Book One, The Eastern Fells, was officially published in May 1955 but because of a rail strike there were few copies around until July. There was no dustjacket on Book One – AW had forgotten to do one – but when the book started selling well, and a second printing was ordered, AW decided to add one.
One of the early fan letters about Book One came from his Aunt Nellie (also known as Helen), his mother’s sister, still living in Penistone, Yorkshire, from whence AW’s parents, on both sides, had originally come.
48 Kendal Green
Kendal
17th January 1956
Dear auntie Nellie,
Thank you so much for your very kind letter about ‘The Eastern Fells’. It was a great pleasure to hear from you – and not, of course, merely to receive your congratulations and good wishes, but because you are a link with a past that becomes more and more remote and yet which often comes to mind: not always a happy past, perhaps, but rather one with some happy memories. Eric, on his annual visits, serves similarly to remind me of days that are gone, although I never mention this and I’m sure he doesn’t realise it. It’s strange, really, how well I remember Penistone – a grandfather clock at Grandpa’s, auntie Lucy’s shop, aunt Grace’s little cottage, the viaduct, Percy Snape, Scout Wood – a jumble of memories, still vivid; and yet it is so many years (over thirty, I suppose) since I spent a holiday there. One of these days I really must go again!
The printer is now working on a second impression of Book One, and for this I have designed a paper book-jacket. I must remember to send you one to put round Helen’s copy. Every spare moment is spent on Book Two: either working on it or thinking about it. It’s more than half-finished but probably won’t be published until Easter next year.
I enjoy so much preparing these books that I look for no other reward, yet other rewards there have been in plenty in the form of letters I have received from readers all over the country – wonderfully kind letters, messages even of gratitude from elderly people who used to walk the fells and now can do so no more. Yours I will place with these, and always be grateful for it
Alfred
The following month AW got a letter from Weaver Owen, formerly manager of Lloyds bank in Kendal from 1949–55, now moved to Banbury. He had lived near AW in Kendal, and was also a keen walker. One morning in 1949 they had met at the same bus stop and discovered they were about to go on the same walk. They did several walks together and one hot summer’s night they even spent the night together, sleeping on a fell out in the open. (Mr Owen said later he never slept a wink but AW did as his pipe kept the midges away.)
In his reply to Mr Weaver, AW was a trifle pompous, saying he did not care to be addressed by his Christian name – even from somebody with whom he had once slept – but his letter was friendly and chatty, giving him news on Book Two. In a letter a year later, he gave him news of Book Three.
Municipal Offices
Lowther Street
Kendal
7th February 1956
Dear Mr Owen (or Weaver, if you prefer it although personally I don’t)
I was delighted to receive your letter with its inspiring enclosure. I had seen the photograph of Swindale Beck in the Lancashire Evening Post some days earlier, but there it was reproduced badly and failed to stir the emotions as the Times picture undoubtedly did. O, to be in Swindale at this very moment! What am I doing here in a stuffy office surrounded by books?
As your letter was on its way north to me, you were very much in my thoughts, because I was en route to London on business. On a train journey I always like to sit with my nose flattened against the window and a railway map on my knee – and on this occasion I noted keenly all references to Banbury as the train passed through nearby stations, and surveyed the surrounding countryside with interest. Pleasant, yes; beautiful and exciting, no, not for me, I concluded; I’m no stickler after the fleshpots, as J.S.W. Owen obviously is. Our ambitions run in different channels … yet perhaps I was too harsh, for the sight of you on hands and knees trying to insert yourself in a tiny shelter on the shores of Small Water remains one of my richest memories.
Life here goes on as smoothly as ever. I miss your cheerful smile, but, to be quite honest, so inflexibly have I set my course that your departure was no more than a ripple on a placid sea.
Nevertheless, I shall be very pleased to see you in April. I am ‘engaged’ at present on the fells around the head of Longsleddale (Harter Fell and company), having just completed a three-months exploration of the Thornthwaite Crag – Ill Bell Group. My programme tells me that April is scheduled for Branstree and Selside Pike, so that if you were to accompany me on a walk in that month it would probably be from Garnett Bridge, up Longsleddale and over the tops to Swindale (scene of the photograph) and Shap – which means using the bus, not your car.
If this prospect appeals to you, please give me a week’s notice if you possibly can. Officially I shall be at work throughout April, but will try to arrange a day off if this can be done.
