMARDALE AND CROSBY GARRETTFELLS. 10 miles. Meet 9am Penrith RugbyClub car park. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 01768 840406.

8 HIGH HARTSOP DODD, RED SCREES,MIDDLE DODD. 7 miles. Meet 10am CowBridge. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area), 07856 702338.

10 LOUGHRIGG FELL, LOUGHRIGG TARN.7 miles. Meet 9.20am Sands Centre carpark, Carlisle. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 017687 74427.

11 SEDGWICK, CROSSCRAKE ANDSUMMERLANDS. Meet 10.30am Sedgwick,near Carex Farm (grid referenceSD576871). Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 015395 33358.

11 CAUSEY PIKE, SCAR CRAGS ANDOUTERSIDE. Meet 8.30am B&Q, BurtonRoad, Kendal. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 01539 733887.

11 MAULDS MEABURN AND RIVERLYVENNET. 6 miles. Details RamblersAssociation (Lake District Area), 01768890194.

11 BORROWDALE. 9 miles. Meet 9.30amPenrith Rugby Club car park. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area).01768 840788.

11 DODDERING ON THE DODDS. 12 miles.Meet 9am Penrith Rugby Club car park.Details Ramblers Association (Lake DistrictArea). 01768 894107.

FEBRUARY 2015 77

11 PLACE FELL. 12 miles. Meet 8.30am,Penrith Rugby Club car park. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area),01931 713325.

11 GREYSTOKE, GILLCAMBON TARN, ANDCALFHOW HEAD. 9 miles. Details RamblersAssociation (Lake District Area). 01768606074.

12 WINSTER AND UPPER GILPIN VALLEYS.8 miles. Meet 9.30am B&Q car park, BurtonRoad, Kendal. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 01539 731338.

14 ARMATHWAITE CIRCULAR VIAAINSTABLE. 6 miles. Meet 9.15 am Carlislestation. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area), 017687 74427.

14 NEWLANDS VALLEY CIRCULAR. 10miles. Meet 9am Penrith Rugby Club carpark. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area). 01768 892806.

15 BLENCATHRA. 9 miles. Starts 10amMungrisdale Village, grid referenceNY363302. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area). 07895 003372.

17 WILLIAMSGATE, GILCRAY, ANDTALLENTIRE. 8 miles. Meet 9.20am SandsCentre car park, Carlisle. Details RamblersAssociation (Lake District Area), 01228527378.

17 MILNTHORPE, SANDSIDE AND WRAYCOTTAGE. 5 miles. Meet 9.15am B&Q carpark, Burton Road, Kendal. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area),01539 732995.

18 BEETHAM WOODS. 5 miles. Meet9.30am (telephone meeting point).Details Ramblers Association (Lake DistrictArea), 01524 382980.

18 BORROWDALE VIA WHINASH ANDJEFFREY’S MOUNT. 13 miles. Meet 8.30amPenrith Rugby Club car park. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area),01539 722001.

18 CROSBY GARRETT FELL ANDSMARDALE. 9 miles. Meet 9.30am PenrithRugby Club. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 01768 863155.

18 POOLEY BRIDGE AND WINDER HALL. 5miles. Meet 9.30 am Penrith Rugby Clubcar park. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area), 01768 863828.

19 SILVER HOW AND LOUGHRIGG. Meet8.30am B&Q car park, Burton Road,Kendal. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area), 01539 723662.

20 GREAT AND LITTLE BURNEY, AND ASHLOCK HALL. 8 miles. Meet 10.30am GreyHound Pub, Grizeback, grid referenceSD239850. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 015395 35766.

21 A BORROWDALE RAMBLE. 8 miles.Meet 9am Penrith Rugby Club car park.Details Ramblers Association (Lake DistrictArea), 01768 863538.

22 CROOK TO STARNTHWAITE. 7 miles.Meet 10am Crook village, grid referenceSD462951. Details Ramblers Association(Lake District Area), 01229 830155.

24 GRISEDALE. 8 miles. Meet 9.20amSands Centre car park, Carlisle.DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area).016973 44700.

25 WARTON CRAG. 6 miles. Meet10.30am Warton small quarry on CragRoad, grid reference SD497724. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area),015395 58495.

26 EASTERN KENDAL AND THE HUTTONS.10 miles. Meet 9.30am B&Q, Burton Road,Kendal. Details Ramblers Association (LakeDistrict Area), 015395 60942.

28 CATBELLS, GRANGE, ANDDERWENTWATER. 10 miles. Meet 9amPenrith Rugby Club car park. DetailsRamblers Association (Lake District Area),01768 865240.

