Festive Days

Loch Katrine

Christmas and the festive season were looming in December and I had mixed feelings. Aileen always loved Christmas and took great joy in preparing meals, decorating the house, buying presents for loved ones and organising visits from friends and family. I loved being part of this but also saw it as a time to forget work and get out into the hills for a couple of days. This year I was going to my son's new house for Christmas Day with the family. It was dull and wet but I bubbled through, the champagne probably helped. Gregor and Emily announced their engagement and we celebrated with some of her family.

Boxing Day was winter at its best and we had a long walk along the shore of Loch Katrine, the glorious Victorian construct to provide Glasgow with drinking water and the rest of the world with the product of innovative engineering and a model for municipal well-being. 

After two more dull wet days, there was a brief flash of sunshine at the end of the week. I took the opportunity to have a long walk over Lime Craig and a run down along the forest trails. The next day brought a steady snowfall,  I was on my own drifting towards Hogmanay. I had no plans and contented myself with a walk around my old running routes along the River Forth and into Easter Park. I had intended to run 8km but with the temperature at -4°C, it was too cold to keep going for long. It prompted me to resolve to get back into some running in the New Year.

Lime Craig

Snowfall

River Forth at Braeval

Old running route

Easter Park

 

That was the Year that was

2023 is over, let it go, as Millicent Martin used to sing. I would have to describe it as my annus horribilis. The most significant event in this year, or any other year, was the loss of Aileen on January 13. a few months after being diagnosed with Type 4 cancer. She had been stoic to the very end. For the family, it was heartbreaking to see her daily decline and eventual admission to the hospice when her medication and functions could no longer be supported at home. We greatly appreciated the kindness from the wider family, friends and colleagues and the funeral reminded us of the selfless devotion that she had shown to them all. So many people highlighted her sense of humour and her unassuming knowledge of so many issues that she dispensed with a modesty that defined her personality. 

The early part of the year was taken up closing her accounts and dealing with companies and financial institutions that seemed determined to make logging off a perpetual exercise in beating their logarithms. It was easier in the analogue days when phone calls and visits to local branch offices were possible. The honourable exceptions to this were the Council, Nationwide Building Society and, surprisingly, the Department of Works and Pensions.

As the year progressed, I tried to re-enter the wider world that I had abandoned whilst visiting and caring for Aileen over the previous 20 weeks. It was not a happy return. Apart from the yawning rise in the cost of living, my energy provider increased my bills because I had the heating on full and there was a constant stream of family visitors during Aileen's illness. They wouldn't take this into account so I switched and saved £700. I soon discovered that the UK was in meltdown and the world was out of order. 

The full impact of Brexit and the disastrous management of the Covid pandemic confirmed that the UK government was corrupt, self-absorbed and remorseless. It was incapable of managing the NHS, transport, public services, the economy, migration, housing, water companies, and the environment. It showed no inclination to take any remedial actions to prevent climate change. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has imploded. It is evident that not only have the NHS, Education and Calmac Ferries collapsed but also local public services have been strangled. The SNP government has sought to stave off its dire performance blaming Westminster whilst contradicting the premise of devolution by centralising many services and obfuscating the poor performance of the services that it is now responsible for. We know that the UK government is broken, but that's no excuse for the Scottish Government to emulate Westminster.

On the worldwide stage, we had Putin continue his brutal assault on Ukraine, fired on by the declining support from the USA and Europe, the neutrality of China and the Brick countries and the inability of the UN to take stronger action without the backing of the security council that includes vetos from Russia and China. The Israeli - Gaza conflict exploded after the Hamas incursion killing 1200 people but the devastating response by Israel, killing over 20,000 Palestinians and reducing Gaza to rubble, exceeds any definition of a humanitarian defence. It has undermined international support for Israel in the long term as well as pushing the world nearer to a wider Middle East conflict. Elsewhere the conflicts in Yemen and Sudan continue, many African countries have given up on democracy, Argentina has elected a crazy populist as President and Donald Trump is still standing.

Even more important than all of these threats to humanity is the rolling danger of climate change that can be measured by 2023 having the fastest-ever increase in temperature and the Antarctic losing 1 million km2 of sea ice, the size of France and Germany combined. The floods, droughts, and fires with resultant famine, migration and conflict across the world are confirmation of the catastrophe ahead. Rishi Sunak confirmed his disinterest by giving the green light to further coal and oil extraction, refusing to provide support for insulation or funding for new green initiatives and having a carbon footprint that exceeds any rational justification. COP 28 in Dubai was an exercise in greenwashing when the oil-producing countries first refused and then recused an agreement for the phasing out of carbon fuels. 2023 is probably the most disastrous year for the world since 1939. 

I have kept my peace by thinking of Aileen.

