We decided that it would be a fitting finale to our work, providing a legacy of the project which in turn adds to the body of literature about Cumbria.

So now, the Grange team can unveil the poem to the world.  It is called On Lindale Hill and is written by poet, Andrew Forster....

ON LINDALE HILL 

It's a village of layers, a place

in continual progress. On this stiff climb,

houses are messages from different ages:

rain-polished slate, wind-roughened stone

or blues and greys, evenly-painted.

Rock roses cascade from garden walls

like secrets refusing to stay hidden.

In spaces between buildings, beeches,

weighed down with ivy, reach from rocks

in gestures almost within translation.

A double-stemmed chestnut, rusty and flaking,

grows out of gravel where the millpond was.

The wooden board beside it shows drawings

of millworkers' cottages, demolished,

making room for traffic to somewhere else.

Now, streets branch off, cutting corners, following

their own trails to crossroads or dead-ends.

The millrace is a dry channel beside the beck

Blocked with bricks, lined with copper leaves,

leading only to an asphalt carpark.

The beck itself curves sharply over stone lips,

splashing and foaming and murmuring to itself

in its own tongue, as it runs its broken course,

disappears into tunnels, emerging

for a mere glimpse, then returning underground.

Andrew Forster is a poet, critic and literature development worker. Originally from South Yorkshire he lived in Scotland for 20 years.

His poems have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies since 1993, including The Rialto, Acumen, Obsessed with Pipework, Cencrastus, Lines Review, Envoi and Poetry Nottingham, among others.  

Essays and reviews of poetry have appeared in The Dark Horse, Fife Lines and Lines Review.

He was awarded Scottish Arts Council writer's bursaries in 1998 and 2002, and a sequence of poems based on the life of Lytton Strachey was published by Flarestack in 2000. In 2003 the poem Radnoti's Notebook was commended in the Bridport Prize.  

His first full-length collection, Fear of Thunder was published in October 2007 and was shortlisted for the 2008 Forward Prize: Best First Collection.  

Andrew worked in social care for 14 years, latterly managing housing projects for adults with learning disabilities. In 1998 he began a career in literature development, teaching creative writing for a range of organisations throughout Scotland, including the WEA and Community Learning departments for a range of councils. He also developed a range of community writing projects and edited/co-edited several community anthologies, included Midlothian: Faces, Voices, Lives (WEA 2000) He was instrumental in setting up The Portobello Poets, with Elspeth Brown and Martin Bates, who arranged regular poetry events just outside Edinburgh between 1999 and 2001. In 2001 he was Writer in Residence for North Lanarkshire council museum department, which lead to editing the anthology Imagining Industry (North Lanarkshire Council 2001).

In 2003 he became Literature Development Officer for Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association, and has been responsible for an extensive range of activity, including the ground-breaking Poetry Doubles readings, which pair emerging local writers with poets of international standing, and the Wigtown Poetry Competition, the largest poetry competion in Scotland. He was instrumental in organising the first Scottish Literature Development Forum, helping to create a network of literature development officers throughout Scotland, and is a Board Member of the National Association for Literature Development.

Now, Andrew works in Cumbria as Literature Officer with The Wordsworth Trust. He is responsible for their internationally renowned poetry programme and for developing the Trust's other literary activities.

Andrew's second poetry collection, Territory, will be published in May 2010, and we wish him every success with it.

The Grange group members are pleased that Andrew accepted our commission, and are absolutely delighted with the finished poem.

To find out more about Andrew, go to: www.andrewforsterpoems.blogspot.com

It is first mentioned in 1490 when it is recorded as 'Grange-with-Kentisbank'. It is generally believed that the name derived from the old French 'Graunge' meaning 'a barn' where the monks of Cartmel Priory stored some of their grain. The town grew slowly and most of the villagers were likely to have been quite poor although comfortable landowners lived on local estates such as Bigland Hall, Hampsfield Hall, Castle Head and Holker Hall. In 1834 it is recorded that cockles were an abundant food as was salmon which were all caught in the Bay. Groceries were brought from Kendal by the local cart driven by Peggy Keith who was apparently quite formidable and smoked a pipe.

