0:00:54 > 0:01:00This is the strange, unlikely story of a humble Blackburn man who fell in love with a landscape
0:01:00 > 0:01:04and transformed himself into an artistic legend.
0:01:12 > 0:01:17It's the story of an obsessive accountant who, 50 years ago,
0:01:17 > 0:01:21became so passionate about the beauty of the English Lake District
0:01:21 > 0:01:24that he dedicated his life to capturing it on paper.
0:01:26 > 0:01:31Entirely driven by his obsession, the reclusive Alfred Wainwright
0:01:31 > 0:01:36embarked on a 13-year odyssey to map his beloved Lake District.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42So began an epic journey that not only changed the life of one man,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46but changed the whole experience of Lakeland for millions of readers
0:01:46 > 0:01:50who've worshipped his guide books and have followed in his footsteps.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12I've always liked walking myself, and my husband does, too.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15And I think it was he who said, "You ought to do Wainwright."
0:02:15 > 0:02:20Well, Desert Island is a national programme and you need national figures,
0:02:20 > 0:02:25and there was never any doubt in my mind that Wainwright was a national figure.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29He would not come to London. He'd only do it if I would go to Manchester.
0:02:29 > 0:02:34He'd been to London once since the war, didn't like it, and he wasn't going down there again.
0:02:36 > 0:02:42And said the only reason he was doing it was because he liked a woman with a nice pair of legs.
0:02:46 > 0:02:54'...My castaway this week is a writer and an artist, but first of all a guide.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58'He is the constant companion of any serious walker in the Lake District.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01'Indeed, a man would be a fool to set out without him...'
0:03:01 > 0:03:04It's not a north-south thing, it's not a class thing,
0:03:04 > 0:03:09but half the people will say, "Oh, I love him. I love all his books.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11"I've gone up..."
0:03:11 > 0:03:15You know there's a woman who's climbed the 214 fells 13 times?!
0:03:15 > 0:03:17Unbelievable. Potty.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23Then there's the other half of the people who say, "Who?
0:03:23 > 0:03:27"He wrote guidebooks? Why's he so famous?" It's very hard to explain to people.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32There's this dichotomy with people who know nothing at all about him, and people that love him.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36There's something which captures the essence of mountains.
0:03:36 > 0:03:41And compare those with any photographic guide you want,
0:03:41 > 0:03:46and I defy you to find one that will explain the mountain better,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49or make the mountain accessible to people better.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52They were places where a man could go in safety
0:03:52 > 0:03:55if he took reasonable precautions.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03' ..The guides, which have sold more than a million now,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06'are a walker's passport to pleasure.'
0:04:06 > 0:04:12The thing about his books, unlike all the guidebooks that went before, nobody uses those books today.
0:04:12 > 0:04:17They're boring and they're inconsequential, and they're out of date.
0:04:17 > 0:04:23And you would never plan a walk with those guides. But with Wainwright's ones, you can.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27That was his genius. You can use the Wainwrights to plan a walk.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31You can sit down and read it and work out where you want to go.
0:04:31 > 0:04:37You can use it while walking, because they're shaped to fit in your pocket.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41Or you can sit and read them without ever going on the fells.
0:04:41 > 0:04:46You can sit in California and read them and imagine. I've got friends in America who read Wainwrights.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48They just sit there and imagine it.
0:04:51 > 0:04:57It wasn't until the age of 81 that this famous recluse finally spoke publicly, and very personally,
0:04:57 > 0:05:01about his intense relationship with Lakeland's fells.
0:05:01 > 0:05:08Mr Wainwright, you've got a reputation for being a bit of a recluse, not liking publicity.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10Why is that?
0:05:10 > 0:05:15I suppose it's true to some extent because,
0:05:15 > 0:05:22with one or two exceptions, I do prefer my own company to that of other people.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26It wasn't just to his readers that Wainwright was a mystery.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30He kept his personal life completely private,
0:05:30 > 0:05:35had few intimate friends, and always preferred his own company.
0:05:40 > 0:05:46Writer and walker Hunter Davies only discovered the secret truth about Wainwright's internal life
0:05:46 > 0:05:54when he gained access to hundreds of personal papers and letters whilst researching his biography in 1994.
0:05:54 > 0:06:01What people knew about him... One, he was a fairly dour person, this was the image, this was the myth.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03He wasn't really sociable.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05He liked walking on his own.
0:06:05 > 0:06:07He was fairly grumpy.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11I'd heard he was a bit of a misogynist and wasn't very keen on women.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14Who liked animals better than people.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17They knew that he was a bit of a...
0:06:17 > 0:06:21- What's the word I want? - Well, he was a loner, wasn't he?- Yes.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25And I think most people, if you lived in the Lake District,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28or walked in the Lake District, you knew Wainwright.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32Everyone used his books. We used his books for years, didn't we?
0:06:32 > 0:06:36- But people didn't know Wainwright as the man, did they?- No.
0:06:37 > 0:06:42Yes, I am anti-social, and getting worse as I get older.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45It started as shyness.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47It isn't shyness now.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51I can face anybody now and not feel inferior to them.
0:06:55 > 0:07:01Yes, he suddenly said that he didn't feel inferior any more, which was a strange statement.
0:07:01 > 0:07:07But then, gradually, you learned about his background, which was very poor.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11Well, he was born 1907, in Blackburn,
0:07:11 > 0:07:14in amongst the mills and in amongst the factories.
0:07:17 > 0:07:22You never felt that you were poor, because everybody was in the same boat.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25People accepted their position. That's the way they were born.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29- They had to go in the mill and work for a living.- The cotton mill?
0:07:29 > 0:07:31Yeah.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36He didn't have a very easy childhood.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39He was born with red hair and nobody else in the family had red hair.
0:07:39 > 0:07:45He told me his mother used to hide him in a drawer, as a baby, when visitors came!
