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Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley Find!

Canon Rawnsley was born in 1851, one of a family of 10 children. As a young man he went to Balioll College, Oxford where he met John Ruskin who was to remain a lifelong friend. In 1877 he became vicar of Wray Church near Ambleside where he met his wife Edith Fletcher. So began a life dedicated to protecting the countryside and he soon formed the Lake District Defence Society (later to become The Friends of the Lake District) which had among its members Tennyson, Browning, Ruskin and the Duke of Westminster. In 1882, when Beatrix Potter was 16, her parents brought her to Wray Castle for a holiday. Here she met Hardwicke Rawnsley whose views on the need to preserve the natural beauty of Lakeland had a lasting effect on the young Beatrix, who had fallen in love with the unspoilt beauty surrounding the holiday home. He took a great interest in her drawings and later encouraged her to publish "The Tale of Peter Rabbit".

Canon Rawnsley was a champion of the Lakes and in 1885 he founded the National Trust to buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation. He was also a prolific writer and I have been reading some of his "Lake Country Sketches" in which he writes of the people and places of Lakeland with an observant and enquiring eye.

One of the most fascinating chapters in this book is the one entitled "Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland". Rawnsley took it upon himself to track down and interview people who had actually known William, Mary and Dorothy Wordsworth. It makes for fascinating reading as you hear these voices recalling their living memories of one of England's greatest poets.

The old housekeeper at Rydal Mount recalls how William was helped in his labours by his enthusiastic sister. 'Well you kna,' were her words, 'Mr Wordsworth went bumming and booing about, and she, Miss Dorothy, kept close behint him, and she picked up the bits as he let 'em fall, and tak 'em down, and put 'em on paper for him. And you med,' continued the good dame, 'be very well sure as how she didn't understand nor make sense out of 'em, and I doubt that he (Wordsworth) didn't kna much aboot them either himself, but howivver, there's a gay lock o' fowk as wad, I dar say.'

When Rawnsley asked the old gardener at Rydal Mount if he had ever read any of Wordsworth's poetry this was the reply 'Well you see, blessed barn, there's pomes and pomes, and Wudsworth's was not for sec as us. I never did see his pomes - not as I can speak to in any man's house in these parts, but ye kna there's bits in t' papers fra time to time bearing his naame'. The old gardener also recalled how Wordsworth would pace around in the garden at Rydal Mount composing his poetry: 'He was ter'ble thrang with visitors and folks, you mun kna, at times, but if he could git awa fra them for a spell, he was out upon his gres walk; and then he would set his head a bit forrard, and put his hands behint his back. And then he would start a bumming, and it was bum, bum, bum, stop; then bum, bum, bum reet down till t'other end, and then he'd set down and git a bit o' paper out and write a bit; and then he git up, and bum, bum, bum, and goa on bumming for long enough right down and back agean. I suppose, ya kna, the bumming helped him out a bit'.

Voices from the past bringing history alive - wonderful.

3 October 2009 from Mary Rossall

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