At the same time travellers were starting to be attracted by the beauty of the village's surroundings and in 1826 the Crown Hotel 'offered customers good decent furniture and a daily supply of salt and fresh water'. In 1860 Edwin Waugh describes the location of the village as 'Here, where the rugged selvedge of our native district softens into the fertile beauty of the fitful sea'. A visitor writing in the local newspaper in March 1867 had this recommendation: 'It is in the character of a sanitarium that Grange is growing and will flourish. In the neighbouring woods myrtle, mignonette, laurestinus and mazereon grow wild. It is not fast nor boisterous nor overcrowded like some places one might name; it has neither bathing vans nor donkeys'.

In August 1857 the Furness railway line finally bridged the gap between Lancaster and Ulverston and trains began to run via Grange. More and larger hotels and hydros arose. Piers were built to serve sailing vessels and steamers from across the Bay. With Lancashire and Yorkshire manufacturing centres brought within two hours by rail, rich textile families began to settle in the town. The flow of day trippers and holiday makers steadily increased.

Further chapters in the book describe the buildings of Grange and how the people earned a living as well as who ran the public services and the history of the local schools and churches. There is a fascinating chapter on the walkers and workers of the sands which includes records of frequent deaths by drowning of unfortunate travellers caught out by the treacherous tides and quicksands.

Perhaps my favourite chapter in the book is that entitled 'Jottings from Old Journals'. The entries bring to life the people and history of this small town where I live. It is often said today that one town looks very like any other with a predominence of chains of shops with the same frontage but here in Grange we are fortunate to still have individually owned local shops with their own character and you really can buy almost anything you need without going further afield. Such was the case in the 1800's when W. Stalker in Main Street sold 'Costumes, Polonaises, Skirts, Straw and Leghorn Hats, Umbrellas, Parachutes and Whitby jet goods'. A little later Askew's opened a rival shop with 'Crinolines, French and English stays, hose and bonnets, cloths from Bologne, Rheims and Roubaix, all wool satins and serges and winseys (very cheap) at 6d a yard'. By 1860 Mackereth had his Grange Medical Hall which sold among other things a famous range of Gem perfumes, such as 'Grange Bouquet', 'Queen of the Lakes' and the seductively named 'Lancashire Witch'. He also ran the first circulating library in the town. Mr Birkett, of Lancaster, attended weekly to exercise his 'Painless Dentistry - A single tooth for 5/- and sets from £3.--s.,-d.'. J. Graham was the local plumber and William Riley was demonstrating the Edison Phonograph at his watchmaker's shop in Yewbarrow Terrace.

I hope this has given you a taste of the place where I live and maybe you will come and visit us sometime. Reading Detectives has taken me on a journey around the county of Cumbria. I have discovered people and places, read books old and new, learned to blog and most of all learned to look at the landscape with fresh eyes. It seemed fitting to end my journey back in Grange-over-Sands, my 'gentle township'.

It is one of the most beautiful and amazing pieces of travel writing you could ever read. It records not only where Chiang Yee stayed, the sights he saw, the places he visited and the people he met, but it also offers a real insight into his philosophies, his spirituality, his art and also how much he missed his native land.

The journal itself is extremely poetic, but it also contains drawings and poems which he was inspired to create by his natural surroundings.

If any book encapsulates what Reading Detectives is all about, this book is surely the one. In his preface to the book Herbert Read wrote: 

What Mr Chiang shows, no less clearly than Wordsworth, is the universality of all true modes of feeling and thinking. The relationship of man to his environment is the relationship of two constants - earth the same and man the same, eternally.

Essentially the journal reveals how much the environment in which the person finds themselves can directly inspire artistic creativity. As Chiang Yee writes in his introductoin to his journal:

So happy was the stretch of time that, even now, I often drive back my imagination to the weeks I spent there and the loveliness of the spots I visited; then I re-write some of the verses I roughly composed there and make sketches from scenes stored up in my mind.

