And we were. As fast as it came the mist went, and we clambered down to Buttermere via Scarth Gap glowing with satisfaction. Wainwright had, of course, gone on to offer some rather more practical advice about good lines of descent, and we’d taken it. Down the years since then I’ve had many an occasion to thank AW (as everyone knows him) for sound advice in tight corners, for illuminating titbits on flora and fauna and fell, for inspiration and consolation. And I’ve cursed him, too, for his occasional vagueness, his blithe disregard for private land and bad-tempered farmers (‘That bloody Wainwright’s not very popular round here,’ said one churl when I tried to follow AW’s route across his pasture) and for his infuriating self-righteousness (‘All fellwalking accidents are the result of carelessness,’ he once opined, which must be scant consolation if you’ve just been blown off an arête by a sudden gust). And yet, and yet . . .
As William Blake put it, ‘Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street.’ The hills bring out the best in people, up there, where things really matter and you can get things in perspective. No one will cut you up or not let you in; if you slow down for someone to overtake you on Striding Edge or let someone come through as they descend Rossett Gill, they will thank you properly, full-bloodedly, not with that haughty raised finger that passes for politeness amongst motorists. They will stop and ask you where you’ve been, where you’re going, pat your dog, offer it a bit of pork pie, offer you a bit of pork pie if you’re lucky. If you take a surly early teen with you up a fell, the first thing they will comment on is that everyone speaks to each other. At first they will roll their eyes at this, being at the stage when all human contact that doesn’t involve giving a lovebite is ‘like, so embarrassing’. But soon they begin to like it, and eventually they become positively hail-fellow-well-met, slapping unsuspecting passers-by on the back and calling them ‘mate’.
Start small. Get a few easy ones under your belt. Loughrigg Fell near Grasmere is the perfect short day out and entrée to the joys of Wainwrighting. It begins with a gentle climb on the rough terrace above the lake, enough steepness in the middle to make you feel you’re doing something serious and then a summit to die for. Wainwright said that Loughrigg has a bulk out of all proportion to its modest altitude, and Dalesman magazine commented, ‘It is easy to get lost among the knolls and little tarns of Loughrigg Fell.’ Well, possibly, if you’re the kind of person who can get lost in the cold meats section of Tesco’s. We just stood open-mouthed before the vista of Grasmere and Rydal, the Fair-field Horseshoe, behind us two stretches of Windermere, a bit of Elterwater. And it all looked just like AW had drawn it in his book. This was a revelation. He’d actually been here and actually drawn these hills. Look, that one’s Heron Crag and those are the Langdale pikes and that must be Wetherlam. It was so perfect and detailed that I was almost surprised that he hadn’t included the fellow having his banana sandwich by the trig point.
Steel Knotts in the beautiful valley of Martindale is not a tough fell, but even it is a kind of a challenge. It’s a different challenge, though, than the ones life usually throws at you. Recently some friends and I ended up in some real difficulties on its bracken-clad slopes, muddy, wet, sliding about, risking some of our most valued and tender parts on barbed wire fences at just that height, jumping streams, falling into peat bogs. We arrived back home to a remote lodge with no electricity and erratic hot water tired, bruised, sore, sodden, filthy . . . and exhilarated. This was not the nerve-jangling, unsatisfying, febrile stress that comes with deadlines and meetings and presentations and being bullied by the boss, but the proper soul-deep tiredness that comes with physical effort and mental stimulation and maybe just a dash of fear out in fresh air in a beautiful landscape.
These are the days you remember when you’re back in the narrow confines of routine. I once read a wonderful passage about opening a guide book, possibly a Wainwright, and the author coming across a blade of grass, one that had found its way there on a walk, and of the feeling of being reminded by this blade of grass: it ‘reminded me that I was once a free man on the hills’. Sometimes, on a fetid tube train or in a tedious meeting, we have all felt that we will never be free men and women on the hills. But there’s no rush. The hills are not fickle, they are not moody, they are not changeable, they will always be there and at heart they will always be delighted to see you, whether they are frowning through the murk or smiling in the sun.
Last year, a decade or so and several hundred fine, wild, balmy, terrifying, funny, scorching, snowy, blissful, unforgettable days in the hills later, I notched up my 214th and final fell – Kirk Fell, a forbidding hulk in the remote and sombre valley of Wasdale, thus joining a small band of about 500, it’s thought. And then champagne and fish and chips for twenty-two in a rented Cumbrian castle. My wife gave me a Wainwright first edition and we toasted the great man, who went to the great chippy in the sky. They scattered his ashes by his favourite spot, the aforementioned lonely, magical Innominate Tarn on Haystacks. Innominate is a beautiful name that actually means ‘nameless’. After AW’s death a brief, well-meaning but utterly misguided campaign sought to have it renamed Wainwright Tarn. Betty put a stop to that instantly. AW would have hated it, as would anyone with an ear for loveliness, I think.
And Wainwright did have that ear. This is how he ended Book 7, the final volume, the culmination of his labour of love and life’s work:
The fleeting hour of life of those who love the hills is quickly spent, but the hills are eternal. Always there will be the lonely ridge, the dancing beck, the silent forest; always there will be the exhilaration of the summits. These are for the seeking, and those who seek and find while there is yet time will be blessed both in mind and body.
Make that time. You won’t regret it.
How to Tell the Difference between . . .
Swallows, Swifts and House Martins
One of the perennial problems at this time of year is figuring out whether the bird that just flew overhead at the speed of light was a swallow, a swift or a house martin. But fortunately, whilst these birds are all superficially similar, there are a range of differences between them that can make telling these three bird species apart reasonably simple, once you know what to look for.
Swallows
Swallows are most easily identified by their red chin and the longer feathers on either side of the tail, which stick out like streamers and make them easy to spot in flight.
Swifts
Swifts are one of the most amazing birds, barely ever coming to ground to rest except to nest and spending virtually their whole life on the wing. High pitched screeching and curved, sickle-shaped wings, together with a short tail, help to identify this species, which can often be seen on warm summer days performing acrobatics in the sky as they hunt for their insect prey.
House Martins
The house martin is probably the smallest of these three species and has a gently curved tail, unlike the squarer tail of the swift or the ‘streamers’ of the swallow. They are most easily identified, however, by their white rump, which can often be clearly seen even from some distance as these birds fly past.
Oysteropolis
Michael Smith
The first inkling of excitement comes on the platform, into the open air, away from the hectic, crowded claustrophobia of the Victorian station and its labyrinthine underground tunnels; there seems to be a note of ozone, a blustery coastal freshness in the air already, cutting through the sticky city heat.
The train gently picks up speed as it glides across the wide sweep of the Thames, the fairy lights on the Albert Bridge a pearl necklace on the grand old dame; past the back of Battersea Power Station, South London, the unfamiliar half, rolls by, 5,000 terraced streets becoming steadily more suburban, gardens and commons getting the upper hand, the city eventually giving way to lush Kentish green,