Fellwanderer

by Alfred Wainwright

Genres: Travel, Biography

128 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1966

About the author

Alfred Wainwright was born in Blackburn, Lancashire to Thomas Wainwright and Elizabeth Nixon.[citation needed] His family was relatively poor, mostly due to his stonemason father's alcoholism. He did very well at school (first in nearly every subject)[1] although he left at the age of 13. While most of his classmates were obliged to find employment in the local mills, Wainwright started work as an office boy in Blackburn Borough Engineer's Department. He spent several further years studying at night school, gaining qualifications in accountancy which enabled him to further his career at Blackburn Borough Council. Even when a child Wainwright walked a great deal, up to 20 miles at a time; he also showed a great interest in drawing and cartography, producing his own maps of England and his local area.
In 1930, at the age of 23, Wainwright saved up enough money for a week's walking holiday in the Lake District with his cousin Eric Beardsall. They arrived in Windermere and climbed the nearby hill Orrest Head, where Wainwright saw his first view of the Lakeland fells. This moment marked the start of what he would later describe as his love affair with the Lake District. In 1931 he married his first wife, Ruth Holden, a local mill worker, with whom he had a son Peter. In 1941 Wainwright was able to move closer to the fells when he took a job (and with it a pay cut) at the Borough Treasurer's office in Kendal, Westmorland. He lived and worked in the town for the rest of his life, serving as Borough Treasurer from 1948 until he retired in 1967. His first marriage ended when Ruth walked out three weeks before he retired. They later divorced. In 1970 he married Betty McNally (1922–2008), also a divorcee, who became his walking companion and who eventually carried his ashes to Innominate Tarn at the top of Haystacks.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author describes this as “a book of random thoughts and recollections.” But it’s really a reflection on his wanderings through the Lakeland Fells, in the mountainous Lake District of the UK. The book was given to me some 40+ years ago by a dear woman, Ruth Anne Blair, who was the matriarch of a dear family I’ve known for some 50+ years. I had never actually read the book until I recently received word of her passing. So I sat down and read it in one sitting, and to such delight that I now regret I hadn’t read it sooner. It was a supreme joy. It spoke to the wanderer in me.

“I was always happier pulling on my boots in a morning than putting on my shoes. On a day when I didn’t have to wear a collar and tie I was a boy again. If I was heading for the hills, and not the office, I could set forth singing, not audibly, heaven forbid; just in my heart. I was off to where the sheep were real, not human.”

Thank you, Ruth Anne, for this little treasure, and for the treasure that was you.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very nice companion volume to Wainwright's pictorial guides to the Lake District. It gives little biographical detail but tells the reader much about what motivated the man to undertake his great work - and about his attitude to walkers and walking. The passages about fell-walking accidents (caused by carelessness) and solo walking in the hills (his preference) make a great deal of sense. Besides the text, there are a lot of the author's wonderful sketches of the hills, and some of his (monochrome) photographs of the scenery - many of which are pretty good. His discussion of the Ordnance Survey's depiction of footpaths in the Lake District is very illuminating and should be essential reading for all walkers in the area. I recently met a couple proposing to walk up the west side of Heron Pike, using a path shown on the OS 1:25k and 1:50k maps but which does not exist on the ground.

If you enjoy Wainwright's guides, then read this.