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Near Kettlewell, 1974 |
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Great Whernside Summit Cairn, 1974 |
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Near Kettlewell, 1974 |
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Great Whernside Summit Cairn, 1974 |
Rosemary (Share My Garden) wrote about her visit to Tyneham, a village in Dorset abandoned in the Second World War because it was in an area needed for military training. The residents never returned.
She also remembered, as a child, picking gooseberries in the garden of a house in a village abandoned to the rising waters of a new reservoir.
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Mardale Green |
It reminded me of a passage in ‘Fellwalking With Wainwright’, which has haunted me since I bought the book in 1985. I think of it often. Oh to be able to write like Wainwright.
I will never go to Mardale Head now without thinking of a summer’s day more than forty years ago when I walked over Gatescarth Pass and saw the valley of Mardale for the first time. It was a lovely vista. The floor of the dale was a fresh green strath shadowed by fine trees and deeply inurned between shaggy heights; beyond, receding in the distance, was Haweswater, then a natural lake. It was a peaceful scene, the seclusion of the valley being emphasised by its surround of rough mountains. Mardale was a bright jewel in the dark crown .... I remember that day so well. Many early memories have faded, but not that one. Down in the valley, I went along the lane to the Dun Bull between walls splashed with lichens and draped with ivy. There was no welcome for me at the inn, which for centuries had been a meeting place for farmers and shepherds and the scene of many festive gatherings. It was empty, unoccupied. Around the corner was the small church amongst fine yews: it was a ghostly shell, the interior having been dismantled and the bodies in the graveyard exhumed and reburied elsewhere. The nearby vicarage and a few cottages were deserted and abandoned. This was the hamlet of Mardale Green, delightfully situated in the lee of a wooded hill, but now under sentence of death. Birds trittered in the trees and my footsteps echoed as I walked along the lane but there was no other sound, no sign of life. Even the sheep had gone. There were wild roses in fragrant hedgerows, foxgloves and harebells and wood anemones and primroses in the fields and under the trees, all cheerfully enjoying the warmth and sunshine; but there would be no other summers for them: they were doomed ... Manchester Corporation had taken over the valley and built a great dam. The lake would be submerged beneath a new water level a hundred feet higher. Already the impounded waters were creeping up the valley. Soon the hamlet of Mardale Green would be drowned: the church, the inn, the cottages, and the flowers, would all disappear, sunk without trace, and its history and traditions be forgotten. The flood was coming and it would fill the valley. Nature’s plan for Mardale would be over-rules. Manchester had other plans, to transform Mardale into a great Haweswater Reservoir. And no doubt be very proud of their achievement ... I climbed out of the valley to Kidsty Pike. Looking back at Mardale Green from a distance, its buildings no longer seeming forlorn but cosily encompassed by trees and its silent pastures dappled by sunlight, I thought I had never seen a more beautiful picture. Nor a sadder one.
After the unrelenting succession of public duties and merciless scrutiny, no one should begrudge the King and Queen Consort a few days’ peace and quiet at Balmoral. That is where I would be in their place, with perhaps a couple of nights at Glas-allt-Shiel.
For me, events vividly brought back the time I lived near there. Place names from thirty-five years ago became familiar again, as did the way they rolled off the tongue. Best was “Pitterrr Cootterrr” (Peterculter).
One of my favourite walks then was the eight-mile circuit of Loch Muick (pronounced “Mick”) on the Balmoral estate. It was a comparatively undemanding way to experience the rugged Highland countryside, ideal for the short winter days or long summer evenings they have up there. I often took visiting friends there and must have done the walk more than half a dozen times. In those days you could park for free at Spittal, eight miles south of Ballater, and see no one else all day.About half way around the walk in trees on the western shore of the loch (on the left in the photograph) is the lonely lodge of Glas-allt-Shiel, built by Queen Victoria in 1868 as an escape from the world after the death of her husband. The Royal Family still use it occasionally despite the lack of mains electricity.
Walking in the countryside, when it has purpose and destination, feels like walking in the past. It reminds me Belgium, the country road between Hugo’s, my foreign language exchange partner, and Jean-Pierre’s, a friend’s language exchange. Or the walk along the river from my grandma’s house to my aunt’s smallholding in the village where they lived; and later too, when my aunt moved to a remote farm at the end of a long lane. My grandpa used the same paths to work in the paper mill, two miles there in the morning, two miles back at night. It can’t have been much fun in bad weather. And, when there was no work, it was three miles each way by fields and river bank to the next village to claim the dole, which was every day in the nineteen-thirties. People walked everywhere. No rush. No worry. Sun, wind, rain and birdsong, you got there in the end.
