Wainwright Walks : Feedback
AT 75, I thought I had left writing fan letters far behind but ‘Wainwright Walks’ demands that I add my praise to all the others’.
 I spent my boyhood in Ulverston, a short distance from the Lakes, and had the good fortune to be taught chemistry by an enthusiastic fell-walker who started a fell-walking club in our school. Lousy at sport and terrified of an approaching cricket ball, I discovered that I had the stamina to fell walk and, above all, had the opportunity to discover the wonder and beauty of this gem of what was once described as “nowt but hills and stanes and watter”. As well as the school trips, a few of my friends and I went on regular Lakeland Youth Hostelling holidays throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The programmes were a delight from start to finish: your enthusiasm was a joy and your producer deserves great praise for keeping the music to a minimum and allowing the camera and your well worded commentaries (and A.W.’s) to tell their owns stories. You were really talking to us and sharing your pleasure.
Haystacks had me in tears; the beauty of the landscape and the realisation that I would never again stride out up those hills as you were doing, induced a heady mixture of joy and sadness.
Having got out all of my old worn maps, I recalled the maddest walk I ever did. I was staying with another friend in a cottage at Nether Wasdale and three of us decided that we would climb the three 3,000 footers at night, aiming to watch the sunrise from the summit of Helvellyn. We cycled to Wasdale Head and left our bikes in the little churchyard (no fear of theft in those days). In moonlight we climbed Gable, skirted round to Scafell Pike and dropped right down the long trek to Thirlmere and from there, climbed Helvellyn. The sun was well up by the time we reached the peak. We then dropped down to Thirlmere again, caught a bus to Keswick and another to Borrowdale and then walked back over Stockley Bridge and Styhead Pass into Wasdale Head and cycled back to Nether Wasdale. I reckon that's another programme for you to make.
Thank you for four wonderful programmes. I do hope there will be more.
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George Hammerschmidt, Northampton
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