Oh before starting I was rather pleased to spy two Foxes running in a field on my way home.
Anyway I turned on BBC 4 last night to find a program underway about Arthur Wainwright. If you stroll into any bookshop and they have a decent travel section they'll have a Wainwright.
Arthur Wainwright was a fell walker who wrote a series of illustrated guides to the Lakesland fells. He started 50 years ago and they are still being published in large numbers.
There maybe better guides for getting you around the fells BUT Wainwright guides are slightly different. They are not just guides, they are almost philosophical meditations with the lakes. The Guides show various routes over the fells, there are no photos just intricate hand drawn sketches by Wainwright. Part of the charm is the dialogue Wainwright has with the reader. Another part is the retro look of the books. I believe some of the books have been updated but the look and feel has been kept the same.
Looking at the books makes me want to walk one of these routes BUT (and there was a but in the title!) I am a lazy unfit so and so and I know that I will never do it and that I really don't want to THAT much. The fact that a nine year old girl has done all 214 "Wainwrights" is embarassing I know. Before someone says I could (and should) get fit it wouldn't matter, I'd still stop every 5 minutes looking for birds.
Anyway half an hour after the program finished a new programme called Wainwright Walks was shown. In it presenter Julia Bradbury walks a different Wainwright (last night it was Hatstacks). The scenery is breathtaking and Bradbury an engaging host. The program is repeated at 7:30 next Monday with the next episode at 8:30.
For those of you like me this may be the nearest you get. We may misshe exhilaration but at least you can lay back with a nice glass of wine enjoy the secenery AND your feet don't hurt!
5 comments:
Thanks for that, I will watch the Julia Bradbury thing. I started to watch the main programme last night, but turned it over, I'm annoyed really, but the woman who was being interviewed at the beginning had one of those upper class accents which get on my nerves! I'm an inverted snob if that's the right expression, can't stand hoity toity speakers.
I found these programme too by chance.
In the early 80's I walked many of Wainwrights walks!!
My friend's mother lived at Grange-over-sands and loved the Lakes...and I was introduced to Wainwrights books then...
I covered many a mile....and it was mainly blissful...we went outside the tourist season (not the mother she was old by then) and meet not a lot of people!! That scenery is just stunning and the way W describes it was charming.
I can feel quietly superior as I have covered many of the walks....my knees wouldn't let me do the most strenuous ones...Striding Edge........any more!!!
C
I aspire to do a few Wainwrights; over the last few years we've been confining ourselves to the valleys and just looking up at the fells!
Hi, I actually edited the Walks series and was just having a bit of an internet trawl to see what people thought of them - really glad to see you enjoyed them! Hope you watch the others! :)
You lazy git!
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