The Lakes seem to have struck a particular chord with him because he was born at the foot of Lu Mountain and "grew up in the companionship of rocks, hills, mountain-peaks, streams, waterfalls, pines and every kind of tree." The sounds of the streams running, and the rain falling on leaves and the sight of the mists clearing and the clouds rising "brought a great tranquillity of spirit".

In fact Chiang Yee had his own unique way of sight seeing so that he could really connect with the environment he found himself in. Also in the introduction to his journal he recounts that prior to his trip to Cumbria he had visited Wales and had been "adopted" by his fellow tourists who, trying to be friendly and inclusive had talked to him endlessly when they were out sight seeing, giving him detail and background about the places they were visiting. He appreciated their kindness greatly but it had also caused him great frustration because:

Whenever I walk or travel I am generally silent; I like to observe the scenery closely, and sometimes I lose all consciousness of myself in it. At such times there is no room in my mind for the external trimmings of history or romance.

This characteristic certainly seemed to work for him however, as it enabled him to produce a journal of great beauty, poetry and observation.

During his fortnight in the Lake District he visited Wastwater, Keswick - where he fell in love with Derwentwater, Buttermere and Crummockwater, Windermere, Rydal Water and Grasmere.

Along with his impressions of the places he visited and the people he met, we see how troubled he is by the situation in Spain and how The Lakes remind him of and make him miss the moutains and scenery of his homeland, (which makes it at times a very poignant read), and of course the journal is interspersed with the most beautiful poems and delightful drawings of the lakes and moutains.

Chiang Yee approached the Lake District drawings in the Chinese style - the drawings tend not to be done in situ, but rather afterwards, from memory and reflection, and whilst they might not have a "photographic" accuracy or exactness they capture the essence and spirit of a place or view and are hauntingly beautiful.

The poems are equally haunting and beautiful. For example he was keen to visit Grasmere, the home of Wordsworth, who was hugely popular and widely read in China. Standing beside the lake and listening to the rain on the leaves as he pondered Wordsworth inspired Chiang Yee to write:

The lake and the poet living together always,

The poems and the lake water equally refreshing.

At my coming, in every part the sad soughing of rain,

This is the very sound to break the heart of Autumn.

Something as simple as a blue cloudless sky viewed whilst resting by a lake shore also inspired him:

Blue mountain as pillow and sand for a blanket,

It is pleasant to drowse upon the lake shore.

My heart has already passed beyond Nature,

Heedless of you, white seagulls, busily flying here and there.

It is more than obvious from his journal entries that Derwentwater was the lake that he loved the most. The time he spent here inspired several drawings and poems.

The loveliness of Nature,

And Derwentwater that I love,

Folded in and cloaked with green,

Sitting for a while to enjoy tranquillity,

My questing mind goes forth and wanders far

Beyond the lake and past the distant hills.

 

I absolutely loved this book and think it is a real gem. I found myself thinking about it long after I had finished it. I was particularly struck, not only by its beauty, but also by the impression that to me, whilst it celebrated the beauty of the Lake District, there was also a definite feel of longing and sadness pervading it.

I was also very intrigued as to how he came to be visiting the Lake Disrict in 1936, and his obvious command of the English language (it is not a translated journal). So I decided I needed to find out more about Chiang Yee.

The first thing I discovered was that the Lake District book was not his only publication, and in fact "The Silent Traveller in..." was a series including places such as London, Edinburgh, Oxford, New York, Dublin, Paris...so he was certainly well travelled!

I then went on to learn more about his life story, and what I read certainly explained that sense of longing and sadness I had found within his Lake District journal.

The original story was written by 'Mr' Denwood but in a foreword by Mr Fowler Wright we learn that he obviously thought that the original script needed much editing and he actually appears on the spine as co-author. It is also interesting that in his preface, Hugh Walpole underlines the fact that Denwood is a poet NOT a novelist, but for all that he sees this as in some ways an advantage for more important to the book is the fact that "All his life long he has breathed the air of these hills and dales as though he were part of them. He has never self consciously thought : 'Now I will make a story of this'......It is often a tragical thing that the people who know the country best, its sights, sounds colours and skylines, are least able to write about what they know." This, for Walpole, is why this book is such a rare thing.