0:07:46 > 0:07:48He adored his mother.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52I think his mother was a saint in his eyes.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02As a child, he was fascinated by drawing.
0:08:06 > 0:08:11He loved maps. He would copy out maps and colour them, and create his own maps.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18He loved writing. It was the physical thing of putting things on paper.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23He liked not just the content, the words, he liked the shape of writing and doing things.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31His destiny was the mill.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35It would certainly be a pretty hard working-class life.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38And he raised himself out of that.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40He worked hard at school.
0:08:40 > 0:08:45As I understand it, the young Alfred Wainwright was a bit of a clever clogs,
0:08:45 > 0:08:49and destined not to go to the cotton mill. Is that right?
0:08:49 > 0:08:52I think I must admit that is right.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57I did extremely well and came first in every subject.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01There wasn't much money coming in at home.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05At the age of 13, there was an advert in the local paper
0:09:05 > 0:09:08for an office boy in the town hall.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12I applied for that and got it,
0:09:12 > 0:09:17whereas everybody else that I knew was going into the cotton mill.
0:09:17 > 0:09:18I wouldn't have liked that.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24When he became a young man in the council offices,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28he did these hand-drawn and hand-written little magazines,
0:09:28 > 0:09:32which he stapled together, six or ten or eight pages.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37And there'd be jokes and quizzes and gossip and cartoons, all to do with the office.
0:09:40 > 0:09:42Long before he did the pictorial guides,
0:09:42 > 0:09:45inside him was this yearning to write.
0:09:48 > 0:09:54When he was in his early 20s, he went to the Lake District, and he saw...
0:09:54 > 0:09:59He'd read about the lakes and the scenery, but he'd never seen it.
0:10:00 > 0:10:06When you were aged 23, you took your first holiday away from home.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09By that age I'd saved up £5,
0:10:09 > 0:10:15and I'd heard a lot about the Lake District which, until then, had been a world away.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21I did as everybody told me, went up to Orrest Head,
0:10:21 > 0:10:23which overlooks Windermere.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30It was coming up that hill, and seeing the view of Windermere, that changed his life.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38It was a moment of magic.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42A revelation so unexpected that I stood transfixed,
0:10:42 > 0:10:44unable to believe my eyes.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52That glorious panorama that held me enthralled.
0:10:52 > 0:10:57God was in his heaven that day, and I a humble worshipper.
0:10:59 > 0:11:03I wasn't accustomed or entitled to such a privilege.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05I was an alien here.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07I didn't belong.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11If only I could, sometime.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16If only I could.
0:11:18 > 0:11:24Those few hours on Orrest Head cast a spell that changed my life.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37At the age of 23, while studying accountancy,
0:11:37 > 0:11:41Wainwright married Ruth, a mill girl without the social aspirations
0:11:41 > 0:11:44of her ambitious young husband.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49Ruth was his first ever girlfriend.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53He was trying to better himself socially,
0:11:53 > 0:11:55intellectually and professionally.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59After two or three years, quite quickly, it all fell apart,
0:11:59 > 0:12:02and all the romance went out of it.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05He realised he'd made a mistake.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10Wainwright had never let go of his dream of living in the Lakes.
0:12:10 > 0:12:12And his chance came in 1941,
0:12:12 > 0:12:17when he was offered a position at the treasurer's office in Kendal.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21Though it meant a drop in salary, he took the job,
0:12:21 > 0:12:25and moved to Cumbria with Ruth and their young son, Peter.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37Wainwright soon rose to the position of borough treasurer,
0:12:37 > 0:12:42a role he relished, with his obsession for detail and accuracy.
0:12:42 > 0:12:48But he longed to write more than accounts and ledgers, a desire he'd had since childhood.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12When I came to the Lake District,
0:13:12 > 0:13:17I had a golden opportunity of getting out, walking on the fells.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22He would talk about the beauty of the Lakes,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25and about waking up in the morning
0:13:25 > 0:13:28when he'd spent the night in the fells,
0:13:28 > 0:13:33and how beautiful it was, and the mist, as it moved off the valleys,
0:13:33 > 0:13:38and that freshness as he woke up, and how there was joy in his heart because...
0:13:38 > 0:13:42he had the fells to himself for at least five hours
0:13:42 > 0:13:45before anybody else could reach where he was.
0:13:50 > 0:13:56I think he just wanted to absorb that landscape around him, and the sounds of it and smells of it.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06And it didn't matter if it was raining, if there was rain dripping off his nose end.
0:14:06 > 0:14:08He was in the place he wanted to be.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28I was always coming across people who were lost.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32There were no guidebooks to the fells, and it was important that there should be.
0:14:34 > 0:14:40So, more for my amusement than anything else, I started to write the guidebooks.
0:14:40 > 0:14:45I thought, "When I'm an old man and I can't walk the hills, these will be memories for me."
0:14:47 > 0:14:50And that's how the books came into being.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58One November night in 1952, at the age of 45,
0:14:58 > 0:15:04Wainwright embarked on his epic, 13-year guidebook odyssey.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09A strange, obsessive journey that would soak up all his spare time
0:15:09 > 0:15:14in his rigid routine to map 214 fells in 7 books.
0:15:16 > 0:15:22On 9th November 1952, he sat down and began what became the pictorial guides.
0:15:22 > 0:15:28It had obviously been bubbling up in his head for a long time, but that was the day he first started.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35Wordsworth used to say that the Lake District
0:15:35 > 0:15:38was like the spokes of a wheel, radiating around.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40He didn't actually divide it up.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42But Wainwright did that.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49He worked out the seven areas he was going to do,
0:15:49 > 0:15:53the seven geographical divisions of the Lake District National Park.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59He must have sat there, working out how many fells...
0:15:59 > 0:16:04I think at that early stage he must have decided, 214 fells...
0:16:04 > 0:16:09And he worked out that evening, "I'll finish in 13 years' time."