About a month ago, Sue My Quiet Life in Suffolk took her camera on A Walk to the Post Office. The walk to what is currently our nearest Post Office, provided it’s not too muddy, is two-miles of true joy. Last week, we had a parcel to send, so taking a lead from Sue, I took my camera...
across a playing field
up through the woods at the far side
across two fields to the secluded hamlet in the distance, this is the first field
and this is the second – all beginning to look very dry at this time of the year (this was before last week’s rain) – it was much more green and pleasant a few weeks ago before they cut the waist-high grass. Should have brought my camera then.
through the hamlet and along the drive
to walk a short way along a country road
which we leave by another stile to cross another field – uh uh! looks like trouble – Jersey calves. They run towards us – I think they want to play human football.
Phew! Not sure whether they are heifers or bullocks. Looking back, they think they have seen us off but with a bit of panicky shouting, clapping and arm waving we got through to where we wanted. That one in the front group on the right came running round from the back like Raheem Sterling
just one more field to cross
then up a steep hill
as we gain height we can take in the views
and we’re there
Oops. Forgot to take a picture of the ice creams.
Went back by a different path to avoid the bullocks.
links to: introduction and index - next day
I have a lot of pictures like this, of people carrying rucksacks, although mostly in more spectacular surroundings. Actually, this is not as unspectacular as it first seems. The distinctive spire of Hallgrímskirkja, built in the image of the rocks, mountains and glaciers of Iceland’s landscape, reveals it to be Reykjavik. We are trudging from the airport bus to the youth hostel. Neville and I do not know the others yet.
Wednesday 24th August 1977
We underestimate the driving time to Glasgow. It leaves little time to spy on other rucksack wearers in the airport building. There are hardly any to be seen. Like us, they are probably creeping around in plain clothes trying to spot the others and weigh them up. The only one we see bears an uncanny resemblance to one of our friends, Gavin. It could be confusing if he is going on the trip.
As we assemble at the Air Iceland desk, a trekking company rep. arrives with a letter to Neville giving him responsibility for organising the rendezvous. They choose him because he has been to Iceland before. Good choice. He likes organising things and is good at it. All he has to do is make sure we all get on the plane and don’t get lost when we get off.
Our party is twelve. From the rendezvous responsibility list I see that six are on their own. There is just one girl. I am keeping quiet about the list. It is addressed to me as well.
As we wait at the departure gate, a choir of American teenagers begins to sing. Their harmonies ring around the large acoustic space, a magnificent sound, but thank goodness they’re not going on the walking tour too.
My first ever air flight. I can’t see out because I am in a gangway seat. Be careful not to let on it is the first time you have been in an aeroplane. Avoid displays of excitement. Do not lean across to take hundred of photographs. Do not gasp as the acceleration thrusts you back into your seat. Seasoned air travellers assume an air of detachment even when the ground appears over their shoulders at an alarming angle. Seasoned air travellers show no fear even when the plane is landing. So why do those American choir kids sound so scared?
After an evening wandering around Reykjavik, I can see why Neville has no intention of spending all day tomorrow here as well. You can’t even get a decent beer because of prohibition. He has therefore hired a car for a trip into the interior. It sounds preferable to visiting Hallgrímskirkja.
Nowadays you might also seek out elves, walk to the stainless steel sculpture of a Viking long boat, and visit the penis museum. No, you wouldn’t. You would still hire a car for a trip to the interior. Tomorrow: Thingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss.
A series of 15 linked posts with photographs (index below).
It is 1977. We are strong, fit, active and in our twenties. We are about to go walking in the land of ice and fire. We will be flying to Keflavik (near Reykjavik) on Wednesday.
There follows a fourteen-part saga based on this notebook. It was an organised group walk, backpacking through a wild and uninhabited part of Iceland. I will post at intervals over the next few months to allow time to transcribe and edit, and select photographs.
I nearly didn’t go. When Neville and another friend first booked, I thought I couldn’t afford it. I was about to start university as a mature student and been told I would have to self-fund the first term because of a previous term on a course abandoned a few years earlier. I worked twelve-hour nights in a canning factory to save up. The local authority then told me I had been awarded a full grant, which in those days was far more generous than student finance now. So when the other friend had to drop out at the last minute because of work problems, I was in as his substitute. The canning factory money went on the Iceland trip and a high spec. stereo.
A favourite Derbyshire walk through the years, possibly a metaphor for life
(first posted 13th January, 2018, 1550 words)
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Seeking shelter: Fair Brook crags, 1974 |
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An abominable biped on Kinder Scout: spring 1975 |
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Hags and groughs on Kinder plateau, 2005 |
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The Kinder River: 1974 |
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Kinder Downfall (or should it be called Kinder Upfall?), 2005 |
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The derelict shooting cabin in Ashop Clough: 1975 and 2011 |
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Looking along Seal Edge towards Fairbrook Naze on the far right |
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Icicles on the Snake Path through Ashop Clough: winter 1976 |
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Fair Brook with Kinder Scout in mist in 1974, and clear in 2007 |
A short walk near the village this afternoon
And here for comparison is the same road on the 24th March 2013