Photographer’s warning on climate change

Campaigning photographer Ashley Cooper is found most mornings, preposterously early, at the confluence of the rivers Brathay and Rothay near his Cumbrian home, waiting for a heron to take flight, or a kingfisher to snatch some breakfast.

It’s in the minute detail of the natural world, locally, that Ashley now finds solace and distraction after two decades spent traveling the world documenting the impacts of climate change. Back then, his camera was focused not on the warning signs of what might happen, but evidence of what had actually happened already, on every continent.

Now, he says, the boat has sailed.“I think we’ve passed the point where we have any control, where we might have had maybe ten years ago if we had acted then. Take a look at what’s happened this summer; half the planet on fire.” There’s sorrow in his voice, rather than anger that his rallying cries – and those of many others – were largely ignored.

Ashley amassed the world’s largest collection of pictures documenting climate change around the globe, from the Inuit communities of the Arctic to the coral atoll islands of the Pacific Ocean, showing the damage caused by dependence on fossil fuels:  flooding, glacial erosion, and deforestation. 

The Flooded Lyth Valley, Following Storm Desmond

The journey was not without its hardships, dangers and hassles. In China, he was arrested by both the Chinese Police and Chinese Army. In Canada he was threatened with arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for documenting the impacts of the Athabasca tar sands mines. In Greenland, he narrowly avoided falling down a crevasse on the Greenland ice sheet, and he was nearly avalanched in the Himalayas.

His photos were published in newspapers and magazines and then Ashley raised the funds to bring them all together into one comprehensive and startling publication, Images from a Warming Planet. It’s a stunningly beautiful heavyweight book, gloriously illustrated, exquisitely produced, the sort of book that graces many a coffee table…and it’s full of death, destruction, waste, the impact of human interference in the natural world. His most famous photo, used many times in news reports, features an emaciated polar bear that starved to death as the sea ice on which he would hunt for seals had all melted. It’s difficult to highlight individual images from more than 500 gathered together but here, randomly, is a spectacular shot of prayer flags at Annapurna Sanctuary against a background of the highest mountains in the world where glaciers are receding.

Annapurna Prayer Flags

It’s ironic that so many of the images of havoc in this book are seductively beautiful: other seductions, says Ashley, have drawn us into the false relation with nature that has brought about “this ugly mess”. The book was launched to great acclaim at the Royal Geographical Society HQ in Kensington, attended by representatives from some of the world’s leading companies. Among them were senior staff from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, BP, Body Shop, HSBC, Prudential, Rolex, World Pay, and the Confederation of British Industry. The event was addressed by leading environmentalist Jonathon Porritt, and explorer and TV presenter Paul Rose. The objective was to raise awareness of climate change and create a dialogue about the role of organisations in environmental change. A copy was sent to all major world leaders and every British MP.

There’s no doubt that the book, and Ashley’s images, have raised awareness. What’s missing, he acknowledges, is the political will to act, and an absence of behavioural change. And in a summer of extreme heatwave warnings – and occasional flash floods – in Britain, dried up riverbeds in Germany, woods and forests ablaze in France, Ashley reflects on a lifelong campaign that must, at times, surely make him despair.

“I thought that by documenting the greatest threat to humanity, it might have made some difference. I gave it my best shot. It didn’t work; I’ve moved on.” The prophet, though, is also a great artist, a peerless wildlife photographer, the David Attenborough of still photography, as illustrated by the delicacy of a dragonfly’s wings, its iridescent colours…and the fact that the insect is stuck on tar sand. “Of all man’s efforts to exploit fossil fuels, the Canadian tar sands are by far the most environmentally destructive.”

A Dragonfly Stuck In Tar Sand

Jonathon Porritt said at the time of publication that Cooper’s book was an “extraordinary photographic record” which must not be seen as just another snapshot in time. “Do not be tempted into any kind of passive voyeurism; do not allow the power of the images to come between you and the people whose changing lives they portray,” said Porritt. “See it more as a declaration of solidarity, and as the powerful call to action that it surely is.”

