A lifetime achievement award was made to our veteran writer Colin Speakman. He is a founder member of Gritstone Publishing Co-op, a keen walker and environmental campaigner, and the author or co-author of more than 50 outdoor books. Colin and his work are known and loved throughout Yorkshire and beyond. He is the mastermind behind the 80-mile Dales Way path, linking Ilkley with Bowness in the Lake District, for which his guidebook is now in its 11th edition.
Colin has also written walking guides to areas both in the UK and in mainland Europe, as well as poetry, topography, biography, transport history, and two literary anthologies. Recent publications include Yorkshire: Ancient Nation, Future Province and The Nut Brown Maid and Other Stories from the Yorkshire Dales.
The award was made during our 10th birthday celebrations atthe Piece Hall in Halifax. Colin gave a talk about his books, and there was a mapping workshop led by Christopher Goddard, and an urban nature ramble led by writer and conservationist Laurence Rose.
Andrew Bibby and Andrew McCloy took visitors on a literary memory lane along the Pennine Way, and novelist Mike Padgett spoke about his Australian adventures. The event was organised with The Book Corner bookshop and Calderdale Libraries.
Presenting the award, Andrew Bibby said: “Colin is one of our founder members, and we are so proud to include such an eminent and prolific author on our list. He is an inspiration to us all.”
Image of Colin Speakman and Gritstone colleagues at the Piece Hall
A group of authors from the UK’s first publishing co-operative will be celebrating their 10th anniversary next month at the Halifax Piece Hall.
Writers from the Hebden Bridge-based Gritstone Publishing will be reading from their work, running workshops, chatting to prospective new writers, and handing out birthday cake in a corner of the historic architectural and cultural gem.
The event, on Thursday May 7, is being organised in association with the independent bookshop The Book Corner which is based at the Piece Hall and where the books written by members of the group will be on sale.
Established by four member-authors looking to assert more control over how their books were brought to market, the co-operative has grown and is now nine-strong. The most recent author to join is Mike Raine, a mountaineering instructor and author of the leading handbook on mountain craft. Gritstone titles are strongly rooted in a sense of place, with a particular focus on the north of England.
The group will be marking their tenth birthday by bringing out this summer the final two volumes to complete a comprehensive set of guidebooks to the England Coast Path, the longest and most ambitious of the country’s long-distance national trails. These are compact but lavishly illustrated books from cartographer Christopher Goddard and the 2026 titles, on the Northern and Eastern sections of the path, will join the South and South-West volumes already published. Christopher will be running a short mapping workshop at the Piece Hall event.
Also scheduled for publication in 2026 is fellow Gritstone member Eileen Jones’s tribute to William Wordsworth’s home at Rydal Mount in the Lake District where the poet lived for most of his life. The book has received support and co-operation from current members of the Wordsworth family who owned the house for nearly 60 years until its recent sale to the Wordsworth Trust.
Another among the list of Gritstone titles in the coming year will be Mike Raine’s new book Just One More Hill on the growing popularity of ‘bikepacking’ (off-road cycletouring), and a newly revised edition of The Long Spring by conservationist and former RSPB Director for Northern England, Laurence Rose. At the Piece Hall event Laurence will be leading a short nature ramble around the site.
Also choosing to work through Gritstone as members of the co-op are the veteran countryside writer and campaigner Colin Speakman, national parks author and activist Andrew McCloy, Yorkshire novelist Mike Padgett, and author of walkers’ and cyclists’ guides Chiz Dakin.
The Piece Hall party will feature short readings by individual authors and you can read more about each one of them on the Gritstone website here https://gritstonecoop.co.uk/authors/ The event will start at 11am and everyone is welcome to come along and chat, browse, and eat birthday cake. Andrew Bibby said: “We will be very happy to talk to writers who might want to consider joining our group, or just anyone who loves books and writing.”
Gritstone, as a fully mutual co-operative, is controlled collectively by its member-authors who discuss and agree proposed new titles for the imprint. Book distribution to the book trade, including bookshops and online retailers, is handled by a mainstream trade distributor, but Gritstone titles are also sold directly from its own website. Gritstone has recently been accepted as a member of the Independent Publishers Guild.
Andrew Bibby, one of Gritstone’s founder members, explained: “After ten successful years of trading and growth, we can definitely say that our publishing model works. The publishing industry has changed enormously in recent years to become much more marketing-led, and authors are increasingly missing out on a fair share of the rewards for their work. We enable our authors to have more control over the publishing process. Gritstone offers a third way between conventional publishing and author self-publishing.”