Having read these prefaces before starting the book, I was somewhat dubious as to what to expect. I certainly can see its flaws as one misfortune after another is heaped upon Red Ike and his companions, but for me, like Walpole, the strength of the book lies in the sense of place the author achieves. His descriptions of the fells, their wild and at times desolate beauty are written by someone with a deep understanding of, and love for, that part of the country. 

But even though this is really a tale good ultimately overcoming bad, it does contain strands of a social conscience. Red Ike makes plain his view that poaching cannot be against the law when many of the moors have been put into ownership by men who had little or no right to do so. We see the poverty in the city streets and the easy descent into prostitution by women led astray by evil men. 

Open this book at any page and discover some fscinating facts about the humble privy. From a Public Health Survey of Kendal written in 1849 we learn the reason why St Thomas's church, built in the mid-1830's, has its tower at the east end. The west end could not provide a firm enough foundation because the builders discovered a mass of solidified sewage to a depth of at least 12 feet. This stuff had percolated down over the years from the closely packed cottages higher up the hillside.

Privy design reflected the building styles of the local houses and they were, in fact, known as the 'small house'. "The overall size of the privy varied in direct ratio to the establishment which it served. The little cottage model needed to accommodate no more than a single hole internally; the general purpose farm model was rather bigger, featuring two holes. Then there were architect designed installations for the mansion or small country house. These were often divided by a central interior wall, thus providing for the family at one end and staff, particularly perhaps those whose work was mainly in the grounds, at the other".

Inside the privy there could be more than one hole. "In a two-holer, one will normally be smaller than the other, and may well have a little step fixed against the frontal below it, so that young children, or perhaps arthritic grandparents, could reach the throne more easily. Three holers are fairly rare; but here also the size of the holes was graduated".

In his research John Dawson discovered privies which have now been converted into garden sheds and wood stores, workshops and summer rooms, hen houses and beer cellars. Some privies are still being used for their original purpose. Illustrated throughout with wonderful black and white photographs of Cumbrian privies, inside and out, this is a delightful book of social history and gives an insight into a very necessary part of everday life. The book ends with the following poem written by Audrey Dent of Bolton, Cumbria.

The Poor Little Has-Been

I'm a 'privy' at the bottom of the garden

All purpose built and private as can be

An intruder when I'm occupied must ask for pardon

Although there's room enough in here for three

I think I'm something special, though I wouldn't say I'm smart

My walls are painted white and rather bare

I'm just an ordinary little building from others set apart

But when you're desperate and you need me I am there

Should you be sitting comfortable and cosy

And you hear a noise behind which makes you quake

Don't worry it's not someone being nosey

It's old Tom who's come to clean me with his rake

Old Tom's the man who, monthly, calls to take away my load

With his job well done, I couldn't feel much cleaner

Oh! It's good to hear his cart wheels on the road

And the fields around are definitely greener!

I've a secret that perhaps I shouldn't tell you

But I will because, you see, it boosts my pride

If the menfolk through the day get tired, as they do

I'm the quiet little haven where they hide

One day a week my mistress goes quite crazy

She attacks me like the waves upon a beach

When she's finished I am whiter than a daisy

Through her scrubbing and her scouring with the bleach

Today I heard a very tragic story

I do believe we're going to get the push

Yes, we at last are giving up our glory

To a new sophisticated toilet that will flush

                        BUT

When the plumbing's all gone wrong

Or the summer drought is long

And the water isn't flushing as it should

Ah! then you'll all be wishing that we hadn't gone for good.

Dialect has already been touched upon in my post about Jacob Polley's Talk of the Town and also Doreen's find, T'Bacca Queen, where the area of Kendal known as Fellside even had its own distinct dialect, quite seperate from that of the rest of Kendal.

So it was with great interest that I came upon several slim books by Ethel Fisher, actually written in West Cumbrian dialect.

The first one I came across was called Old Fashioned Fairy Tales. On the back of the book Ethel writes how dialect is fast dying out or is frowned upon, and she wants to preserve it in her writing. She had also noticed that children are very interested in it, so she wrote Old Fashioned Fairy Tales  for "all scholars aged from 8 to 80".

She takes 14 traditional fairy stories ranging from Jack and the Beanstalk to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but re-tells them in modern West Cumbrian dialect. The result is hilarious and can't help but grab the reader's interest...and for the more faint hearted there is also a glossary at the back to aid understanding!

To give you a taste (pardon the pun!) this is the bit where Goldilocks enters the cottage and tries the bears' porridge whilst they are out:

While thu wur oot, a laal lass cawd Gowlgilocks wue 'evvun a walk throo t'wuds ut t'siamm time, und wen she com ucross t'cottige, she fund ut t'dooer wuz oppun, so she walket reet in, und wat a gud smell thur waaz inside! It wut t'poddish ut wuz smellun, and she wuz gau 'ungry, so thowt she'd tiaast it. She tried t'biggust basun fust, but it wuz ower 'ot tu swaller. Then she tried t'middlin-sizet basun, but fund it wuz ower lumpy, so she dippt 'ur spiuun intut laalust basun, und it tiasted just reet, so she varra siuun eat it aw, leavun t'basun wid nowt in.

The next title I came across by Ethel Fisher was Old Will Ritson's Tall Stories. The tales within this book were allegedly told by Will Ritson (1808 - 1890) who was the publican of the Wasdale Head Hotel. Will always kept his customers enthralled with stories so outrageously outlandish that he became known as 'The World's Biggest Liar'.  [Wasdale was already famous for having England's deepest lake, (Wastwater); the highest mountain, (Scafell Pike); and the smallest church, (Wasdale Head Church), so it seems quite fitting really!]

Naturally these stories are re-told in dialect, and they are hugely funny. The tradition of the "tall story" lives on in Wasdale, and every November a contest is held at The Bridge Inn, Santon Bridge, to award the title of 'The Biggest Liar in the World', to the person who is worthy of following in Will's foorsteps.

Ethel Fisher has not limited herself to prose however, and has also produced 2 other books entitled: Humorous Tales in Cumberland Dialect Rhyme and More Humorous Tales in Cumberland Dialect Rhyme.

There are videos online of Ether reciting her poems. To see and hear her in action go to:

http://www.workingtonlocal.co.uk/then_and_now_in_pictures_1_263071?referrerPath=home

So what of Ethel herself? She has lived in West Cumbria all her life and was brought up on a farm. For many years she travelled round the village of Seaton with a pony-drawn milk cart, delivering milk twice a day, and met her husband Eric whilst carrying our her deliveries.

Her book We Ploughed the Field by Moonlight was published in 2001 and tells of life on a 500 acre farm. It was the bygone age when horse power was used to work the land, and the farm house did not have gas, electricity or hot running water, but despite all this it was a time of great fun and hilarity.

Ethel Fisher has since been awarded the MBE and still lives in Seaton. More about her life can be seen by clicking: http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/the_queen_of_cumbrian_dialect_writing_delights_even_those_who_find_it_hard_to_understand_1_338940?referrerPath=profile_2_910

In an age when language is becoming increasingly uniform we are lucky that there are people like Ethel to champion and preserve its regional variations.

Last week we had two library events with the author, Ann Lingard. Ann was a lecturer and research scientist at the University of Glasgow, before changing career to write and broadcast. She and her husband and a few sheep now live on a small-holding in NW Cumbria within sight of the Solway Firth and the fells, where she writes novels, short stories radio plays and non-fiction.

I had asked Ann to speak at these events because we are about to launch a countywide reading promotion called Science Reads, Ann talked about her latest book, The Embalmer's Book of Recipes, and about the fun and challenges of doing thge background research for her novels, all of which contain some element of science.

How best to describe The Embalmer's Book of Recipes? To say that it is multi-faceted would be an understatement...and the phrase multi-faceted is more than apt as two of its characters are working on patterning and quasicrystal structure: the practice and theory of how shapes and images could be fit together to fill two- and three- and multi-dimensional space!