Book One goes into a second impression at Easter (this time with an attractive ‘jacket’). Book Two will be finished on September 30th, but publication will be held over until the following Easter. Thank you for your very generous remarks about my efforts. It pleases me to recall that you were the first person I told about my plans (Grasmere bus stop after a hurried descent from High Raise). Remember?
AW
Dear Mr Owen,
Thank you for the note enclosed with your donation. I am glad you like Book Two. I shall always associate those shelters you mention with a certain happy weekend spent in your company. Similarly with Book Three on which I am now feverishly engaged. I am ‘doing’ High Raise at present and in the process I am constantly reminded of one winters’ day in particular which ended in a race against darkness. On the summit your face turned quite a vivid blue, with crimson splotches – a phenomenon [he spells the previous word wrongly and corrects it]* I had never before witnessed and am not anxious to see again.
Today is gloriously fine, as most days are at present. As I left home this morning, the Ill Bell ridge looked wonderfully inviting. I could clearly see the big cairn on Thornthwaite Crag – and how I wished I was sitting with my back propped up against it! Yesterday, after taking the mayor to church, I caught the 1.30 and rattled up Loughrigg and Silver How.
For a change I am going on a solitary walking tour in Wester Ross and Sutherland next week.
I hope you are now happily settled down in Banbury. I look forward to seeing you again before long.
Yours sincerely
AWainwright
* this word always drives me to a dictionary
In 1958, while working on the early pages of Book Four, The Southern Fells, AW allowed a one-page extract to appear in the magazine Cumbria. Alas, it contained a spelling mistake – one of the very few that AW ever made – or ever admitted to have made. He had spelled the Britannia Inn at Chapel Stile as Brittania.
It was spotted by bright-eyed Jack Thornton, who just happened to be Deputy Director of Education for Cumberland, so was hot on good spelling. He wrote to AW, saying how much he was enjoying his books, then gently pointed out his mistake. AW humbly admitted his mistake – and said he would correct it with a razor blade. (And if you look in Book Four, on the page headed Lingmoor Fell 7, you can see how he craftily corrected the spelling.)
Kentmere, Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
23 August 1958
Dear Mr Thornton
Thank you so much for your exceedingly kind letter. It is always a great pleasure to be told that the work one is doing is being appreciated by others, and although I must maintain that I am compiling my series of books primarily for my own gratification, it is, nevertheless, nice to know that they are proving of interest and use to others who share my affection for Lakeland; and letters such as yours are an encouragement to me to continue.
I hang my head in shame for my unaccountable lapse about the Britannia Inn! I was completely unaware of the mis-spelling (apparently nobody else has noticed it). The funny thing is that the word looks right to me with two Ts and one N, and I had no doubts when penning it, but of course I was wrong. This is the first mistake ever pointed out to me, although I have had several hundred letters from readers, and I am grateful to you for pointing it out, even if you have shaken my confidence a bit! How odd it should happen on the only page printed in advance of publication!
It’s too much to ask the inn proprietor to exhibit a new sign with two Ts and one N, but I think I can, with careful manipulation of a razor blade, make the necessary alteration. Look for it when you get your copy of Book Four!
Yours sincerely
AWainwright
AW made a point of replying to every fan letter, grateful to people for having bought his books, and with many of them he got into a long correspondence which lasted some years, without him ever meeting them. He enjoyed their observations about his books and also hearing about people’s own experiences of walking in Lakeland, and often encouraged them to write again. Once that started, he often revealed personal things – about what he was doing and feeling.
He wrote six letters to Bert Markland between 1957 and 1961 – all on Henry Marshal notepaper, thus not giving away his home address – that were full of information about his walks and books. He also wrote that at fifty he felt his health was not what it was and his eyes were going. Mr Markland had remarked on the huge task which AW had set himself, and worried that he would finish it, but AW reassured him he would. Bert Markland, born in 1909, lived in Bolton. He had been in the textile trade till made redundant then worked for Department of Employment. He was married but had no children. He had been a keen Lakeland walker since his youth and had bought all the AW books from the beginning, as each appeared, usually asking AW to sign his copy.
Henry Marshall
Low Bridge
Kentmere
Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
13th May 1957
Dear Mr Markland,
Thank you so much for your exceedingly kind and interesting letter. It was a pleasure to read it. I have noted your observations and suggestions most carefully, and was especially delighted with your account of the chance meeting on Catstycam (or Catchedicam, if you prefer!). It is both gratifying and encouraging to find that my books are proving useful, and little incidents such as that you relate please me a lot.
