AW also conducted several long correspondences of a more technical and work-related nature, connected with his books, or other people’s books. They show the amount of work and thought he put into his own books – and also his strong opinions on the work of others. Most of all, they show how generous he was, keen to help others in a similar field.
Chris Jesty first wrote to him from Wales in 1973. He had worked with the Ordnance Survey as a cartographer and was now drawing and publishing his own maps, though not with enormous success. To make a living, he was working as a taxi diver.
AW was most impressed when Jesty sent him his panorama of the views as seen from Snowdon – and addressed him as Chris in his first letter, a sure sign of acceptance, though it wasn’t till his fourth letter that AW revealed his home address.
He offered help and advice to Jesty and in 1978, co-operated with him on a Guide to the View from Scafell Pike in which he agreed his name could be used. He put in about 100 hours of work, but refused to take any money.
From time to time, AW tried to be matey, making jocular and teasing references to a woman called Margot whom Chris had happened to mention – but alas, Chris had only admired her from afar and there was never a relationship.
c/o The Westmorland Gazette
KENDAL
26th April 1973
Dear Chris,
It is a pleasure to report safe receipt of a copy of your Snowdon panorama. Many thanks for sending this along to me.
You have my most sincere congratulations on the success of a mission I would have thought no man would ever have the resolution to tackle even if equipped with the necessary powers of intelligences, topographical knowledge, draughtsmanship, ability to record facts with meticulous care, and, perhaps most of all, incredible patience. All these qualities you must possess with an over-riding love of Snowdon.
I have never before seen any project conceived with such care and dedication. It must have been like planning a military campaign.
I confess I have never seen Lakeland from Snowdon, or, more surprisingly, North Wales from Lakeland. Therefore I cannot vouch for the details of your view, but, from careful study of the map, contours and altitudes, I see no reason for doubting your findings. I have only two comments: first, Lad Stones is an insignificant shoulder of Wetherlam, which, seen from the south, overtops it, and, since Lad Stones is a name hardly used locally, I would have preferred this sighting to be named as Wetherlam; and secondly, Little Hart Crag is a minor height dominated by neighbouring Dove Crag and Red Screes, which, I feel, should have been named instead.
Having tried to do panoramas myself on a much less ambitious scale, I can well understand the amount of painstaking work you have put into the task and all the frustrations and doubts that must have arisen, quite apart from all the homework converting miles to metric and measuring distances. I don’t know whether you have seen Shearer’s panorama from Ben Nevis, done in 1895 (if not, I’ll send it on for you to see): this too was a considerable effort, though lacking the precision of yours. It is interesting to note that, after first being published, it was subsequently revised, which can only mean, since the panorama could not change, that the original contained errors. I think you must expect some doubts to be expressed about your own conclusions, in some respects, although my own feeling is that the wealth of detail, so obviously compiled with great care, inspires confidence in its accuracy.
Your printer, too, has done an excellent job. Not even Waterlow and Sons could have done a better.
I hope Margot has recovered from her ordeal. The things some women will do for men! This caps all.
If I may, I would like to keep the copy you sent me. I have a number of friends who will be interested, mightily so, and it will be a joy to me to let them see what you have done.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
c/o The Westmorland Gazette
KENDAL
10th May 1973
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your further letter of the 1st.
When I suggested that Wetherlam should be substituted for Lad Stones on your Snowdon panorama I did so without reference to maps, feeling in my bones that Wetherlam was sufficiently east of Coniston Old Man to be visible from Snowdon, south south west. Now, roughly aligning my maps, I find you are right: Wetherlam is hidden. But if the 1500’ contour on the Old Man is in direct line with the 2000’ contour on Lad Stones I would expect the latter to be overtopped by Fairfield or very nearly so, and not separated as much as your diagram suggests. But I haven’t got the right maps or instruments to be sure about this. I take your word for it.
No, I am sure I have never seen Snowdonia from Lakeland, but this summer will be making several trips to Black Combe for another purpose and will keep a sharp lookout with binoculars.
Shearer’s panorama is by no means as detailed as yours (no mileages, etc) and probably far less accurate. If you ever wish to borrow my copy, please let me know. Bear in mind, before you get too involved with Ben Nevis, that the top is in cloud for 300 days a year.
Margot would go raving mad if she were to see the last paragraph of your letter. There would be no question of her living in the observatory ruins on Ben Nevis with you for three weeks or more. I am beginning to feel a little sorry for Margot, poor kid. I think she must have a rough time of it.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
Off tomorrow for a week in a rented cottage in Wester Ross. The weather reports from there are appalling.
c/o The Westmorland Gazette
KENDAL
14th June 1973
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your further letter, which relieves my apprehension about Margot considerably.
I enclose Shearer’s panorama from Ben Nevis. This you may keep for as long as you wish.
While I am sorry you are not finding much demand for your Snowdon masterpiece (which it is), I am not greatly surprised. It lacks visual appeal. A drawing of the panorama, after the fashion of Shearer’s crude effort, or, better still, a composite photograph, would be more attractive to the general public, and would sell in thousands to the hordes who frequent Snowdon. The effect of your style of presentation must be to scare most people off. They need to study it carefully, and careful study is not a popular pastime. They want things that can be seen and easily understood. You have, in my view, tried to cram too many statistics in. The result is that your panorama looks as though it has come out of a computer. A simple but accurate drawing on a long folded strip would have proved more popular. Friends I have shown your panorama agree with this opinion while lost in admiration of your prodigious effort. As I said before, you made a wonderful job of it, but I think fell into error, so far as the ordinary observer is concerned, by including too much detail. People don’t like complications. No, I think a drawing, a la Shearer, would have sold better, but better still a composite photograph with a really good camera. I have books of mountain panoramas published by a W.M. Docharty, which contain some real beauties, mostly from Scottish summits, and built up from upwards of twenty prints all joined together so precisely that the joinings can hardly be distinguished. Mr Docharty’s books were each limited to 250 copies and given to his friends, so that they cannot be purchased. His panoramas are quite magnificent, presenting the scene exactly as it appears, clouds and all. Unfortunately these books are large and heavy volumes or I would have sent you one to see.
Four times in the past two weeks I have been on Black Combe. On no occasion was there the slightest chance of seeing Snowdon. I am now reconciled to the fact that I shall never see North Wales from Lakeland.
You will never do the panorama from Ben Nevis, but it might be an excuse for getting Margot up there with you.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Westmorland
13th July 1973
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your interesting letter of 28th June, which arrived while I was on holiday with a camera in the Torridon and An Teallach areas, hence the delay in replying.
Your ideas and comments give much food for thought. Panoramas based on colour photographs would be superb provided the viewpoint gave good depth to the foreground so that the view is downward (into the valleys) as well as distant. The trouble with photographs is that they tend to flatten out the verticals, and, short of using a telescopic lens (which distorts distances) there seems no answer to this problem. It is important that the viewpoint should be sharply elevated above its surroundings on all sides; a flattish summit is useless.
I would like to see your panorama from Aran Fawddy very much but, because it is way off the beaten track of tourists, it would never be a commercial proposition, and in fact could be expensive to produce, colour work being very costly. If you care to send it, you may do so to my home address (as above), and I will have a talk with a local printer about the possibilities including costs.
I don’t think you should entrust the Schulthess photograph to the post, just as I would not like the Docharty panoramas of mine be subjected to the risk of loss. There may be an opportunity later on to exchange opinions on these.
Incidentally, before going to Scotland, I climbed Black Combe four times in the space of a fortnight only to find each time that the distance was shrouded in haze: on only one occasion was there a sight of the Isle of Man, and that but faintly. I have now abandoned all hope of ever seeing Snowdon from Lakeland.
One thing that always strikes me forcibly every time I go to Scotland is the stark clarity of the distant views. The mists and hazes that shroud the Lake District for so much of the time are quite unknown in the Highlands, where fifty-mile vistas are a common experience even under a cloudy sky. I did not have particularly good weather on this latest trip, most days having a high cloud ceiling, yet the distant views were always starkly clear. Even in rain the mountain tops often remain free from clinging mists.
I will look forward to seeing the Aran Fawddwy [sic] photographs.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Westmorland
13th December 1973
Dear Chris,
Thank you for returning the Shearer panorama from Ben Nevis. I think your slight criticism of this effort are probably justified and that a detailed check on the spot would be likely to reveal many more defects, the fact that it has once been revised (although the subject matter remains static) suggest original discrepancies which, I feel sure, have not been wholly corrected.
I wouldn’t mind having a shot at drawing the foreground for some future distant panorama of yours, provided I can do it from photographs and am not expected to sit on some freezing mountain-top waiting for the clouds to lift, but I must express the opinion again that a single panorama without a narrative or walkers’ routes to the summit would never be a commercial proposition except possibly for Snowdon or Ben Nevis. A booklet devoted to a single mountain, giving routes, illustrations, notes on botany and geology with a panorama that opened out might just pay its way, and I think you should plan on these lines. The subject would, of course, have to be a popular one such as Snowdon.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
18th November 1977
Dear Chris,
I have just been looking at your Scafell Pike panorama, and am quite overwhelmed at the magnitude of the task you have set yourself, the amount of distant detail you have included being amazing. Perhaps the wealth of information rather tends to crowd out the Lakeland part of the panorama in the headings, and much of it will never be seen on most days of the year; however, I have no doubt that all the items you give are visible in exceptional conditions and should therefore be included.
I had expected the titles to synchronise with the drawings, but of course they are on different scales and I couldn’t determine that there will be perfect alignment in the finished job, so I must leave that to you. Nor have I attempted to check the distant horizons nor the names outside the Lake District.
I return everything unaltered. My signature is affixed to this letter; perhaps you would place it as you wish.
I enjoyed looking at your slides. Some of them, especially those from Ben Nevis, are out of this world, really excellent. Why not a book of your best mountain photographs?
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
38 Kendal Green
Kendal, Cumbria 3rd February 1978
Dear Chris,
I have examined the proofs of the Scafell Pike panorama and now return them. This is really a tremendous effort (on your part, not mine) that has obviously required amazing concentration and research and painstaking penwork. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to include all the detail you have managed to squeeze in. You must be the only person in the country with the dedication and patience to attempt such a panorama, let alone complete it. The printers too deserve credit for their contribution.
The distant views merge into the Lakeland scene very neatly. I have not checked anything outside the Lake District, but your accuracy on the places I know inspires confidence in the whole.
If the blank spot on Sheet Four is touched up, the printing should come out all right, and probably the faint lines missing on the proofs will register in the finished job.
I have not made any notes on the proofs but attach a list of items at which you might look again. These, however, are trivial and possibly not worth correction.
People are going to wonder how you tackled this remarkable task, and I think a summary of your experiences (number of visits, time spent on the summit, nights out, number of photos taken, etc) would be of great interest: however, there seems no room for this – a pity!
I hope the sale does well enough to repay your expense and provide a deserved reward. I continue to be sceptical about its success, but I think it might help if you were to include my name in your publicity and especially when visiting the Lakeland shops. You should let the magazine Cumbria (Dalesman Publishing Co. Ltd) have a copy for review, and I am sure Border Television would be glad to give you an interview and feature the panorama.
Perhaps you would kindly let me have half-a-dozen copies of the finished panorama when the time comes for publication.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
SHEET 1: |
My signature looks much too prominent compared with yours. Either it should be reduced in size by one-third, or your own should be given much more emphasis in larger type. |
SHEET 2: |
Grisedale For is rather an unfortunate abbreviation. There seems no room for the word Forest and perhaps it should be omitted. A message from the publisher to the reader: writing in would be better than writing up |
SHEET 4: |
On the map on Sheet 4 SFP is an unfortunate abbreviation (remember that 90% of your readers are dull-witted). Is it necessary to include it, bearing in mind that all the lines converge at this point? |
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
14th May 1978
Dear Chris,
Many thanks for the copies of the Scafell Pike panorama. These were awaiting my return from a visit to the Outer Hebrides, hence the delay in acknowledging receipt.
The finished product is excellent and I hope you do well with it. There is one spelling error I forgot to mention: note 34 on Sheet 4 – unlikelyhood should be unlikelihood. And I think you have given my name too much prominence and your own too little.
But it really is a magnificent achievement, one of which you can feel very proud, and great tribute is due to the printers, who have done a difficult job very sympathetically.
You will be sending out review copies, no doubt, to publications such as ‘Climber and Rambler’. I think the editor of ‘Cumbria’ (Dalesman Publishing Co., Clapham, via Lancaster) might be glad to give it a mention, especially if accompanied by an article on your trials and tribulations and methods and general experiences during compilation of the data. I will send a copy to the Editor of the Westmorland Gazette for comment in his newspaper. It would be worth your while to make a tour of the Lakeland bookshops and get them to display the sheets in their windows.
I hope it is successful. You deserve success.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
I seem to remember Mark Richards telling me that your cottage at Dolgellau is available for holiday lettings. If it is, I might be interested in a week next year (for a book of Welsh Mountain Drawings).
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
14th January 1979
Dear Chris,
Please book me for the week commencing 23rd June this coming summer. My cheque is enclosed. If this week is not available the following week will do equally well.
I hope the Scafell Pike panorama is doing all right. You seem to have a good distribution system! I notice it on sale in many unexpected shops!
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright
38 Kendal Green, KENDAL
26th October 1980
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your letter and interesting suggestions for revising the Lakeland guides. I think, not yet, and probably not until after my death (now surely imminent), when Westmorland Gazette might well be interested. I agree, however, that some revision is desirable and will bear your ideas in mind. The specimen pages enclosed are certainly very nicely done and I would have no doubts on that score after seeing your painstaking and accurate work on the panoramas, which I hope continue to do well. In the meantime I will let the Gazette see your efforts.
This year, blessed by good weather, I have had two splendid mountaineering holidays based on Beddgelert. My book of drawings is now well in hand and will be published in the spring next year.
Yours sincerely,
AWainwright