This is a novel which is largely set in Cumbria, written by an author who now lives in Cumbria and which encompasses the themes of genetic difference and the illogicality of human love, interwoven with maths, taxidermy, and the tragedy of foot and mouth disease.

Jane Gardam has been quoted as describing The Embalmer's Book of Recipes thus: 'A many-faceted book of science, academia and contemporary country life in the Lake District. The account of the dreadful days of foot-and-mouth disease in the last epidemic is agonising and the Cumbrian accent is perfect'.

These themes and elements are explored through three very different women: Ruth, who is a taxidermist living and working in Cumbria; Madeleine, a widowed Cumbrian sheep-farmer; and, Lisa, an achondroplasic mathematician and academic based in Liverpool.

Lisa meets Ruth and Madeleine through a mutual friend, Stefan, and gradually gets to know them better, but as she does so it becomes clear that they both are harbouring secrets. As the novel unfolds these secrets are revealed and they add to and enhance the key theme of science and our relation to the natural world.

The characters of the three women are wonderfully drawn, and they are all three very different, but very strong women.

Another strength of the novel is the way that it captures life in Cumbria, but so particularly in the sections relating to the dreadful time in 2001 when Foot and Mouth devastated the county, leading to entire flocks and herds being culled and destroyed, as well as the lives and livelihoods of so many people. These sections are especially moving, and the culling is likened to the wiping out of a genetic strain - which it was with entire flocks, some going back generations, being eradicated - thus further exploring the novel's wider theme of genetics and selection.

This is a novel which offers the reader much to think about, whilst capturing the essence and spirit of Cumbria.

To find out more about Ann Lingard, visit: http://www.annlingard.com/index.html

Ann Lingard with her sheep...

Nella Last was a housewife, married to Will who had his own joinery and shop fitting business in Barrow in Furness. Will and Nella lived in Ilkley Road with their younger son, Cliff, who was in the Army and their older son, Arthur, who was a tax inspector and thus exempted from conscription.

Barrow-in-Furness is town with a long history of shipbuilding, at the south westerly tip of Cumbria and during the Blitz, it became a target for German bombing.

Nella Last began writing her diary in 1939 for the Mass Observation Project, which had been running since 1937 with the aim of capturing and recording the views of ordinary British people The project recruited volunteer diarists who were tasked with observing British life, and producing a day-to-day account of their lives.  Nella was one such recruit, and the title Housewife 49, is how she was described by the Mass Observation Project.

Over 200 diarists contributed to the project, but what is truly outstanding about Nella's diary is the dedication with which she approached the task - over the 30 years she wrote her entries she wrote between 1.5 and 2 million words, making her diary one of the the longest in the English language, and a rich resource for anyone studying the social history of the time it spans. (The diaries are now part of the Mass Observation Archive which is held at the University of Sussex, and it is open to the public.)

It is even more amazing when one considers that her entries were not read until the 1980s, and the first volume of her writings was published as Nella Last's War. I read this book not long after its publication in the 1980s and it is a fascinating read, recounting how Barrow was bombed, and how Nella, as lots of other women, developed lives outside the home either working in jobs which had been vacated by the men going off to fight, or as Nella did, volunteering in the WVS and the Red Cross. I was working in Barrow at the time I read the first volume of her diaries, and it really brought home to me how a small Cumbrian town, and its people, suffered and were affected by events on the larger world stage.

Nella carried out a number of different roles during the war, including weaving and embroidery, setting up canteens for civil defense workers and troops stationed in Barrow, and also working in the Red Cross shop. There is very much a sense that Nella "finds" herself during this period, having had a difficult period of ill-health which might best be described as a breakdown. We see her growing to be a brave, independent, resourceful, and humourous woman who faces the shortages, difficulties, dangers and challenges of war and is made stronger because of them .

However in Nella Last's Peace, her diary shows how women had to revert to their former lives back in the home, as men return to claim the jobs and the volunteering opportunities dry up. It is very much a period of re-adjustment for all women, but especially for Nella, who throws her energies into knitting dolls which were used to raise money for charity, and misses the activity and comradeship of the war years.

The diaries often mention her relationships with both family and friends and also refer frequently to the difficulties in her marriage with her husband Will, as well as her worries about Cliff and Arthur. (Arthur continued to work as a tax inspector and Cliff emigrated to Australia, where he became a noted sculptor.)

Nella also reflects on her extended family, her own history, her trips to the coast and the Lake District, as well as day to day conversations, gossip and scandals. Mixed in with this is an astute and perceptive view of post-war events both nationally and internationally.

The volume of her output is equalled by the quality of her writing, and the entries make you look at Barrow, the surrounding areas and also The Lakes with a deeper understanding and appreciation.

Nella Last's Peace is as equally a fascinating, absorbing, entertaining and informative read as the first volume of her diaries, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

(And as a post script, whilst talking to Mary about this book, she tells me that one of the Kendal Library staff is actually a relative of the Last family!)

This is the story of John Law, a recently appointed married vicar, who moves with his wife Ellen to the lonely and isolated community of Stainmore where he meets the young and beautiful Mary Dennison who is the school mistress at the village school. Mary is a bright young girl and John begins to tutor her with the intention of helping her pass her teaching exams but friendship becomes something more as the couple fall in love. Rumour spreads among the community and one night the couple are attacked in an effort to bring the affair to an end. This incident ends up in court and gradually word spreads until the whole affair becomes talked about througout the country. John is forced to leave the clergy and emigrates to Australia while Mary disappears from all records and it is unclear what happened to her and how she spent the rest of her life.

From the first mention of the coal cart's wheels on the road you are back in a harsh, uncomfortable world where moral transgressions, especially by a churchman, attract universal condemnation. Page by page you absorb the feelings and tension of what seems a bygone age whose social code seems to outlaw forgiveness. The author captures the claustrophobic atmosphere of life in a small community with its fears, feuds and petty jealousies magnified by the hypocrisy of stiffling Edwardian morality.

ROUGH MUSICKING: Also Riding the Stang, Skimmington, Skimmity.

This custom apparently began as a New Year's tradition unique to the regions of Cumberland, Westmorland and the Yorkshire areas. The act of Riding the Stang belongs to a range of customs that were particular to the working classes in which they claim the right to manhandle their superiors. Can be compared to similar traditions enacted at the Corby Pole Fair as well.

 This custom involved a gathering of folks going about the village to a particular place or home with metal plates, tins, poles and such being struck loudly so as to make obnoxious noises (usually done at night). Also used as a way to *drum a man (or woman) out of the village* for such offenses as adultery, incest, spousal abuse. Another symbol of social disproval is the leaving of or scattering of chaff at the threshold of the home of the offender.

The above is the definition of 'Riding the Stang' found at www.experiencefestival.com/stang

I have also discovered an article in the New York Times dated 3rd October 1909 which reports the true story with the following headline: 

VICAR IN ENGLAND BEATEN AND TARRED; Bound Hand and Foot, He Is Carried Home from Fields on a Gate. ATTACK IS UNEXPLAINED Assailants Prove to be of Respectable Families and Some Actively Connected with Church Work.

The full article can be read at http://query.nytimes.com

West of Kendal there are escarpments and ridges with spectacular vistas of the Lake District Fells, the Kent Estuary and Morecambe Bay. This is a limestone landscape with a rich diversity of birds, butterflies and flora. Cunswick Scar and Scout Scar are both Sites of Special Scientific Interest and are of European importance for wildlife.

In the foreword of the book Jan writes 'I like to feel at one with a landscape: to be so focused that nothing intrudes on what is taking place right there before my eyes'. On 17th October 1999 she records 'Not a day for vistas, there was bright sun but no clarity so I focused on what was close at hand. I walked north above the escarpment with the sun shining a spotlight into the wood below. Fieldfare were calling and their pale underwings caught the light in a grove of dark yew rooted in the limestone scree of the buttress directly below the cliff edge. Scores of fieldfare fed on yew berries whose fleshy red arils glowed in the sombre foilage. Above the now steeper escarpment, I found a vantage point where I was half hidden in heather and could watch them foraging beneath the yew and flying above the canopy. Seclusion: the life of the wood had hold of me'.

