Sir Chris Bonington
Veteran mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington helped round off a marathon fellwalking charity effort that raised £4,000 for search and rescue dogs.
The Lakeland 214 Challenge, organised by aficionados of the late Alfred Wainwright, aimed to put a challenger on every summit chronicled by the Grumpy Old Fellwalker in his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. Members of the Wainwright Society congregated at Braithwaite in the northern Lake District to set off on a final walk.
Handlers and dogs from the Search and Rescue Dogs Association for both England and the Lakes joined walk leader Lindsay Shaw on Saturday for an outing to Outerside, Stile End and Barrow, south-west of Keswick.
Later in the day, Sir Chris handed £2,000 cheques to representatives of each of the Sarda organisations in Keswick.
Julia Bradbury’s place on the summit of Pillar was taken by David Powell Thompson, but Radio 2 presenter Stuart Maconie did get to the top of Scoat Fell to bring himself nearer to completing the full list of 214 Wainwrights.
Sarda dog handlers are all qualified mountain rescuers who go on to undertake specialist training with the dogs. Unlike tracker dogs, mountain rescue animals use air scent to find casualties and lost fellwalkers, so do not need to keep to the track of the subject of the search.
Use of Sarda dogs can save many man-hours of searching by rescue teams and often results in casualties being found more quickly.
- Wainwright biographer Hunter Davies is on the lookout for handwritten letters from the Grumpy Old Fellwalker. The writer and journalist is undertaking a new project, The Wainwright Letters, detailing replies the Kendal-based chronicler of the fells sent to those who wrote to him.
Over the course of 35 years, Wainwright wrote back in his own hand to correspondents, and Davies wants anyone in possession of these letters to get in touch with a view to including them in his new book.
He can be contacted by post at: Hunter Davies c/o Frances Lincoln, 4 Torriano Mews, London NW5 2RZ.
Colin
18 May 2009Excellent to see SARDA in the news and generous donations like this are vital. Small, regular donations help too, as they enable charities to plan forward with greater confidence. You can help by becoming a Friend of SARDA Lakes.
http://www.sardalakes.org.uk/friends.html
Ray Bradshaw
19 May 2009As a member of those Wainwright society members involved in the challenge I am also pleased to see this being given the publicity it deserves. One never knows when the services of Moutain Rescue Teams and SARDA will be required, as I found out after decending from my challenge walk. Near to the valley I fell and broke my ankle.I cannot sing their praises high enough.Keep up the great work.
I cannot leave this comment without the following remark about this articles references to AW. Yet,again Wainwright is described as a Grumpy old man. There is no evidence for this other than he enjoyed his own company when in the Lakes. What is wrong with that ,many of us do. People who knew AW say he was anything but Grumpy!
ray Bradsahw
Jenny Whalley
19 May 2009Why, whenever you mention Wainwright, do you always have to refer to him as 'grumpy'. You do it twice in this article. It really spoils what is otherwise a good report of this week's Wainwright Society challenge.
David Johnson
19 May 2009A good report of an excellent project by the Wainwright Society, but I agree with Ray and Jenny. Why must you keep calling Wainwright 'grumpy'? It isn't warranted and there are many other more accurate and respectful ways of referring to him.
David Johnson
Andy Beck
23 May 2009I always enjoy the news section of Grough and this is a great write up on an excellent fund-raising effort for a great cause.
I agree with the above comments though about the use of the word "Grumpy". Perhaps the anonnymous author of the peice had a personal aquaintance with AW to form this opinion but I doubt it.
Andy
Bob Smith
23 May 2009grough stories aren't anonymous: their author's name appears at the top right of the page.
However, John McHale's story does accord with our house style, which aims not always to treat every story in an overserious manner, if the subject matter permits.
I am sure, having seen Eric Robson's liveley converstations with the former borough treasurer recently on television, Alfred brought sunshine and laughter to all who encountered him on the fells or in the chip shops.
Bob Smith, editor