Ron Hill and Wainwright

Guest article by David Pitt

In 2015, a friend in Bampton who was a volunteer driver for our village car scheme rang me and said that whilst taking a long-time valley resident, Ron Hill, to Carlisle hospital, he was told that Ron had known Alfred Wainwright many years earlier and had been on walks with him.

Fascinated, I eventually persuaded Ron, with whom I had only a nodding acquaintanceship, to let me visit him on several occasions whilst he was recuperating over several weeks in Penrith Hospital. What I learned was truly amazing, as these notes and transcripts of his recorded memories show.

At the start of my first session with Ron, I was late getting my act into gear as he launched into the beginning of this story of a walk proposed by Wainwright of the ascent of Steel Fell, over Calf Crag and then down to Grasmere it whilst I was getting organised! They had gone by bus from Kendal accompanied by Wainwright’s son Peter and, after climbing Steel Fell, had reached Calf Crag’s summit when in Ron’s words –

“I could hear voices down the other side, each side of Helm Crag. So I just climbed up the big slab and sort of peered over the edge, and in point of fact, there were a couple of blokes down below. They were investigating the possibility, I should imagine, of a bit of a climb somewhere… you know, ’cause I don’t think there was one down there at the time in the Fell and Rock books. I just looked down and then came back down and joined Peter and Mr Wainwright. Then we made our way down to Grasmere, and I think there was a bit of a snag because he expected being able to get tea somewhere at someplace, and it wasn’t open. A short while after that, he gave me a photograph, and it was a photograph of Helm Crag, and I’m standing on top of it. I didn’t know he’d taken it. But that photograph eventually became the jacket cover for that particular sector; whatever it is, it won’t be central fells, but anyway, Eastern Fells, is it? 

After being reminded that it was the Central Fells, he continued…

“Is it? Anyway, whichever, there I am, on there… except I’m not there, he’s rubbed me off. The photograph has me on top of Helm Crag. I was rubbed out, you see, so, you know I’ve got to fall out with him over that, haven’t I really? Anyway, when I look at it, you know, I’m standing there, quite innocently. I didn’t know he’d taken it, anyway, because I think I’m sort of looking over the edge. But …I mean, I don’t know whether I have, as a sitter, any sort of copyright over that…[Laughs] “I was photographed, anyway. And it’ll still be there, that photograph. It has pride of place amongst all my other photographs of me.

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Perhaps here, it would be pertinent to mention Ron’s background. He was born in 1921 and came from the same background as Wainwright, having been raised in Nelson. He shared one thing from childhood with Wainwright, although 14 years separated their births – a view of Pendle Hill. At 14, the family moved from Nelson to Lancaster, which meant a change of schools from Nelson Secondary School to the more prestigious Lancaster Royal Grammar School. He left when he reached 16 years old after passing his School Certificate. His father found him a job in the Gas Department of Kendal Council, and for two years, Ron travelled to Kendal by bus until he found lodgings in the town in 1940.

So, it was very soon after AW arrived in Kendal to take up his new job as an accountancy assistant in the Kendal Borough Treasurer’s office that their paths crossed as one of Wainwright’s responsibilities was the payment of the wages of Kendal Borough Council’s employees.

Despite the difference in their working status and the 14-year age gap – Wainwright was the third senior person in the Borough Treasurer’s department, and Ron was working his way upwards at the Gas department – some companionship must have developed because, by the time AW became Borough Treasurer, they were undertaking joint walking expeditions, and it was not just the possession of a car by Ron – that came sometime later! Ron moved to Blackpool after the nationalisation of the gas industry and stayed there until his retirement in 1985 when he moved to the Lowther Valley. He died, aged 95, in 2016.

One walk that was very memorable to Ron was an expedition planned by Wainwright to watch the sunrise from Scafell, and after recounting the Calf Crags day, he went on to say: –

“There’s another (photograph). Then again, that was one of his idiosyncrasies when there was an expedition to Scafell to watch the sunrise. One expedition was initially going to be Peter, AW and myself – his idea, not mine. Anyway, it transpired that when I met him on a Friday before we were going to do it on Saturday (on my weekend off commencing on Saturday dinnertime), there was a snag because Peter wasn’t very well. He couldn’t go and asked if it would be alright if his cousin went in his place. I thought, well, I don’t know. I can’t see any difference one way or t’ other. I slipped up a bit there, actually, because it turned out that Peter’s cousin was a girl.

Well, we set off to go to Scafell, yes, but first, I knew that we had this odd thing. AW got off the bus and wandered up towards me. I was waiting at the stop for the bus to Keswick, and there was AW just wandering up as he did. He never seemed to be going fast – he always wondered, didn’t he? As the queue was going into the bus, I sort of stepped back to allow this lady to go in, thinking I’ll go in with AW, and we’ll sit on the back seat, and maybe he could stretch his legs. Alternatively, I thought if we could have an end seat, he could stretch his legs out. Anyway, this young woman sat in the window seat, and AW sat next to her, you see. So, I got on, and eventually, she introduced herself to me – he didn’t.

I think we got the bus to Ambleside, and then I think we might have been lucky and got a Coniston bus probably as far as Chapel Stile – somewhere like that. Anyway, we walked up Langdale, and I don’t think we had any meal anywhere. But I can remember that there was quite a bit of activity in the valley – people raking hay, and I can remember thinking that there were, on a Saturday night, with better things to do than raking hay. Anyway, we weren’t in a rush when we went up the old Rossett Gill, and it might have been 8 o’clock at the latest, something like that when we got as far as the outfall from Angle Tarn. Course, the track would be different now; it will be as wide as the M6 now, won’t it? Anyway, we got as far as there, and, of course, I’d taken all the gear. I had a Bergen framed type rucksack, quite big, and in it, I had a primus stove and a frying pan.

That night, Mr Wainwright kept asking for cigarettes to be lit so he could have a smoke. Because I mean, he was sitting outside in his Burberry. There wasn’t room for him under the gas cape, obviously, and the only thing he had was his mac. And he was sort of perched on a largish boulder at the side of the beck. I don’t know if it was fairly close, but there was probably a bit running under his legs. Anyway, at the end of it all, as I say, the blinking storm ceased, and we gathered the things up. We hadn’t had time to do everything, you see, when the storm came, and so we scouted around further down the beck, and I recovered various bits of gear like my primus stove. Eventually, everything got sorted, and by the time we got everything done and cleared up, we reckoned that we didn’t have enough time left to get as far as we wanted to go. So, that particular expedition was abandoned. But I said to Wainwright, don’t you think this deserves a record? I knew he had his camera with him with a delayed action shutter, and he agreed. So he set the camera up, fiddled about, and I sort of laid there. The girl was down here, and he just squatted down at that side because the shutter gave him time to get there. Eventually, he sent the photograph, at least a photograph, which shows the girl and me – he’s not on it, he’s not there. Now, whether that was a bit of misjudgement on his part when he was setting it all up, you know, or whether it got knocked somewhere in the letting go and moving, I don’t know. But there’s no photograph of AW on there, not unless he’d had quiet words with the man who processed it and told him to take him out. He was, well, bless you, and a cunning old devil was Wainwright.”

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Without wanting to over-extend this blog, I should relate how Ron and Wainwright watched a sunrise together – from the summit of Helvellyn. I didn’t have my recorder when I visited Ron in the hospital, but he did tell this tale.

He had met Wainwright in Kendal one Saturday morning, and Wainwright asked if Ron wanted to see the sunrise from Helvellyn, but he had to decline as he was ‘on call’ that weekend. However, the idea appealed to him, so he called around at his foreman’s house and got the OK. By then, the bus had gone, so he cycled over Dunmail Raise to Wythburn and took the now very popular route to the summit, where Wainwright was pleased to see him. Ron said they both appreciated the warmth from his carbide cycle lamp.

After the nationalisation of the gas industry in 1948, Ron moved from Kendal to the Windermere and Ambleside gas works, and his first apprentice happened to be Wainwright’s son, Peter. The latter stayed until the time of his National Service. Ron later received a letter from Peter saying he had no intention of returning to the gas works and instead took a job in the oil industry. Around this time, Ron bought his first motor car, a Wolsey Hornet Special, and he recalled AW’s difficulty fitting into this small vehicle. Further changes within the gas industry eventually led Ron to move to Blackpool, where he remained for twenty-two years until his retirement, ending his walks with Wainwright. After he had retired, Ron moved back to Cumbria. On learning that a gentleman who had occasionally driven Wainwright had died, Ron called at Wainwright’s house, had a friendly conversation, and offered his services. The offer was not taken up, and their paths never crossed again.

Towards the end of my time with Ron, he told me a remarkable story that spoke volumes of his appreciation of Wainwright. Ron said: “Mr Wainwright died in January, you know. There was snow on the ground, so I went out up the Sceughs (the fellside opposite where he lived) and dug out in the snow the initials Wainwright – about 12 feet high.” – an unusually poignant epitaph by one reserved man for another.

Later, I reflected on Ron’s story of his walk to see the sunrise and realised that they had used the same ascent of Helvellyn that my father had taken with his family on an ascent of Helvellyn whilst on a family holiday to Grasmere in July 1949 – my first Wainwright. However, then, of course, they weren’t given that appellation!!

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David Pitt
Chairman of the Pennine Journey Supporters Club

12 February 2021