Thusly in this short series of love letters to the North of England, I've focused my writing almost entirely into my rough-edged and oddball town of Barrow-in-Furness. It seemed the perfect place to start, for it's the best example of a forgotten old industrial town that exudes homeliness, where life ticks along at a pace a million miles from London's. Its narrow terrace streets and old sandstone halls, monolithic dockyard cranes and grey beaches ooze inspiration, its culture is strong. Yet in contrast to this urban setting, there is another place, a very different place that I am proud to call home and where my heart is content. If Barrow is a father to me, the Lake District is a mother. Just a stone's throw from South Furness one will find themselves in some of the most utterly breathtaking countryside they've ever laid eyes upon, a landscape you might think only exists in paintings and poems and which inspired Shelley and Wordsworth alike.
The beauty of Cumbria is something that would be difficult for me to put into words. Journeying Northward from Barrow and following the path of the cost, the triumphs of the industrialists that carved Barrow and Millom's shipyards and ironworks fade and are easily forgotten. The sudden transition to rolling meadows flanked by hedgerows and wise ancient oak forests is a reminder that mother nature rules this domain; centuries of unrelenting attacks by man upon the landscape could only conquer a speck of old Cumberland. Here the bracken and moss are king and queen, the sparrows and lambs are the dukes. The Irish sea, a bleak and frothing mistress, beats and laps at the stretching shoreline, stretching over the horizon til she meets our brethren in Éire. She's been omnipresent my whole life, I've spent summers paddling around the rockpools and winters pacing the rocky shoreline, staring at the colossal grey expanse. Facing her stand the infant fells of the shoreline (though paling in comparison to their mountain cousins), splashed with green and brown, proudly watching over the beaches below them.
At Whitehaven the trawlerman's vessels bob like ducks in the shelter of the rugged harbor, awaiting their captains to take them out into the open sea once more. One must turn eastwards here and bid farewell to the sea's embrace, for to venture into the vast interior of the lakes is the way to discover beauty encapsulated. The low coastal plains and meadows spotted with elm groves give way suddenly to rising, dominating fells protruding skywards in an embrace with the clouds. Roads must bend to the will of the landscape as they wind through ancient steeped valleys, clinging to the rocky mountainsides; from above it must look like a colossal squid died and its writhing appendages were tarmacked over. It's a famous saying that the Lake District is home to only one lake, that being Lake Bassenthwaite which houses the town of Keswick at it's Northern tip, nestled in the heart of Cumbria. There are actually 16 bodies of water in the Lake District, yet the other 15 are not 'lakes', instead being 'meres', 'waters' or 'tarns'. In Winter at Bassenthwaite the low sun casts sprawling golden rays onto the surrounding mountains which illuminate the brown flora and reflect from the icy water, transforming it into a near-perfect mirror. In Springtime Keswick's ceturies-old farmhouses and cottages are adorned with blossoming flowers in every colour of the rainbow. Nestled in amongst the glacial gorges of Whinlatter and Grizedale, the old market town echoes the history of old Cumberland with its buildings and narrow roads, eternally watched over and protected by the peaks on which newborn lambs frolic. When it rains, as it does near-daily in the Lakes, the moss and steep lake-reeds are grateful to be saturated, which they show with their bright hues of jade and mauve.
At the tops of the crags one finds themselves in another world empty of the bustle of town life. Hours of hiking, slipping through muddy puddles and clambering upon outcrops rewards the rambler with untapped serenity. Brooks with cascading water as clear as crystal flow from their sources to begin the long journey to the ocean, bringing life to the frogs and birds and rabbits who call these dales home. These is no smell of petrol or smoke, instead replaced with earthy aromas emitted by the plants soaked in fresh rainwater, carried by sharp biting winds. Up here in the clouds is perhaps the closest I can get to heaven on the mortal plain. What care in the world does a hillside sheep have, chewing on roseroot? Or the farmer's sheepdog who rides on the back of a quadbike and drifts to sleep in front of his master's logfire? Oh how I envy them sometimes.
More than anything I am so proud to call this county my home. Each time a person asks by about where I'm from there's nothing I love more than to monologue about my adoration for those hills and mountains, meadows and streams, lakesides and cold beaches. When I'm alone in the near-silent emptiness of my bedroom I often close my eyes and think about my home, amongst the familiar glens with rain soaking the wildflowers, 8000 miles away.
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