By the autumn of 1952, AW, now in his new house at 38 Kendal Green, had knocked his garden into shape, three years ahead of his self-imposed schedule, and on 9 November 1952, he sat down to write the first page of Book One of his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. His letters show that for many years he had been thinking of a Lakeland project, but at last he had it all planned out: seven books, covering 214 fells, which would take him thirteen years to complete.
He had finished Book One by the Christmas of 1954 and made plans for publication, deciding he would do it himself, with the help of Henry Marshall, the Kendal Librarian, who agreed to act as the official publisher, with Marshall’s name and address going on the books and all the leaflets, as AW did not want to reveal his own address and occupation.
A local jobbing printer in Kendal, Bateson and Hewitson, quoted him a price of £950 for 2,000 copies. AW had only £35 in savings, which seems a small amount, given that he had a quite well paid position, but perhaps he had spent all his savings on his new house and garden. However, the printer agreed that AW need not pay any more money till there was an income coming in from the books – if any.
Despite his aversion to personal publicity, AW realised he would have to make an effort to draw attention to his book, get some promotion for it in order to get it into the shops.
In April 1955, he wrote to the magazine Cumbria to enquire about advertising rates. Cumbria – and its sister magazine The Dalesman – was based in Clapham in North Lancashire, but the magazine was printed in Kendal by the Westmorland Gazette, who were also printing AW’s book, it being too big a job for Bateman and Hewitson, even though they were nominally handling it.
AW was pleased to find the rates were only £10 for a page. He asked if there could be some accompanying editorial about the book – which he suggested could be done by Mr Griffin (his friend Harry Griffin, the journalist and author and noted Lakeland walker).
Mr Leslie Hewkin |
Municipal Offices |
Wykefield Cottage |
Lowther Street |
Ambleside |
Kendal |
Westmorland |
29th April 1955 |
Dear Mr. Hewkin,
Thank you for your letter – and enclosure, which was just what I wanted.
The advertisement rates for CUMBRIA are actually less than I thought they would be. I must now write to the Advertisement Manager to reserve a full page for the June number, but before doing so wonder whether you would have any objection if I asked for the left-hand page opposite your editorial? I think you usually like to keep this free of advertisement, but my own display (which I now have ready) is quite neat and attractive with a couple of small drawings and would not look out of place in that position.
Please don’t go out of your way to see Mr. Scott. The question of the drawings is a small one really and I doubt whether they would reproduce well in any case – they would in half-tones, but this isn’t altogether a satisfactory treatment for line drawings.
The book is now being printed. I am terribly anxious to see it finished. As soon as I can get hold of a full set of pages (with or without the binding case) I will send it on to you. Mr Griffin will collaborate in the drafting of the editorial matter if you want any assistance.
Yours sincerely,
The Advertisement Manager |
38 Kendal Green |
Dalesman Publishing Co. |
Kendal |
Clapham |
4th May 1955 |
Via Lancaster |
|
Dear Sir
Please reserve for me a full page in your June issue of CUMBRIA (issued June 1st) for the purpose of advertising a book that is due for publication at Whitsuntide.
If it could possibly be arranged, I should be especially grateful if I could have the left-hand page facing the Editorial comments, which, I understand, will make reference to the book.
The advertising matter will take the form of a display for which a full page block will be supplied direct to the Westmorland Gazette. The block is at present being made, but a proof will be sent to you for approval within a few days.
A cheque for 10 pounds is enclosed.
Yours faithfully
AW
The publisher of Cumbria, Harry Scott, had caught sight of some of AW’s hand-drawn, handwritten material from Book One – still not published until June – and wrote to AW to say how impressed he was by it. This was probably AW’s first ever fan letter for his Pictorial Guides. Once it was out, readers were even writing to offer him a bed, if he was in their area.
9 May 1955
Dear Mr Scott,
I can’t remember ever receiving a kinder and more generous letter than the one I have had from you. It is really extremely nice of you to show such an interest in my book, and I feel greatly encouraged by your remarks.