0:16:09 > 0:16:14Imagine anybody being so controlled and organised!
0:16:14 > 0:16:18And imagine people thinking, "Well, the wife might want taken out.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21"I might fall ill, something else might turn up."
0:16:21 > 0:16:28But he was totally cold-blooded, in a way, giving him this self-imposed task.
0:16:48 > 0:16:55"Surely there is no other place in this whole wonderful world quite like Lakeland.
0:16:58 > 0:17:03"All who truly love Lakeland are exiles when away from it.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11"Many are they who have fallen under the spell of Lakeland.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22"And many are they who have been moved to tell of their affection
0:17:22 > 0:17:25"in story and verse and picture.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33"This book is one man's way of expressing his devotion
0:17:33 > 0:17:36"to Lakeland's friendly hills.
0:17:36 > 0:17:40"It was conceived and is born after many years
0:17:40 > 0:17:44"of inarticulate worshipping at their shrines.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47"It is, in very truth,
0:17:47 > 0:17:48"a love letter."
0:18:03 > 0:18:06I was able to illustrate with drawings.
0:18:09 > 0:18:14I was able to give the natural features of the mountain.
0:18:18 > 0:18:20The routes of ascent.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26The ridge routes to the next one.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30The view from the summit.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36I have dealt with them all like that, one after another.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43I really got obsessed by what I was doing.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51He would go to his job every day as borough treasurer.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53He would come home.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00Ruth would give him his tea.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09And he would work on his pages, his notes, write up what he had done the previous weekend.
0:19:09 > 0:19:17Year after year, Wainwright kept up the same, unbroken weekend routine through sunshine and rain.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23He would get the very early bus to wherever he was going.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35He would usually organise his day
0:19:35 > 0:19:38so that he'd have fish and chips somewhere.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49He would climb all day long and come back on the last bus.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53And he'd spend the rest of the week writing up his notes.
0:19:54 > 0:20:00Anybody who spends every weekend in life out on the hill,
0:20:00 > 0:20:03and every evening when you finish your day job
0:20:03 > 0:20:07in the attic, drawing up what you did the previous weekend -
0:20:07 > 0:20:10that's obsessive in anybody's terms.
0:20:12 > 0:20:17After about 100 pages, he was not happy with how he was drawing it.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25He decided to justify the type on either side.
0:20:25 > 0:20:30Justified means a straight line that side and a straight line the other side.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37Somebody is obviously obsessive who chucks away 100 pages of work -
0:20:37 > 0:20:39God knows how long that took him -
0:20:39 > 0:20:43because he was obsessed by perfection, as he saw it.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48And somebody is obviously obsessive who works out what they will be doing for the next 13 years.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Self-imposed. It wasn't a job, nobody was paying him.
0:20:53 > 0:20:59"I started the book determined that everything in it should be perfect.
0:21:01 > 0:21:03"So let me be the first to say it.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07"This book is full of imperfections.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09"But let me dare also to say
0:21:09 > 0:21:13"it is free from inaccuracies."
0:21:13 > 0:21:15He could never make a mistake.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18Making a mistake didn't come into his language.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22He would be right in his mind before he wrote it down.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27I think, at the back of his mind, almost from the beginning,
0:21:27 > 0:21:32he was vaguely thinking of publishing it, because very quickly he WAS thinking of publishing it.
0:21:33 > 0:21:38I finished the first volume after two years of working every night on them.
0:21:39 > 0:21:44I thought these might be useful to other people, too.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48Having handwritten the book himself,
0:21:48 > 0:21:53Wainwright was equally independent and determined to bypass interfering London publishers,
0:21:53 > 0:21:58by taking the financial risk to publish himself.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00But could he find a willing printer?
0:22:02 > 0:22:05I went to a local printer
0:22:05 > 0:22:10and asked what it would cost to have 2,000 copies made.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18He couldn't believe it was all in handwriting.
0:22:18 > 0:22:24He couldn't understand that somebody had done page after page of this immaculate work.
0:22:24 > 0:22:30He said that he didn't think anybody had done a handwritten book like this
0:22:30 > 0:22:32since the monks of medieval time.
0:22:32 > 0:22:38And he gave him a quote for 2,000 copies for £900.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41I said I have only got 35.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46"Well," he said, "never mind. This book will sell.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49"Pay me off as you sell them."
0:22:51 > 0:22:55Despite facing a £900 debt, equivalent to £18,000 today,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00the self-sufficient borough treasurer accepted the huge financial risk
0:23:00 > 0:23:03and published his first book.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08Having seen the reaction to that first one,
0:23:08 > 0:23:12he knew that book was too good to just be on one person's bookshelf.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18"When this last sentence is written, Book One will be finished
0:23:18 > 0:23:20"and in the same moment
0:23:20 > 0:23:24"Book Two will take its place in my thoughts."
0:23:38 > 0:23:42"The author carried out his explorations surreptitiously
0:23:42 > 0:23:47"and without permission, not caring to risk a refusal.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50"He was not detected, but this may, possibly,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54"have been due to his marked resemblance to an old stag."
0:23:57 > 0:24:02He walked on the fells the way he would walk to go into Kendal.
0:24:02 > 0:24:09There weren't cagoules, there weren't climbing gear that you have today.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16And he wouldn't speak to people while he was walking.
0:24:16 > 0:24:21He didn't want any distractions. He would ignore people and he certainly didn't want anybody walking with him.
0:24:21 > 0:24:27I thought it would be rather nice if I could go there with him, follow him.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31I asked him if I could do that, and he said,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34"Yes, if you don't talk!"
0:24:35 > 0:24:38But he was a trudger.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43He would have taken a very dim view of the sort of power walkers
0:24:43 > 0:24:47that you see on the hill now, wall-to-wall lycra.
0:24:47 > 0:24:53Who come past you at a great rate of knots, looking at their toe ends, because they are powering their way
0:24:53 > 0:24:58to the next summit because they got to do five summits today come hell or high water!