A copy was sent to Pope Francis and was acknowledged by his staff that he “will continue to promote the issues to which you are committed, and which now appear to have à popular momentum of their own.” Endorsements came from across the spectrum of concern, including environmentalist and TV presenter Chris Packham. The actor Emma Thompson wrote to Ashley: “Sometimes pictures are more powerful than any words and at the beginning of a year that presages some disastrous decisions in the US that will impact upon us all, this book has become essential reading.”

It was a combination of academic study and a craving for adventure that took Ashley down this route. He studied geography at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and then set off to meet a friend who was working as a teacher in Malawi. There was no direct flight so he had to go via Lusaka, and during the stopover he decided to explore the shanty-town outskirts of the city, with his camera and binoculars. After escaping a suspicious mob (he’s always been a good runner) he was arrested by Zambian police who thought he was a South African spy.

It was the start of an adventurous life, including a few dices with death during a continuous challenge to climb every 3000ft mountain in Britain and Ireland, when he raised £14,000 for the British Leprosy Relief agency in Malawi. He’s lived for many years in Cumbria, working initially for the NSPCC, and helped raised £4m for children’s services in the county. Now based in Ambleside, he’s a mountaineer and member of the Langdale Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team. He set up  www.globalwarmingimages.net the world’s only climate change photo agency, which continues to provide climate change and renewable energy imagery right around the world, and he’s won the climate change category of the World Environmental Photographer of the Year competition.  

The Breach At Alkborough On The Humber Estuary

Nearer to home, he’s not just witnessed the impact of climate change with flooding, but with the mountain rescue team he’s been involved in several dramatic incidents very close to home. And yet there’s no change in public behaviour. “Every day I see people driving around in tank-size cars, sitting in queues for half an hour with engine running when petrol is about £10 a gallon. There’s no sense of collective responsibility or community at local level, and worldwide, while money is still being invested in fossil fuels, nothing will change to stop a disaster becoming a catastrophe.”

There are some silver linings to the clouds of doom. At Alkborough on the Humber estuary a 20m metre-wide breach was created in the sea defences to allow sea water to flood into former agricultural land, creating 150 hectares of wetland. It’s an example of coastal realignment, or managed retreat, being used to take the pressure off during increasingly common storm surges. As well as protecting nearby urban areas from flooding, the site also provides valuable habitat for wildlife and was quickly colonised. It’s now home to egrets, shellducks, reed buntings, swans and many more.

Oystercatcher

Ashley has been touring Europe giving talks and lectures about his photos and his findings. He’s currently fiercely vociferous about the pollution of lakes, rivers and the sea around our coasts, but especially about the condition of his home lake, Windermere. But he’s quietly getting on with taking exquisite photos of birds and animals, and is about to run weekend courses in both birdwatching and wildlife photography at Rydal. “This is where I’m finding fulfilment, seeing what’s uplifting and positive in photographing wildlife.”

Buy the book: https://www.imagesfromawarmingplanet.net/

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The Manchester man

What a piece of work is Manchester! The city that reinvented itself, restored, revived, revitalised, out of the urban debris of the 1970s. And whatever you think today about the new Manchester, there’s no doubt that it’s exciting, vital, an international destination for culture and sport, a centre of business and academic excellence.

But Andy Spinoza recalls that when he first arrived in Manchester, it was “sliding into the dustbin of history.” The long decline from industrial and artistic greatness in Victorian times had left a city  that seemed “locked in a fatal post-industrial tailspin”. Spinoza says that he and his student friends “were at the fag-end of an epic economic bust and were just partying in the debris”.

But he stayed, never felt drawn back “home” to London,  and he’s watched with the keenest of writer’s eyes the gradual resurrection, the growing sense that here was a story of success, confidence, investment and importance. Now he has now produced a magisterial magnum opus: Manchester Unspun: Pop,Property and Power in the Original Modern City. This is more than 300 tightly-packed, impeccably researched pages which is part modern history and part love letter.

And at the heart of the revival of Manchester he says, of course, that it wouldn’t have happened without Factory Records and the Hacienda. Or at least, would have otherwise developed differently. So it feels that this book is a worthy follow-up to Paul Morley’s biography of Tony Wilson, From Manchester With Love.

Spinoza was an early member at the Hacienda club, and he reported on Manchester’s music scene for the NME and The Face. He founded the alternative magazine City Life, but also spent 10 years as a gossip columnist for the Manchester Evening News. So, naturally, he can tell the stories that haven’t been told before, with insight that comes from the beating heart of the city. And then, as head of his own PR firm, he promoted the dynamic post-industrial Manchester through the first 20 years of this millennium. Ergo, he knows what he’s talking about.

And he knows the people who add life to this story, from Hucknall to Ferguson, Roger Taylor (no, not the tennis player) and Bernstein (Howard, that is) to Richard Leese and Andy Burnham. But time and again, the name of the main protagonist, Anthony H. Wilson shines from the pages. It’s no hagiography, though; Spinoza is too thorough an historian for that. Nor is he dewy-eyed or sentimental about the old Manchester, or the new.

But his writing has an attractive lyricism that makes one (well, me, actually) proud to say, yes, I was there, that’s where I’m from. “The city boasted a tumultuous historical energy which seemed to live on in the modern day. From the massacre at Peterloo, the eye-witness accounts of Engels and the formulations of Marx, through to the early trade unions and the Suffragettes, the Chartists and the Free Trade movement…all this merged with modern pop culture into a swirling continuum in my mind.”

Spinoza says of early impressions that Manchester was a movie on perpetual loop in his head, “a revolving cast list of George Best, the Pankhursts, L.S. Lowry, the Moors Murderers and the cast of Coronation Street all set to a playlist of Joy Division, Jilted John and the mournful brass of the TV soap’s opening credits. The seventeen year old me could no more have escaped Manchester’s gravitational pull than Stan Ogden could have walked past the Rovers Return without nipping in for a pint.”

Today, he says, for all the creativity and the development, and the thrill of a new future emerging, in the inner city districts, “the unskilled left-behinds and have-nots can gawp at the eye candy, the twinkling lights hovering in the dusk across the serpentine Irwell, but they may feel the real benefits for them are elusive.” But the sense of pride, and affection, for his adopted city permeate every chapter. If you wanted to better understand what makes this north-west city tick and boom, there’s no question that this is the place to turn.

Eileen Jones

The Eurovision bonus for Liverpool

By Peter Devine

LIVERPOOL is building massively on its cultural ambitions with the launch of a community initiative during the Eurovision Song Contest next month

In an effort to spread the magic across the city region, a total of 63 projects have been announced and supported by grants of up to £2,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in collaboration with Culture Liverpool and Liverpool City Council. The areas include Wirral, Sefton, St Helen’s and Knowsley.

There will be a whole host of projects from a Ukrainian themed sing-along sew-along music workshop for young people, inspired by artists of African-Ukrainian heritage, and a series of short films about the Ukrainian community in Liverpool, as well as a cooking day and recipe book delivered by Knowsley Food Bank in partnership with Ukrainian chefs.

With Liverpool being one of the UK’s most multicultural cities and home to Britain’s oldest African community and Europe’s largest Chinese community, many other cultures will also be spotlighted.

Polish Migrants Organise for Change will be putting on cabaret style performance workshops and a public event for Liverpool’s migrant communities; Pagoda Youth Orchestra will mark their 40th anniversary with a celebration inspired by the Chinese diaspora in Europe; and a Song for Europe extravaganza delivered by the Greek School of St Nicholas, will see children singing national pop songs in their heritage language including Polish, Romanian, Spanish, French, Greek and Irish.

Other highlights include: 

  • A Eurovision Hip Hop Block Party include a breakdancing competition, DJs, beatboxers, and graffiti art.
  • Hairdressing and nail art classes for young people inspired by Eurovision styles through the decades delivered by Brook Community Training Ltd.
  • Eurovision inspired music and movement workshops for care home residents delivered by Holistic Harmonies.
  • Music workshops and live performances at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. 

Eilish McGuinness, chief executive at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said:

“We’re incredibly excited to see all of these amazing ideas come to life and make Eurovision 2023 a party that won’t be forgotten!