78 FEBRUARY 2015

CUMBRIA YESTERDAY

Lakeland Notebook, CumbriaDecember 1963

Last winter we had one of the fiercest spells of weather within livingmemory. Our fells were snow-covered and each lake had a thick

crust of ice. The quantity of snow was not exceptional, but it washardbound by intense cold for many weeks. Farmers and those whosework took them regularly on to the roads had a grim time until thethaw came. It was not the type of winter that most Cumbrians enjoy.For many, however, the snowy heights, icy lakes, the brilliant visibility,and dry if keen air, provided uncommon opportunities for wintersports. Hundreds of people, from all parts of the North, came regularlyto the Lakes, and our hoteliers and caterers found themselves with thebriskest winter trade for years.

Skiers were on the upper slopes week after week, many making forthe well-tried run on Raise. Our lakes were vast skating rinks, with lit-tle Rydal Water among the first to freeze. Before the winter was overcars had been driven on to Windermere, Derwentwater and otherlakes. The curlers of Keswick enjoyed some of the best sport they. hadknown.

Skating on Windermere, in front of the Old England Hotel in Bowness, on 2 March 1929, from a series of postcards issued by Kendal firm, Atkinson and Pollitt. Hotels and

boarding houses took full advantage of this late winter windfall

Weeks of perma-frost

FEBRUARY 2015 79

AT ONE time during the bigfreeze of February 1895,below left, there was said tobe 100,000 people on Winder-mere, where the ice was nineinches thick; the lake frozeover from end to end for sixweeks. Showing great enter-prise the railway companiesran special trains to Lakeside,and it soon became impossibleto get rooms locally, even asfar away as Kendal. A elderly relative of T Furnwall (writingin Cumbria December 1972)said: “I cannot recall anyfreeze-up as remarkable asthat of nearly eighty years ago.Top, a similar scene at Lakesidein February 1902

The cost of the winter in time, money and effort wasimmense. Road authorities spent far more than usual keep-ing highways in good shape. Boatmen found that landingstages were crushed, or lifted out of position. Many sheepwere lost at the fell farms, where fodder supplies randangerously low.

Although the number of people benefitting from thekeen weather was comparatively few, is there any reasonwhy Lakeland should not seek to project itself better as acentre for winter holidays? If such a winter, as 1962-3comes again we should make the fullest use of it by attract-ing tourists. Even in mild winters, there is surely more thatcan be done in the Lake District to attract and hold theattention of visitors.

80 FEBRUARY 2015

All this happened some three or fouryears ago, with one of those white

weeks of winter – no deep or treacher-ous drifts – merely a dusting of thefinest snow, cleansing and whichfocuses the mind down to the minutestdetail, enhancing our experience of thenatural world. I recall this almost asthough it were happening today…

All the hills and fields of the Mel-break Vale are a winter wonderlandcrisp with snow, as I travel out passingLoweswater to just before Scalehill. Iclimb through Lanthwaite Wood to myseat on the springy mat of bilberry,southward facing the wood with itsgnarled oaks below and a warm rock,with its shiny crystals of mica, to myback. Such is my outdoor study here: aplace indeed to ponder. It is so warmhere too, though the temperature lastnight was down to minus five degrees.Crummock with its vast heat store isnot frozen but smaller Loweswater hasslate grey ice and the river Cockerwinks in the winter sunlight below.

There is a rustle amid the bilberryand a tiny wren, tail all cocked, is ferret-ing between the foliage scarcely anarm’s length away. An intensely coldwinter, such as the one we are experi-encing, can decimate our wren popula-tions. Woodlands give them some pro-tection and even evergreens like laureland rhododendron – non-natives nearthe bottom of my list of ecologically

Winter wonderland

Ennerdale dusted with snow. Photo byDavid Shaw

NATURE NOTES JOHN SEARS

desirable plants – provide excellentshelter for our smaller birds in pro-longed cold spells. Soon, between theoaks, a flock of at least a dozen long-tailed tits comes foraging around thetwigs of the high oak branches, makinglittle squeaks perhaps of ecstasy, at find-ing grubs amid the crevices on such acold and wintry day. Soon they arejoined by blue tits, squeaking and fer-reting through the twiggy canopy. Howgood it is to see them! As I walk on, thelake below takes on the still slate blue ofthe sky. The great amphitheatre of hillsbeyond now seems as if honed by agesof ice, and the sky towards dusk glowswith a faint golden fire, a fire of winterstillness.

Another day, a Sunday, I take the

Cockermouth road out from Egremontto Wath Brow. A little further on, theline of the old railway from CleatorMoor would have crossed above theroad at Parkside, forming the old Mar-ron Line, named from a local river easilypicked out further northeast on theOrdnance Survey map near Ullock. Itstarted as an iron ore line, opening topassengers in 1857. From Cleator Moorit had stations at Frizington, Parksideand Yeathouse, Winder, Rowrah, Lam-plugh, Ullock, Branthwaite and Bridge-foot, where it linked with the Penrith toWorkington line. The last passengertrain ran as long ago as 1931.

All is sun and snow today and climb-ing up to the old trackway, I see thegorse is flowering despite the icy cold.

82 FEBRUARY 2015

Ahead I can see the hills of Herdus, thenCrag Fell. Near the track is lots of wil-low, its fronds a ruddy hue. The track-way bears left, a steep cutting in therock, walls heather-clothed. The wallsof the old station platform sprout lime-loving mural ferns, gaining sustenancefrom the mortar – ferns like maidenhairspleenwort, hart’s tongue and wallrue.

Beyond, I climb down the snow-cov-ered embankment to where the walls ofan old siding are warmed by the wester-ing sun. Here the spleenworts grow in

luxuriance, as thick green spiderssprouting from the mortared crevices.There is black spleenwort here too – adelightful treasury of mural ferns.Indeed, the brickwork of old and evensome working railway habitats, notinfrequently, has a rich fern flora. It’s anintriguing legacy from the age of steam,when condensing water vapour wouldprovide a template for the germinationof a fern spore, formation of the tinyprothallus with its sexual organs and sothe formation of the mature fern plant.

Now I take another lower trackwayin the crisp snow, rejoining the Parksiderailway further on, with the view to theEnnerdale Valley like a fairytale Christ-mas scene, away down to the left. Thesun lights the snow under the oldbridges and a little tomtit makes a trillof song from a thorn, where a blackbirdplucks a few berries before eventide.

Another week and the snow hasgone, warmer air has come. In thehedges not far from Egremont, I gain agood sighting of a goldfinch, not socommon in our area and very partial tothistle seeds. Then come the starlings,those birds which feed on the harmfulleather-jacket grubs in our fields. Theycluster like thick black fruits on the bareboughs, their chorus a busy chatteringas the sky flames a dull rose in the west.They skirmish and swirl like blackleaves about the high trees. There mustbe nigh on a thousand of them. Theysuddenly rise, swirling and whirling likea coiled black smoke plume in the dark-ening sky and – almost in an instant –are gone. n

Above, a long-tailed tit. Photo by PaulMiguel. Below, winters can be hard forour wrens. Photo by David Cox

Classic Cumbrian Inn: after 200 years, Mary the lily-cheekedbarmaid is still drawing admirers to Buttermere’s Fish InnCumbrian Kitchen: a delicious hot Cumberland sausage casseroleALSO: Tramping the Old Man of Coniston… a Wasdale circuit… thevet who goes through the pain barrier… rearing Lakeland fellponies… and much more!

Next month in

High spirits!

As the Lakes Distillery opens its doors, Cumbria takes a tour and raises a glass to the

future of its artisan whiskies

Plus…

March issue on sale February 25

FEBRUARY 2015 83

84 FEBRUARY 2015

POSTBOX

Please write to: Cumbria Postbox, Country Publications Ltd, The Water Mill,Broughton Hall, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 3AG. Or email:johnm@dalesman.co.uk

Defending Seascale

Author “brainwashed”I took offence at the picture painted byTony Francis (Cumbria, January) of theSellafield site. He says he is pro-nuclearthen goes on the rubbish the wholeindustry in an uninformed hypocriticalway, calling Sellafield a “most feared,loathed and condemned industrialsite”!

He talks about it spoiling thelandscape and jumping out on the railtraveller rounding the corner like somephantom of a ghost train. Had hefocused as much scathing attention onthe miles and miles of ugly, uselesswind turbines which are really destroy-ing the landscape for absolutely nobenefit I could have agreed with it. Iworked at Sellafield for a few years andfrom his comments he seems to havebeen brainwashed by the CORE [Cum-brians Opposed to a Radioactive Envi-ronment] group.

What made him think the freighttrain was carrying nuclear waste?There are many freight trains using thatline and the nuclear material trains are

obvious to any casual observer. Whereis the ugly control tower he refers to?There isn’t one. The accompanyingphoto was taken with a long lens tomake Sellafield look like it is withinSeascale itself. He seemed to knock thewhole industry with almost every sen-tence and is therefore not a creditableobserver as he obviously knows noth-ing about the industry. Sellafield is asafety-conscious and friendly place to work.

I hope they go from strength tostrength and provide reliable powertwenty-four hours a day from the pro-posed moorside site, unlike the unreli-able expensive wind turbines that donot save any CO2 (which was thewhole reason for them in the firstplace). I could write for hours on thissubject, being qualified in EarthScience and Technology.Richard Quirk, Ulverston

Excellent villageAs a Seascale resident for nearly twentyyears, raising my three very happy and

FEBRUARY 2015 85

contented children in thevillage, I was so shockedand disgusted at the hor-rid article Seascale’snuclear families” in Cum-bria’s January issue that Iwas shaking with anger.