I welcome your opinion particularly, because it was always in my mind when I was compiling the book that I would take it over to Clapham when it was finished to see if you would publish it! Then, when the job was done, I hesitated. It seemed to me then to be unfair to ask anyone to risk money on something so different – success or failure, and the extent of success or failure, were unpredictable. Finally, I decided to [illegible] the risk myself. I just hadn’t the nerve to ask you, or my other publisher, to do something I wasn’t prepared to do myself … that’s how it comes about that I now find myself suffering the anxieties (and enjoying the excitements) of putting a new book before the public. At the moment, I feel like a man going to the gallows!
I am grateful for what you are doing, and are prepared to do, to help me, but must not trespass further on your kindness.
You shall have the [illegible] copy!
y/s
AW
Municipal Offices
Lowther Street
Kendal
Westmorland
8 June 1955
Dear Madam,
I don’t know whether I should address you as ‘Dear Miss Chandler’ or ‘Dear Mrs Chandler’, or which is safest in case of doubt – you don’t give me a clue. As for ‘Dear Sally’ – No, I just couldn’t!
Thank you for a wonderfully kind letter. Your extremely generous invitation quite affected me: how can you have such confidence in me, a stranger? But really, I cannot accept. I shall not be back in the Grasmere area until Book Three, that is, not until the winter of 1956. And anyway, I’m much too shy!
One thing you can do for me, though, if you will and are able to, and that is to recommend the book to other kindred souls. I fear the railway strike has sadly upset my publicity arrangements, and sales are too few for my peace of mind.
Do this for me, please, and I promise that when I am back in the Grasmere area, I will venture to peep in at The Wray. Not for a bed, and not for a meal, but just to look upon the gracious woman who went to the trouble of writing so charming a letter and offering such kind hospitality to someone she had never met. Besides, I shall always be a bit curious about the ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’. You can’t blame me if, in the meantime, I think of you as Sally!
Yours sincerely
Perhaps the early fan letter which gave him most delight was from Walter Poucher (1891–88), a noted Lakeland author and photographer (and also chief perfumer for Yardley), whose books AW himself had greatly enjoyed.
Kendal
Westmorland
8 June 1955
Dear Mr Poucher,
I was delighted to receive your very kind letter. No other I have received, or may receive, could possibly bring me more pleasure.
It gave me quite a thrill even to see your order form when it came in a fortnight ago. I said to myself ‘now the boot is on the other foot’ because for years I have been an ardent admirer and collector of your wonderful books: indeed, I acknowledge with gratitude the help I have gained from your photographs of the Lakeland fells, especially in cases where my own sketches left me in some doubt about details. Occasionally, in fact, I have been tempted to make my drawings direct from your photographs: this I must never do, but certainly you are entitled to some credit for giving me a fuller appreciation of the importance of choosing the right viewpoint and the skilful use of light and shadow.
Must your last Lakeland book really be your last? Do please come again!
– – –
Now dare I risk spoiling this reply by asking a favour?
This book is a private venture (a mistake, I am beginning to feel) and unfortunately much excellent publicity has been negatived by the railway strike. Postal enquiries are very few, and I am getting a little anxious. Your letter, indeed, came as a great encouragement when I was feeling a wee bit depressed. I must now rely on personal recommendation, and I wonder if you could, without going to any trouble about it, manage to put in a good word for the book if opportunity offers when you are amongst kindred souls. A word from you here and there would, I am sure, help quite a lot.
This letter does not call for any reply. You have already done much to cheer me up by the kind thought that prompted you to write, and I am really most grateful.
Yours sincerely,
AW sent out flyers announcing Book One, hoping for orders or publicity, to various bodies who might help the book, such as The Sanitarian, the official journal of Municipal Sanitary Inspectors, who kindly gave the book a mention and an address for orders. He also sent the flyer to old friends in the Blackburn office. One of those who replied and bought a copy was Fred Sellers (1906–90), who remained in the Blackburn Treasurer’s Office all his working life. He had worked beside AW in the 1920s. He was small and thin, as opposed to AW who was tall and thin, and featured in many of the office caricatures which AW drew at the time.
Henry Marshall
Low Bridge
Kentmere
Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
Dear Fred,
I recognized your handwriting on the envelope. It rather pleased me to be able to do this after all these years.
Thank you for your kind letter, for the generous references to myself and for certain nostalgic memories which, in turn, have revived others in my own mind – of the snivvies (‘hey, you’re going down the wrong one!’); of weary nights of swotting; of munroe’s teas (and wasn’t there someone called Tina?); of the Pay Office Male Voice Choir – and particularly one I shall never forget, of the time you opened a bottle of red ink.
I thought then that those were happy days, but they weren’t; these are the happy days.
It is a pleasure to send you an autographed copy of The Book, and an even greater pleasure to pocket your remittance.
Yours sincerely,
Alf Wainwright
Then the more nit picking letters started to arrive, with readers loving his work but showing off their own knowledge, trying to counter some of his assertions.
Kendal
Westmorland
8 June 1955
Dear Mr Pollard,
Mr Marshall has passed your letter on to me, and I was delighted to have it. Among the many letters I have received, yours in the only one that goes into any detail, the sort of detail I find so interesting. Quite obviously, a kindred soul!
Yes, fancy calling ‘Cofa Pike’ ‘Cawkhaw Pike’! And ‘Ill Bell’ ‘Hill Bell’! And ‘Yoke’ ‘York’! And still showing what is now a grassgrown track up Langdale as the main road! Yet, with all these criticisms, and many more, of the 2 and a half O.S. map, I’d much rather use it than Bartholomew. I’m rather surprised that you, a stickler for detail, don’t prefer it too, for Bartholomew is so lacking in information.
I wish I had time to point out some Bartholomew (and Baddeley) routes that you wouldn’t find at all reliable! You’d be on hands and knees much of the time:
‘Catstycam’ I preferred to ‘Catchedicam’ because it looks so much more pronounceable, and anyway, I thought the second name was a corruption of the first?
I know the spot exactly that you mention in your separate note. The edge of the main path is badly eroded just here and the start of the zigzag is obscure. Most people, not knowing it, are bound to miss it and continue into Kepplecove.
If there are two cairns, as you say, perhaps we’d better scatter one next time we are up there and make the book up-to-date!
Thanks a lot for writing. I should be delighted to hear from you again if you find any other points worth mentioning.
In the meantime, you could do me a tremendous favour by recommending the book to others interested in the hills. I’m afraid my publicity and distribution arrangements have been badly hit by the strike, and a word from you here and there would help. I should be grateful if you would do this, without, of course, going to any trouble about it.
Yours sincerely
In placing his advertisement with Cumbria, AW had been promised extra editorial coverage and it was agreed that Bill Mitchell, editor of Cumbria, would interview him and write a personal piece. Mitchell saw AW at his office – but got nothing out of him, and produced nothing worth using. AW had suddenly gone all private and uncooperative – for which he apologised to Mr Scott, the publisher.
Harry J Scott, Esq., |
Municipal Offices |
The Dalesman Publishing Co, |
Lowther Street |
Clapham, |
Kendal |
Via Lancaster. |
Westmorland |
|
10 June 1955 |
|
Tele. 130 Kendal |
Dear Mr Scott,
Thank you for your friendly and helpful letter.
I apologise profoundly for what has clearly been a misunderstanding on my part. When Mr Mitchell came to see me I somehow got the impression that the June Cumbria was already made up and that he was seeking a ‘follow-up’ for the July issue – and therefore that I had time to give some thought to his questions. However, it is my fault, and my loss; I appreciate your position. I would like you to tell Mr Mitchell, please, how sorry I am that I have muddled the matter.
Your other remarks about distribution are very interesting. I must admit that things are working out very differently from my expectations. The personal invitation by leaflet has proved a flop, and has taught me not to expect people to part with their money for something they have not seen. On the other hand, enquiries from bookshops and libraries are now coming in steadily, and it is unfortunate that for the past fortnight we have not been able to get many books out. So far as I can ascertain, 300 copies have been sold up to now, and I have many more to send out to bookshops when the strike is over, so perhaps things are not going so badly, but as you suggest, it is going to be a longer and slower process than I expected. The book has had excellent reviews, and I have had many congratulatory letters which have done much to encourage me and relieve my anxieties.
I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Scott, for your continued interest and offers of help, and someday, when the thing is on its feet, I will look in at your office, and thank you personally. I shall always remember that you were one of the first to pronounce a blessing on my efforts.
Yours sincerely,
Henry Marshall, Low Bridge, Kentmere, Westmorland.
