Читать книгу Cycling in the Lake District. Week-long tours and day rides онлайн

10 страница из 42

FRANK PATTERSON – THE WAINWRIGHT OF THE ROADS

Many walkers hold the name of Alfred Wainwright (1907–1991) close to their hearts in that they will have used his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells to find their way to summits. However, few cyclists will have heard of the illustrator Frank Patterson (1871–1952), who provided over 26,000 drawings for Cycling magazine and then the Cyclists’ Touring Club Gazette over a period of 59 years.

As a young man Patterson was an enthusiastic cyclist; this was curtailed by a leg injury when he was 38, and he then took up long distance walking. For the last 54 years of his life, he and his wife lived in a rented Elizabethan farmhouse near Billinghurst in Kent where he spent most of his time shooting on the land that he sub-let rather than farm. Leading a simple and contented life at home, he had little desire to travel and produced many of his later drawings from photographs and postcards sent by friends, dropping in a bike or some cyclists to satisfy his publisher. While his style is not to everyone’s taste, his illustrations have a lasting appeal, both for their simple celebration of the British countryside – and for those traffic-free roads.