Book Reviews
by Bill Todd
Walking More Ridges of Lakeland
Bob Allen with Peter Linney
Michael Joseph Ltd., London, pp 192 HB £17.99
Here is another well written and informative book on Lakeland from Bob Allen’s pen and camera. Diagrammatic maps, like spider’s webs, and route cards are contributed by Peter Linney, author of “The Official Wainwright Gazetteer.’ It covers the fells dealt with in Wainwright’s Guides 4-7 i.e. those west of a line through Mungrisedale via Borrowdale to Coniston.
Looking at my copy of Bob Allen’s ‘On High Lakeland Fells’ I see that it was pubhshed in 1987 and reprinted in 1988 at £10.95. Surely inflation since 1988 has not been 63%. Is this massive price hike because we are back in the Wainwright industry?
Having said that it is a well produced book with lots of good ideas for walks and up to date information as to their feasibility. I was interested to learn that the West Wall Traverse route into Deep Gill, Scafell is not recommend¬ed. I have been wondering for a year or two whether my misgivings over something I made light of 40 ago were proof of cowardice or prudence. On the other hand Mr. Allen’s description of the Gascale Gill horizon walk has filled me with enthusiasm to do it at the next opportunity.
The photographs are just about as good as we have come to expect from this author, particularly those of Mirk Cove and the Great Slab of Bow Fell. It is only carping to suggest that they do not overall reach the unifoiTnly excellent standard set by ‘On High Lakeland Fells’.
A very acceptable present or a good buy if you can get over the price.
Discovery Walks in the Yorkshire Dales: The Southern Dales.
David Johnson
Sigma Leisure, Wilmslow, pp 200 £6.95
There were only five of us at the usual meeting place, Ashley and Audrey, Jim and Joy and me. When the question of where to go came up I said ‘I’ve got a little book called ‘Discovery Walks in the Yorkshire Dales’. We can park free at Street Gate and this book describes an interesting looking walk we can do from there with lots of tilings to see.’
Unfortunately when we got to Street Gate and began booting up it started raining in no uncertain manner, blown on a strong south west wind. So to save getting the book wet I didn’t study it properly but just glanced at the map on page 55 and led the party up the track straight to the tarn instead of the one going to Middle House. When we realised this mistake we made another one and missed Tarn Foot coming directly back to the ice cream place. Yes, I know I should have had the book in a plastic bag but it had been lovely weather at breakfast time and I didn’t know my suggestion would be accepted.
Things improved from then on. We got on the bridle-way that goes to Langscar Gate and found the Iron Age homesteads and enclosure by Locks Scar. A bit further on at Dean Scar we got a lesson in botany centred on a limestone boulder then the remains of a Middle Bronze Age hut circle, a thousand years older than the previous one.
We lunched while enjoying the view down Watlowes, this is the diy valley going down to Malham Cove. The rain had stopped by now and the walk back north to Water Sinks was not unpleasant. Here we turned sharp right over a style and after crossing the Pennine Way the points of interest came thick and fast. First was another Iron Age settlement bigger than the first one then, following the compass bearing in the book we jumped three thousand years to two Norse farmsteads.
Some of the party had been walking the Dales for a lifetime but still hadn’t known about these remains so they reckoned Bill’s idea had been a good one. One member said ‘What a good idea to give a wet day walk a bit of interest,’ another ‘What an interesting thing to research on a fine hot day.’ You takes your choice.
The last thing we saw was a monastic sheet house at Prior Rakes. The book gives both a plan and a reconstruction by Dr. Raistrick of this medieval site. This enabled us to trace the outlines onto the ground with little difficulty.
With our newly acquired archaeological insight we noticed several more ancient huts and enclosures as we made our way back to the road considerably wiser for a day’s discovery walking.
This book is simply a mine of information about the countryside we all love and is well worth the modest price asked.
Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk
Photographs by Deny Brabbs
Michael Joseph Ltd., Revised Edition 1996, pp 204, Soft Back £13.99
Readers of the ‘Yorkshire Rambler’ will have no doubt as to my opinion of A. Wainwright. He was in my view a self opinionated old curmudgeon only redeemed by a talent for drawing and a love of high places.
