Читать книгу The Pennine Way - the Path, the People, the Journey онлайн

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This short westward extension to Earby might have had a precedent, back in the days when the Pennine Way was simply a provisional line on a map. The original plan was for the Pennine Way to reach Malham by a slightly more westerly route, via Widdop Cross and Wycoller. The grouse moors around here were, like those of the Peak District, among the most fiercely guarded in the Pennines in the 1930s; and in fact it wasn’t until the Open Access legislation of 2000 that you could legally access much of Boulsworth Hill for the first time. This was undoubtedly in the mind of Tom Stephenson when the idea for a continuous walking trail the length of the Pennines was first aired in his ‘long green trail’ article. What could be done to unlock these private moors so that the public could walk them in freedom?

Tom was born in Chorley in 1893 and spent his early years at Whalley, just a few miles away from where I was standing, on the far side of Pendle Hill. He stayed in full-time education until the age of 13, which was quite rare for a working-class Lancashire lad in those days, then began work in textile printing. Despite the (illegal) 66-hour week, he managed to escape the calico factory and, on the first Saturday after starting work, climbed Pendle Hill. It was a transformative experience and one that inspired his lifelong love of walking and the countryside. In his memoirs, Forbidden Land, he wrote: ‘Across the valley were the Bowland Fells; and away to the north Ingleborough, Pen-y-ghent and the other Pennine heights, all snow-covered, stood out sharp and clear in the frosty air. That vision started me rambling, and in the next sixty years took me time and again up and down the Pennines and farther afield.’