Wet Christmas in Glasgow

Wet Christmas

I made a rare sortie into Glasgow for a Christmas lunch with old work colleagues. It was wet, wet, wet but the streets were buzzing in a way that I had not seen since the pre-Covid era. Tills were ringing, Apple Pay was buzzing and the pedestrianised areas were festooned with Deliveroo electric bikes creating more mayhem than Imelda May. The back streets were acting as emergency urinals. The meal in the Merchant City was surprisingly good and the patter even better as half a dozen retired denizens of past Glasgow glory days regaled each other with tales that had grown legs. 

We had finished by 4 p.m. so I took the opportunity to buy some presents and saunter around the streets that were alive with revellers on their way to after-work parties. Do they know it's Christmas? You bet. The streets were humming with Wham and Kirsty McColl. Climate Change means Bing Crosby is no longer crooning White Christmas as umbrellas have replaced gloves and hats. It was a feelgood couple of hours before I had to catch the electric bus home. The journey home allowed me to reflect on my time in Glasgow.

Christmas has changed over the years. At my first Christmas in Glasgow in 1973, we were allowed to leave work at 2:30 p.m. after a Christmas lunch in a local pub. After spending a couple of hours doing all my Christmas shopping in Sauchiehall Street, I drove down the old A74 to Lancashire in my ageing Morris Minor for Christmas Day at my parent's house. I drove back to Glasgow late on Christmas Day. Boxing Day was not a public holiday in those days. Christmas was not so much a festive season, more a day trip back then. 

Glasgow was my home and place of work for 18 years, during which time I witnessed its dramatic decline and depopulation in the early 1970s and was involved in the regeneration from the mid-1970s through the 1980s. A revival had occurred as Housing Associations refurbished the tenements, investment in transport and public services flourished and the city centre was revitalised with commercial, cultural and event venues together with housing investment. It attracted the Garden Festival and became the Europen City of Culture in 1990. Education facilities improved from schools to Colleges and Universities and new businesses and community involvement gathered pace. Since the emergence of the Scottish Parliament, it has become a poor relation to Edinburgh, which has soaked up an ever-increasing share of Scotland's public and private investment. Glasgow's renaissance appears to have lost its momentum, it's maybe why the regeneration of Dr Who from the Tardis in Buchanan Street emerged as a Bear, not a Bull.

It has hosted events like the Commonwealth Games in 2014, the European Cycling Championships in 2018, COP 26 in 2021 and most recently the World Cycling Championships. They have largely succeeded because the people of Glasgow love a party and always provide a warm welcome to competitors and fans. On the other hand, the city has suffered from a decade or more of collapsing public services as government grants have been reduced, council tax frozen and its major new hospital, the Queen Elizabeth has staggered from crisis to crisis, a hospital too big to succeed despite its enormous cost. The city centre has lost many of its retail outlets as the car-based shopping centres at Braehead, Silverburn, Clyde, The Forge and Fort do not have the extortionate parking charges of the city centre and are blessed with public toilets and pedestrianised malls. 

Glasgow has allowed its public domain to deteriorate as roads and pavements become dangerous and many of its buildings fall into disrepair. Recycling and cleansing have never been a strong suit and the streets are littered with overflowing wheelie bins. The city is held together by the vitality and humour of its people as its fabric rots. In the past year, even public transport has become more of a lottery offering. 

It irks me that the liveliest of cities has suffered in this way. The brief encounter on a wet Christmas evening gave me some confidence that the underlying spirit of Glaswegians will prevail. The Scottish Government and the City Fathers must grapple with the fundamental problem and give wings to municipal enterprise and innovation that is essential to provide succour for its people and businesses to restore justice and pride to the dear green place.

Glasgow's version of a regenerated Dr Who 

Going Home for Christmas

The Hypocrisy of Rwanda

A £290m handshake

It is hard to believe that even this most pig-headed government persists with the Rwanda Agreement. The fact that the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office has been called to explain the recklessness and escalating cost of the operation to the Accounts Committee suggests that the game's a bogey. 

If expulsion to Rwanda is a deterrent to asylum seekers making boat crossings then it implies that the fear of being sent to Rwanda is greater than a life-threatening crossing of the channel. However, the government intends to declare Rwanda a safe country so, ipso facto, it will no longer be a deterrent. The UK government has spent the last few years figuring out how to square the circle on many issues. It has failed miserably on almost all of them. Just examine the Tory political slogans in recent General Elections and the EU Referendum.

2015 Strong Leadership, A Clear Economic Plan, A Brighter and More Secure Future

2016  Let's Take Back Control

2017 Forward Together, Strong and Stable

2019 Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential

They have been pointless, the only soundbite that has a ring of truth is from the other 2019 Conservative General Election playbook: Britain Deserves Better.