“Eurovision has a long history of bringing communities from across the continent together and we’re delighted to be supporting this dazzling programme as part of 2023’s event in Liverpool, thanks to money raised by National Lottery players.

“It’s been fantastic to see the energy and enthusiasm of people and communities across the whole of the Liverpool City Region in coming up with the fantastic activities that EuroGrants will make possible. Liverpool is home to a wealth of heritage from many different cultures and beliefs and this collection of projects highlights and celebrates the city region’s diversity.”

Claire McColgan, director of Culture Liverpool said: “We were inundated with so many amazing ideas, making it really difficult for us to decide which projects to take forward. We never fail to be impressed by the enthusiasm and creativity of community groups and grassroots organisations in Liverpool City Region and once again they have outdone themselves.

“I think the successful projects reflect a good cross-section of the region. Ukraine is at the heart of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest so it was important to ensure their culture is represented but Liverpool is known the world over for being a cultural melting pot with centuries of immigration having shaped the culture and communities of the city and surrounding boroughs. The chosen projects highlight different cultures, religious beliefs, food and languages. There truly is something for everyone.

“Along with EuroLearn and EuroStreet, EuroGrant has been designed to ensure everybody in the region has a piece of the Eurovision pie. But that’s not all. We are still in the process of shortlisting successful school projects supported by Spirit of 2012 so watch this space.”

For more information head to the Visit Liverpool website.

One hundred reasons to love the Lakes

What’s the unique magic of the Lake District? That is the question that was posed to a group of eminent Lakes characters on the summit of one of its most iconic fells, Helm Crag.
Their answers, and the views of two-dozen guests from around the county, will be aired on Friday (April 14) in a special podcast. The 100th episode of Countrystride will be released, celebrating all that’s special about this beautiful corner of Britain.
The hosts, David Felton and Mark Richards, climbed Helm Crag to record the episode in the company of local climbing legend Bill Birkett; poet Harriet Fraser and photographer Rob Fraser; and former mountain rescuer Gordon Bambrough – who climbed Scafell Pike on his 90th birthday.
They also invited two-dozen people from around the county to contribute and asked them: ”What is the unique magic of Lakeland for you?” Each of them has picked an excerpt from a piece of writing, poetry or song that encapsulates that personal magic for them. Authors chosen include Alfred Wainwright, Beatrix Potter, Arthur Ransome, Nan Shepherd, Norman Nicholson and many more.
Countrystride – dedicated to the landscapes, people and heritage of Cumbria and the Lakes – has been winning audiences since 2020. It began three years ago when Felton and Richards set off from Wasdale Head to climb Scafell Pike. They planned to record a handful of podcasts to celebrate their love of Lakeland, but enthusiasm from listeners carried them on through Covid lockdowns until today. Now Countrystride broadcasts to more than 15,000 listeners a month all around the world.


Felton – also a writer and photographer – runs the Cumbrian business Inspired by Lakeland, publishers of, among others, Forty Farms, The Lake District in 101 Maps & Infographics and the Lake District Sticker Book. He has wandered the Lakeland fells since he could stand on two feet and in 2017 walked from Land’s End to John o’Groats.
Meanwhile, Richards,  strongly influenced by his mother’s roots in the Yorkshire Dales, has adored the hills and dales of northern England sicne his youth. He was encouraged to direct his passions for pen and ink drawing and walking into writing and illustrating walking guides from Alfred Wainwright, with whom he spent many weekends in the 1970s. The author of many guidebooks, including his seminal eight-volume Lakeland Fellranger series, he lives at the northern tip of the Pennines.
Together their podcasts have covered a diverse and eclectic range of subjects, from Dentdale and the Dales High Way to the Vikings, Cumbrian dialect, dry-stone walling, fell ponies, Cumbrian ghosts and Beatrix Potter. There have been walks and talks in the footsteps of Wainwright, as well as interviews with people who are helping to shape the future of the landscape.
They have talked to Cumbrian celebrities including fell-running legend Joss Naylor, writer and farmer James Rebanks, broadcaster Eric Robson and John Dunning, founder of Westmorland Motorway Services.
But they also chat with walkers they meet on their rambles, and following the 100th episode of Countrystride they are making plans to hold their first ever Countrystride Live event in October, featuring a range of walks, talks and music, at a venue in the South Lakes.
You can find out more about Countyrstride at www.countrystride.co.uk

Header image: Helm Crag by Mark Richards

Crime writer heads back to the Lakes

One of Britain’s top crime writers will be a guest at the Bowness on Windermere book club in April.

