Online Fellwalking Club - Which is Your Favourite Mountain Literature?

Which is Your Favourite Mountain Literature?

Written by Peter Burgess

A. Harry Griffin

Quite frankly I didn’t realise how many books I had covering Lakeland (and other mountains – does Everest need mentioning?). I’ve got my Wainwrights of course, one of my favourites being a little publication called ‘Old Roads of Eastern Lakeland’. If you can get hold a copy of that it’s a lovely addition to the book shelf. I have rather a lot of AW books (about 70 or so) and some of course have become old ‘friends’. Looking at my early editions with their rounded corners but which I still use on the fells once belonged to the R.C. Bishop of Cumbria. For the coffee table you can’t beat a publication like ‘Complete Lakeland Fells’ by Bill Birkett and of course any of the Michael Joseph Wainwright publications – Wainwright in Scotland being a particular favourite. Of course there are other books like ‘The Big Walks’ by Ken Wilson and Richard Gilbert (a book I adored as a teenager looking for far off mountain adventure); ‘The Rough Guide to The Lake District’; ‘The High Fells of Lakeland’ by Walt Unsworth; I have to mention the ‘fellranger’ guides by Mark Richards; ‘Walking in the Lake District’, H. Symonds; ‘Highland Days’ by Tom Weir; and of course many more. One I shall mention separately is ‘Scrambles in the Lake District’ by R. B. Evans which has taken me to places I would never perhaps have seen. The guide has now been divided into two issues by Cicerone focusing on North and South. To be honest, dare I tread on blasphemy, these guides have served me more than the AW Pictorial Guides and I think if I was to go on a desert island they might well come with me – great days, challenges and memories.

M. Lefebure

Anyway, I could ramble on for a long time, but it got me thinking about what books members of the OFC would like to take to their desert island? The words of Eric Robson keep reeling in my mind, “That any fool can write a guide” but there are some fantastic books out there about mountains and not just those written by our dear friend AW. To me, a guide doesn’t have to recreate the place but build a sense of intimacy and sense of place. I guess that’s the geographer coming out in me. Sometimes AW lacks some of the words that might weave a more social history and to me that’s where his writings are just part of the greater picture. Some books are often better read after having visited the places and from an historical perspective others provide a window on a different era e.g. Martineau’s Guide to The Lakes. There are some great books out there – which is your favourite? I’d love to know,

Ad altiora!

Peter Burgess

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