by The Serf | Apr 19, 2020 | Urban History
Moomintroll peered at me from behind a lamp post. He winked one of his large round eyes and stuck out his hippo hand, beckoning me over with a slow curl of his fat finger. I gripped my mam’s hand a bit tighter as we walked down the street for home. I was too young for...
by The Serf | Apr 14, 2020 | The Wainwrights, Walking
Photo above by Andrew Nichol. Copyright of Chris Butterfield, Wainwright Archive September 2019. Driving up to the Lakes with the radio on, I had the misfortune of hearing the BBC news reporting ‘revelations’ from David Cameron’s memoirs. I switched off and...
by The Serf | Jan 14, 2020 | The Wainwrights
Despite nearly four decades of walking in the Lake District I have never kept an accurate written log. Throughout this time I estimated, at a rough count, that I had walked up over half of the total number of 214 ‘Wainwright’ summits. The only records of this are the...
by The Serf | Aug 4, 2018 | Film, Urban History
Manchester city centre. Monday 14th May 1973. Quarter past seven in the evening. The Odeon on Oxford Road. The stars are gathering. Manchester’s ‘Glitterati’ were out in their finest for a Gala World Film Premiere. Tommy Docherty, Paddy Crerand and Pat Phoenix. Joe...
by The Serf | Jul 3, 2018 | Walking
Kids in bed and the prospect of the next day free to spend walking on the hills, I was in my element. I spread out the OS Explorer map of the Forest of Bowland across the living room floor. A better read than any book, this familiar map is not just a paper record of...