0:24:58 > 0:25:01Wainwright would rather drown.
0:25:02 > 0:25:07It is what you do when you get to the end of the walk that's the interesting bit.
0:25:07 > 0:25:12When you get to this viewpoint or that viewpoint or this place where you can suddenly look out
0:25:12 > 0:25:14over the promised land.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18And that was what Wainwright was going for.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22It was taking time to absorb that landscape.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31"There have been offers of hospitality, of transport.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34"I have no car nor any wish for one,
0:25:34 > 0:25:39"for I am stubbornly resolved that this must be a single-handed effort.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44"I have set myself this task and I am pig-headed enough
0:25:44 > 0:25:45"to want to do it without help."
0:25:51 > 0:25:54Wainwright knew his instincts were right.
0:25:54 > 0:25:59Without professional marketing or publicity, Book One was an instant success.
0:25:59 > 0:26:05By the time Book Two was finished, he'd sold enough copies to clear his debt.
0:26:05 > 0:26:11His big risk paid off and now he could complete his 13-year guidebook odyssey.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52"The highest point is a pleasant place for a halt
0:26:52 > 0:26:55"and quiet contemplation of the scenery.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00"Sheep think so, too."
0:27:01 > 0:27:04Actually, he was in no hurry to come home.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14He didn't want to see Ruth, he didn't want any connection with Ruth.
0:27:16 > 0:27:18He wanted to come home absolutely knackered,
0:27:18 > 0:27:24absolutely shattered, but having been up a fell, done all his drawings and then come home and flop into bed.
0:27:32 > 0:27:38In 1957, at the age of 50, and after 27 years in an unhappy marriage,
0:27:38 > 0:27:42Wainwright met a woman who was to change his life.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45She was 15 years his junior
0:27:45 > 0:27:48and an attractive, separated, mother of two.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55Her name was Betty McNally.
0:27:55 > 0:28:02She was running some sort of charity thing and they'd hired premises belonging to the council.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07Apparently, they'd hired it for X number of hours but they had run over by an hour.
0:28:07 > 0:28:12So he called her into his office and said, "You stayed extra in that hall and we want the money.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15"Are you going to pay it?"
0:28:15 > 0:28:18He really told me off quite fiercely,
0:28:18 > 0:28:20but in a gentle sort of way.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24Anyway, it was all all right in the end.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28But it was a severe... quite a severe ticking-off.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32And it sort of stuck in my mind
0:28:32 > 0:28:35that he had been gentle and nice,
0:28:35 > 0:28:38even though he was cross at the same time!
0:28:38 > 0:28:42And that never went out of my mind again. It was always there.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45I remembered that.
0:28:45 > 0:28:51I don't think she knew then, and most people didn't, that he was also a writer of these pictorial guides.
0:28:51 > 0:28:56Don't forget, he kept a low profile, no publicity. Nothing was known about him.
0:28:58 > 0:29:03It was to be eight years before Wainwright and Betty's paths would cross again,
0:29:03 > 0:29:07by which time his books would be widely read.
0:29:18 > 0:29:22In the early couple of books, he is much more serious,
0:29:22 > 0:29:27but as he progresses through the seven books, he reveals more and more about himself.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31"Why does a man climb mountains?
0:29:33 > 0:29:36"Why has he forced his tired and sweating body up here,
0:29:36 > 0:29:39"when he might instead have been sitting at ease
0:29:39 > 0:29:43"in the deckchair at the seaside, looking at girls in bikinis?
0:29:43 > 0:29:48"Or sucking ice cream, according to his fancy?
0:29:51 > 0:29:54"On the face of it, this thing doesn't make sense."
0:29:56 > 0:30:01His thoughts, for example, addressing the reader, talking to the reader.
0:30:02 > 0:30:09"The author decided on this summit to share his hard-won royalties with one of his faithful readers
0:30:09 > 0:30:13"and placed a two-shilling piece under a flat stone.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17"It awaits the first person to read this note and act upon it."
0:30:20 > 0:30:23He has one or two topical references. He mentions women.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27"Long legs are needed to avoid mishaps.
0:30:27 > 0:30:30"Ladies have shorter legs than men - this is hearsay -
0:30:30 > 0:30:35"and should mind their bloomers, or whatever they call them nowadays.
0:30:35 > 0:30:42"A man whose only passion is for the hills cannot be expected to be well-informed in such matters."
0:30:43 > 0:30:46And he has some quite good jokes, some quite funny remarks.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49"Take care, do not start fire
0:30:49 > 0:30:53"and so waste the effort spent in drawing all the trees on this map."
0:30:55 > 0:30:57The thing that fascinates people
0:30:57 > 0:31:00who are reading quite a serious bit of instruction,
0:31:00 > 0:31:05how to get up a fell, and then suddenly you get...
0:31:05 > 0:31:10He makes some strange remark, he draws a rock with a particularly savage face on it,
0:31:10 > 0:31:14and then he writes beside that, "Some men have wives who look this."
0:31:14 > 0:31:18Well, when you're reading a guide book, you don't suddenly expect that, do you?
0:31:18 > 0:31:20Yes, he found that he could express himself
0:31:20 > 0:31:24and reveal himself on paper more than he could in real life, face to face.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27He couldn't be bothered with social intercourse.
0:31:27 > 0:31:32Well, I wrote to him because he had one very bad error about a footpath,
0:31:32 > 0:31:38and I got a letter back from him - a very polite letter, he wasn't a bit put out about it.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42And so one thing led to another, and it worked into this correspondence
0:31:42 > 0:31:47that lasted for 10 years without us ever meeting each other.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51At one point he asked me, erm, he said he did not like women with meagre thighs,
0:31:51 > 0:31:53and he asked me if I had meagre thighs,
0:31:53 > 0:31:59and I said, well, as I did so much walking and climbing, obviously I had rather muscular thighs.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02And he wrote back and he said, well, he rather doubted
0:32:02 > 0:32:08whether he could be attracted by a woman with muscular thighs, but he thought he ought to build me up,
0:32:08 > 0:32:14and then he started leaving bars of chocolate for me hidden in various walls around the neighbourhood.