Seven years later on the same day in 2006: 'So warm, like the air above an over-heated swimming pool. On Scout Scar, there was a bluish sky directly above and sunlight struck the cliff-edge but fog obliterated the fells to the west. Whitbarrow was a soft outline merely, the Kent estuary was blotted out and toward the sea an ethereal, luminous fog filled the lower reaches of the Lyth Valley. I walked toward Helsington Barrows enthralled by the light that rendered the fog beautiful and evanescent. A south wind blew up suddenly and visibility improved but the magic was gone'.

The book is illustrated throughout by the most superb photographs which record not just the spectacular landscape but the flowers and fungi, the birds and the animals which make these limestone ridges such very special places. In the long tradition of English nature writing, 'About Scout Scar' is a detailed portrait of a landscape. It is about one woman's voyage of discovery through the seasons: of looking, listening and seeing. The theme of how we all relate to the landscape and the natural world is at the very heart of this gem of a book.

With my detective hat on I have just made a really interesting discovery. I wanted to add a website link which would show readers the details of a walk they could take on Scout Scar and discovered the following article by Harry Griffin  - whom I have mentioned in previous finds. The article is entitled "One Small Step" and appeared in The Guardian on Monday 20th October 2003.   

'There's the famous Hillary Step, just below the top of Everest, the so-called "Bad Step" on Crinkle Crags scampered over, unnoticed, by everybody until Wainwright made a meal of it and named it, and now the Griffin Step on Scout Scar above Kendal'.

To read the full article follow the link to The Guardian website below.

 http://www.discovercumbria.co.uk/Scout-Scar.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/oct/20/ruralaffairs

At this stage of his life William Wilberforce was a young man, travelling alone, who loved nature and was inspired by the spectacular scenery of the Lake District. The waterfalls, rocks, valleys, lakes and mountains made the rest of the English countryside seem 'insipid, peaceful and rural' in contrast to the 'majestic, beautiful and sublime' Lakes. The bleaker parts of the landscape were forbidding and yet impressive; 'awful' and 'horrid' were adjectives he used to describe them.

In 1785 Wilberforce experienced a deep religious conversion which was to lead to his campaigns against the Slave Trade. His religious convictions also influenced his later writing when his love of the Lake District mountains, views and waterfalls would be described as not only sublime and majestic, but also as evidence of God's goodness, as reminders 'of the dispensations of Divine Providence first breaking on the glorified eye, when they shall fully unfold to the view, and appear as beautiful as they are complete'. The difference in approach is a vivid illustration of the change in Wilberforce and it is fascinating to compare the journal written by a young man and the later work written by a man with the deepest religious convictions.

The summer of 1779 was, according to several entires in the dairy, a fairly wet one and the young man often ends the day 'wet to the skin'. He must also have been cold, famished and exhausted but he still settled down under the miserable light of a candle to record the events of his day at some length. The reader is given detailed instructions as to his route and is even told where to stand for the best view. The dimensions of mountains and waterfalls are given or guessed at in the absence of reliable information and even old country tales are retold.

One of my favourite entries in the diary is that dated Thursday 2nd September 1779.

Went over the Sands to Ulverston by Cartmel & Holker, 22 miles. It is very pleasant Riding, since you are more at liberty to look about you and less at the Road than you generally are in the North Country, & nowhere is there where it answers better to gaze with all your Eyes about you........ You see at a great distance some most majestic Hills & close to you is on the Right a great Bay dry at Low Water which gives you a View of the country replete with the Sublime & beautiful'.                     

That is the very view that I am lucky enough to look out on every day and, in fact, Wilberforce would have left the sands and ridden up the hill past my house on his way to Ulverston.

This is a fascinating account of one of the first 'tourists' to the Lake District. Although these days we do not often use words like sublime and majestic to describe the landscape, reading this diary has made me think we should.