Dear Mrs Helps
Mr Marshall has passed your kind and interesting letter on to me: he is out of action at present
I hope you had an enjoyable holiday and collected more precious memories.
Here is the book. I do hope you like it!
Yours sincerely
AWainwright.
In June 1954, John and Mary Helps, who lived near Ilford in Essex, where he worked with his father running a mail order business in flower bulbs, were on their honeymoon in Scotland on the Isle of Skye. Staying by chance in the same bed and breakfast were AW and Henry Marshall. While climbing Sgurr nan Gillean, they came across AW and Marshall struggling to get the top, which they themselves had just done, so they escorted them to the top. Mr Helps took a photo of AW and Marshall, with his wife Mary, beside the cairn. (I used this photo in my biography of AW, purely as evidence that AW and Marshall had once been reasonably close friends, though I did not know at the time identity of the woman in the photograph.)
About a year later, Mrs Helps sent the photo to AW and Marshall and Marshall replied by telling her that he and AW had just published their first book – would she like to buy a copy? She posted the money and AW sent a signed book – which they still have in their Keswick home, which is where they retired to in the 1980s. AW always liked the photograph and kept it carefully.
Kendal
Westmorland
21 June 1955
Dear Mr Scott,
Your very kind letter about ‘The Eastern Fells’ really gave me the most warming glow of pleasure!
This is a personal venture I have embarked upon, not without a great deal of anxiety lest it should fail. The expressions of appreciation that are coming in are a comfort to me, and make everything I have done seem well worth while.
I am greatly encouraged by your generous remarks, and thank you for taking the trouble and finding the time to write. It was nice of you to do this.
Yours sincerely
AWainwright
AW then agreed that he would answer by post some questions and answers if Bill Mitchell sent them to him. AW replied to each question – and also scribbled a covering note to Mr Mitchell – but never posted either of them. (I discovered them in 1994 in AW’s papers when working on his official biography.)
Dear Mr Mitchell,
As promised, I enclose some notes from which you may be able to put together the article you intended for the July Cumbria. I apologise for the delay, but have had much on my mind since I saw you.
I found your two principal questions (‘why did you do it?’ And ‘why did you do it in this particular way?’) not at all easy to answer, but [illegible] my observations. I enclose also Griffin’s article from the Lancashire Evening Post which contains certain biographical and other details you were interested in, and which you may care to re-hash in order to form a complete story. I feel myself that the article should be in narrative form, as Griffin’s is, rather than in the form of an interview, but please yourself on this point. In fact, I’m ready to agree to anything to get a bit more publicity. One problem has been the rail and postal restrictions which have disrupted deliveries. At least I’m making that the excuse for the negligible response so far.
Only 70 odd replies have been received to the 1400 leaflets sent out. Griffin’s excellent article has produced only three enquiries and the June Cumbria only two! All this is a tremendous disappointment. Fortunately, the shops are doing better, but I don’t know whether more than 150 copies have been sold as yet. On the brighter side, the reviews of the book have been excellent and I have had an offer (not accepted) from another publisher to publish the six volumes that are still to come. Still optimistic, I believe everything will be OK in due course. We’ll see.
y/s
Q: What impelled you to write this book?
Oddly, perhaps this is a question I have never asked myself and I am not sure that I can answer it satisfactorily. Certainly it cannot be answered in a single sentence. Ideas grow, like habits, until they become a way of life. What planted this particular seed in my mind is difficult to say. Perhaps I was born with it. Looking back, I seem always to have had a passion for hill-walking, even when a small boy; other enthusiasms have come and gone, but my love of the fells has been constant. As far back as I can remember, mountain country has attracted me and mountain literature and maps have been my favourite reading. The growing supply of mountaineering books, with their inspiring photographs and diagrams, must have influenced me considerably. It was always an ambition of mine to climb Everest (it used to be my fondest wish to die on the summit, but I’ve grown up since then!) the Everest books fascinated me and I studied them intently: in my imagination, how often I have toiled upwards towards its summit! Well, I could never go to Everest, but there was Scafell, and Helvellyn, and all the other fells I knew so well. They too had lofty ridges and hidden recesses, and, in winter, snow and ice; away from the paths there were wide areas of lonely territory to explore, places where few walkers go. Gradually the fells have taken the place of Everest in my life; they have provided the outlet for the climbing and exploring urge fostered by the many books of mountain travel. Some years ago I started to put a notebook and a pencil in my rucksack, and to be methodical in my wanderings. Later I started to be methodical in my notes, too. Every fell had to yield the answers to the same questions: the details of its structure, the best routes of ascent, the secrets of its untrodden places, the views from the top. I regarded them all as Himalayan giants, and myself as a lone explorer. The game took a hold on me as nothing else has ever done; it became a completely absorbing pastime, but more a passion that a pastime. For every day I could spend on the fells I had six in which I could do no climbing; these I started to spend carefully putting my notes into more attractive form and planning future expeditions. The map of Lakeland had now become a vast territory for exploration, and I planned my walks as though conducting a military campaign. You remember the war maps, the black arrows of advancing troops, the pincer movements, the mopping-up operations? That’s the way I worked, but my thoughts were not of war, but utterly at peace. A tremendous impetus was given to my investigations by the re-publication of the two and a half inch Ordnance Survey maps, which, though not up-to-date, contained a wealth of interesting detail and provided a fuller appreciation of the meticulous accuracy of the cartographer’s art. With these fine maps as examples, my rough notes would never do for me now: the job I was tackling must be done properly. I must make my own up-to-date maps, my own diagrams, my own drawings, all carefully designed and presented as attractively as I could. Writing is a form of drawing, and it was natural that I should try to describe the fells in words, but only where necessary to supplement the illustrations. I started to put pen to paper in earnest, hesitatingly at first. That was in November 1952 and by Christmas 1954 I had completed the first part of my plan.
Q: Why does the book appear in this particular and unusual fashion, that is, entirely from hand-written manuscript?
Because the book was intended originally only as a personal chronicle of my observations, so that everything in it, the notes as well as the illustrations, was prepared by hand. The thought of publication came much later, when it began to appear to me that my observations would be of interest to others who shared my regard for the fells. So it is that the book that has emerged is nothing more than my own personal notebook, reproduced exactly as I penned it, and embellished with an introduction and a conclusion which serve the purpose of explaining the plan to which I have worked in compiling the information.
Q: Have you had any training in art or book illustration?
No, I have had no training in drawing, but because the fells were never out of my mind, I have for years occupied much leisure time in translating into pictures the vivid impressions I had of them. At first, I started to do this idly, but it quickly became an absorbing occupation and to me a very satisfying one because I found that by building up a favourite mountain from a blank sheet of paper I could experience the subtle joy of feeling that I was actually engaged upon the ascent physically as the familiar shape came into being under the pen. To me, this was a discovery of some importance. I could now sit in my chair on a winter’s evening and bring Scafell of Gable into the room with me. When I could not go to the hills I could make them come to me.
Q: You must have a remarkable amount of patience?
I don’t think patience is the right word. Patience lies in doing a task unwillingly. When a task is done because it is enjoyed, its is enthusiasm.
Q: Have you had any interesting experiences during the making of the book?
If you mean during my walks, yes. Every walk is an interesting experience in itself, doubly interesting because it is walked with a definite purpose. I could not begin to detail my experiences now, although someday I hope to – when the Guide is finished. In general, I would say that the most intense experiences have occurred during nights spent upon the fells. Occasionally (not often, and only in Summer) I have bivouacked alone in high places; these occasions remain vivid in memory! Nobody who has not done it can imagine the splendours of sunset and sunrise from the summits, the eerie stillness of the hours of darkness, the joy of being on the tops at dawn when the larks are rising. I recommend this to everyone who loves the fells, but I recommend company to all but guide-book writers.
Q: Do you always go alone?
Invariably. I prefer to go alone, and must be alone if I am to get any work done. One cannot concentrate and comprehend another’s conversation at the same time. Besides, I should be a poor companion, for my walks must often seem to be erratic, leading into unfrequented corners, zigzagging where there is no need to zig-zag, sometimes returning to the same summit two or three times during the course of a day. In fact, I have often reason to be thankful that my antics are not being observed.
Q: When do you expect to finish Book Two?
All being well, by the autumn of 1956.