And it must again be said that the photographs here are absolutely breathtaking; I particularly enjoyed looking at the ones of Great Gable, Striding Edge, Measand Force and Falling Foss. Mr. Brabbs has this time avoided the undue prevalence of greenness which I remarked on in an earlier review.
I have not done the Coast to Coast but the book called up many happy memories of places I have been to which he along it. We visited Sunender Bridge on a recent meet and further up Swaledale there is Swinner Gill which we had a look at in 1993? I have only sketchy knowledge of the start and finish points. I visited St. Bees with my late wife in 1984 on an off day fiom a hohday near Buttermere, we chatted with some successful east to west coast to coasters. The only time I have been to Robin Hood’s Bay was to lead a walk fiom there by our local rambling club. Both places are done more than justice to by this book.
The North York Moors are perhaps unjustly neglected. The excellent pictures, both photos and drawing of Wainstones called to mind a recent walk round that way. Someone asked me if I had ever climbed there. ‘Yes’ was the reply ‘in 1956’. Good heavens that’s forty years ago, using our own Maurice Wilson’s guide book. This got me to thinking about the chaps I was with that day and was delighted to realise that of the four of them I am still in touch with three and have in fact seen them in the last year. It is truly said that a friendship which is tied with a climbing rope is one that lasts.
The other function of a guide book is of course to arouse interest in places the reader may not have heard of. In spite of having been edited down since the first edition which has resulted in a lack of detail, Mr. Wainwright has made me keen on visiting the ancient settlement at Castle Folds near Orton in Westmorland, sorry Cumbria. Mind you he climbed two walls on his original visit and seems aggrieved that the fanner showed resentment. This edition makes it clear that the farmer’s permission must be obtained but doesn’t say which farm to apply to.
Even in this posthumous edition we get evidence of the author’s dislike of motor cars and their users. A scornful reference to motorists wishing to exercise their ‘atrophied legs’ on page 158 is followed on page 165 by the suggestion that readers beg a lift fiom Clay Bank Top to the nearest shop. Motor cars are a bad thing except when they are canying me or my readers.
Still, like non union-labour, motor-car hypocrites are an essential part of a free and diverse society and I can sincerely recommend this book to any member who is interested in the walk or in exploring some of the country along it.
Best Pub Walks in and Around Leeds
Colin Speakman
Sigma Leisure pp 136 £6.95
When it’s late November and the cloud is low it seems a waste of time to drive up to the Dales for a walk. What better therefore, than to leave your car at home and catch a bus for one of Colin Speakman’s linear walks. There are twenty described in this book ranging fiom two to nine miles in length but mainly around five; they are described as ‘half-day’ in the preface but some of them have so much of interest to see that you will want more than a day to cover four or five miles.
While the title mentions Leeds there are walks described at Otley, Morley, Micklefield and Wetherby. But the core of the book and what I found absorbing is Leeds itself with its long aims of green stretching right from the centre to the open country. There are also some wonderful buildings which most of us haven’t time to notice when we drive into town for business.
Juliet and I did the walk in from Kirkstall on a bad snowy day but the beauty of the canal side trees made it all worthwhile not to mention a very good lunch at the Prince of Wales pub. The first walk in the book is short in miles but long in interest. As they say in Cumberland ‘Good stuff laps up in lile bunn’les’. Incidentally, we were too late for lunch at the ‘Grove’ at 2.15 pm although the notice ‘Food Serving Now’ was on display. Perhaps I should also mention that the ‘Fox and Newt’ has temporarily suspended its brewing operation pending re-equipment.
All the walks are planned to be done using public transport and the book would make an ideal present for anyone who likes a walk and is interested in things to see.
Why on earth do we do it?
‘The Undiscovered Country, The Reason We Climb.’
Phil Bartlett
The Ernest Press, ppl8, H/B £15.95
My elder daughter told me recently that she had no idea why anybody could possibly enjoy climbing mountains. This in spite of the fact that she had, a few years before, insisted on her husband going with her over the Langdale Pikes; probably to illustrate her cheadful childhood.
Gallons of ink have been spilt trying to explain why we climb, probably there are as many reasons as there are climbers, but the nub of the matter is expressed in one of the chapter headings of W. Kenneth Richmond’s ‘Climber’s Testament’. Somewhere in die middle of the book a chapter headed ‘Sport or Religion?’ gives the author’s ideas which as I remember, are somewhere middle of the road, giving equal emphasis to both aspects. Better known authorities have emphasised one aspect. Was it not Leslie Stephen who said “The Alps are my religion”? There is also the probably apocryphal story of a member of a senior Manchester Club, not a churchgoer, who entered R.C. as his religion on joining the forces.
On the other hand in ‘Let’s Go Climbing” C.F. Kirkus points out that even without its poetic aspect, climbing can hold its own with the ball games which the general public know as ‘Sport’. “Instead of human opponents you fight against the natural difficulties of the rocks, instead of playing another team you do a different climb and instead of playing a return match you do the same climb under different weather conditions”.
Mr. Barlett has climbed since boyhood, like this reviewer, he was lucky enough to climb with the late Jim Cameron. He has also been to the Alps, the Arctic and the Himalaya. He has read widely and thought deeply so that the reader feels the continuity between LogstafFs and Tillman’s expeditions and his own.
Most of the great names of mountaineering are mentioned ‘ and some of their ideas discussed in the course of the book. Also a great name of anti-mountaineering, one John Ruskin whose strictures re ‘soaped poles’ and ‘screams of delight’ are quoted under his picture on page 31.
The chapters deal in turn with aspects of our sport, exploration, hving dangerously but gloriously, simple life, religion and nationalism. The photographs are excellent, many have not appeared before and the author’s captions go far beyond the usual ‘Me on the top’ simplicity. The picture of Sir Christian has a comment on Brian Blessed’s ‘The Turquoise Mountain’ which warms my heart. The picture of F.W. Bourdillon on the Matterhom also tells us that he wrote the famous line “Night has a thousand eyes.” The scenic pictures include the gentleman’s side of Gimmer, I was looking at it last week, Coruisk as well as the author below Kunyang Kish.
There are very many ideas discussed. My own clearest impression after one reading is the comforting one that it does not matter if you are not the best climber and don’t climb the biggest mountains. You can still benefit fully from the mountain experience without being a Brown or a Bonnington. To return to Kenneth Richmond’s book mentioned above “The old lady who toddles up Orrest Head may have something which eludes the conqueror of the Karakorum’.
Read this book, it is the ’90s equivalent of, and in every way fit to stand alongside Frank Smythe’s classic ‘Spirit of the Hills’.
‘Snowdonia Rocky Rambles. Geology Beneath Your Feet’.
Bryan Lynas.
Sigma Leisure, pp 273 P/B £9.95
Like its predecessor, ‘Lakeland Rocky Rambles’, this book is an absolute mine of information. It is a useful walking guide and unique in the way Mr. Lynas explains the formation of the planet and how events millions of years ago left their imprint on things we can see today.
It is difficult to avoid being swept up by the author’s enthusiasm for this subject and as in the Lakeland book he does not restrict himself to geology, but points out some of the most interesting plants to be seen, like the insect eating sundew and the stinkhorn fungus (phallus impudicus). There is a very lucid timescale with a guide to its use in appendix one and a bibliography in appendix 2. There is a glossary of technical terms and a list of Welsh topographical words with their English equivalents.
Ten rambles are described and from my experience of the country covered they are all well worth doing provided, of course, that you are able to ‘pick a good day’ where the author says. Chapter 1 describes a walk in the Rhinogs and Cader Idris is covered in Chapter 6, the rest of the book is nearer the actual Snowdon massif. Most of the illustrations are black and white photographs taken by the author. Where necessary writing on the pictures tells you what to look for e.g. ‘beddingplane’ and ‘funny hat’. A lot of the photographs include Mrs. Lynas; dare I suggest that a lot of her husband’s drawings in the Lakeland book didn’t show her full beauty? He does admit this in the Lakeland book but to change over to photos seems a drastic way of making amends. Be that as it may the book is better served by photographs. With them there is less doubt that you are looking at the same bit of rock that the author is describing.
