Reviews for Freedom to Roam; Wharfedale and Nidderdale: Four Walking Guides to the Peak District and the Yorkshire Moors and Dales

The average rating for Freedom to Roam; Wharfedale and Nidderdale: Four Walking Guides to the Peak District and the Yorkshire Moors and Dales based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-02-27 00:00:00 Jeffrey Clayton I'm not sure how I became acquainted with Alfred Wainwright's writings, possibly due to a "if you like this, then you'll like this" on bookselling sites because I've read the James Herriot books set in Yorkshire. Wainwright wrote loads of fellwalker of guidebooks of the highland plateaus in England and Scotland, along with many sketchbooks. A blurb on the book cover calls it "Gentle, wise and idyllic, it is sharp with the sights and pungent with the smells of rural England nearly fifty years ago." And, yes, it is. He did not disappoint me as the reader; his descriptions using words in black ink awakened my senses to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch most everything he did. I was ready to ramp up my walking and practice long hiking with the goal of going to the Pennines and walking where he did. Looking up pictures of the places he described only heightened my sudden urge. A Pennine Journey had a delightful beginning, and I was hooked by page 3: "Be that as it may, the river proceeds like an unwilling boy to school: it deviates from a direct course on the slightest excuse. It prefers to loop, twist and curve, and often almost doubles back in its tracks, so that you may walk miles along its banks and find yourself after all not very far from where you started. On the map, it is a curling snake. And it is a snake that needs no occult power to keep a beholder entranced; it is itself a charmer." Some other quotes that aroused appreciation for Wainwright's pen and words: "Oh, how can I put into words the joys of a walk over country such as this; the scenes that delight the eyes, the blessed peace of mind, the sheer exuberance which fills your soul as you tread the firm turf? This is something to be lived, not read about. On these breezy heights, a transformation is wondrously wrought within you. Your thoughts are simple, in tune with your surroundings; the complicated problems you brought with you from the town are smoothed away. Up here, you are near to your Creator; you are conscious of the infinite; you gain new perspectives; thoughts run in new strange channels; there are stirrings in your soul which are quite beyond the power of my pen to describe. Something happens to you in the silent places which never could in the towns, and it is a good thing to sit awhile in a quiet spot and meditate. The hills have a power to soothe and heal which is their very own. No man ever sat alone on the top of a hill and planned a murder or a robbery, and no man ever came down from the hills without feeling in some way refreshed, and the better for his experience." "Give me a map to look at, and I am content. Give me a map of country I know, and I am comforted: I live my travels over again; step by step, I recall the journeys I have made; half-forgotten incidents spring vividly to mind, and again I can suffer and rejoice at experiences which are once more made very real. Old maps are old friends, understood only by the man with whom they have traveled the miles." "... I came across a gipsy encampment, the first of many I was to see. . . .I never saw any of these Romany folk working; always they were squatting before a fire, doing absolutely nothing at all but gaze in the embers. What their philosophy of life is, I cannot guess, but it must be perfected at a very early age, and I imagine none but those who are whispered the secret in their cradles can ever hope to understand it. Idleness has no defence; it cause mental and moral and physical stagnation; but the men I saw in these camps were completely inactive. They were not resting from their labours, but simply lounging killing time. It was almost pathetic to see them, for theirs were not happy faces, but the hopeless, expressionless faces of men sunk deep in melancholy. . . .They were as men without hope, waiting for the end; they were refugees, outcasts, yet neither." "Morning is the best part of the day for walking. The air is freshest then, the earth sweetest. The flowers preen themselves after their bath of dew, and stand erect with rare self-assurance, proud of their bright clean colours. The birds are happiest in the morning, and most lively then. They dart across the path before you, wheel and soar above the trees, swoop unerringly to their nests. They chatter and chirrup and sing in unending chorus, blithely contented and gay, and so very, very glad to be alive." "Clouds are the most transient of nature's creations. They come out of a clear sky, disintegrate before your eyes, vanish. You never see the same cloud twice. Every moment of its brief existence brings a change, a change of form or tint or texture; but its beauty remains constant to the end. The beauty of the clouds is there for us to see every day, if we are not too busy to look up...." "I continued on my way towards Hexham, very slowly, at what I call hymn-speed. I have not mentioned that I sing as I go along. I always do. Seldom loudly, more often in a murmur. I recognise few limits in my repertoire; I can treat myself to anything. I bellow in opera, warble in ballad. My choice on any particular occasion is governed by my speed, and governs my speed; my feet march in tempo. My favourite uphill song is "Volga Boatman," which suits my movements admirably: I find I can grind out a note with every step, and each verse earns a pause, a brief halt. For slow travel, or when I am tired, hymns are best; not the noisy modern tunes, but the old ones, the softer melodies: "Breathe on me, breath of God." "Jesus, Lover of my Soul." "When I survey the Wondrous Cross." "Nearer, my God, to Thee." "Lead, Kindly Light." and best of all, "Abide with me'" old familiar tunes which can never lapse and be forgotten; quiet tunes and comforting words learnt in childhood, and later loved. . . . Last of all are the rousing marching songs, which usually end the day, unless I am very weary, when my choice is invariably "Lead, Kindly Light." "The precious moments of life are too rare, too valuable to be forgotten when they have passed; we should hoard them as a miser hoards his gold, and bring them to light and rejoice over them often. We should all of us have a treasury of happy memories to sustain us when life is unbearably cruel, to brighten the gloom a little, to be stars shining through the darkness." "There is much quiet joy in writing: there is exercise for the imagination, escape from the shackled body, solace for the troubled mind."

Review # 2 was written on 2018-08-28 00:00:00 Kenneth Lemaster I really liked the walk. I would give it 4 stars. Mr. Wainwright, however, was not so appealing, and I would have given him 1 or 2 stars. I'm glad to have read the book, and it made me want to go for a long hike!