So why have the government committed to spending £290m to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda? 'Stop the Boats' is yet another dysfunctional soundbite looking for a realistic solution. Certainly not the Rwanda Agreement which is only to provide 100 places initially. Really, that's a cost of £2.9m per person and then there are the annual living costs to pay! 47,000 asylum seekers were living in hotels in March 2023, and the agreement would take 0.021% of them. Is the Rwanda Agreement sheer incompetence, crass stupidity or misplaced populist propaganda? Even the good citizens of Petersfield, one of England's strongest Tory voting constituencies, could only muster one person in the sizeable audience on Question Time to support the policy. He explained his reasoning as "nothing else seems to have worked". He could have been describing the last 13 years of government policy promises. 

Rishi Sunak gave an impromptu defence of his policy on Thursday following the resignation of his Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrik. He finished every sentence with the word 'right' as if that settled the argument but in truth a filler word from a filler PM. He must know that his time is up, there is hardly time to deport any asylum seekers to Rwanda before the next election. And Keir Starmer is more likely to go there as an Arsenal supporter than to implement the scheme. Rather than funding injustice for asylum seekers surely it would be better to allocate the £290m for the injustice to families of the 26,800 people who were given contaminated blood transfusions and are still waiting for compensation. Put that question to a focus group.

Gullipen in the moonshine

Loch Venachar and Ben Ledi

29 November 2023

I had a meeting in the morning so could not take advantage of the glorious frosty but sunny morning for my daily exercise. With my car going in for its annual service and MoT the next morning I would be carless for a day or two so unable to get to the hills. By late afternoon I was itching to get out so headed for Ben Gullipen at 4 p.m. The light was fading fast but the moon was on the rise and it wasn’t a bad one as it lit up the horizon over Callander. 

The light conditions were perfect, I was chasing my magnified moon shadow up the hill. The solitude of an evening walk required no headtorch as the moon had the strength of many million of candles as Rod Gilbert might have quipped. This evening exercise in the dark malarkey could catch on and provide an alternative to my early morning exercise sessions that have been the norm for the last ten years.

Moonrise over Callander

Looking southwest towards Arran at sunset

A moonlit Ben Ledi

My Yorkshire Roots

l - r: Mum, Aunt Sheila, Grandad, Susan, Grandma, me & Neil

My grandmother, Lily, came from Denby Dale in Yorkshire, one of 12 or 13 children, depending on how you counted them. She nursed Arthur, my Grandad, at the Auxillary Hospital after he was severely injured in the Great War and they married a couple of years later when he had recuperated. Hospitals were the alternative dating venues to dance halls for that generation. They moved to a house in Preston, where they had a single child, my mother before the great depression decimated the birth rate. It meant that my mother had a plethora of aunts, uncles, and cousins in Yorkshire. This platoon of relatives was recycled for my generation. When I was a child, my father hired a car three or four times a year and we drove via Todmorden and Hebden Bridge, where it always seemed to be raining, to visit relatives scattered between Denby Dale and Wakefield.

We were subjected to an interminable series of cups of tea, sandwiches, and cakes as we pottered around the various relatives where I collected half-crowns from the cast of great uncles. However, the best thing about the visits was to see my mother's bridesmaid, Sandra, another only child whose age was halfway between me and my mother. Was she an aunt or a cousin? It didn't matter, she was my favourite relative and always treated me as a young brother. She was fun, attractive, and had a charisma that captivated everyone she met. She had attended the Wakefield Girls Grammar School but few girls from working backgrounds went on to University in those days. She left school for a successful career in nursing after giving up a career in a solicitor's office which she found incredibly dull. The whole family came together for her wedding to a Yorkshire farmer in 1960. The Lancashire side of the family is on the left of the photo with my sister next to me and my brother in the arms of Great Uncle George, the mill manager in Denby Dale. It was the first wedding I had attended and there was a full house of relatives in attendance,

Sandra's husband, Eric was a quiet, amiable, and sanguine person who was taking over the running of his father's farm. They lived in part of the large stone farmhouse in the rhubarb triangle, west of Wakefield. The low brick-built rhubarb sheds were stoked by plentiful supplies of coal from the pits with seams that extended underneath the farm. Forced rhubarb in the winter months brought a good price at a time of the year when there was a paucity of other crops. In summer they grew peas, cauliflowers, potatoes, and hay and kept a herd of chalorois cows. 

When I was a teenager, Sandra invited me to stay with them during my summer holidays to work on the farm. It was always an enjoyable break. I would have to bring in the cows for morning and evening milking, reset the electric fences to give them fresh grass for grazing, go with Eric to collect girls from the nearby village on the back of his lorry for pea picking, and then supervise and weigh the crops that they picked. On other days I would work with Eric loading bales of hay onto trailers and then stacking the bales into the barns. After the early evening milking, we would take the crops of vegetables to markets in Manchester and Halifax. 