0:32:14 > 0:32:19And he used to draw beautiful maps, these lovely maps, showing me how to find these chocolate bars.
0:32:20 > 0:32:25You got to like him very much through the books, and you always wanted to get onto the next walk
0:32:25 > 0:32:31with him and buy the next book and so work up a relationship with him.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37"Cindy is showing absolutely no sympathy whatsoever
0:32:37 > 0:32:39"with my efforts to write a classic.
0:32:39 > 0:32:45"Her persistent pokings and tuggings at critical moments of concentration
0:32:45 > 0:32:48"must have resulted in inferior work, for which I am sorry."
0:33:05 > 0:33:08"This, then, is Skiddaw...
0:33:09 > 0:33:13"a giant in stature...
0:33:13 > 0:33:17"but an affable and friendly giant."
0:33:19 > 0:33:21People started to look for him
0:33:21 > 0:33:25on the hill, but by the time the book was out, he was off to the next bit of the Lake District,
0:33:25 > 0:33:27so they never found him.
0:33:29 > 0:33:31You know, there were sightings, you know.
0:33:31 > 0:33:36Rumours would suggest that he was going to be at Sty Head Pass on a particular day.
0:33:36 > 0:33:41People would gather, you know, it was like sightings of the great white whale.
0:33:41 > 0:33:43And he was never there, because he was in,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46as Shakespeare would say, another part of the forest.
0:33:46 > 0:33:51I mean, if you meet a lone walker on top of a fell and you're walking, you've got to say something.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56No, you haven't, really. You can strike off in another direction.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59There are boulders you can get behind.
0:34:00 > 0:34:04My pet hate, of course, are school parties.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09When he and I were... He used to come up here to see me,
0:34:09 > 0:34:15and we used to sit here on the steps, on this seat, talking,
0:34:15 > 0:34:19and he always wore a very white shirt. I think he bought one every time he came here.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23He used to sit there like a great big marquee, because he was a very large man,
0:34:23 > 0:34:28and people used to walk past, all reading his books, looking just at his books.
0:34:28 > 0:34:30And as he said, "They'd give a fortune to see me,"
0:34:30 > 0:34:35but they just walked past within yards along that yard, right past him,
0:34:35 > 0:34:39reading his guide books, never looked up and never took any notice of him at all.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42That used to amuse him mightily, as you can imagine.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47"These were glorious days for me,
0:34:47 > 0:34:52"days of absolute freedom, days of feeling like the only man on earth.
0:34:53 > 0:34:58"No crowds to dodge, no noisy chatter, no litter.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04"Just me and the sheep and singing larks overhead."
0:35:20 > 0:35:25By 1962, after a decade of early morning buses, fish and chips,
0:35:25 > 0:35:31and burning the midnight oil, 40,000 pictorial guides had been sold.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34But despite this success and adulation,
0:35:34 > 0:35:39Wainwright stuck to his rigid routine, remaining borough treasurer
0:35:39 > 0:35:41and still the ever solitary fell walker,
0:35:41 > 0:35:44hiding from publicity and his curious public.
0:36:11 > 0:36:18"These ugly black holes and pits are not merely dangerous but damned dangerous.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24"Sons should think of their mothers and turn away.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27"Husbands should think of their wives,
0:36:27 > 0:36:33"after which gloomy contemplation many no doubt will march cheerfully into a possible doom."
0:36:36 > 0:36:38He had some very bleak times in his life.
0:36:38 > 0:36:42I think he lived in considerable turmoil,
0:36:42 > 0:36:46er...for part of his life, because of personal relationships
0:36:46 > 0:36:49and, you know, his inability to cope with them,
0:36:49 > 0:36:53his inability to come to terms with his own failings, perhaps.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56It wasn't his obsessions which had ruined the marriage
0:36:56 > 0:36:59and made the wife get fed up. It was the other way round.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02It was a bad marriage and not talking to each other
0:37:02 > 0:37:07that led to his obsession for going out on the fells, which was interesting. He was getting...
0:37:07 > 0:37:10exorcising himself, physically exhausting himself
0:37:10 > 0:37:13by going on the fells and staying out all day and all night.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19Well, his first wife and he had become estranged,
0:37:19 > 0:37:22so he was...quite lonely.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29He was an innocent person.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31Do you know that picture of him as a baby?
0:37:31 > 0:37:34In a high chair?
0:37:34 > 0:37:37And he said he felt exactly like that all his life,
0:37:37 > 0:37:42feeling...lonely and bereft
0:37:42 > 0:37:46and wondering where that nice soft breast has gone to.
0:37:49 > 0:37:56And that is what he said. And he is a little child, little baby, sitting there waiting for something.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01It's interesting.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04THUNDERCLAP
0:38:12 > 0:38:16Was this a man in silent agony,
0:38:16 > 0:38:19seeking to escape his deeper anxieties?
0:38:22 > 0:38:26Loneliness, frustration and despair were the themes
0:38:26 > 0:38:31in an autobiographical short story he'd written and kept secret
0:38:31 > 0:38:34since 1939, when he was just 32.
0:38:39 > 0:38:41When his biographer uncovered this manuscript,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44three years after his death,
0:38:44 > 0:38:49it shed a whole new light on the mysterious Wainwright enigma.
0:38:49 > 0:38:55The only thing he made fictional was Michael Wayne, the name.
0:38:55 > 0:39:01But in this marriage, "I have a boy, who is Peter, one child,"
0:39:01 > 0:39:05and he has a woman, who's... I think she's actually Milda in the book,
0:39:05 > 0:39:08and he describes this awful life with her.
