Books with Steve Matthews of Bookends
Those rough, tough, golden days of yore
Published 28 November 2008
Dr Kathleen Rigg’s first memory of the village is “the marvellous smell of woodsmoke that always permeated it”. Caldbeck before World War Two was a remote place, isolated in its own upland hollow, self sufficient, sturdy and independent just like the folks who lived there.
Small town bobby to top of the cops
Published 28 November 2008
As a young constable in Wigton, in 1949, Ray Huddart was comprehensively kitted out. He was issued with a steel rule, a whistle, a pair of handcuffs and a heavy wooden baton. The wooden baton was kept in a special pocket in his uniform trousers.
Art’s best friend
Published 28 November 2008
Genette leapt inside, lying flat in the back, the door open. As the Land Rover lurched off in first gear a third bullet shot overhead.
Small town bobby to top of the cops
Published 21 November 2008
As a young constable in Wigton, in 1949, Ray Huddart was comprehensively kitted out. He was issued with a steel rule, a whistle, a pair of handcuffs and a heavy wooden baton. The wooden baton was kept in a special pocket in his uniform trousers.
Lively essays on Lakes’ penmen
Published 14 November 2008
Shakespeare may never have visited the Lake District. We have no evidence either way. There is a legend that he was friends with the jester at Muncaster Castle, one Thomas Skelton, who may have given rise to the term “tomfoolery”, and recent research suggests that a William Shakeshafte may have spent some years in the household of a Lancashire Catholic gentleman, from whence it would have been but a short step to the Lakes.
The first railway line across Britain, in graphic detail
Published 7 November 2008
The railways we have left have mellowed into the landscape. They no longer seem like great feats of engineering – man imposing his will upon the landscape, cutting, embanking, tunnelling, bridging, changing the natural contours of the land to provide a near straight and level line from A to B.
Face cream and fells; The amazing double life of WA Poucher
Published 31 October 2008
He was known as the greatest nose in the English-speaking world. This superlative was a compliment to a man who became the leading English expert in perfumery and wrote the standard work on cosmetics. He was Walter Poucher.
Two sleepy villages shocked into modern times by the railway
Published 24 October 2008
The front cover seems to say it all. A straw-hatted idler leans on a wall and gazes across a sheep-encrusted sward. In the distance a train puffs happily across a red sandstone viaduct above a wooded valley. In front of it a grand church sits benignly among its gravestones and quiet cottages send up wreaths of smoke.
Simple, pithy words that reflect the 2,000-year history of everyday Cumbria
Published 17 October 2008
A man’s language is his identity and inheritance. Cumbrians take a particular pride in their dialect. It is a distinctive way of speaking that in its very words reveals their history.
The land where the stallion rules
Published 10 October 2008
Fell ponies are herd animals. They require a leader and that leader is usually the dominant stallion. Dominance is determined by courage and often violence.
The men who gave Lakeland its soul
Published 3 October 2008
The first time he saw Betty she was clipping a hogg on a stool in the old fashioned way and he thowt ‘she’s the girl for me’ and she’s bin wid him ivver sen. So spoke Jonny Birkett of High Yewdale talking about his pal George Birkett and his courting.
Rome brought home to a Gameboy and iPod generation
Published 26 September 2008
For the boy, I have something special in mind, said the governor. “He is not a child!” said my mother defiantly. “Bran is a prince, raised to be a warrior like his father! He is 11 years old. Old enough to take his place on the battlefield.”
Full marks Robert. Pity those mystic stones won’t yield
Published 19 September 2008
Long Meg and her Daughters is the largest stone circle in Cumbria and the sixth largest in the country. This enigmatic disposition of rocks – 69 standing stones arranged in an approximate circle – has been a source of wonder, no doubt since it was first assembled in Neolithic times.
Tales of japes and initiation rites
Published 5 September 2008
Carlisle Grammar School by Mary Scott-Parker (published by Parker-Leigh, £12)The head- master of Carlisle Grammar School, Vincent “Jankers” Dunstan, caned George Macdonald Fraser for reading a “tuppenny blood” during a lesson.
Come, gentle rambler, let Vivienne be your guide
Published 29 August 2008
There are all sorts of words for walking – rambling, ambling, strolling, hiking, striding, shuffling – and there are all sorts of walkers.
Essential reading for lovers of the Lakes
Published 29 August 2008
The Herries Chronicles by Hugh Walpole, with an introduction by Eric Robson (published by Frances Lincoln, £7.99 each)For all those who love the drama and atmosphere of the Lake District Hugh Walpole’s Herries Chronicles (and especially the first book, Rogue Herries) should be as essential reading as Alfred Wainwright but sadly he and this magnum opus has mostly been forgotten since his death in 1941.
50 years before Wordsworth, Susanna writes...
Published 22 August 2008
Susanna blamire was the most considerable poet ever to come from Carlisle. She was born in 1747 at Cardew Hall near Dalston. Her mother died when she was seven and she was brought up by her aunt at Thackwood Nook, Stockdalewath, near Raughton Head in the country south of Carlisle.
The wily character of a Lakeland huntsman
Published 15 August 2008
Willie Irving: Terrierman, Huntsman and Lakelander by Sean Frain (Merlin Unwin Books, £17.99)It is very difficult for a non-huntsman to appreciate how deeply the passion for hunting runs in the veins of the true huntsman. It is not simply a question of an occasional canter across the fells with a pack of attentive yapping hounds and a dozen men or more on horses in pursuit of a defenceless fox.
One man’s vision of Eden
Published 8 August 2008
Graham Uney is passionate about the River Eden. It is “a mighty river” that “takes a long and tumultuous journey to the sea”.
A Kate Moss in sheep’s clothing
Published 1 August 2008
Herdwicks are an impressive breed of sheep. Beneath that brown, raggedy unkempt fleece lives one of the toughest sheep in the country.
