by Maggie B Dickinson
The first night I spent under canvas was on the banks of the River Derwent near Dalt Wood in
Borrowdale, my favorite Lakeland valley which lies to the south of Keswick in the county of Cumbria.
Borrowdale is within the Lake District National Park, an area which has attracted artists,
writers and outdoor enthusiasts from time immemorial. Not for nothing did William
Wordsworth live in Grasmere, only a stone's throw from where Sting has a pad. As further
evidence Prince Charles even has a bolthole in Borrowdale. Indeed, I read only yesterday that
Lake Ennerdale - just over a couple of mountains from this valley, is where President Clinton
first proposed to Hillary, who turned him down on that occasion. However, I'm going to travel
further back than Prince Charles, Sting and the Clintons, to the autumn of 1959.
My fiancée and I were to be married within six months but it wasn't the done thing to spend the
night alone before the wedding ring was firmly on the woman's finger so we'd told our parents we'd find a youth hostel.
No-one thought to ask why David's rucksack was so huge, containing as it did two cast-off
feather eiderdowns sewn together, with most of their contents having abandoned ship and the
rest trying to follow suit. Nor was it noticed that I was staggering under the weight of a bag
holding the tent: the dreaded tent.
It was September and we'd hitched a lift on the final leg of the journey with a
traveling salesman who was on a visit to family. En route he waxed lyrically about the
northern Lakes and as we topped Chestnut Hill, just prior to Keswick, he suddenly pulled over into a
gateway and the three of us got out to view the magnificent scenery for which he'd longed during
his absence. I swear he'd a trickle running down his cheek.
We walked from Keswick to an unofficial campsite near Grange-in-Borrowdale, arriving late in the
afternoon, and pitched the tent immediately. It had been a gorgeous day but once the sun dropped
behind the mountains a chill set in. Ravenously hungry, and beginning to feel the cold, we
walked briskly down the road to a pub for a meal.
The rest of the campers were equally young and by the time we returned to the camp a couple of
young men, whom we'd envied for their possession of an open-topped sports car, had lit a fire and
everyone was gathered round clutching bottled beers. The car had a radio over which we
drooled as much as the car itself. In fact we all agreed that none of us had previously
encountered anyone so young owning transport, except in American films.
The music coming over the air waves that night, and for the rest of the September holiday, was
frequently Jerry Keller singing Here Comes Summer which hit the number one slot of the
infant UK charts the following month, after peaking at number 14 in the States.
It landed here at the wrong time for the words to ring true, but we enjoyed it all the same
even though some of the lyrics failed to make sense to us. What on earth was a "flat top"
which curled when she kissed him? Going steady was a phrase that we already understood but it
didn't replace our equivalent term of "courting". Drive-in movies we'd observed in
American films but our dodgy weather ruled out their commercial possibility
over here.
It is difficult with the passage of time to recall just which part of that holiday hit rock
bottom the hardest, for there were many contenders that were truly dire, none
more so than the first night. After a pleasant singalong everyone had turned in more or less
simultaneously so that the only sounds came from mice scuttling in the rubbish bags and owls hell
bent on acquiring sore throats. For my part I fell asleep rapidly in the warmth of the
feathers - scant as they were - and from an adjoining heated body, but the
bliss soon faded and I awoke around midnight frozen stiff and aching in every conceivable joint. I ached in
joints I didn't even know I owned until that night. Not one wink of sleep came after the
bewitching hour and I crawled out of the tent at first light to jog on
the spot in order to stave off hypothermia.
"Where's the toilets?" I asked of David when he emerged. "There aren't any; you've to find a
tree." "And toilet paper?" "Dock leaves."
I came back from the wood feeling hideously unclean and abrased and enquired about
washrooms. Stupidly I'd not only imagined having a proper wash but I also presumed I'd
have the means of rinsing out my smalls every day. These facilities were as much in evidence
as real flushing toilets and the only opportunity for ablutions and washing clothes
was an icy River Derwent with which I never bonded during our whole stay.
I ached unmercifully from my nocturnal encounter with the hard ground and in readiness for the
second night we gathered huge amounts of green bracken and spread them inside the tent,
covered the pretty foliage with the loose ground sheet, and topped it with the eiderdowns.
After a day's hard slog up fells and down dales, several bottles of strong ale, and a loud
singalong with Jerry Keller, we hit the tent with relish in anticipation of the cosy leafy
mattress that looked extremely fetching.
Despite the day's strenuous activity I awoke long before midnight this time, with my entire
skin itching from the tiny creatures trying to burrow into my flesh and eat me alive. Nothing
would stop them, so we got up, threw out the bracken, and tried to sleep on the rock hard ground once again.
I worked in the office of a cotton factory where the chief clerk, a
man due for retirement, turned out to be an expert on the Lake
District - a fact of which I'd previously been unaware. "Where did
you stay?" he asked, innocently enough. In my panic I said the
first thing that came into my head. "The Borrowdale Gates
Hotel." I knew he wasn't convinced because it was, and still is,
considered an upmarket place. And whilst I could have kicked myself
I'll give the old chap his due, he let it go.
Last autumn I went back to Borrowdale, almost fifty years on. I took along my MP3, parked the
car at Grange village and walked to Dalt Wood. I strolled past the trees where I'd
crouched with the dock leaves, the ground where we'd pitched the tent and stood
next to the river and played Here Come Summer - still out of
season. Then I turned on my heel and spent a sumptuous night at The Borrowdale Gates Hotel - at last.
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