Books with Steve Matthews of Bookends

Lively essays on Lakes’ penmen

Published 14 November 2008

ruskin1411 Shakespeare may never have visited the Lake District. We have no evidence either way. There is a legend that he was friends with the jester at Muncaster Castle, one Thomas Skelton, who may have given rise to the term “tomfoolery”, and recent research suggests that a William Shakeshafte may have spent some years in the household of a Lancashire Catholic gentleman, from whence it would have been but a short step to the Lakes.

The first railway line across Britain, in graphic detail

Published 7 November 2008

The railways we have left have mellowed into the landscape. They no longer seem like great feats of engineering – man imposing his will upon the landscape, cutting, embanking, tunnelling, bridging, changing the natural contours of the land to provide a near straight and level line from A to B.

Face cream and fells; The amazing double life of WA Poucher

Published 31 October 2008

He was known as the greatest nose in the English-speaking world. This superlative was a compliment to a man who became the leading English expert in perfumery and wrote the standard work on cosmetics. He was Walter Poucher.

Two sleepy villages shocked into modern times by the railway

Published 24 October 2008

The front cover seems to say it all. A straw-hatted idler leans on a wall and gazes across a sheep-encrusted sward. In the distance a train puffs happily across a red sandstone viaduct above a wooded valley. In front of it a grand church sits benignly among its gravestones and quiet cottages send up wreaths of smoke.

Simple, pithy words that reflect the 2,000-year history of everyday Cumbria

Published 17 October 2008

A man’s language is his identity and inheritance. Cumbrians take a particular pride in their dialect. It is a distinctive way of speaking that in its very words reveals their history.

The land where the stallion rules

Published 10 October 2008

Fell ponies are herd animals. They require a leader and that leader is usually the dominant stallion. Dominance is determined by courage and often violence.

The men who gave Lakeland its soul

Published 3 October 2008

The first time he saw Betty she was clipping a hogg on a stool in the old fashioned way and he thowt ‘she’s the girl for me’ and she’s bin wid him ivver sen. So spoke Jonny Birkett of High Yewdale talking about his pal George Birkett and his courting.

Rome brought home to a Gameboy and iPod generation

Published 26 September 2008

For the boy, I have something special in mind, said the governor. “He is not a child!” said my mother defiantly. “Bran is a prince, raised to be a warrior like his father! He is 11 years old. Old enough to take his place on the battlefield.”

Full marks Robert. Pity those mystic stones won’t yield

Published 19 September 2008

Long Meg and her Daughters is the largest stone circle in Cumbria and the sixth largest in the country. This enigmatic disposition of rocks – 69 standing stones arranged in an approximate circle – has been a source of wonder, no doubt since it was first assembled in Neolithic times.

Tales of japes and initiation rites

Published 5 September 2008

Carlisle Grammar School by Mary Scott-Parker (published by Parker-Leigh, £12)The head- master of Carlisle Grammar School, Vincent “Jankers” Dunstan, caned George Macdonald Fraser for reading a “tuppenny blood” during a lesson.

Come, gentle rambler, let Vivienne be your guide

Published 29 August 2008

There are all sorts of words for walking – rambling, ambling, strolling, hiking, striding, shuffling – and there are all sorts of walkers.

Essential reading for lovers of the Lakes

Published 29 August 2008

The Herries Chronicles by Hugh Walpole, with an introduction by Eric Robson (published by Frances Lincoln, £7.99 each)For all those who love the drama and atmosphere of the Lake District Hugh Walpole’s Herries Chronicles (and especially the first book, Rogue Herries) should be as essential reading as Alfred Wainwright but sadly he and this magnum opus has mostly been forgotten since his death in 1941.

50 years before Wordsworth, Susanna writes...

Published 22 August 2008

Susanna blamire was the most considerable poet ever to come from Carlisle. She was born in 1747 at Cardew Hall near Dalston. Her mother died when she was seven and she was brought up by her aunt at Thackwood Nook, Stockdalewath, near Raughton Head in the country south of Carlisle.

The wily character of a Lakeland huntsman

Published 15 August 2008

Willie Irving: Terrierman, Huntsman and Lakelander by Sean Frain (Merlin Unwin Books, £17.99)It is very difficult for a non-huntsman to appreciate how deeply the passion for hunting runs in the veins of the true huntsman. It is not simply a question of an occasional canter across the fells with a pack of attentive yapping hounds and a dozen men or more on horses in pursuit of a defenceless fox.