After lunch each day, Eric would disappear into his office to sort his paperwork and order supplies. I would clear the lunch, wash up, and take Sandra a cup of tea whilst she was breastfeeding her babies, she had three in the years I was visiting and I was asked to be a godfather of her third. She was very broad-minded about things and would happily demonstrate the intricacies of breastfeeding. She would ask me to change their nappies and settle them down for an afternoon sleep whilst she got on with other things. In the evenings we would play cards and games, and there was much laughter as we teased each other. Eric thought I would make a good farmer as I had lots of stamina and was able to multi-task. Sandra thought I would make an excellent mother because I helped her around the house, and enjoyed looking after the children and most men couldn't multi-task. Sandra and I would talk endlessly, particularly on the days when Eric went for a liquid lunch with the local Farmer's Union, an event that extended well into the afternoon. I knew from primary school days that girls were brighter than boys but Sandra showed me that they were more fun and had qualities of empathy and tact that were unknown in the boyhood pissings of all male secondary schools.

In later years I would visit the farm when I was a student at university and play with the children. When collecting conkers for them, I had climbed a chestnut tree next to the house, the branch I was standing on broke, and I fell 25 feet onto the farm track. I landed on my back with a dull thud and was completely winded, unconscious but surprisingly unhurt. All the then children remember the occasion in detail and believed that I might have been dead, Sandra used her nursing skills to bring me around and then check me out.  It cemented my respect for her as well as my reputation for being a bit wild and a survivor. 

As my grandma's generation passed away in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Sandra and her family became my only remaining relatives in Yorkshire. We kept in touch meeting at funerals, significant birthdays and at the Denby Dale Pie event in 1968, the last time that most of the family were together.  We then saw less of Sandra's family as 250 miles was a long way to travel and we had three children of our own to look after but we kept in touch by phone. We met at my sister's 60th birthday and Aileen and I made a trip to Yorkshire to take Sandra out for her 80th birthday. Since Covid, like with so many others, our contact lapsed. I had decided to visit my sister in Preston for the first time since Covid and I thought it would be good to see Sandra and her family, it was only another 65 miles to travel. She seemed pleased and invited me to stay the night and she arranged for me to see all her children. 

I arrived mid-morning after a dicey drive across the Pennines to Yorkshire on the M62, which has regressed into a trucker's race track. I should have gone on the old route through Todmorden as it was raining anyway. Sandra had hardly changed, she was welcoming as always and her dog, Molly, was just as friendly. We talked without hesitation but with lots of deviation for 2 hours, her memory and sense of humour were as sharp as ever. When we realised the time, Sandra rustled up lunch in next to no time so we could make the most of the afternoon. She drove me at speed, telling me she had an advanced driving certificate, to see her sons who both lived just a few miles away. 

The younger son had recently retired from his online business to pursue his interest in wildlife. His sister came round and we watched an albino squirrel in the garden as we caught up on how our lives had taken shape. We continued to see the oldest son who lives in a house built on the site of the old family farmhouse. The stone farmhouse had to be demolished because it was undermined by the coal workings that presumably provided the fuel for the forced rhubarb. In the evening all three children, now about sixty years of age and their partners turned out for a family reunion at a pub/restaurant in Ossett where Yorkshire's generosity of spirit was extended to a Lancastrian. The conversation brought together family nostalgia with tales of lifestyle changes before we were whisked home in two electric cars. Sandra now has 8 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. She seems to have an easy relationship with all of them, she is the undisputed paragon of the Yorkshire family. 

Molly

Preston Redux

Preston Bus Station

Cenotaph, Town Hall, Harris Library and Museum

I was visiting my sister in Preston, the place where I grew up until I left home at 18. Preston has acquired a reputation for being a progressive city over the past ten years through a policy of Community Wealth Building. The Council has focused on bringing services back in-house and supporting local businesses in its procurement of goods and services. The alternative narrative advanced by residents is that it has become 'a bit of a dump' with the collapse of the city centre as a shopping centre and as a nighttime destination. This has stemmed from an exodus of hospitality to the outlying areas and the failure to secure major investments for new retail developments. I had advised the Council of this folly after I met representatives from the financiers of the proposed development when I was negotiating a separate retail development in Scotland. Like many cities, Preston was already over-provided with retail facilities and had been damaged by adjacent councils allowing car-based retail centres on the city boundaries. This resulted in congested traffic that caused mayhem for commuters and those seeking leisure or retail trips. 

I decided to spend the morning checking out these contrary claims. My sister lives 3 miles north of the city centre so I caught the bus that runs every eight minutes, and it arrived on schedule. The Scottish Entitlement (Travel) card is not legal tender in England so the fare was £2. I knew the route from my Christmas post round for three years and Plungington has hardly changed, a grid pattern of brick-built terrace houses punctuated by shops and small businesses. The roads were narrow and there was some congestion as we negotiated the ever-spreading campus of Central Lancashire University. It had been a well-regarded Technical College when I lived in Preston providing training for apprentices in the local industries - cotton, aerospace engineering, printing and commercial activities. 

The bus wriggled its way through the partly pedestrianised city centre to the massive 80-stance Preston Bus Station. I had worked on the construction of this as a student. I had mixed the concrete for the curved concrete ends on the 4-story car park above the bus station, I was pleased to see that they were still pristine after 52 years of wet Lancashire days. My father had campaigned for the bus station's retention when the Council proposed its demolition twenty years ago. Admittedly half the stances had been closed because there has been a retraction of bus transport over the past fifty years as car ownership has soared.

I was impressed by the way the bus station had retained its grandeur, it was considered a fine example of brutal architecture when erected in 1970 and is now a listed building. It is certainly far more robust than the speculative shopping developments that sprang up at the time. The adjacent St John's Centre is a prime example of this artless era of development. I headed for the splendid covered market that I had visited most Fridays with my mother for the weekly shop. Its wrought iron structure and roof are vintage examples of a functional and robust structure.  A glassed-in enclosure within the market detracts from the simple elegance and the majority of stalls now sell cheap tat with fewer stalls selling fresh local produce at affordable prices. 

I was taking a photo when an Indian gentleman approached me and passed some comments on the market. We struck up a conversation and established an easy rapport. We discovered that his younger brother had attended the same school as my sister and was at school with a friend. He used to come with us to the local pub on Friday evenings. The coincidence of this casual meeting was remarkable and ten minutes later I was passed the phone of the Indian gent to talk to his younger brother. I had not seen him for 55 years but we reminisced about our teenage exploits, he now lives in Somerset. I gave the phone back and bade farewell to his brother and concluded it was one of those days when I was on a roll. I decided to drop in at the Council Offices to see if I could talk to someone about progress on community wealth building.

Arriving at the Council offices I was met by a Council Officer who suggested I should see the Chief Executive but he was in a special Council meeting to discuss the Israeli - Gaza conflict. He suggested that I could go and listen to the debate. I accepted because I wanted to see for myself how the Council operated and was guided to the public gallery. The motion from the administration called for a ceasefire, well-meaning but I guess that the soft power of Preston City Council is no more effective than that of the UK government. I listened to 7 speakers, all articulate, focused and well-informed. One speaker had lived in Gaza and spoke about the conditions his relatives and friends were living in, another was a Doctor at the local hospital and spoke with more humanity and sincerity than any MP I have heard in Parliament. The motion was unanimously carried with the Conservative spokesperson saying he agreed with the sentiments of those who had spoken eloquently with such knowledge. As I left I was given the Chief Executive's email in case I had time to arrange a meeting in the next few days. 

I continued my walk about in the city centre, admiring the fine Victorian and Edwardian buildings - the former post office, the cenotaph, the Town Hall and the Harris Museum and Library that provided some gravitas and solidity. Miller Arcade, which used to be at the centre of all the bus stances, had retained its elegance. The Gaumont and later the Odeon which had been the epicentre of all activity was a boarded-up shell. It was the analogue version of Tinder when I was growing up and hundreds if not thousands of marriages must have begun here. 

I was pleasantly surprised that Fishergate, the main shopping street, was in good health despite the loss of Owen Owens, BHS, Booths, Woolworths and Mears toy shop. M&S was busy and well-stocked and the St George's Shopping Centre had few vacant units and good footfall. Only buses were allowed along Fishergate and there was a lively stream of pedestrians. 

I veered off Fishergate to visit Winckley Square, the location of solicitors and professional offices and the Catholic Convent for girls. I had peddled through here regularly as a 9 to 12-year-old during my train spotting days at the nearby station which was on the London, Midland and Scottish mainline and gave a spectacular display of steam locomotives. As well as the Stanier Pacifics on the London to Glasgow Royal Scot Express, we had fish trains from Fleetwood, holiday specials to Blackpool from Yorkshire and Jubilee and Britannia locomotives pulling the Birmingham and Manchester to Scotland expresses. 

I calmed down by calling in at Bruccianis, a glorious art-deco Italian cafe, where my mother and Grandma used to meet for a coffee and I acquired my fondness for toasted teacakes. As I turned into Corporation Street I passed the barber shop that I went to as a boy. It was empty so I popped in to have a look, it had hardly changed apart from the hair products on display. Brylcream was the only option in the 1960s. The Turkish barber who now runs the shop was keen to hear about the history of the shop and his predecessor.

Time was running out so I ran to catch a bus and was back at my sister's house by 1 p.m. The impression from a morning of unashamed nostalgia was that Preston had suffered from the decline of the city centre and that some solid buildings needed refurbishing and possibly repurposing. The civic centre around the Museum and Library, Winckley Square and the adjacent Avenham and Miller parks were real attributes and the city-owned bus service was excellent. There had been too many retail developments in outlying areas that led to much traffic congestion and a turn-off for residents who would have flocked to the city centre in the past. Central Lancs University had created a vast swathe of Education buildings but it had regenerated a part of the city that was long past its best. On balance, Preston was better than I had been led to believe but still needed to be revamped and rid of its unlovely buildings. Most of all, I was impressed by the debate in the Council. 

In the evening we visited Haighton Manor, a fine restaurant and pub a couple of miles outside the city, for a good value meal with an excellent selection of local beers. Getting there was no longer a drive in the country but a burst through suburbia. The amount of development surrounding the City has been massive with mainly large private housing estates that are off bus routes, have no local facilities and require a car to get anywhere. The outcome is inevitable as in so many towns and cities, congestion and anger at the authorities. 

The lack of attention or willingness by the housing developers to provide facilities or sustainable well-designed houses is one of the great mistakes of the last forty years. They have built too many houses that barely meet minimum standards and fail to achieve anything like the zero carbon standard. This should be essential as we move into the post-climate change era. 

Unlike many of the solid brick-built terraced houses that orbit the city centre, or the early post-war semi-detached houses and council houses that have been upgraded, a fair proportion of the newer mass-produced houses of recent decades are not robust enough for retrofitting. Houses developed since the 1970s with flimsy materials will all too often have to be replaced to create more sustainable communities. Land use strategies that are currently focused on converting city centre buildings, and redeveloping brownfield sites need to be extended to include the legacy of shoddy developments that have been allowed to encroach on peripheral greenfield sites. Most of all we need to design and repurpose our towns and cities to a scale that energises communities by focusing on pedestrians and cyclists rather than worshipping the car that has strangled the fabric of integrated communities.

Covered Market

Council Meeting

Miller Arcade

Gaumont Cinema and Dance Hall

Winckley Square

Bruccianis Coffee Shop

 

Walla Crag and Raven Crag

Keswick and Skiddaw from Walla Crag

Tuesday, 21 November 2023

Walk 1

Ascent:       152 metres, 

Distance:    3 kilometres,  

Total time   38 minutes

Walla Crag      376m         20mins

Walk 2

Ascent:     320 metres, 

Distance:  5 kilometres, 

Time         1 hour 25 minutes

Raven Crag     461m         39mins      

Castle Crag     402m         50mins

The surprise was the blue skies over Keswick. The Met Office were wrong but we checked Helvellyn in case conditions had improved there since we had decided to give it a miss when planning our walk the previous evening.  A mist-shrouded day was still predicted so we packed our stuff and decided to stick to some lower hills. While waiting for the others in the lounge, I was accosted by a lady who must have been in her late fifties and was on her own in the Youth Hostel. She admired my dirty yellow trail shoes and explained her love of walking and how she enjoyed walking with others. Fortunately, Keith and John arrived with their stuff so I could make my escape. The last time I was here as a teenager I was led astray by a similar incident, I had learnt something over the years.

Walla Crag is one of the lowest and easiest hills that Wainwright deigned to include in his guidebooks. We parked at Castlerigg just past the campsite that I had used on several occasions. The walk is not much more than a mile to the summit that overlooks Derwentwater and provides stunning views over Derwentwater and to Skiddaw and Blencathra, presumably why Wainwright gave it a status beyond its altitude, it is just a slog up a field. The views were worth the visit and as we scanned to the south, it was a relief to see that Helvellyn was still buried in deep clouds.

It is only a few miles along the A591 to Thirlmere. We headed for the dam where the circular road has now been closed. It gave us the chance to walk across the dam and admire the engineering works carried out by Manchester Corporation when they built the dam to secure water supplies for Manchester and much of Lancashire. It is a fine example of Municipal enterprise in the days when central government knew its place and didn't attempt to take over or privatise local infrastructure and facilities that were secured on local evidence of need. The provision was usually made in partnership with local companies, the sort of public/private partnership that has been bastardised by the top-down imposition of similar arrangements by recent governments but which are dominated by finance-driven national cartels.

Since my last climb to Raven Crag, a path has been created that takes no prisoners as it strikes upwards through the forested slopes. It is a fierce climb of 270 metres to the spectacular overlook at Raven Crag. The sun was shining and the Lake District was shimmering in its late autumn colours. There is a lookout constructed above the crags that drop to Thirlmere. Keith wanted to climb the nearby Birketts of Castle Crag and Sippling Crag, I went with them to the first and then decided to return to the car as I was visiting my sister in the afternoon and wanted to visit an old friend in Bolton-le-Sands on the way south. I was back in the car before 1 p.m. and in Preston by 4 p.m. I had planned three days visiting relatives and friends in Lancashire and Yorkshire and was excited at the prospect.

Derwentwater and yesterday's hills

Blencathra

Thirlmere dam

Municipal Enterprise

Thirlmere from Raven Crag

Raven Crag viewpoint

Blencthra from Raven Crag

Blaeberry Fell from Castle Crag

 

Causey Pike to Grasmoor

Three Wet Men on Grasmoor

Monday, 20 November 2023

Ascent:     1534 metres

Distance:  23 kilometres

Time:        7 hours 11 minutes

Causey Pike        637m       1hr   11mins  

Scar Crags.          672m      1hr   38mins

Sail.                     773m      2hrs  17mins  

Eel Crag              839m      2hrs  37mins

Wandope             772m      2hrs  55mins

Whiteless Pike     660m     3hrs  15mins

Grasmoor.            852m     4hrs   3mins

Outerside.            568m     5hrs   33mins

Barrow.                455m     6hrs  13mins

After drying out from the previous day's walk we frequented the chippy in the Market Square for a fish supper in the upstairs cafe. Keswick Youth Hostel provided a comfortable night and we talked to other walkers including a man and woman from Doncaster who were hoping to finish the 214 Wainwright Hills on Haystacks, Wainwright's favourite, on Tuesday, The forecast was pretty depressing for Monday and we deliberated on whether to tackle the 9 Wainwright Hills that I had planned in the Derwent Fells. I phoned Mark in Ambleside and he seemed ok with the proposal so we agreed to meet at 9:30 a.m. at Stair in Newlands. There is a reasonable-sized parking area at Uzzicar and we doubted that too many folks would be going walking. Newlands is one of my favourite places in the Lakes, the location of my primary school holiday to the Newlands Activity Centre at Stair. There were two camper vans at the park and Mark was waiting for us as we arrived. 

The path up Causey Pike is unrelenting but not too steep to prevent a steady pace. The rain was set for the day so for the second day running it was a full set of waterproofs. I dispensed with Goretex trail shoes and decided on my running shoes, they had better traction on wet and slippy siltstone rock and there would be plenty of that today. The final climb to Causey Pike is a scramble, I realised that it was a brave shout by our teacher to escort 30 or so 10 and 11-year-olds up there back in the day. It was a reasonably level ridge walk across to Scar Crags before the steep drop and then the zig-zag motorway that is a scar on the path up Sail. It made me think the names of these two hills should be reversed. I was struggling with wet gloves, every time I took them off. to look at the map on my phone, I struggled to get them back on and it was costing me time. The others seemed to have less trouble with mitts or unlined gloves.

The next hill was Crag Hill, formerly known as Eel Crags and termed as such in Wainwright's Guide. It is the highest hill in the Derwent Fells and the summit is set back from the main path. We had a bit of a blether as Keith made sure we had identified the correct top using his summit app. This was the place where we needed to decide whether to complete the full round or to plead our age and return to Newlands. We were all too thrawn to throw in the towel so we continued to Wandope and Whiteless Pike which involved 200 metres of descent. It was 1 p.m. and the rain had relented so we stopped at Saddle Gate, the lowest point in the ridge to have some lunch and have a chat, the constant rain with hoods up had prevented much talk on the walk so far. It also allowed Keith the chance to check the possibility of taking in Whiteside and Grisedale Pike and to arrange for me to pick him up in Braithwaite. He had already climbed Outerside and Barrow a couple of weeks ago. Mark, who is on his 22nd (yes, twenty-second round of Wainwrights) was able to brief Keith on the best routes over to Whiteside and back to Braithwaite over Hopegill Head and Grisedale Pike.

We had taken over 15 minutes for our break before we set off for Grasmoor, the furthest and highest point of the walk. It was easy going and after a short break at the summit, we began the return walk. Keith headed for Coledale Hause whilst we returned to Eel Crag, it was still in the cloud as was Sail. We did get the odd moment of visibility as we descended down the motorway from Sail and began the walk to Outerside. Mark took us up the steep south flank, a 70-metre climb through the heathers. It was going dark as we began the trek to Barrow over rough and boggy ground. We made the summit as darkness descended. Instead of taking a more direct route down, we took a grassy and slippy grass path towards Braithwaite Lodge and then doubled back to the car park at Uzzicar. It had stopped raining and we contacted Keith, he had messaged that he was about to arrive at the Whinlatter Pass car park where we could collect him. Mark was returning home to Ambleside. 

We went to Booths, the Waitrose for those with short vowels, to buy food before returning to the homely warmth of the Keswick Youth Hostel. We had survived two days of rain, low clouds, and no visibility but it had been strangely satisfying; a reminder of all those wet days when climbing Munros on weekend days when there was no option to peruse Met Office forecasts to choose good days for walking. My Goretex jacket had also wetted out on both days so I have an excuse to buy a new one or attempt another reproofing. We looked at the forecast for the next day and discovered that my suggestion for the Helvellyn Ridge would be in the cloud all morning. I suggested a couple of local smaller Wainwrights that would enable us to drive home or in my case to visit my home town for the first time since COVID.

Lunch at Saddle Gate

Eel Crag (Crag Hill) summit

The motorway down from Sail

Scar Crags from Sail

Outerside from Sail

 

Bowscale Fell

Bannerdale  Crags

Sunday, 19 November 2023

Ascent:        686 metres
Distance:     12 kilometres
Time:           3 hours 7 minutes

Bowscale Fell.         702m.     1hr   8mins
Bannerdale Crags    683m      1hr  37mins
Souther Fell.             522m.    2hrs 37mins

Before retirement, I often took a few days off in late November for some hillwalking. The conditions were invariably foul but allowed us to capture a few Munros and prepare for winter. I had not repeated this after retirement, it was preferable to select the days of better weather if that is not an oxymoron in November. Keith had suggested a trip to the Lakes, staying at Keswick Youth Hostel. Both Keith and I were well into our second round of Wainwrights and I was charged with selecting the routes. John agreed to come as well although he is less enamoured by the charms of the Lake District. I collected him from Selkirk and we drove down the A7 through Langholm and Eskdale on a Sunday morning. 

The rain started at Carlisle and by the time we reached Mungrisdale, it was low clouds and steady rain. Keith had already arrived and nipped off to climb a Birkett. We put on waterproofs but stuck to trainers, our feet would be soaked whatever we wore and boots are even heavier when wet. We took the path alongside the Bullfell Beck, the path was waterlogged and even large slabs of sandstone paving were mere islands in what would be paddy fields in warmer climes. Nevertheless, it was not cold and the winds had abated. Even Wainwright in his Guide to the Northern Fells describes the path to Bowscale as one of the easiest paths in the Lake District to a mountain of over 2000 feet. 

We met Keith on the path and he went off to collect another Birkett on the northeast ridge of Bowscale. He would meet us later at the summit of Bowscale Fell. He arrived a few minutes after John and I, clutching his map and compass, despite having OS maps online loaded on his large smartphone. Keith is never knowingly underequipped on the hills and provides a reassuring presence when the conditions are tough.

There was nothing to see or do at the summit so we began the easy tramp over to Bannerdale Crags. The path was deeply etched into the grassy summit ridge. Keith has an app that pinpoints the summit of hills to the nearest couple of centimetres. After we arrived at the pile of stones at what we assumed was the top of Bannerdale Crags, Keith summoned us to a spot 80 metres or so to the west where a flat embedded stone was the highest point. We stood on the as we cursed Keith's app. A family from Penrith who reached the pie of stones didn't bother, they were more concerned about getting down out of the rain as the woman's insulated jacket was not as waterproof as she had assumed.

It was a steepish descent to the River Glenderamackin before a steady climb to Souther Fell. Again we were guided to the highest point by Keith's app and then made a transverse descent through the bracken to the road leading back to Mungrisdale. The rain had finally dispersed as we arrived at the community hall that has an honesty box for parking, at a modest £2, a relative bargain as many landowners across the Lakes are charging for any parking spot that they may or may not own. 

It was only a 10-minute drive to the Keswick Youth Hostel. I had not visited it since I was 17 and on my first holiday with friends. Although the Hostel is in the same place it has been well modernised, and warm, with good showers, beer on tap, well-equipped and with friendly staff. All I can recall from my previous visit to the hostel is a brief but enjoyable encounter with Lynn from Liverpool who was also on a walking holiday with her friends

Bowscale Summit

River Glenderamackin below Bannerdale Crags

Mill Inn  - Mungrisdale

Mungrisdale - walk end

 

International Cross Country: Britain and Ireland

Starting line up 

Gregor had been selected for the Scottish Cross Country Team in a four-way competition with England, Ireland and Wales. It has never been his best discipline, although he is very fast on hill running ascents. The event's hosting rotates around the four nations and it was the turn of Scotland in Tollcross Park, Glasgow. The day was perfect with an overnight frost and hooloovoo blue skies. 

My walking friend Mark had stayed overnight on his way to Braemar to guide a couple of friends from the Lakes who were on a mission to climb the Munros. We had an early morning ascent of Lime Craig and a walk through the forest where there had been a lot of felling activity in recent weeks. It was the perfect start to the day and we were back home by 10:30 a.m. We were soon off again, Mark intended another walk on his way to Braemar. and I was off to Glasgow to watch the Cross Country International races. I arrived half an hour ahead of Gregor's race and met a couple of former colleagues from my days in Bellahouston Harriers, I had joined in 1985 after I had taken up running in 1983 and won a few prizes for a non-club runner but needed to train with others to achieve further improvement. I remembered Erica and Ian Burke from my time there. Erica had finished her race as part of the winning Scottish Women's over 65 team, she is a well-known figure in Scottish running.

The atmosphere was all that is best about sport, The course had been well set out, there were tents for all the teams, toilets and best of all a friendly supportive spirit that exuded from the volunteers who were managing the event, the supporters and the competitors. It was free of corporate sponsorship and all the better for that. It was Gregor's first vest running for Scotland and in a field of about 60, he was third and the first Scottish runner. For someone who started running seriously seven years ago, it was a remarkable achievement and he was given much credit by his team.

Logs galore on Lime Craig

A glimpse of the Campsies

The start

Tollcross Park

Not that cold for November