0:39:08 > 0:39:12"He realised that his marriage had been a ghastly mistake.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15"He had married someone who had been his equal.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19"Now he had changed for the better, he thought.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22"Certainly his aspirations were far nobler,
0:39:22 > 0:39:26"but his wife had not changed with him."
0:39:26 > 0:39:29And then he has this fantasy of...
0:39:29 > 0:39:36he will one day meet a beautiful, marvellous, amazing woman who will somehow come to him.
0:39:36 > 0:39:40In fact, he imagines she already is with him from time to time.
0:39:40 > 0:39:44He imagines when he's sitting by the fireside that she's there, this lovely woman, his beloved.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47He even imagines her coming to his bed
0:39:47 > 0:39:50and coming when he's sleeping and being with him.
0:39:50 > 0:39:56"He turned to her, resting his aching head against her sweet breast.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00"She was with him, comforting him, soothing him.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04"He was not perplexed and frightened any more."
0:40:06 > 0:40:09After 12 years of working non-stop,
0:40:09 > 0:40:13Wainwright embarked on his final pictorial guide.
0:40:14 > 0:40:18"First time we've seen him with a cap on.
0:40:18 > 0:40:20"He must be going bald or something."
0:40:26 > 0:40:32Though Wainwright was by now used to receiving fan letters, there was one in particular that caught his eye.
0:40:36 > 0:40:42It was from Betty McNally, the woman he'd called into his office eight years earlier.
0:40:44 > 0:40:48I wrote and said how wonderful they'd been
0:40:48 > 0:40:51and how much I'd appreciated
0:40:51 > 0:40:55all the knowledge that I'd picked up from those books
0:40:55 > 0:40:58and the fun they'd given me.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02And, to my enormous surprise, he wrote a little thing
0:41:02 > 0:41:08a little note saying...you know, thanking me for thanking him
0:41:08 > 0:41:13and, um, "I hoped I'd see you again some time."
0:41:13 > 0:41:16And that just made me think,
0:41:16 > 0:41:20"Well...I might meet him again sometime."
0:41:20 > 0:41:25After a few short meetings at the town hall and a brief flirtatious correspondence,
0:41:25 > 0:41:27Wainwright fell for Betty.
0:41:30 > 0:41:34Taking a huge risk, he decided to open his heart
0:41:34 > 0:41:40to this relative stranger and presented her with the manuscript he'd written 26 years earlier.
0:41:48 > 0:41:50Was she the woman of his dreams?
0:41:53 > 0:41:58He gave Betty his 1939 short story and let her decide.
0:42:00 > 0:42:02"Just read the book first
0:42:02 > 0:42:09"and make sure it is not a case of mistaken identity with me and mistaken impression with you.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12"Wait a fortnight, please,
0:42:12 > 0:42:13"then let me know."
0:42:17 > 0:42:20"There was the girl he'd dreamed of.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23"How close he seemed to have come to her latterly.
0:42:23 > 0:42:28"She had taken his mother's place as the guiding influence in his life.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31"She dominated his thoughts, his actions.
0:42:31 > 0:42:33"She had lifted him up,
0:42:33 > 0:42:39"shown him the better way - such was the power of his imagination."
0:42:42 > 0:42:46Wainwright did mention occasionally that he'd met somebody,
0:42:46 > 0:42:51and, of course, I didn't tease him or anything like that,
0:42:51 > 0:42:55because we didn't behave like that, but I said, "Oh, that's very nice."
0:42:56 > 0:43:00She was able to give him a lift here and there,
0:43:00 > 0:43:03and that was a great addition, because he hadn't had lifts before.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08All of his adult life, Wainwright had been waiting
0:43:08 > 0:43:12to find a passion to match his love for the Lakeland fells.
0:43:12 > 0:43:16Now, aged 60, he seemed to have found her.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26I mean, you were very different people, weren't you?
0:43:26 > 0:43:27We were different people, yes.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31It was a real...case of opposites attract, both sort of physically
0:43:31 > 0:43:34and in all sorts of other ways.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38Mum, very vivacious, lively and talkative,
0:43:38 > 0:43:40- and AW was very taciturn and...- Yes.
0:43:40 > 0:43:44And you were very practical. You did all the practical things in the house.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47Yes, he wasn't at all practical, he was absolutely useless.
0:43:49 > 0:43:51When this romance was going,
0:43:51 > 0:43:56she was in her mid-40s and he was about 60, this is a 15-year gap.
0:43:57 > 0:44:02The torrent of love letters to Betty were outpourings of emotion
0:44:02 > 0:44:08displaying passions that had been absent from his 37-year marriage.
0:44:08 > 0:44:10He'd found a new joy in life,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13but there were dark clouds closing in.
0:44:13 > 0:44:21He was worried about being seen in the streets, walking with Betty, who was a separated woman.
0:44:21 > 0:44:26So they tended to meet, once the romance got going more strongly,
0:44:26 > 0:44:30further afield, where nobody would identify them.
0:44:30 > 0:44:34Ruth, his wife, eventually finds out there's something going on.
0:44:34 > 0:44:40Some kind neighbour had told her that this neighbour had seen Wainwright
0:44:40 > 0:44:45several times getting out of a car with a woman.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48From this, suspicions were arisen.
0:44:48 > 0:44:51She found something in his desk, we don't know what it was -
0:44:51 > 0:44:55Ruth had died by the time I did the book, er...
0:44:55 > 0:44:58It must have been a letter perhaps referring to Betty,
0:44:58 > 0:45:03or a letter he was writing or a letter from her, when she realises something is going on,
0:45:03 > 0:45:07he's fallen in love with another woman. That's it, I'm off.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10You've got to feel sorry for Ruth.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14She'd been his faithful wife for all these years, 30-odd years.
0:45:14 > 0:45:18She cooked and cleaned for him, been absolutely loyal and helped him.
