THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Saturday, January 11, 2003

 

Lakeland fell walkers lose Wainwright's guiding hand

 

by Neil Tweedie

 

THE works of the late Alfred Wainwright, whose guides to the Lakes have informed genorations of fell walkers, are being taken out of print because of declining sales.  The publisher Michael Joseph, part of the Penguin group, said it could no longer justify maintaining the Wainwnght titles on its list The author's family is looking for a new publisher to revitalise sales.  The announcement that Wainwright will disappear from the shelves will dismay admirers of his work During his life he wrote 55 books, of which his seven pictorial guides to the Lakeland fells are the most well known Only a handful are currently in print.  Eric Robson, the presenter of Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time and the chairman of the Alfred Wainwright Society, said yesterday that he was confident a specialist publisher willing to take on the titles would be found.

 

"Michael Joseph obviously feels the titles no longer fit its profile, but the books are too popular and too good to disappear They are not just guide books, but works of philosophy, explaining among other things Man's impact on the landscape.

 

"There are scores of glossy guides to the Lakes but not one has come close to Wain wnght in terms of beauty, simplicity and elegance of presentation ".  Wainwright was born into poverty in the Lancashire town of Blackburn in 1907.  The son of a stonemason, he left school when he was 13.  At the age of 23 he went on holiday to the Lake District It was love at first sight In his book Fellwanderer Wainwright described his first visit there "I was utterly enslaved by all I saw," he said "Here were no huge factories, but mountains, no stagnant canals, but sparkling crystal-clear rivers, no cinder paths, but beckoning tracks that clamber through bracken and heather to the silent fastnesses of the hills That week changed my life ".

 

He qualified as an accountant and moved to Kendal, where he took the job of borough treasurer He began writing the guides as an aide memoire, but it was then suggested that he publish them.  They were first published by the local Westmorland Gazette   and   proved immensely popular In 1985 Wainwright books sold more than a million copies.  The guides were distinctive Wainwright always feared that printers would misspell words and so his handwriting was reproduced directly on to the page.  He spent 13 years compiling his original series of guides, tramping the fells m all weathers at weekends, with raincoat, map and camera Most of his fine, distinctive drawings were taken from his photographs.  Wainwright, who died in 1991, also devised the Coast to Coast Walk, which starts at St Bees in Cumbria and ends at Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire.