Alfred Wainwright

“Wainwright Society”

“One day I got a call from Sandy Hewitson, just along the street. He had been approached by a Mr Wainwright to print a guidebook and wanted me to take a look at it, as it looked too big a job for them. I went around and was amazed. I couldn't believe one man had hand-drawn every page. He wanted it reproduced exactly as he'd done it and set it out. I don't think anyone since the days of the days of the monks had ever produced a handwritten book.”

“I still consider his Seven Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells be works of art. I'll go further. I think they are masterpieces.”

“I went whenever I could, and always my eyes lifted to the hills. I was to find a spiritual and physical satisfaction in climbing mountains and a tranquil mind upon reaching their summits, as though I had escaped from the disappointments and unkindness of life and emerged above them into a new world, a better world.”

“Some people escape in dreams but I was fortunate enough to live in a perfect dreamland that actually existed. I was always happier pulling on my boots in the morning then putting on my shoes.”

“I was working for my own pleasure...gathering together all my notes and drawings and a host of recollections and putting them in a book so that when I was an old man, I could look at them in leisure, recall my adventures, and go on a fell walking trip in spirit long after my legs had given up.”