Martin Edwards has written many crime novels and short stories including several set in the Lake District. He’s a member of the Murder Squad collective of crime writers, and was a long-serving chair of the Crime Writers’ Association. He has won the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in UK crime writing. And in 2015 he was elected eighth President of the Detection Club; his predecessors include G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie.

Mr Edwards, who is also a solicitor, will give a talk on Wednesday April 19 at the book club at the Burn How Garden House Hotel. The speaker at the inaugural event last month was the romantic novelist Suzanne Snow.

Hotel proprietor Michael Robinson said: “We are thrilled that Martin Edwards has accepted our invitation. His books are very popular indeed, especially in the Lakes, and we look forward to an insight into the murderous mind of a top crime writer.”

In the Lake District mysteries, the central characters are DCI Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind. Set around Ambleside and Coniston, the books include The Cipher Garden, The Arsenic Labyrinth  and The Coffin Trail.

The book club will meet at the hotel on Wednesday April 19 at 7pm. It’s free, and there’s no requirement to read a particular book. “The first event was a great success,” said Michael. “We have a whole series of meetings planned and hope that they will attract a regular following among locals, as well as visitors.”

Martin Edwards also runs an online course in crime writing fiction:  https://craftingcrime.com/

More details: https://www.burnhow.co.uk/news/

Fell running women pioneers

By Eileen Jones

THERE’S a race called The Spine which runs  along the entire 268-mile Pennine Way. In January. It’s in winter, so most of the race is spent in the dark, while floods, ice, snow and absurdly strong winds  are all common. This year’s winner, ultra-marathon veteran Damien Hall, says: “Potentially fatal  hypothermia is a regular did-not-finish cause. Grown men cry. Bones get broken.  Some ‘Spiners’ have discovered trench foot isn’t just something that happened in France during World War I.”

But there was a bit of an outcry, a polite one but loud nevertheless, when it was declared that Damien had set a new record for the race this year.  In fact, his time of  three days, 12-hours, 36 minutes and 24 seconds, did beat the previous men’s record set by John Kelly. But the overall record remains that established by a woman, Jasmin Paris, in 2019: three days, 11hours, 12mins and 23 seconds.

Linda Lord

Yet just a generation ago, women were barred from taking part in in hill and fell races, or at least, the longer ones. Race organisers were still labouring under the viewpoint of Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the International Olympic Committee: “Allowing women in sports would harm their feminine charm and degrade the sport in which they participated.”

This myth of female frailty was an unproven medical belief that strenuous sport would damage a woman’s body and make her infertile, says running historian and writer Steve Chilton.  “It was even seriously considered by some, with extreme views, that women were born with a finite amount of energy and if they used it up on active sports, they would not have energy to give birth.”

So it’s entirely appropriate that Jasmin Paris, who actually has two children, and had given birth just 14 months before her record-breaking Spine run (during which she stopped to express milk for her baby)should write the foreword to Chilton’s latest book, Voices from the hills: Pioneering women fell and mountain runners(Sandstone Press). Building on his previous books, Chilton combines meticulous research with personal interviews to highlight those who paved the way for the gender quality we enjoy today, from the record breaking champions to those who played a quieter but equally important role behind the scenes.

Vanessa Peacock

Says Jasmin: “I’m immensely grateful to the women who paved the way for my generation to compete in fell races as equals with our male counterparts, free to run the same courses neck and neck, sharing the highs an lows, and ultimately the joy that time spent in the mountains brings.”

These are not high-profile, highly-sponsored athletes. Jasmin Paris works as a small animal vet specialising in Internal Medicine,  in the  teaching hospital at the University of Edinburgh, doing a mixture of  clinical and research work. Time again again through these chapters, we read of women who could only train on their days off, or after long days at work. Vanessa Peacock, a formidable runner in her time, and hero of mine when I joined Clayton le Moors Harriers, says that she didn’t want to get too involved with competing for the British championship. “Fitting in ten races was a big commitment and I wouldn’t always get the time off work (she was a radiographer) to race. Generally it was nine to five work, but we had on-call and late shifts sometimes.”

The same applies to the men on the fells, of course, but the difference, back then, was recognition. Kathleen Connochie, who was the first woman to try and enter the Ben Nevis race in 1955, trained in secret, and her plan was almost scuppered by bureaucracy. At the last minute she was allowed to run – but had to set off two minutes after the other runners. “I still have the ladies’ washbag I was given as a prize. It is a treasured possession,” she says.

As one who was once awarded a box of bath cubes for coming second lady (we were ladies back then) in a fell race, my most treasured possession is a rather beautiful ceramic teapot for finishing first in the Haworth Hobble with my running partner Judy Sharples. The winning men were awarded a sculpted boot; that was a rare instance of gender balance tipping our way, aesthetically. As Carol Campbell, another of the pioneers, explains: “In the early days it was all about equal opportunities. What gives men, the race organisers, the right to say that women are not able to to participate in these events. We were more than capable. It was the same in teaching PE. If girls could run 1.5 miles cross country in the winter, why were they only allowed to run 800m and not 1500m on the track?”

Carol was described as a runner’s girlfriend when she came second in the Welsh 1000m race, behind  Joan Glass, “the wife of Llanberis YH warden Dennis Glass. The wife/girlfriend tag is a form of downplaying or trivialising female performances,” says Chilton. And some 20 years after Kathleen Connochie’s run, Joan Glass was not allowed to take part in the official Ben Nevis race, but was the solo female setting off after the men. Another of the pioneers, Anne-Marie Grindley, the second woman to complete the Bob Graham Round, says that shorter races were organised alongside Lakeland classics “to pacify the women”. Though she notes that some race organisers “took the view that if you just put your initials on the entry form, they didn’t know if you were male or female.”

The first official women’s race under AAA laws was at  Pendle Hill in 1977, but the race report was notable for some casual sexism: “On the ascent, pretty 18-year-old Kathryn Binns began to establish a good lead”. Other women were leading the way in demanding entry to the longer races, among them Ros Evans and Pauline Stuart,  and Jean Lochhead who won the first Three Peaks race for women in 1979, and subsequently ran it several times “for fun”. She recalls: “One time, while crossing a deep bog between Pen-y-Gent and Whernside, I thought, I’ve not noticed that boulder there before, and leapt onto it, and my foot went through a dead sheep.” Female frailty?

Jean Lochhead

It was Veronique Marot, who went on to be a London marathon winner, who broke the rules and opened the floodgates when she entered the 23 mile Ennerdale horsehoe race unofficially in 1979. “It wasn’t a feminist, striking a blow for women, kind of action. I was more doing it because someone had to start the ball rolling. Even at Ennerdale in 1979 some female athletes wanted to stop me running the full course.” She’s not shown in the results for that race, of course, but reckons her time was about five hours.

Chilton’s book is full of facts and stories and memories, of heroic running and exceptional determination. But perhaps the most memorable line in the whole narrative comes from Ruth Pickvance (who won a set of heated hair curlers when she came first in the Wasdale fell race), who went on to be British champion and to run, and win, races all around the world. “It’s been fascinating to look back over a lifetime of running – most importantly, I always feel that if you lose the poetry in it all you’ve lost the sense and point. It’s a bit like life, really. Running and life…don’t lose the poetry.”

Voices from the Hills is published by Sandstone on April 20

Header image: Ruth Pickvance

Ascent of Helm Crag to mark centenary

An illustrious group of fellwalkers climbed Helm Crag near Grasmere for a very special event. The walking party was to record the 100th episode of the popular podcast Countrystride which features the landscape, history and heritage of Cumbria and the Lake District.

Pictured here are writer Harriet Fraser and photographer Rob Fraser of Somewhere-nowhere, the environmental art and research project; eminent climber and writer Bill Birkett; Countrystride presenters Mark Richards and Dave Felton; veteran hiker and former mountain rescuer Gordon Bambrough from Caldbeck who recently celebrated his 90th birthday by climbing Scafell Pike; and Elaine Nelson from Sam Read’s bookshop in Grasmere. The 100th episode is due to be released next month.

Countrystride has been winning audiences since  2020 with tales from the fells, from the people of Cumbria, and stories from the past and present.  They have talked to Cumbrian celebrities including the fell-running legend Joss Naylor, writer and farmer James Rebanks, broadcaster Eric Robson who lives in Wasdale and was for many years chair of BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time; and John Dunning, founder of Westmorland Motorway Services. But they also chat with walkers they meet on their hikes and rambles, and the 100th episode of Countrystride will invite listeners to say what makes the Lake District special for them. And they are planning to hold their first ever Countrystride Live event in October, featuring a range of walks, talks and music, at a venue in the South Lakes.

Header image of Helm Crag by Mark Richards

One hundred broadcasts from Lakes team

A popular podcast celebrating the life of the Lake District is about to reach its 100th edition.

Countrystride has been winning audiences since  2020 with tales from the fells, from the people of Cumbria, and stories from the past and present.

Three years ago Dave Felton and Mark Richards set off from Wasdale Head to climb Scafell Pike. They planned to record a handful of podcasts to celebrate their love of Lakeland, but enthusiasm from listeners carried them on. Now Countrystride will reach its 100th episode, broadcasting to more than 10,000 a month all over the world.

Felton and Richards

The  Podcast celebrates the landscapes, culture, heritage and people of Cumbria and the Lake District through a blend of immersive field recordings, inspiring commentary and interviews, all shaped into a single walk presented by author, illustrator and ex-farmer Richards and produced by  Felton, who is also a book publisher.

Felton is also a photographer, writer and broadcaster who runs the Cumbrian business Inspired by Lakeland, publishers of, among others, Forty Farms, The Lake District in 101 Maps & Infographics and the Lake District Sticker Book. He has wandered the Lakeland fells since he could stand on two feet and in 2017 walked from Land’s End to John o’Groats.

Richards was strongly influenced by his mother’s roots in the Yorkshire Dales, and from his youth he’s adored the hills and dales of northern England. He was encouraged to direct his passions for pen and ink drawing and walking into writing and illustrating walking guides from Alfred Wainwright, with whom he spent many weekends in the 1970s. The author of many guidebooks, including his seminal eight-volume Lakeland Fellranger series, he lives at the northern tip of the Pennines.

Together their podcasts have covered a diverse and eclectic range of subjects, from Dentdale and the Dales High Way to the Vikings, Cumbrian dialect, dry-stone walling, fell ponies, Cumbrian ghosts, and of course Beatrix Potter. There have been walks and talks in the footsteps of Wainwright, of course, and interviews with people who are helping to shape the future of the landscape.

Mark with Joss Naylor and photographer Vivienne Crow

They have talked to Cumbrian celebrities including the fell-running legend Joss Naylor, writer and farmer James Rebanks, broadcaster Eric Robson who lives in Wasdale and was for many years chair of BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time; and John Dunning, founder of Westmorland Motorway Services.

But they also chat with walkers they meet on their hikes and rambles, and the 100th episode of Countrystride invites listeners to say what makes the Lake District special for them. And they are planning to hold their first ever Countrystride Live event in October, featuring a range of walks, talks and music, at a venue in the South Lakes.

The 100th episode will be recorded on the ascent of Helm Crag near Grasmere, with writer and climber Bill Birkett, and retired mountain rescuer Gordon Bambrough who recently celebrated his 90th birthday by climbing Scafell Pike.

Countrystride also publish a range of guidebooks featuring the podcast’s  mix of Lakeland walks alongside heritage, culture and landscape commentary.

