Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull Find!
This find is posted on behalf of one of our group members, Janet.
Janet has been busy reading a book called Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull. This is a book about a woman, a wife and a mother, who has recently lost her dog, whom she misses greatly. She begins to question her life with her husband and decides that, for once, she will do something just for herself.
Encouraged by her son she starts the Coast to Coast walk on the East coast of England, walking through the Yorkshire Dales to St Bees in Cumbria. Her journey is cathartic for her, she meets a man with whom she seriously considers making a new life.
Along the way, the reasons for her unhappiness with her husband are revealed. The challenges she sets herself as she tackles the Lakeland Fells and the company of her new friend and his dog help her to realise that she wants to stay with her husband but to renegotiate their lives together.
Janet says that this is the only way that she will ever walk the Coast to Coast footpath!
Having already visited St Bees Janet felt that this helped her visualise the end location of the book - as did Julia Bradbury on the TV series about Wainwright (who originally devised the long distance footpath.)
Additional note from Helen:
Jan Minshull has her own website so should you wish to find out more about her, visit:
http://www.janminshull.co.uk/index.htm
The Coast to Coast Walk was devised by Alfred Wainwright, and stretches across 190 miles from St Bees Head on the west coast to Robin Hood's Bay on the east, passing through the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors. The majority of walkers who do this route start the walk at St Bees in Cumbria, unlike the main character of the book Janet talks about above, who walks it in reverse.To discover more about the walk go to: http://www.wainwright.org.uk/coast_to_coast/index.html
As well as devising the Coast to Coast long distance footpath, Alfred Wainwright is famous for his amazing hand written and hand drawn walking guides to the Lakeland Fells. These in themselves are real gems, but are hardly "hidden" as they are tremendously well known and appreciated by many. To find out more about Wainwright see: http://www.wainwright.org.uk/about/index.html
Numerous books have been written about the Coast to Coast walk. One account which readers might enjoy is Ancient Feet by Alan Nolan. Earlier this year Alan was walking the Coast to Coast footpath for the fifth time and en route he stopped off at some of our libraries in Cumbria to give talks about his book and his walking experiences. To find out more about Alan and his book see: http://www.troubador.co.uk/author_detail.asp?surname=Nolan
1 September 2009 from Helen
Finds
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
Recent posts
- Thank you!
- Coffee and books at the Bluebell Bookshop
- Mary learns to blog!
- Lucky 13!
- Grange over Sands get reading
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