0:45:18 > 0:45:22I imagine if she was alive today and had a good divorce lawyer
0:45:22 > 0:45:26she would say, "Your career was based on me being a faithful wife."
0:45:26 > 0:45:31She could probably, like film stars today, have got half his money.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40Because he's totally undomesticated - doesn't know how the cooker works, the fire works, the oven works -
0:45:40 > 0:45:43she leaves him these notes on how to run the house
0:45:43 > 0:45:46and I think they never meet again.
0:45:46 > 0:45:52"Sheets and pillowcases and towels in the top drawer of the dressing-table.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56"Coal will come once a fortnight unless you cancel it.
0:45:56 > 0:46:01"Papers are five and four a week at Kendal Green Post Office."
0:46:01 > 0:46:03"Dear, Molly.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05"Don't worry about me.
0:46:05 > 0:46:06"I'm doing all right.
0:46:08 > 0:46:12"I crunch around the kitchen amongst the spilt cornflakes
0:46:12 > 0:46:17"and the bed is lumpy, because it hasn't been made for seven weeks.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21"And I've stopped wearing underclothes because I have no clean ones left,
0:46:21 > 0:46:24"and I don't know how to use the washing machine."
0:46:27 > 0:46:33In the Christmas of 1965, after 13 years of painstaking work,
0:46:33 > 0:46:38Wainwright finally completed his extraordinary Lakeland odyssey.
0:46:38 > 0:46:44Finishing his last pictorial guide just one week ahead of his original 1952 schedule.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52"So, this is farewell to the present series of books.
0:46:52 > 0:46:57"The fleeting hours of life for those who love the hills is quickly spent.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00"But the hills are eternal."
0:47:04 > 0:47:09It was as if his life was a long, slow ascent
0:47:09 > 0:47:15up a path to the summit that he saw quite early on and intended to get there.
0:47:15 > 0:47:20And slowly but surely, and obsessively, he did get there.
0:47:41 > 0:47:48At the age of 63, Wainwright had finally found the close relationship he'd been dreaming of all his life.
0:47:48 > 0:47:54In 1970, after a difficult divorce, he and Betty got married.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00He was very, very contented
0:48:00 > 0:48:04and he seemed to put on weight because she was cooking for him.
0:48:04 > 0:48:09But even though he and Betty had a marriage,
0:48:09 > 0:48:12he was still self-obsessed by his work.
0:48:13 > 0:48:15He always had a new project on, didn't he?
0:48:15 > 0:48:18He always had something in mind, yes.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21Right up until the end he used to...
0:48:21 > 0:48:25Until his last illness he used to go upstairs
0:48:25 > 0:48:29every day and try and work, didn't he?
0:48:29 > 0:48:34He didn't take Betty on world tours to Venice. He didn't treat Betty.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37He still put his life and his work first.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41With Betty's help researching and editing,
0:48:41 > 0:48:44Wainwright went on to produce more than 40 books,
0:48:44 > 0:48:49including guides to Scotland and his ever-popular coast-to-coast walk.
0:48:57 > 0:48:59But as more book royalties poured in,
0:48:59 > 0:49:04Wainwright remained his typically independent self.
0:49:04 > 0:49:10He decided to give away most of his new-found wealth to animal charities.
0:49:16 > 0:49:20He and Betty shared this love of animals.
0:49:20 > 0:49:24It started off with trying to help animals - they tried to help those
0:49:24 > 0:49:30existing animal refuge places and he gave money from his books to these animal places.
0:49:30 > 0:49:36In the end he and Betty decided to start their own animal refuge at Kapellan.
0:49:36 > 0:49:40And every penny from all these books went into this animal refuge.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46I said, "How would you like to be remembered?"
0:49:46 > 0:49:49"Well," he said, "No doubt it will be those books
0:49:49 > 0:49:51"but I'd like to be remembered
0:49:51 > 0:49:53"for Kapellan and what it is."
0:49:55 > 0:49:58"An absolute model, that's what we want, that's what we've set off to do.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02"Have a model of animal welfare."
0:50:04 > 0:50:09By the mid-1980s the hundreds of thousands of pounds of book revenues
0:50:09 > 0:50:14matched Wainwright's new status as a legend of the Lakes.
0:50:15 > 0:50:21Finally, television managed to woo the great Lake District enigma to the screen.
0:50:21 > 0:50:27Though the reluctant Wainwright had held off public fame until he was almost 80.
0:50:27 > 0:50:32So he was getting more money for his dogs and cats so he was delighted.
0:50:32 > 0:50:36But it was quite a battle for him to become a public figure,
0:50:36 > 0:50:41and he had to up to a point because he had to promote his charity.
0:50:43 > 0:50:47Are you going to eat them straight away? Would you like them open?
0:50:47 > 0:50:51'I knew he was a grumpy old man who liked animals better than people.'
0:50:51 > 0:50:56When the producer came and said, "Would you like to make his programme with Wainwright?"
0:50:56 > 0:50:57I thought, "Oh, joy(!)"
0:50:57 > 0:51:03In your guide you say "do not disturb the sequestered privacy of the hamlet of Oddendale.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06"Keep outside its walls and turn right."
0:51:06 > 0:51:09You are probably not going to go down into the hamlet yourself.
0:51:09 > 0:51:11No, I won't.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15One of his greatest qualities
0:51:15 > 0:51:19was that he engaged his brain before he opened his mouth.
0:51:19 > 0:51:21There was no gabble.
0:51:21 > 0:51:23In rather the same way that he distilled
0:51:23 > 0:51:26the essence of the mountains into those seven pictorial guides.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30Every time we went out filming he distilled the essence of the place
0:51:30 > 0:51:33he knew we were going to go to into about 10 sentences.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35Having said those, he didn't want to say any more.
0:51:35 > 0:51:42There is Castle Crag. On there are the remains of an old British fort.