My own anxiety about keeping to schedule is even greater than yours! My climbing days, too, might be numbered – this nagging fear is beginning to haunt me. I am turned fifty, and simply must manage about seven more years continuous fellwalking without illness or accident. More than that, I cannot take a drink (even after a hard day on the tops) that would unsteady my hand! And I am running a race against deteriorating eyesight. I have no time to lose at all. I am out every weekend and so far am not aware of any physical failings except that I seem to get slower and slower on uphill gradients – but this I ascribe to increasing weight.
I am greatly indebted to you for recommending the books to others, because except for a preliminary announcement in ‘Cumbria’ we do no advertising. Mr Marshall and I both have our bread and butter professions to follow, and the publishing of the books is therefore more of a spare-time hobby than a business. The books pay their cost without being in any way lucrative, and of course the more we can sell the better is our guarantee against loss on a future volume. However, the immediate sale of Book Two has been so remarkably good that I am sure we need have no anxieties on this score.
I enclose a jacket for Book One (there are more available if you know anybody who wants one), and again thank you for taking the trouble to send me such a welcome letter. If you can find time to write, I would like to have an account in due course of your explorations to the east from Patterdale in June!
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Henry Marshall
Low Bridge
Kentmere
Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
5th March 1958
Dear Mr Markland,
Your very kind letter reached me at a time when I was very busy at work (hence my delay in replying, for which I am sorry). Coming at such a time, it was doubly welcome. For a few refreshing minutes it was really a pleasure to push to one side the uninteresting papers on the desk an read instead about places like Ill Bell and Froswick, Howtown and Fusedale, and so on. I confess to a great fondness for the quiet hills and valleys east of Kirkstone, and feel a little sorry that I shall not be seeing them again for some years.
It seems to matter more that one should have good weather at Patterdale than at other centres such as Borrowdale or Grasmere, and it is a pity that you were unfortunate last year. I agree that Helvellyn (and, I might add, Fairfield) must always be on any programme of walks based on Patterdale, their eastern flanks being infinitely more interesting than the western. The side valleys, too, from Dovedale or Glencoin, are exceptionally attractive (especially the first named). If I were stood on Grisedale Bridge on a bright sunny morning my natural inclination would be to turn up Grisedale rather than cross to the other side of Ullswater, and this would be so nine times out of ten; and perhaps on the tenth occasion I would merely climb Place Fell to study these same hills and valleys from a distance. Perhaps it was to force myself away from the familiar and well-loved walks that I had done dozens of times into quieter and less trodden ways that I started to compile my books! Whether this is so or not, I have most certainly found an equal pleasure in places I should not otherwise have visited, such as, for example, Angletarn Pikes and Hallin Fell, which I had been ‘putting off’ for years.
Much of the ground in Book Three also was new to me, but here again I found the unfamiliar territory of fascinating interest and returned to it week after week with increasing eagerness. So it goes on. I finished Book Three at the end of January and sadly turned my back on the delightful places I had discovered. The following week found me on Lingmoor Fell, in Langdale, making a start on Book Four. I have spent the last four Sundays there in a fever of enthusiasm, and the sadness at forsaking the Central Fells has already passed. All my thoughts now are of the splendid hills running up to Bowfell and the Scafells, and the prospect of getting amongst them week after week makes me feel as excited as a little by with a new toy (and I am 51, which beats you by a couple of years!!) so don’t worry about physical limitations – we’re good for another 30 years yet, surely!)
I mention all this because of your very generous comments and words of encouragement. It is really most kind of you to take the trouble to write, and I appreciate all you say more than I can express. Of course it is nice to know that the work I am doing is giving pleasure to others, very nice indeed; but, to be perfectly honest, I rely not at all on the encouragement of others but am sufficiently inspired by my own burning desire to carry on with the job! It is actually a purely selfish motive. I do it for my own gratification, and any pleasure others derive is quite incidental. I have had hundreds of congratulatory letters, and am deeply grateful for them, but I would have gone on just the same without them – which sounds unkind, but isn’t meant to be! I am just trying to say (and perhaps making a mess of it!) that you need have no qualms about me suddenly getting tired of the job and quitting. Good heavens, no! the only thing worrying me is what I am going to do with my spare time when Book Seven is finished! Life won’t be worth living unless I can find something else to do instead … of course, there’s always the Pennines and Scotland! How I wish we didn’t keep on getting older and older! There’s north Wales, too, and the Alps and the Himalayas – work for me for a thousand years, but already life is drawing to a close! It’s no joke being 51 when one’s allotted span is 70 – time becomes precious.
However, we still have a few years left to us (I’m a bit doubtful about the 30 I mentioned earlier), so let me, in return for your kindness to me, express the hope that you will thoroughly enjoy many more seasons of happy hill-wandering in Lakeland. Book Three will be ready about May 1st. it will be my pleasure to send you an autographed copy as soon as I can.
Yours sincerely
AWainwright
Henry Marshall
Low Bridge
Kentmere
Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
23rd August 1958
Dear Mr Markland,
It is always a pleasure to hear from you, and your latest letter is a joy to read. Your comments on Book Three are interesting, and I fully appreciate your feelings during your first ascent of Jack’s Rake – I felt precisely the same, and, in fact, broke a rule and took a companion on my first visit, although subsequently I did it again alone. I am very clumsy and apprehensive on steep ground and always feel happier in places where I can stride out. Still, like yourself, I enjoyed Jack’s Rake. Last week I discovered a counterpart to it on Dow Crag, Coniston, which I shall be describing in Book Four.
The curious thing about the Harrison Stickle axe ‘factory’, so the experts tell me, is that it appears to have been a place for working the stone only, not for extracting it. Apparently the chippings found there are from stone brought from Pike O’ Stickle and not ‘native’ to Harrison Stickle.
I hope you have good weather at the Burnmoor Inn in September. I had a week at the Woolpack in May when the weather was very unsettled, but managed to get a lot of work done in Upper Eskdale – which, incidentally, is delightful. Have a look at the Roman Camp on Hardknott, which is undergoing extensive restoration (not sure I agree with it!). I may manage a few days myself at Seathwaite, Duddon Valley, next month.
Thank you for sending me the newspaper cutting, and for all your kind remarks. If you feel like sending me an account of your Eskdale holiday later on I should be interested to have it.
Yours sincerely
AWainwright
Henry Marshall
Low Bridge
Kentmere
Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
25 July 1959
Dear Mr Markland,
I am sorry to have been such a long time in replying to your welcome and interesting letter. Please do not think, because of this delay, that I am not appreciative or your kindness in writing to me. It is always a pleasure to hear from you.
Book Four is going on very well, thank you, but there is so much to record in this particular area that it has already overflowed into extra pages and will certainly be the biggest of the series. I have been exceptionally favoured by the weather this summer, while engaged on the Scafells. I had looked forward to this part of the task with much apprehension, because of the relative inaccessibility of places like Wasdale and Eskdale and the fear of a period of bad weather, or even normal summer weather, which could have meant many fruitless journeys and held me up very considerably. Instead of that, however, the weekends have been gloriously fine, with bright sun, visibility simply terrific (quite unusual for summertime) day after day, with the Isle of Man almost permanently on the horizon; no soakings and no wet feet. It’s been glorious. A few Saturday nights spent at Wasdale Head and Eskdale, aided by the wonderful conditions, have enabled me to do in weeks what might well have taken months. I still have a few ‘mopping-up’ operations to carry out in the Eskdale and Screes areas, and will be having a short stay there in August. The book itself will be printed and ready by Easter next year, or a little later.
As always, I am interested to learn of your own recent wanderings. It must have been simply galling to have been laid up with your ankle in Eskdale, of all places. I share your own opinion as to the merit of this delightful valley. The dalehead is magnificent, and the foothills, too, are captivating. It must be the pink granite that makes Eskdale just that little bit more attractive; yet I have been surprised on my recent visits, to find so few walkers based there – in fact, a fortnight ago I was the only one staying at the Burnmoor Inn; a Saturday, too, and mid-July!
27th July
Yesterday (Sunday) I was in Sprinkling Tarn – Sty Head Tarn and it rained most of the day – the first wet Sunday for months (I believe first since that wet Easter Sunday when you were at Dungeon Ghyll). Nevertheless, the popular paths from Borrowdale were quick thick with people, but the Eskdale approaches, on such a day, would be almost, if not entirely, deserted. Today, and last night, there have been thunderstorms with very heavy rain; the hills are shrouded in mist and conditions must be very unpleasant for the dozen or mountain tents I saw yesterday around Sty Head.
I will most certainly be delighted to send you an autographed copy of Book Four when it is available. In the meantime you should be tending your ankles carefully, because the screes of Lords Rake and Mickledore get worse with every year that passes. Or am I getting old?
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Henry Marshall
Low Bridge
Kentmere
Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
15th August 1961
Dear Mr Markland,
It was a great pleasure to receive your interesting letter of 14th July, the first for some time. I had begun to think you must have fallen over a crag somewhere.
Thank you for your very kind comments about Book Four, which of course I enjoyed doing tremendously, magnificent territory, all of it!
I will tell you (in a whisper) that the packwoman’s grave is within 20 yards of the track going straight up Rossett Gill, after the old pony route has gone off to the left and before impending rocks force the track into the bed of the gill. It’s there all right, on a little grassy knoll. In fact it can be seen from the track higher up, but is probably never noticed because everybody just here is too busily engaged on keeping a footing on the rough ground. Look for it next time, but don’t tell anybody.
I don’t think I altogether agree with a tax on visitors for the maintenance of paths and bridges, but perhaps I am being a bit selfish here because I personally derive so much interest from tracing them. I work from 6” maps published by the Ordnance Survey about a century ago, before there were any walkers’ paths as such but when drove roads and miners’ tracks were common. It’s fun trying to find them today!
As for the ‘cloak of anonymity’ I have assumed, it’s all part of the game, but, for me, an essential part. I always travel alone (the best way of walking the hills). I never reveal my identity to anyone. I keep out of other people’s way. Mind you, there have been some very embarrassing moments, especially on buses and in cafes. It’s funny hearing yourself discussed by a stranger on the next seat! Twice only, I have been challenged, and had to own up. Molly Garmeworthy knows me (by sight only) through her association with Kendal C.H.A.
I have had several reports that the cairn on Pike o’ Blisco had been rebuilt (which pleases me) but since all my correspondents claim to have contributed to the work, it must be getting quite a height now! I hope some of these good people will give their attention to the Lingmell cairn next. This was a beauty, a slender pile 10’ high, but some time ago I heard that it had been thrown down.
I am sorry about my failure to autograph your copy of the Southern Fells. This must have been a shocking oversight on somebody’s part. However, repeat the request next time, and if you feel it worth the trouble to send Book Four back for autographing, of course I’ll be pleased to do it.
I hope your operation has proved successful, and that your next visit to the Lakes will find you in possession of all your faculties. I hope, too, you will be able to find time for another account of your wanderings. Your letters are a pleasure to read.
Myself, I’m off for a holiday later this week – to Scotland!!! Yours sincerely
AWainwright
Bert Markland ceased writing to AW in 1961, feeling that AW was now so well known, his books so famous, that he should not bother him any more. He died in 1999, just a few days before his 90th birthday.
In his last letter from AW, in October 1961, AW refers to a ‘delicate personal matter’ but this was nothing to do with his wife – as AW never referred to her in any of his letters – but to an invitation Bert Markland had issued for AW to to be guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Bolton Photographic Society.
Henry Marshall
Low Bridge
Kentmere
Westmorland
Telephone: Kentmere 45
27th October 1961
Dear Mr Markland,
Thank you for your interesting letter. It was a pleasure to hear from you again.
I’m glad you located the old grave all right (and rather relieved to know it is still there). If the grave actually marks the spot where the body was found, it seems that your supposition (that the direct route was in use in those far off days as well as the pony track) is probably correct – I hadn’t thought of this before.
I have personal knowledge of the sloppiness of the crossing from Stake top to Rossett top. The ‘terrace’ route below Black Crag, on the contrary, is very good indeed – although, if coming from Langstrath, a descent and re-ascent would be involved in the use of it.
About the delicate personal matter – no, I’m sorry. It isn’t the sort of thing I enjoy – some defect in my make-up, obviously. And I’ve got to an age when I don’t do things I don’t like doing. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think the occasion is going to be anything but a splendid weekend for those present; and it certainly doesn’t mean that I am not appreciative of your very kind invitation. I am indeed – you do me a great honour. I just don’t happen to be a sucker of honours, nor do I feel I deserve any. Funny old stick!
Sorry to hear your operation was not a success, but disabilities only become really serious when they keep you off the hills.
I’ve remedied the oversight in the book, which I now return (with apologies for the delay), and hope it will not happen again.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright