Paddy on approaching hills
Today has been my father's 107th birthday, and some of you will remember that I've posted some of his writing in previous years.
This time, I've settled on a piece from the Manchester Guardian dated 12 Aug. '29, so he would have been 25 when he wrote it. It's about getting into the right frame of mind, as well as the necessary condition of fitness, for spending time among the mountains. I confess I have never thought of walking from Ulverston to Coniston - Blawith to Coniston is more than enough for me - but even on the lazier forms of approach my heart lifts as I see the Old Man for the first time after months away.
APPROACH TO HILLS
Those who have written up the joys of a walking or of a climbing holiday have always thought it worth while to advise some kind of physical preparation for the event. Gymnastic exercises, fierce little scrambles on garden walls or old quarry pits, runs before breakfast round the Serpentine have all come in for their commendation. And one hardened campaigner, a champion of the fells, said to me: "Go out for a walk the two or three Sundays before your holiday. Go really hard, about fifty or sixty miles. Your feet may blister, but never mind. Cut the blisters, put some sticking-plaster over them, and go on walking."
These or similar precautions may be necessary. Nothing is more miserable than to sweat up Brown Tongue just behind a man in much better condition than oneself or to feel the knees quivering unreasonably when the foot is lodged on a perfectly good three-inch ledge.
The curious thing is that none of these mentors advises, or seems to think necessary, any kind of spiritual preparation for a week among mountains. We visit hill country - at least we usually flatter ourselves that we do - as much for the mental tonic and inspiration which it gives us as for the gross delight of sweating off the year's accumulation of fat, or the feline joy of reaching the material top of something. And yet, though we should spend a week or two putting our muscles into trim, we think nothing, as far as our immortal souls are concerned, of stepping straight from the desk into the arcane bosom of the hills as fast as the railway company or a motor-car will carry us. We carry our diurnal imperfections with us. We act as outrageously as a man who has not washed for weeks stepping into a public swimming bath.
Nor is this spiritual preparation to be achieved by the reading of guidebooks or even - a more meritorious thing - of maps. For to read these is in itself a pleasurable thing whether one is going on a holiday or not.
The way to make oneself ready for hill country is to walk into it from outside it or from the fringe of it.
It is the obvious temptation to follow the quickest line of transport to railhead or to roadhead; to travel all afternoon, for instance, along the coast to Seascale, take a motor up to Wasdale, arrive after dark, sleep, and wake up next morning with trailing clouds of Oxford Street about your head and blearing the eyes with which you salute the Gable. It will not do.
But to walk into your district; to leave the train or the high road at the foothills, or just the other side of a watershed, and either to pursue the valley stream toward its source among the mountains or to climb over the low ridge which bars you from them; to watch the great hills rise up above the lower slopes, becoming as you approach them loftier and yet more amenable, unfolding the beauty of detail without losing that of outline - that is the way to come into a district and to shed behind you as you come all the cares and commonplaces to be rid of which you are making your pilgrimage. Then you are ready for the hills; not vulgarly affable, but friendly and reverent.
I remember a long afternoon spent in walking up from Ulverston to Coniston. It was not altogether delightful. It was hot. The roads were very hard, and Ulverston seems to be curiously lacking in field paths. Yet there was a point where the Old Man suddenly came into view, between two trees, as I came round a corner - I might have spent a year in seeking it. Perhaps it wasn't, intrinsically, such a remarkable view; what made it so memorable was the moment at which it came, the benediction on the approaching pilgrim, like a host who sees me coming and opens his door courteously before I am near enough to be knocking at it.
I remember on another occasion walking in the rain through the barren and rather uneventful range called the Shehy Mountain, which cuts off the Kerry peninsula from the rest of Ireland. We went all day without seeing anyone except a funeral party in very good spirits, and when we came to Glengariff - which is too like a picture postcard, but outrageously attractive, with fuchsias growing high and wild in the hedges - then the long, wet range behind us gave us the sensation of having come into a new world. We could begin.
I do not think that the same tactics should be followed in leaving hill country. To walk deliberately out of it is a cold-blooded, desperate thing; better to be whirled away as swiftly as possible on inanimate wheels, not looking back but bearing mountain images in one's head as long as they will stay there. But it is a hopeless business. The old woman who tried to carry sunlight into her house in a covered sieve had no more unprofitable a task. Let the descent be quick and merciful. We shall slip easily enough into the old ruts again.
P. J. M.
And as a bonus, I have found the six-year-old Paddy's letter to Queen Alexandra expressing his condolences on the death of Edward VII. I do hope this is merely the rough draft, and that a neatly copied version was sent to the widowed queen. I am not entirely sure what he was trying to convey in the middle section, but I am sure the lady would have done well to take his final advice to heart.
QEEN ALIGSANDRU BEING THE LAST QEEN. MADUM DO YOU NO THAT. SO IF YOU NIT DO NOT KRY YOOU BE SENSIBL OVU IT.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
This time, I've settled on a piece from the Manchester Guardian dated 12 Aug. '29, so he would have been 25 when he wrote it. It's about getting into the right frame of mind, as well as the necessary condition of fitness, for spending time among the mountains. I confess I have never thought of walking from Ulverston to Coniston - Blawith to Coniston is more than enough for me - but even on the lazier forms of approach my heart lifts as I see the Old Man for the first time after months away.
APPROACH TO HILLS
Those who have written up the joys of a walking or of a climbing holiday have always thought it worth while to advise some kind of physical preparation for the event. Gymnastic exercises, fierce little scrambles on garden walls or old quarry pits, runs before breakfast round the Serpentine have all come in for their commendation. And one hardened campaigner, a champion of the fells, said to me: "Go out for a walk the two or three Sundays before your holiday. Go really hard, about fifty or sixty miles. Your feet may blister, but never mind. Cut the blisters, put some sticking-plaster over them, and go on walking."
These or similar precautions may be necessary. Nothing is more miserable than to sweat up Brown Tongue just behind a man in much better condition than oneself or to feel the knees quivering unreasonably when the foot is lodged on a perfectly good three-inch ledge.
The curious thing is that none of these mentors advises, or seems to think necessary, any kind of spiritual preparation for a week among mountains. We visit hill country - at least we usually flatter ourselves that we do - as much for the mental tonic and inspiration which it gives us as for the gross delight of sweating off the year's accumulation of fat, or the feline joy of reaching the material top of something. And yet, though we should spend a week or two putting our muscles into trim, we think nothing, as far as our immortal souls are concerned, of stepping straight from the desk into the arcane bosom of the hills as fast as the railway company or a motor-car will carry us. We carry our diurnal imperfections with us. We act as outrageously as a man who has not washed for weeks stepping into a public swimming bath.
Nor is this spiritual preparation to be achieved by the reading of guidebooks or even - a more meritorious thing - of maps. For to read these is in itself a pleasurable thing whether one is going on a holiday or not.
The way to make oneself ready for hill country is to walk into it from outside it or from the fringe of it.
It is the obvious temptation to follow the quickest line of transport to railhead or to roadhead; to travel all afternoon, for instance, along the coast to Seascale, take a motor up to Wasdale, arrive after dark, sleep, and wake up next morning with trailing clouds of Oxford Street about your head and blearing the eyes with which you salute the Gable. It will not do.
But to walk into your district; to leave the train or the high road at the foothills, or just the other side of a watershed, and either to pursue the valley stream toward its source among the mountains or to climb over the low ridge which bars you from them; to watch the great hills rise up above the lower slopes, becoming as you approach them loftier and yet more amenable, unfolding the beauty of detail without losing that of outline - that is the way to come into a district and to shed behind you as you come all the cares and commonplaces to be rid of which you are making your pilgrimage. Then you are ready for the hills; not vulgarly affable, but friendly and reverent.
I remember a long afternoon spent in walking up from Ulverston to Coniston. It was not altogether delightful. It was hot. The roads were very hard, and Ulverston seems to be curiously lacking in field paths. Yet there was a point where the Old Man suddenly came into view, between two trees, as I came round a corner - I might have spent a year in seeking it. Perhaps it wasn't, intrinsically, such a remarkable view; what made it so memorable was the moment at which it came, the benediction on the approaching pilgrim, like a host who sees me coming and opens his door courteously before I am near enough to be knocking at it.
I remember on another occasion walking in the rain through the barren and rather uneventful range called the Shehy Mountain, which cuts off the Kerry peninsula from the rest of Ireland. We went all day without seeing anyone except a funeral party in very good spirits, and when we came to Glengariff - which is too like a picture postcard, but outrageously attractive, with fuchsias growing high and wild in the hedges - then the long, wet range behind us gave us the sensation of having come into a new world. We could begin.
I do not think that the same tactics should be followed in leaving hill country. To walk deliberately out of it is a cold-blooded, desperate thing; better to be whirled away as swiftly as possible on inanimate wheels, not looking back but bearing mountain images in one's head as long as they will stay there. But it is a hopeless business. The old woman who tried to carry sunlight into her house in a covered sieve had no more unprofitable a task. Let the descent be quick and merciful. We shall slip easily enough into the old ruts again.
P. J. M.
And as a bonus, I have found the six-year-old Paddy's letter to Queen Alexandra expressing his condolences on the death of Edward VII. I do hope this is merely the rough draft, and that a neatly copied version was sent to the widowed queen. I am not entirely sure what he was trying to convey in the middle section, but I am sure the lady would have done well to take his final advice to heart.
QEEN ALIGSANDRU BEING THE LAST QEEN. MADUM DO YOU NO THAT. SO IF YOU NIT DO NOT KRY YOOU BE SENSIBL OVU IT.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.