You can listen to the podcasts here: https://www.countrystride.co.uk/

Header image of Wastwater by Mark Richards

Art competition for Lake District schools

CHILDREN in South Lakes schools are being given the chance to paint or draw their way into literary history with a new competition.

The Burn How Garden House Hotel at Bowness is asking youngsters to paint or draw their own vision of the characters from the children’s classic Swallows and Amazons, still a favourite more than 90 years after it was published.

The story, along with several sequels, was set in and around the Windermere area by the author Arthur Ransome and features two families of children who are allowed to sail to an island in a lake and camp there.

The Burn How team are organising a special weekend for fans of Swallows and Amazons, with tours of locations thought to be the settings in the book. Guests will also be taken to the Old Laundry Theatre at Bowness where a new stage production of another of Ransome’s books, Winter Holiday, is being performed.

“We know that every generation brings new fans to read the stories that Ransome set here in the Lakes,” said hotel proprietor Michael Robinson. “Here where we are based, Bowness is referred to as Rio by the characters in the books, and when a film version was made, locations here and at Coniston were chosen.

Bowness Bay

“So we decided to see how today’s children picture the Swallows and the Amazons in their adventures on the lake and on the island.”

Paintings or drawings  should be delivered to the hotel no later than Friday March 3, when guests will arrive for the special weekend. Each should be clearly marked with the child’s name, age and school, and a prize – a giant Easter egg and a book token – will be awarded to the best one. The competition is open to all pupils in South Lakes primary and secondary schools.

Meanwhile, a marathon reading of another Ransome book featuring the Swallows and the Amazons, Swallowdale, will take place at the Windermere Jetty Museum on the weekend of June 24/25.

Further information: https://www.burnhow.co.uk/offers/swallows-and-amazons-weekend/

For more information about the contest, please call Nicolle Evans at the Burn How Hotel, 015394 46226

The real meaning of escape to the Lakes

Getting back in touch with nature is the theme of a new series of well-being breaks at a luxury Lake District hotel.

The Burn How Garden House Hotel at Bowness is offering a complete escape from routine and stress with the short holidays which can include forest bathing and lake swimming.

Guests can also choose to try Pilates or yoga, have a massage, hire a bike, take a guided walk …or just sit in the garden and do nothing for a few days.

“When visitors come for just a few days, they don’t always have the time to find out what’s available if they want to be pampered or take some exercise,” says proprietor Michael Robinson.

“We have wonderful hills to walk in, and we are the nearest independent hotel to Bowness pier, from where you can explore Windermere, England’s largest lake, by boat. But today, guests want something more, and something different, and that’s where we can help.”

The hotel is set in beautiful grounds, surrounded by mature trees, and most of the accommodation is in garden rooms, each with its own outside space or balcony. In the main building is the breakfast dining room, a well stocked bar, and comfortable lounge areas where guests are offered complimentary tea or coffee and cake every afternoon.

It’s also just a few minutes’ walk into the centre of Bowness where there are now more than 50 restaurants to choose from for dinner.

The team works with experts who can take visitors on local walks, or go swimming in Windermere or Rydal, or hire a bike to explore the bridleways and quieter roads. Pilates and yoga teachers will arrange sessions on request, and there’s the chance to book a luxury massage in the comfort of your own suite with therapist Penny Irvine.*

“The Lake District is a very special place, and here at the Burn How  our guests enjoy a very special experience,” says Michael. “It’s a unique opportunity to enjoy peace and tranquility in the heart of this tourist hot-spot in the most beautiful corner of England, close to the landing stage for cruises on the lake, close to cafes and bars, and the town’s individual shops, but set apart in its own lovely, private grounds and our prize-winning gardens.”

*Penny Irvine holds a VTCT  qualification in Swedish Massage and Sports Massage Therapy, and also offers No Hands Massage.   She is fully insured with the FHT (Federation  of Holistic Therapists. Treatments Include:

  • Swedish Massage: Back Neck and shoulders/full body massage
  • Deep Tissue Massage – aimed at the deeper tissues of the muscles
  • Aromatherapy Massage – blending essential oils to suit the client
  • Sports Massage Therapy

For more information: https://www.burnhow.co.uk/