The abhorrent mannerin which it was writtendepicts the residents ofSeascale as cowering,simple and terrifiedpeople, not to mentionmocked as potentiallytwo-headed, living in aterrifying ghost town. The use of wordssuch as “not pretty”, “deserted” and“threat of extermination” are insults ofthe highest order and are mostdefinitely untrue. It is an extremely pic-turesque village with beautiful views ofthe fells and sea, as Mr Francis wasinformed by a local but attempted topaste over with his insults.

I did wonder whether Mr Francis hadactually visited, as he failed to mentionany of Seascale’s many excellentfeatures and points, such as free carparking for visitors, a children’s playarea, free spotless toilets, butcher,baker, shop, ice cream parlour, to men-tion a very few. I ask have you ever vis-ited? Argh, no you haven’t or youwouldn’t have published it.

I have no knowledge of who exactlyTony Francis is and his right to imposehis twisted and bias view of Seascaleand its residents on your reading pub-lic. How dare he depict us as scared,nervous and “shuffling”? This is an

insult in every shape and form. I feelthe woman he describes in the firstparagraph, “Julia”, was a figment ofhis imagination, as her information isunfactual and, again, total and utterrubbish.

His knowledge of Sellafield isblatantly nil as none of the informationis correct and I wonder why he feelsthe need to attempt to destroy all thatour parish council and themanagement at Sellafield Ltd hasworked so hard to achieve.

Our village is beautiful in many waysand its residents very happy andcontent with our lovely homes,surroundings and relatively crime-freearea.

Mr Francis is either living in a bubbleor stupid if he doesn’t realise that theentire world lives with the threat of ter-rorism. Therefore the reason Sellafieldis suspicious of random folk taking

86 FEBRUARY 2015

photos is for reasons of safety andsecurity not, as he so naively puts it,because “You can’t get irradiated tak-ing a photograph”. I will be ensuringSeascale Parish Council and Sellafield’sPR department have seen the article.

A very, very disappointed and angrySeascale resident,Mrs D. Strong, Seascale

Quality of lifeI write regarding the article in the Janu-ary 2015 edition as I have graveconcerns over content and accuracy.The list of contents refers to an articleabout “Sellafield nuclear powerstation”: there isn’t one and hasn’tbeen for many years, the power stationhaving ceased operating quite sometime ago, culminating with the coolingtowers being demolished with muchpress coverage.

The article refers to “Pudding Lane, abeauty salon and a Mace general store.That’s about it…” and has obviouslybeen written by someone who didn’texplore the village. What about cricket,BMX track, tennis courts, bowls, golf,hairdressers’, hardware store, bank,post office, pharmacy, butchers, twotake-away restaurants, hotels andbeautiful walks and history?

I run the local knitting group (youmay snigger but the Woolclip co-opera-tive in Caldbeck was instrumental inreintroducing yarn craft to the UK afterthe foot and mouth epidemic). We notonly yarn bombed the seafront in thesummer, bringing visitors from far andwide, but have also held the somewhat

silly knitting in the window Christmasquiz – twenty-three local businesseswere able to host our knitted treats.The others had difficult or sharedaccess to their premises which mighthave put participating children at risk oftraffic. So much for “that’s about it”.

How much longer does our villagehave to have its point of reference asSellafield? We all live here throughchoice and have access to excellent pri-mary and secondary education andmany young people return to the areafor work and a high quality of life.

Mr Francis is blatantly anti-nuclear,and that is fine, but he needs to get hisfacts right: he has got the employmentand local demographic figures wrong(the population of West Cumbria is496,000, the Sellafield site as a wholeonly employs 11,000 in total).

The author made no reference to thecommunity spirit that keeps us alltogether. Next time you publish an arti-cle about Seascale I suggest you use abalanced reporter (hopefully you didn’tpay this person!).Penelope Cater, by email

Author Tony Francis replies:Sellafield has always provoked strongresponses so I’m not surprised somereaders went off the deep end. Themajority didn’t.

What does surprise me is the raggednature of the remarks – someone evensuggesting that I hadn’t even visitedSeascale and had invented JuliaLawrence, the former Sellafieldemployee I met on the train.

FEBRUARY 2015 87

If the complainants read the chaptermore carefully, they’ll see that I haveseveral good things to say aboutSeascale, including the fact that thebeach is regularly tested, that it’s “abeautiful, safe place to be” and thatSellafield employees are generallyhappy with their lot. I pointed out that“Most of the suspicion andsuperstition which surroundedWindscale… has been replaced by aresigned affection. It comes from localtrust in a more transparentmanagement – and the comfort of sta-ble employment.”