Mr. Lynas is a great mountain lover. He camped near Yr Wyddfa one night during the preparation of the book and dawn saw him on top to see the sunrise, hi a whimsical moment he admits to thanking the mountain for having him. I fMnk that is absolutely marvellous and connects up well with some of the points discussed in ‘The Undiscovered Country’. While not professing formal religion Mr. Lynas is clearly fascinated and awed by the story of our wonderful planet and is very good at communicating his own joy to his readers.
One thing though, as I warned last time, don’t think you are going to do any of these walks in quick time. There is so much of interest pointed out that you may well find yourself 70% through the time available and 30% through the walk. But do the walks anyway you couldn’t have a better guide and I am eagerly awaiting his book on the Yorkshire Dales.
The Craven Pothole Club Record
No.45 January 1997
Yet another bundle of interesting and sometimes thrilling tales of adventure underground and contretemps above it. I am sorry for the poor people who camped at Brothers Water last September and got washed out. Last time I saw Dick Espiner, who has been installed as President, we were both camping in Duddon valley but on different sites. Reminiscences from 1947 brought back memories and quotes from our own 1947 Journal are featured. That must have been one of the last links with the club’s infancy with obituaries of Martel, Brodrick, Lowe, Parsons and Puttrell.
The Craven Pothole Club Record
No. 44 October 1996
Here is another quarters worth of adventure above and below ground from the Craven Pothole Club. Above ground includes Crianlarich and North Wales, where they got wet like we mountaineers do. Topics include an interesting article on Mountain Tables; as well as Monros there are apparently Donalds, Corbetts and MacLeods.
The Gaping Gill meet is fully covered, it is good to know there are still new passages being discovered.
The abroad activities include a fascinating article by Nigel Graham on the Meet in Norway. May I quote ‘The top 50 ft into the gorge looked impossible from above (how often have we ah faced that?) so the Bear’s Cleft is was. It started decently, steep but steadily … then … a fantastic ruckle of’angular granite boulders ..’
They really live in the C.P.C. but they are not too hot on Theology. Page 39 claims that Zeus was supposed to have been born in a cave on Mount Ida. I always thought he had been bom in Dycti Cave by the Lassithi Plateau, at least that’s what we were told when my late wife and I went there ten years ago.
Altogether a jolly good read now in the Club Library for your enjoyment.
Bill Todd
Editor’s Note: I believe that there are various myths relating to the birth of Zeus.: this is one I came across. By the birth of Zeus, his Titan mother, Rhea, had ‘wised up’ to his father Cronus’ habit of swallowing his children lest they grow and dethrone him and developed a ploy to preserve Zeus It had though taken the loss of Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and, finally, Hera for Rhea to reach this point. She fobbed off Cronus with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes while hiding Zeus in Bill’s Dycti Cave, Crete, to be reared by nymphs. Zeus, when grown forced Cronus to disgorge his, Zeus’s, siblings, who were predictably annoyed and sought revenge. Dysfunctional families are not new.
Journeys into the Unknown: An illustrated lecture on Expeditions to the Himalayas, Tibet and the Arctic. March 1997
by Professor Keith Miller
This event being the part of the University of Sheffield’s contribution to the fourth National Science Week there were many references to the technological aspects of the work carried out on his twenty or so expeditions. Miller’s thesis was that for success an expedition must achieve harmony between it’s members, finances, purposes and the culture and envhonments in which it operates while still being able to cope with unpredictable emotions and politics.
If that sounds academic then the delivery was not with his warmth and sincerity obvious in each anecdote. Starting with a slide of climbing a steep buttress in the Lake District at a time when some of our members knew liim we were treated to snapshots fiom the expeditions. With alpine guides arrogantly removing one of his belays on the Matterhom, sabotage and a 20km roped walk-out to escape a white-out on Iceland’s Vatnajokull while searching for volcanic hot-spots inder the ice, glacier snouts bursting to release destructive floods in the Karakoram, earthquake-proofing buildings and the similarities between the cracks in failing turbine blades and crevasses there plenty to think about.
Miller, branded a CIA agent and later a comniunist spy, had his camp buzzed by both US and USSR war planes when his powerful radar equipment, used for measuring the thickness of glacial ice, started transmitting.
The audience of several hundred, aged from five to around eighty-five, appreciated this RGS gold medallist sharing some of his many experiences.
Mike Smith