0:51:42 > 0:51:46- On this crag here?- Yes. You can still see a wall surrounding it.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53But it was a difficult challenge for him.
0:51:53 > 0:51:55It made him come out of himself.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01Excuse me, Mr Wainwright, isn't it?
0:52:01 > 0:52:03Yeah.
0:52:03 > 0:52:09- I've read your books and I've walked the fells.- Have you?
0:52:09 > 0:52:15Alas, I can't any more, but I certainly enjoyed some of the things that you've seen.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17Mr Wainwright...
0:52:17 > 0:52:20By 1988, when he agreed to appear on Desert Island Discs,
0:52:20 > 0:52:24sales of the pictorial guides had reached one million,
0:52:24 > 0:52:28and they had doubled by the end of the century.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32His eyesight got rather bad latterly.
0:52:32 > 0:52:38And I think it was partially due to all the eyestrain he'd had had over the years.
0:52:38 > 0:52:42But the beauty of the imagination in Wainwright shone through.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45When we went to Haystacks, the weather was bloody awful
0:52:45 > 0:52:48and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
0:52:48 > 0:52:51That detracted from the view for us.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55It didn't for Wainwright, because Wainwright was imagining the view anyway.
0:52:55 > 0:52:57And Wainwright...
0:52:57 > 0:53:01he could stand on top of a mountain with the weather down
0:53:01 > 0:53:06and he would point out every summit, 35 of them from left to right.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09'He knew every viewpoint from every summit in the Lake District.'
0:53:09 > 0:53:13Haystacks, the High Stile range behind you.
0:53:15 > 0:53:20One of the loneliest places in the district and one of the most beautiful.
0:53:21 > 0:53:28- SUE LAWLEY: You are 81-years-old now, do you still walk a lot?- No. No.
0:53:28 > 0:53:32Unfortunately my eyes have gone in the last two or three years.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38The last time...
0:53:38 > 0:53:41that I did a fell walk...
0:53:41 > 0:53:45it was a pouring wet day, terrible wet day.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49I was stumbling and slipping all over the place.
0:53:49 > 0:53:53And it wasn't because my glasses were misted,
0:53:53 > 0:53:58it were because I couldn't see where I was putting my feet.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00And that's the last time I did a fell walk.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03And the mountains...
0:54:03 > 0:54:05wept tears for me that day.
0:54:07 > 0:54:15He always said that he'd written the books so that when he ceased to be able to walk the fells any more
0:54:15 > 0:54:21he would be able to look at the books and remember every nook and cranny and every detail.
0:54:21 > 0:54:23That's why he wrote them, that's what he carried.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27I doubt he needed to look at the books - I think they were all in his head.
0:54:27 > 0:54:34And he was a very lucky man because he did everything he wanted to do.
0:54:37 > 0:54:43He often said "My favourite mountain is Haystacks. I want my ashes there.
0:54:43 > 0:54:47"And then when I'm gone my ashes will be still there."
0:54:47 > 0:54:52He liked to think that nobody would go there because it was rather inaccessible,
0:54:52 > 0:54:54but his ashes would be there.
0:54:54 > 0:55:00- You've written in one of your books that you would like to end up here.- Oh, I shall end up here.
0:55:00 > 0:55:07Somebody will carry me up in a little box and just leave me by the side.
0:55:07 > 0:55:12And I shall be in company because only last few months ago
0:55:12 > 0:55:16a woman wrote to me and said her husband had died
0:55:16 > 0:55:21and wanted to have his ashes scattered on Innominate Tarn.
0:55:21 > 0:55:27And several others have written and said, "When the time comes we will join you there."
0:55:27 > 0:55:30So I'll be in company, lots of company.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36But could you wish a better place?
0:55:40 > 0:55:46And I think it's a wonderful world, as Louis Armstrong used to tell us.
0:55:48 > 0:55:55But it would be even more wonderful without a lot of the people that are in it.
0:55:55 > 0:55:56That's what I think.
0:55:58 > 0:56:02People who don't appreciate what they've got.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05People have stopped counting their blessings.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11His legacy is really very, very special,
0:56:11 > 0:56:17and I doubt there's anyone who walks in the Lake District seriously who doesn't carry a Wainwright
0:56:17 > 0:56:21with them, or hasn't looked at one or referred to him at some point.
0:56:21 > 0:56:27And they'll last forever because the Lake District doesn't change, and he didn't change.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31And he mapped it like it was and like it is.
0:56:36 > 0:56:40Nobody has interpreted the mountains better.
0:56:40 > 0:56:47Somebody might, there might be a new IT interactive CD Rom being produced as we speak
0:56:47 > 0:56:52by somebody as talented as Wainwright who's going to interpret them in a different way.
0:56:52 > 0:56:54We can't know that, can we?
0:56:54 > 0:57:01But as we sit here in the shores of Wastwater today, nobody has interpreted the mountains better.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04And we're talking about a 50-year-old series.
0:57:05 > 0:57:0950-year-old books and nobody's done it better.
0:57:09 > 0:57:13Either the rest of us aren't sticking in or he did it bloody well.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23Alfred Wainwright died in 1991,
0:57:23 > 0:57:26three days after his 84th birthday.
0:57:31 > 0:57:37That spring, Betty climbed Haystacks to carry out his last wish.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42"All I ask for at the end
0:57:42 > 0:57:46"is a last long resting place by the side of Innominate Tarn
0:57:46 > 0:57:51"on Haystacks, where the water gently laps the gravelly shore.
0:57:56 > 0:58:01"Someone who knew me in life will take me and empty me
0:58:01 > 0:58:05"on to the little rocks and leave me there.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07"Alone.
0:58:09 > 0:58:13"And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit
0:58:13 > 0:58:17"in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come,
0:58:17 > 0:58:20"please treat it with respect.
0:58:20 > 0:58:22"It might be me."
0:58:48 > 0:58:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd - 2007
0:58:51 > 0:58:56E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk