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The Missing Link from David Pitt |
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Written by Peter Burgess
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Thursday, 25 June 2009 |
 What could be the link between these two pictures? The right hand picture, for those not familiar with it, is of the 13th century Round Table hanging on a wall of the Great Hall of Winchester Castle - the other one is of an imminent storm in the North of England at the end of the 20th century. The link is Alfred Wainwright – but how did it arise?
The Round Table at Winchester is the emblem of the Round Table movement of which I was a member in Llandudno during the 1970’s. They have a rule that even the OFC would not dare to introduce – compulsory departure from its ranks when one attains the venerable age of forty!! To celebrate this I conceived the idea of what I called a ‘final fellowship fling’. I would traverse the country being hosted by fellow Round Tablers and follow the route of AW’s Coast to Coast Path
In the mid-1970s, whilst browsing in the bookshop in Grasmere, my eye had been taken by his Coast to Coast pictorial guide. This had then been set firmly on one side soon after its purchase as being totally out of the question on fitness (or, more accurately, lack of fitness) grounds alone – golf then being my only regular exercise(!).
I went into modest training in Snowdonia and got reasonably fit. Nevertheless I finished the walk with blisters on top of blisters and completely exhausted, vowing never to entertain anything like it again. But when the blisters had healed and the weariness had departed I decided that, overall, I had enjoyed it. And so started a love affair with long distance footpath walking that has continued to this day.
Fast forward 20 years to 1998 after walks along the Southern Upland Way and Pembrokeshire Coast Path amongst others and Heather and I are debating “What next”? Time to implement an idea we had had 7 years earlier and plan our own walk based on AW’s Pennine Journey. The rest, as it is said, is history and next year will see a pictorial guide of that walk - amended after our 1998 experiences and following suggestions from helpers with local knowledge. It will be illustrated with 36 drawings by Colin Bywater (18 of which have specific AW connections) and will have very comprehensive route maps done by Ron Scholes - so there should be no lost sheep!
The second picture is one taken on our way back to Settle after we had enjoyed what for AW had been the objective of his walk – Hadrian’s Wall. Heather and I viewed the onset of the storm with some trepidation but to the intrepid members of the OFC it would surely have been a mere bagatelle.
Circular walk, Round Table and a sunlit circular cattle feeder – all linked by AW.
David Pitt |
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"If you dear readers should get a bit of grit in your boots as you are crossing Hay Stacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me." A Wainwright 1907-1991
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