There’s no denying the cock-ups andcover-ups of the past. There’s no deny-ing that Windscale was a dangerousplace. There’s no denying that theworkforce was kept in the dark.Neither is there any denying that trainscarrying radioactive waste from differ-ent parts of the world regularly travelalong the passenger line. It’s a fact.Where are the inaccuracies?

I entirely agree with one letter-writerthat wind turbines are an abomination.It concerned me how many ofCumbria’s hillside are littered withthem. Landowners grow rich but thelandscape is ruined. And for what?How much do wind farms actually

contribute to the national grid?To finish, I’d like to emphasise that I

do support nuclear energy. It worksbrilliantly in France. Why not here?

I confess I don’t understand why theJapanese were allowed to buildFukushima in such a volatile part of theworld and I’d prefer mankind to knowmore about the end game. Disposingof nuclear waste is an inexact science.

Ed: Sellafield was inadvertentlyreferred to on the January issue’s con-tents page as a “nuclear powerstation” when in fact it is a nuclearwaste reprocessing facility. I apologisefor any confusion.

Tony Francis’ article was, as stated,an extract from his book ExtraordinaryVillages, published by Merlin UnwinBooks at £14.99 in hardback (www.merlinunwin.co.uk). Cumbriamagazine readers can, until

January 31, purchase copies at the spe-cial price of £13.50, free UK p&p. Tele-phone 01584 877456 and quote“CumbriaMagazine”.

Tony, author of ten books, was pre-senter of TV countryside programmesHeart of the Country and Tales fromthe Country, and covered sporting fix-tures on TV for many years.

88 FEBRUARY 2015

FILL IN all thesquares so thateach row, columnand each of the3x3 squares con-tains all the digitsfrom one to nine.Each month weinclude lastmonth’s solution,right

SUDOKU

Across

9 Common weed (9)10 Render void (5)11 Mistake (5)12 Village near Penrith

(9)13 Fell near the head of

Wastwater (9)14 The Tale of Benjamin

— (Beatrix Potter story) (5)

16 County formed in 1974 (7)

19 Valley north of Coniston (7)

20 Flavoursome (5)21 Exhibited (9)24 House near Bowness,

designed by architect

Baillie Scott (9)26 Precise (5)28 Sloping mass of rock

debris on the side of a mountain (5)

29 Hidden (9)

Down

1 Tool for cutting and shaping wood (4)

2 Saint associated with an X-shaped cross (6)3 Beatrix Potter had a

house here (4,6)4 Tarry (6)5 In motion (5,3)6 Styhead or Honister,

for example (4)7 Prolonged inability to

sleep (8)8 Blackthorn fruit

(4)13 Sailing-boat (5)14 Perplexed (10)15 Give way (5)17 Slaughter (8)18 Formal or ceremonial

interview (8)22 Soundless (6)23 Annually (6)24 Deep-voiced male

singer (4)25 Main tower of a

castle (4)27 Neat (4)

We award £15 for the first correct entry opened after the closing date. £10 and£5 will be given for second and third respectively. Send your entry to: CumbriaCrossword (February), Country Publications Ltd, The Water Mill, Broughton Hall,Skipton BD23 3AG. Entries must reach us by 24 February.

CUMBRIA CROSSWORD MICHAEL CURL

NEIL SOMERVILLE

FEBRUARY 2015 89

Name

Address

Postcode

Email

We will use the contact information youprovide to keep you informed of Cumbria(and other Country Publications) specialoffers. Please tick here [ ] if you do notwish this to happen. We do occasionallyshare information with other carefullyselected organi sations who may send youinformation about their product andservices by post. If you do not wish this tohappen then please tick here [ ].

December solution

Winners: 1, Mr J Hindle, GreatEccleston, Preston; 2, JeanBrocklebank, Runcorn; 3,ErnestSmart, Barnsley.Thanks to all who entered.

Return this page, a photocopyor a list of answers with theabove details.

Please do not include anyother correspondence withyour entry.1 Where would you find the Girt Clog made in the early

nineteenth century for mole catcher John Waterson whose left

foot was considerably enlarged due to elephantiasis?

c Queen’s Head, Askham c Queen’s Head, Hawkshead

c Queen’s Head, Troutbeck

2 What year was the Lake District National Park designated?

c 1941 c 1951 c 1961

3 What did the Red Men mine at the Florence Mine in Egremont

until its closure in 2008?

c Copper c Iron ore c Plumbago

4 What was the name of the notorious transport cafe, now closed,

on the A6 near Shap?

c Jungle cWildlife c Zebra

5 Which bird in Cumbria dialect is a jammy crane?

c Heron c Osprey c Oystercatcher

ANSWERS PAGE 91

QUESTION OF CUMBRIA

90 FEBRUARY 2015

JANUARY

To 31 CARNFORTH. RSPB Leighton Moss.Big Garden Birdwatch Family Trails. Inpreparation for the world’s biggest birdcount taking place over the weekend of24–25 January. Drop-in in between9.30am–4pm. Details 01524 701601www.rspb.org.uk

27 BARNARD CASTLE. Bowes Museum.Birds of Paradise. Join the Museum’sKeeper of textiles for a talk about the artof the plumier and feathers in fashion andhaute couture. Details 01833 690606.www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk

30–31 BARROW IN FURNESS. The Forum.The Tiger who came to Tea. Musical playbased on the book by Judith Kerr. Details01229820000.www.theforumbarrow.co.uk

30 to 1st February. BROUGHTON INFURNESS. Victory Hall. Hansel & Gretel.20th Anniversary pantomime. Bar, intervalrefreshments, raffle. 7.30pm and 5.30pm.www.broughtondramagroup.co.uk

31 KENDAL. Leisure Centre. NorthSinfonia Concert. 7.30pm, talk beforehand6.30pm. Details 01539 722533.www.lakelandsinfonia.org.uk

31 COCKERMOUTH. Christ Church.Harmonic Society Concert: Praise andGlory. 7.30pm. Details 01768 778041.www.cockermouthharmonic.org.uk

FEBRUARY

To March 1. GRASMERE. The WordsworthTrust. Grasmere and the Great War.

Discover what life was like in the trenchesand in Grasmere before, during and afterthe war through personal accounts,newspaper articles, pictures and militaryitems.

1 PENRITH. Rheged. Antiques Fair.10am–4pm. An emporium of standsbursting with home furnishings, collectors’items, vintage jewellery, clothes, antiquetools, watches and more. Details 01768868000.www.rheged.com

4 BEETHAM. Nurseries. Let’s GrowVegetables – talk with slides and samples.7pm. Details 015395 63630.www.beethamnurseries.co.uk

4 & 16 CARLISLE. Racecourse. JumpRacing. www.carlisle.thejockeyclub.co.uk

6 CARLISLE. Bowjangles – On the Box!Taking string quartet performance to awhole new dimension, comedic musicians,Bowjangles perform a night of superb,multidimensional entertainment with theirTV parody On the Box! 7.30pm, Warwickon Eden Memorial Hall Carlisle, CumbriaCA4 8PA, £10/£5 child. Details: 01228562 771. www.highlightsnorth.co.uk

6 WORKINGTON. Workington TransportHeritage Trust. Members Film and Slideevening. Bring your CDs, memory sticksand let everyone experience yourphotographic genius. www.wtht.co.uk

7 ALSTON. Chanje Kunda – Amsterdam:part autobiography, part travelogue and

A selection of current events in Cumbria for the month ahead. To publicise your eventplease write – giving at least six weeks’ advance notice – to: Cumbria Calendar, CountryPublications Ltd, The Water Mill, Broughton Hall, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 3AG. Or email: editorial@cumbriamagazine.co.uk

CUMBRIA CALENDAR LINDA MCFADZEAN

part lyrical drama, Amsterdam fusestheatre, movement and the beauty of anepic poem into a funny and exciting,super-modern twenty-first century playabout one woman’s search for love.7.30pm, Alston Town Hal, Front Street,Alston, Cumbria CA9 3RF; £9/£5 child/£22family. Details 01434 382 244.

7 HAWKSHEAD. The Petzl 10km NightRunner – Grizedale Forest. It’s both aromance and a horror. The 10km routewinds through the forest and includes afew lumps and bumps to test your lungs.When the sun goes down, the headtorches come out.www.visitcumbria.com

7–8 WINDERMERE. Low Wood Bay Hotel.The Big Sleep. Join Cumbria Communityfoundation for a night of entertainmentand fundraising to support vulnerableolder people in Cumbria. Spend one nightcamping out under the stars. Bring yourown tent, sleeping bag and winterwoollies to keep you warm. Details 01900825760.www.cumbriafoundation.org/bigsleep

8 ARMATHWAITE. Bowjangles – On theBox! 7.30pm, Armathwaite Old SchoolHall, near Church CA4 9PB. £10/£5child/£25 family. Details 016974 72318.www.highlightsnorth.co.uk

8 HAWKSHEAD. Montane Trail 13 andTrail 26 Grizedale. Popular location for trailrunners and mountain bikers. Route willlargely take place on forest trails withstunning views of Coniston Water andLake Windermere. 9.30am–8pm.

8 PATTERDALE. St Patrick’s Church.Evensong with Keswick Choral Society.4pm.www.keswickchoral.org.uk

9 GRASMERE. Jerwood Centre. Shelleyand Mary Shelley: Poetry andFrankenstein. Literature classes.2.15pm–4pm, followed by refreshments.£10. www.visitcumbria.com

12 KENDAL. Brewery Arts. The Impossible

Gentlemen. Internationally acclaimedBritish Piano sensation. 8pm. Details01539 725133.www.breweryarts.co.uk

12–14 CARLISLE. Stanwix Theatre,University of Cumbria. Henry V.Shakespeare’s powerful history play takescentre stage as it sheds new light on theBard’s legendary coming-of-age story.Tickets £8/£6. Details 01228 400356. www.golakes.co.uk

13 SKIRWITH. Chanje Kunda –Amsterdam: 8pm, Skirwith Village HallChurch St, Skirwith, Penrith CA10 1RL.£7.50/ £5 child/£20 family. Details 0176888234. www.highlightsnorth.co.uk

14 CARLISLE. The Sands Centre. StPetersburg Symphony Orchestra. Famousthroughout the world ever since they gavethe historic performance of Shostakovich’sLeningrad Symphony during the siege ofLeningrad in 1942. The orchestra will beperforming Beethoven’s Symphony No.1.Details 01228 633766.www.thesandscentre.co.uk

14 ORTON. Farmer’s Market.9.30am–2.30pm.www.ortonfarmers.co.uk

14 CONISTON. Brantwood. Fewkes HornQuartet. Programme includes Mozart,Rossini, Bizet, Rimsky Korsakov and more.Details 015394 41396. www.brantwood.org.uk

14–15 SILVERDALE Nr CARNFORTH. RSPBLeighton Moss. Binoculars and TelescopesDemonstrations.. Opportunity to try outbinoculars, telescopes and digiscoping andreceive impartial advice. 10am–4pm.Details 01524 701601. www.rspb.org.uk

17 BARNARD CASTLE. Bowes Museum.

FEBRUARY 2015 91

QUESTION OF CUMBRIA ANSWERS:

Answers: 1 Queen’s Head, Hawkshead 2

1951 3 Iron ore 4 Jungle 5 Heron

92 FEBRUARY 2015

Birds Galore. Family Fun Day. Learn aboutdifferent types of birds, explore themuseum with a themed trail and createwonderful bird inspired crafts to takehome! Children must be accompanied byan adult, for whom normal admissionapplies. 11–4pm. Details 01833 690606. www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk

19–22 CARLISLE. The Sands Centre. SnowWhite on Ice. Featuring Russian ice stars.A breathtaking and mesmerizingexperience with ballet, gymnastics andaerial acrobatics. 2.30pm & 7.30pm.Details 01228 633766. www.snowwiteonice.com

20 BARROW IN FURNESS. The Forum.Frozen movie sing-a-long must-see. All theusual suspects of lyrics on screen to singalong with together with a live host and amagic moments fun pack. 3.30pm. Details01229 820000.www.theforumbarrow.co.uk

20 ORTON. Ian Sherwood, award-winningCanadian musician and songwriter mixescatchy melodies and heart-breaking storieswith intricate guitar loops, saxophonesand pop, rock and jazz grooves to createan energetic stage show. 7.30pm, OrtonMarket Hall Market Street, Orton, PenrithCA10 3RL. £9/£5 child/£20 family. Details01539 624732.www.highlightsnorth.co.uk

22 KENDAL. Castle Green Hotel. WeddingOpen Day. 1pm–3pm. Details 01539797004. www.castlegreen.co.uk

22 ARNSIDE. Compagnie T-d’U – All theThings You Said You Never Said… Onecouple, four actors and a performanceexploring two versions of reality. All theThings… is a thoughtful and beautifulpiece of physical theatre that bringstogether an international cast. 7.30pm,Arnside Educational Institution, ChurchHill, Arnside, Carnforth LA5 0DF. £8/£5

child/£21 family. Details 01524 762 254.www.highlightsnorth.co.uk

24 WINDERMERE. Jetty at Brockhole, theLake District Visitor Centre. ConservationConversation. Meet one of WindermereJetty’s Conservation team who will tell youabout the processes behind the delicateconservation of the international boatcollection.www.lakelandarts.org.uk

26 to March 1. KESWICK Film Festival. 30of the best of UK and International films.Workshops, guests and a possibleappearance by patron of the Festival JohnHurt. Films are at three venues, thebeautiful Theatre by the Lake, the 100year old Alhambra Cinema and the greatIMAX screen at Rheged.www.keswickfilmfestival.org

26 BARDSEA. Malt Kiln Hall. UlverstonJazz Appreciation Society will play afascinating diversity of styles. 7pm. £2,refreshments included. Details 015248533335. www.ulverstonjazz.co.uk

27 KENDAL. Farmer’s Market.9.30am–3.30pm. Details 01539 735891.www.madeincumbria.co.uk

27 MELMERBY Heritage Survival Band –eight-piece music powerhouse HeritageSurvival Band play joyful, compelling,upbeat music inspired by theirZimbabwean roots. 7.30pm, MelmerbyVillage Hall, Church Rd, Melmerby, PenrithCA10 1HE. £10/£5 child. Details 01768881 291.

27 ULVERSTON. The New Budapest CaféOrchestra – powerful and driving folk-based music from the Balkans and EasternEurope, inspired by the music of Europeangypsies and evoking vivid images ofBudapest café life and gypsy camp fires.8pm, Water Yeat Village Hall, Ulverston,Cumbria LA12 8DJ. £10/£5 child. Details07776 300700.www.highlightsnorth.co.uk

28 BRAMPTON. The New Budapest CaféOrchestra. 7.30pm, Heads Nook Village

Hall Brampton, Cumbria CA8 9AE. £8/£4child. Details 01228 561147.www.highlightsnorth.co.uk

28 to 1 March. PENRITH. Dalemain. TheWorld’s Original Marmalade Awards. Over200 competition marmalades to taste plusfood fair, cookery demonstrations,marmalade making, Paddington Bearbook readings, Llama treks, juggling jester,face painting.www.dalemainmarmaladeawards.co.uk

LOOKING AHEAD

MARCH

7–8 KENDAL. Festival of Food & Drink.www.kendalfestivaloffood.co.uk

APRIL

4 LOWTHER CASTLE. Born Survivor.TheUltimate Military Obstacle Course.www.born-survivor.com

MAY

14–17 KESWICK. Mountain Festival. Amust-do event of the year, with a hugeprogramme of activities, world-classspeakers, sporting events, camping andlive music in the evening, there issomething for every adventurer.www.keswickmountainfestival.co.uk

29–31. CARK IN CARTMEL. Holker Hall &Gardens. Garden Festival.www.holkerfestival.co.uk

JUNE

14 KENDAL. Westmorland CountyShowground. Elton John and his band willvisit as part of his European tour. Showwill feature iconic hits and classic albumtracks.www.westmorlandshow.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2015 93

All dates, details, times, contacts etc. aregiven in good faith and believed to be

correct at the time of going to press, but itis always advisable to check beforehand in

case circumstances have changed.

MARCH 201594

Cumbria classifiedCountry Publications Ltd,

The Water Mill,Broughton Hall, Skipton,

North Yorkshire BD23 3AG

ACCOMMODATION Winter Breaks

Display Advertising01756 701381 - ads@dalesman.co.uk

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HOLIDAY PARKS & SALES

Freedom, privacy, value for money and a friendlyenvironment. It is quiet, secluded and beautifullywooded. The area around our park is a real paradisefor walkers ~several published walks start close by.

enquiries@greenhowe.comTel: 015394 37231 Fax: 015394 37464

www.greenhowe.comGREAT LANGDALE, AMBLESIDE, CUMBRIA LA22 9JU

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98 FEBRUARY 2015

Absence, according to the oldsaying, makes the heart grow

fonder. Having spent large chunks ofthe last two winters absent researchinga walking guide to Spain I can onlyagree with that sentiment. And thething of which I have grown almostimmeasurably fonder over those some-times frustrating weeks and months isthe Ordnance Survey and in particularits wonderful Outdoor Leisure maps.

When I started walking and climbingmany years ago we were still contentto plot our way using the old one-inch-to-a-mile set though, granted, my eyeswere considerably better in those days.Today I’m much happier with what mypre-metric brain still chooses to call thetwo-and-a-half-inch maps. But whatthey both have in common is that theyare models of consistency andaccuracy.

Though I still always carry a mapwhen I go out on the Lakeland fells Ihave to confess that I rarely look at itbecause the paths and tops are suchfamiliar old friends – and if the clag isdown and I won’t be able to see whereI am going, then I find something moreagreeable to do. But at home I can sit

and look at them for hours, plottingroutes and reliving days thanks to theirperfect representation and artistry.

However, when I venture furtherafield I rely on the diligence of the OSto keep me on track and it never letsme down. That’s not to say I nevermanage to get myself lost but, when Ido, it is always through my owninattention or carelessness, not theirs.The simple fact is that, like most otherBritish walkers, I suspect, I havehitherto taken the comforting certain-ties of the OS completely for granted. Iknow I can trust the map in my hand tobe right and that things will be wherethe OS says they will be. By contrast, on my travels I have found placeschanging names from one map toanother, sometimes popping up incompletely different spots or even dis-appearing altogether.

I suppose my complacentconfidence in the OS is a complimentof sorts but it has taken the infuriatingambiguities of another country’s morewhimsical cartography to make mereally appreciate it. Our OS maps are a wonderful and often under-appreciated National Treasure. n

TERRY FLETCHERIN MY VIEW

Close to my charts