Gritstone author Eileen Jones on what it really means to be a writer
“It was a throwaway comment by Booker Prize winner David Szalay that led me to muse on the writing process. The author of Flesh said something along the lines of, all you have to do is lock a writer in a room for 18 months with a lot of coffee and you’ve got a book.”
Eileen Jones, Gritstone Author
It was a throwaway comment by Booker Prize winner David Szalay that led me to muse on the writing process. The author of Flesh said something along the lines of, all you have to do is lock a writer in a room for 18 months with a lot of coffee and you’ve got a book. Poor joke, irony or whatever, many writers must have reflected on that.
As I did, collapsed in a chair after a long day with my two-year-old grandson, head full of ideas and body empty of any energy to even lift the lid of the laptop. Putting one word in front of another, that’s the easy bit. Why I even contemplated another book this year, with a very poorly daughter in law which has meant endless extra hours of childcare, is hardly common sense.
But I have form. More than 30 years ago, with a three month old baby and a two year old toddler I decided I must write a book about Neil Kinnock. I was a jobbing journalist, a capable enough feature writer with stints on the less than heavyweight Holland Herald magazine and a decade editing special supplements at the Yorkshire Post. But in my post-natal hormonally-challenged state, and with so many unanswered questions about the1992 election defeat, this was what I had to do.
Gritstone author Eileen Jones wades through litter on the lakeshore to examine the problems of fly camping and the damage caused to the environment in popular tourist areas
Trees are hacked down for firewood. Disposable barbecues are left smouldering with disastrous consequences. And abandoned camping equipment is becoming a familiar sight in the Lake District.
Eileen Jones, Gritstone Author
It’s the worst kind of irresponsibility in a summer of drought when wildfires have spread across moorland areas in several national parks – and even in woodland on the outskirts of London. But for some objectors, the aesthetic value of the natural world is being destroyed, alongside damage to the environment. They point to tents pitched along the shore of Ullswater, campervans churning up the grass beside the road opposite the Wastwater screes, and camping kit abandoned up in the mountains at Stickle Tarn and Sty Head.
One volunteer vigilante group has even launched a new tactic of NOT picking up litter for several days, to illustrate the scale of the problem.
A wild night out
The lure of the hills at night time has long been appreciated by walkers and climbers. I’ve pitched a small tent on top of my favourite little mountain, Loughrigg, and my friend, the late Julie Coldwell, often slept out under the stars at Lily Tarn. When my children were young, we all slept on the summit of Latterbarrow, with no tent, just sleeping bags, in a reliable warm and dry summer.
Were we breaking the law? Wild camping is reckoned to be permissible above the highest intake walls, around 1000ft, and lowly Latterbarrow is only 800. In fact, wild camping is technically not permitted anywhere in the Lake District without prior permission from the landowner. The National Park Authority does not have the power to allow camping on private land, and they do not permit camping on the small amount of land that they own. Camping in car parks or on roadside verges is not allowed at any time.
The LDNPA says that if you choose to wild camp, it is normally tolerated if you camp above the highest fell wall, well away from towns, villages and lake shores. Leave no litter – this includes not burying litter and removing litter if you find it, and don’t light any fires, even if there is evidence that fires might have been lit before. Stay for only one night, keep groups very small – only one or two tents, camp as unobtrusively as possible with inconspicuous tents which blend in, and carry out everything you carried in.
“Wherever you pitch, please remember that the landowners or their representatives have the legal right to order you to break camp and move on,” they say.
Police patrols
But after many concerns through early summer about lakeshore problems, patrols have now been stepped up across the Lake District to crack down on fly camping – the term used to describe irresponsible and often illegal camping practices that leave behind litter, damage the environment, and disturb other visitors.
The LDNPA alongside Cumbria Police and National Trust rangers launched the first of the enhanced patrols at the beginning of August at Ullswater. Officers split into teams, with some joining lake rangers on the water to spot camping activity and alert rangers on the ground.
Spoiling the view: Fly camping opposite Wastwater screes. Photo from the concerned local residents
These coordinated patrols are continuing at Derwentwater, Windermere, Wasdale and Coniston, at various times of day and night. They will run alongside routine checks carried out by National Trust and LDNPA rangers.
Illegal camping at Wastwater. Photo used with permission from a group of concerned local residents.
The initiative is part of a wider visitor management strategy involving key partners including Cumbria Police, Cumberland Council, Westmorland and Furness Council, the Cumbria Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, and major landowners. Together they share information and coordinate efforts to address anti-social behaviour linked to outdoor tourism.
Is the problem a part of what’s been called an “increase in incivility” since the pandemic lockdown? Several academic studies worldwide have looked at the issue, including this from the Czech Republic. In the UK, there has clearly been a marked disrespect for authority, after months of being told what we could not do by leaders who were not obeying their own rules.
Education, education, education
Lindsay Buck, the Wasdale Womble (used with her permission)
Educating people is key, says Lindsay Buck, known as the Wasdale Womble. Most days Lindsay cycles from her home in Gosforth to Wasdale Head, then climbs Scafell Pike, collecting litter along the way. She reports her findings on facebook, occasionally entertaining (who would take a whole coconut up a mountain and leave it there?) but usually distressing.
Photos by her fellow womble Mick Pearce show the scale of rubbish left at the summit shelter of England’s highest mountain. Lindsay herself carries bags-full back down the hill.
On her daily journey she’s seen the growing problems alongside England’s deepest lake. “Fly camping along Wastwater is a real issue and needs all the agencies including those at the top of the National Trust to work harder together both in our area but as a bigger conversation about how we encourage people to explore rural areas without negative impact” she says.
“It’s a huge uphill task to get those at the top of interested parties to take notice/actually do anything. Those on the ground are frustrated as well as being under an enormous amount of pressure. It needs addressing at government level as well as local and could be hugely impacted by better education, engagement and enforcement when required. The vast majority deserve better. I meet such lovely folk everyday; it’s a shame small minority are allowed free rein.”
Binfluencers
In the North Lakes, a group of litter-pickers has set up who call themselves the Binfluencers, a play on the social media influencers which volunteer Annie Garforth accuses of being “the death of this place, as they compete for likes, follows and the perfect photo without mentioning anything about the Countryside Code”.
“It seems to be a trend to hang a dog poo bag on a tree like a Christmas decoration,” she says. “And the amount of human waste is ridiculous. We found a garden chair that had been carried to a lakeside camp with a hole cut in the middle so they could do their business.”
Now her group has devised a new tactic, to deliberately NOT pick up litter until a certain date, to highlight the extent of the problem. Meanwhile, following reports of fly camping and BBQ use along the Derwentwater shore, officers from Allerdale Neighbourhood Policing Team have been carrying out patrols and using the Keswick Launch to identify hotspots and deter unlawful activity. They say: “We want to remind the public that BBQs and open fires pose a significant fire risk and can cause harm to the local environment and wildlife. Fly camping often results in littering and damage to the lakeshore, which will not be tolerated.”
Mess in the mountains
But it’s not only at lake level where the fly camping problems are increasing. Mountain rescuers searching an area above Patterdale came across huge quantities of litter at a mountain cave known as the Priest’s Hole. For geologists this is classed as a ‘fault’, caused by ancient earth movements, but to generations of climbers, wild campers and walkers, it offers one of the best shelters in Cumbria, and a 180-degree panorama of the northern Lake District. Its fame in the outdoor world is such that it has a visitors book.
But a missing person search using MRMap (automated drone search technology developed by Mountain Rescue) found heaps of rubbish below the cave. Two members of the Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue team, equipped with a large 113L sack, decided that they would spend some time collecting it up. The drone provided images and locations for each item, but while collecting these they found more items, not see by the drone, tucked under boulders. They had to make a second journey into the hills to collect the remaining rubbish.
Scafell pickings: litter found in the summit shelter of Scafell Pike. Photo: Mick Pearce
Graham Uney, mountain guide and former fell top assessor for the LDNP, had clearly lost patience when he wrote on social media: “Here’s a random thought. Do you think that if those of us who care about our wild spaces just stopped clearing up all the shit, abandoned tents, fire scars, disposed barbecues and other crap that we find in the countryside, the people who leave all this behind would eventually think this place is a shit hole and stop coming? Don’t worry, I’m not advocating that we do this. It’s just very dispiriting at times, and it feels like there’s no end to it.”
Reprinting How parkrun changed our lives by Eileen Jones
Four years is a long time in parkrunland, if not in publishing. Reviving an out-of-print title ought to be an easy decision, but a great deal has altered since How parkrun changed our lives was first published, and a ‘second edition’ would have involved updating much of the material which was current in 2021.
The book was written and published during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown when, for 16 interminable months, no parkruns took place, at least in the UK, so no statistics changed and I could confidently state that there were 730 British parkruns (there’s now 1306) and that I had run at 104 of them (171 now). Today the entire chapter For the love of numbers is a historical document. Then there were 7 million people worldwide who had registered for parkrun; now there’s more than 10 million. Some statistics have since been removed from the official records in parkrun HQ’s (mistaken) belief that knowing some people can run very fast and, even more shocking, that some older people can still run quite fast, might deter novices from signing up. The parkrun community on social media has found ingenious ways to circumvent that.
And it’s on social media where the parkrun community is far more active now than four years ago, celebrating some wonderful and bizarre achievements among those who might never have run very fast, or might never have been runners at all but for our free, weekly 5k obsession. Since the book was first published there are now two people who have completed NINE alphabets (that is, parkruns beginning with every letter except X, of which there are none worldwide), five have done seven alphabets, 13 have done six alphabets, and you can be sure that these figures will be out of date by the time this feature is published.
Milestone teeshirts (Photo Laura McGuigan)
Last October I went to the 20th anniversary event at Bushy Park, where it all began. And I confess to being a little starstruck at Pavilion Gardens parkrun in Buxton when I met Gregory Bailey, the first person to do 100 different parkruns consecutively: this became known as Going for a Bailey. Gregory went on to do 250 different parkruns without repeats, and this is known as the Full Bailey. Darren Wood, as I write, has done 931 parkruns though that figure will change before this piece is published.
It’s not only the numbers that have changed, of course. At parkrun HQ Russ Jefferys is now CEO; champion triathlete Chrissie Wellington, who is quoted at length, has left her post as head of health and wellbeing; and Tom Williams, chief operating officer, has moved on to set up a new venture. People I interviewed for the book have also gone on to higher achievements, notably triathlete Lucy Gossage, who founded the 5k your way project, and recently was the women’s winner of the brutal Winter Spine Race. And Helen-Ann Hartley, then Bishop of Ripon and a regular at Fountains Abbey parkrun, is now the redoubtable Bishop of Newcastle (with whom I spent a delightful morning at Whinlatter Forest parkrun last summer).
All of the research and interviewing for that book had to be done virtually because of lockdown: phone calls and zoom meetings, but I’m proud to now call some of those people my friends, among them the GP parkrun practice pioneer, Dr Simon Tobin; Steve Haake, Professor of Sports Engineering and Director of Engagement at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University; blind runner Dave Williams; and parkrun ambassador and my chief of staff when launching the book by relay, Eve Taylor. I spent a happy weekend camping with Tom and Helen Williams and their children. And Paul and Jo Sinton-Hewitt were happy to be escorted to several parkrun events in the Lake District, made very welcome here by my cycle-fanatic neighbours.
The relay team that launched the book during lockdown (Photo: Eve Taylor)
That book led on to a sequel, p is for parkrun, which feels less dated because it concentrates on the wonderful, often eccentric characters met while chasing my own alphabet, and their stories. So How parkrun changed our lives will remain a historical document and I’m pleased it’s back on the shelves. What hasn’t changed at all is the ethos of parkrun, a free and inclusive worldwide movement. As PSH said when I talked to him back then: “parkrun may well be the most successful public health initiative of the 21st century, but it is successful precisely because it isn’t a public health initiative. The egalitarianism, community building, and mental health benefits all flow from people being passionate about running. parkrun wouldn’t have worked if it had set out to create an egalitarian movement to mobilise volunteers and build community: the key was setting out to build something that would help people run 5k.”
Author takes to the hills to release a new title by Eileen Jones
Planning a book launch with a difference, in the Lake District, was always going to be something of a challenge. “What IS the plan?” asked the friend with the camera. “Well, if the weather’s good we can have a picnic at the top. If the weather’s normal, we’ll just take a quick photo and leg it back down as quickly as possible.”
Summit party
But a challenge is good. Having dabbled in event management during my career, I see a book launch as a novel way of attracting extra publicity. The first parkrun book published by Gritstone was carried in a seven-day relay, Olympic torch style, from Windermere to Bushy Park in London. The second was launched at a busy event in North Manchester in front of 700 parkrunners. Yes, we sold a few copies that day. For one of Andrew Bibby’s crime novels set in the Lakes, we arranged a geo-cache style treasure hunt in which a clue for a prize was hidden on a remote fellside above Wastwater. It was discovered even though heavy snow had fallen over the hiding place, but the local media enjoyed a news story with a twist.
Waiting at the summit
When Gritstone colleague Chris Goddard completed the first in his series of guidebooks to the entire England coast path I help organise a launch at a pub in Woolwich from where a path beside the Thamas marks the beginning of the route. Only when we arrived, we found the pub had closed down, with a repossesion note pinned to the door. A generous cafe owner next door offered some space instead, and that’s where Chris addressed a bespoke band of ramblers. Lessons in crisis management.
My new book is about the lovely little mountain, Loughrigg, which I’d run or walked up every week during 13 years living in Ambleside in the Lake District. It just about makes “mountain” status at 1099 feet (335 metres) and in the list of 214 Wainwright fells, Loughrigg scrapes in at number 211. But it’s a sprawling land mass, stretching for almost three miles from the head of Windermere to the foot of Grasmere, riddled with glorious paths and rocky outcrops, an overground rabbit warren as one devotee described. And there are many Loughrigg devotees as I discovered, gathering their stories for Loughrigg: Tales of a Small Mountain. People who climb her, run over her, paint her, live on her lower slopes, swim in her tarns (for this fell seems female). So when the book was ready to be launched, there was one obvious place for a celebration, and that was beside the summit cairn.
Author makes a speech
Loughrigg’s top point is an actual trig column, a structure with a history of its own deserving an entire chapter in the book, and that’s where the invitations pointed. Join us at the summit at 2pm; no other instruction was needed. A copy of the book was packed in a waterproof map case, and I met some friends at Miller Bridge at 1pm to start walking up. We were a lively group. My son David was with his girlfriend Eleanor and their Pomeranian, Ted. Ruth, who had tried to teach me orienteering on Loughrigg, brought her collie Isla. There was a race organiser who’s also a poet, the editor of the Fellrunner magazine, and several members of Ambleside AC.
The climb was a Tolkien-esque gathering as our fellowship grew along the way. We were joined by my beloved former neighbours; a couple who were camping at Loughrigg Tarn and wondered what was going on; a runner who, I happened to know, finished 10th in the marathon at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Dozens more were gathered at the summit when we got there, including my photographer friend and his daughter who had packed some bottles of Prosecco along with the camera (had to keep that quiet from my friends in the mountain rescue team!) and a professor from the University of Cumbria. Dr Penny Bradshaw runs the MA in literature and romanticism, and when I’d asked for a few words for a chapter on what Loughrigg means to others, she wrote me an entire chapter. She also bakes jolly good scones, and had brought a box of them to the summit, along with jam and clotted cream, and was serving the assembled company from her table on the trig column.
Penny Bradshaw raises a glass
Several strangers arrived, learning about the event from social media and wanting to pay tribute to their own favourite fell. Like so many others they were entranced by the magic of Loughrigg. As poet Kerry Darbishire says, recalling being “dragged up through the bracken” by her mother: “It was always worth it, and always took my breath away in more ways than one, as the views over to Grasmere, down Windermere, across to Grizedale and toward the Langdale valley and the Pikes felt as though we were at the top of the highest mountain in the world. If we were lucky, we’d watch wild geese flying north or south between scudding clouds. These moments will never leave me, and often appear in my poetry. Loughrigg felt like our fell, our friend, always there to escape to and enjoy.”
The weather was typically Loughriggian. It rained and then stopped. The mist closed in and then the sun came out. The wind howled and then whimpered away. We had everything that the fell has to offer in just one hour.
The views expressed in this post are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Gritstone co-operative.
In the summer of 2021, Gritstone author Eileen Jones sent a copy of her book How parkrun changed our lives off on a journey. She gave it to a couple of “parkrun tourists”, Linda and Peter Moehle, who were visiting her home parkrun at Fell Foot in the Lake District, and were heading to Bramhall, and then Plymouth parkruns, with the request that they should hand it on to another tourist. Let’s see how far it travels, she said at the time.
The views expressed in this post are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Gritstone co-operative.
You might remember the story about the launch of our book about parkrun, back in the spring during lockdown, when a relay of runners carried a copy all the way from Windermere to London.
Since then, a copy of How parkrun changed our lives, by Eileen Jones, has been on a journey of its own. When parkruns started again in July, Eileen took a copy to her home run at Fell Foot in the Lake District, and gave it to a couple of parkrun tourists who were visiting…and were planning to run in Plymouth the following week.
They took the book with them and, having signed and dated it, with the name of the event they were at, they passed the book to another parkrun tourist. And so on. For five months the book has been on a journey, from Plymouth back up north via Oswestry among other places, all the way to Halifax, back to the Midlands, and was last heard of heading to Hull.
Eileen keeps track of its progress through posts on a Facebook page set up when the Bookrun Relay was being organised. And now another copy of the book has begun another journey – across the USA.
This one was signed by parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt when the relay runners met for a reunion this autumn at Beacon parkrun in Lichfield, the mid-way point of the original relay. It was then taken by Macclesfield runner Eve Taylor and her husband Ian on holiday to America, and has been presented to Nicole Brown, the event director at Deep Park parkrun in Richmond, Virginia, who, after reading it herself, will pass it on to another parkrun tourist.
A further copy of the book is also now in the USA, a gift from Eileen to a runner from Seattle, Martha Hankins, whom she met at Newborough Forest parkrun on Anglesey in October.
Eve Taylor presents a copy of the parkrun book to Nicole Brown in Richmond, Virginia.
Meanwhile, Eileen was invited to speak about the book at the Kendal Mountain Festival at the prestigious Merrell Running Session. “I was a little unsure about my credentials to be there, as most of the other speakers seemed to run more in a day than I do in a month. But the story of the parkrun community, and its ethos of inclusivity, seemed to be appreciated.”
Climber Rob Greenwood, who is chair of the Peak area of the British Mountaineering Council, wrote in a review for UK Hillwalking: “A particular highlight, in and amongst the many, was Eileen Jones’ account of ‘How Parkrun Changed Our Lives’. I’ve never actually done a parkrun before, and only learned exactly what one is during the session, but the sense of belonging Eileen described, and to such a wholesome community, filled my heart with joy.”
Eileen Jones talking at the Kendal Mountain Festival.
At the end of her talk, Eileen issued a challenge to the following speaker, the legendary fellrunner Joss Naylor, who is now 85. She pointed out that though he’d done everything there was to achieve in the running world, he had never yet done a parkrun. The challenge was accepted. Joss has registered, downloaded his barcode, and is hoping to run with Eileen at a Cumbrian parkrun before the end of the year.
Eileen’s book, and ALL the books by Gritstone authors, can be ordered from our website here in plenty of time for Christmas – in case you were struggling to think of ideas for gifts!
Main Photo: Some of the relay runners who met for the first time at Beacon parkrun
The views expressed in this post are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Gritstone co-operative.
The world is a very different place now, than it was two years ago. Who would have thought then that a week’s holiday in the Lake District would cost more than a trip to Italy, for example. That was the finding of a study by the consumer group Which? after accommodation prices soared in “staycation hot-spots” following the global pandemic.
Hotel and guest-house owners justified their increases after losing billions during the 2020 season because of Covid-19. Though it was self-catering and private accommodation providers who saw the greatest increases in both demand and prices this summer, across all of the UK’s holiday areas.
The views expressed in this post are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Gritstone co-operative.
Launching a book used to be a straightforward affair. The publisher would advertise an event at a bookshop, the author would make an informal speech, answer a few questions, sign a few books, offer a few glasses of wine.
Now while there are still no “non-essential” retailers open, (how can books be considered non-essential?) it’s necessary to think outside the box, outside the bookshop.
The views expressed in this post are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Gritstone co-operative.
For several years tourism chiefs have been promoting the notion of the ‘staycation’ to entice holidaymakers to take a break in the UK, notably in national parks. Alongside this sat the green lobby’s lower-carbon-footprint call for us to fly less.
Be careful what you wish for. Last summer nobody could fly anywhere, and once the first lockdown restrictions were eased, the Lake District in particular experienced a veritable invasion of staycationers.
The views expressed in this post are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Gritstone co-operative.
It’s been an extreme year for running. Deprived of races on the fells and trails, ultra athletes have been smashing the records with jaw-dropping regularity. The Pennine Way fastest time was beaten twice in two weeks. There was a new women’s record for the Bob Graham round in the Lakes; the record for the Steve Parr round (all the Lakeland fells over 2500ft) went at last after 30 years; and jogging from Land’s End to John o’Groats seemed to be the new normal.
But behind the high-profile, long distance achievements, millions of people were mourning the absence of their 5k Saturday morning parkrun.
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