The Brighouse family who struck up a friendship through letters with Alfred Wainwright

“You live in alien surroundings, love. Don’t let your roots grow too deep. There are better places than Brighouse,” was how the author put it to Margaret Ainley during their correspondence.

Margaret Ainley was, by that time, used to Alfred Wainwright’s straight to the point responses, and dry sense of humour. She corresponded with him for almost 20 years, between 1971 and 1990, but they never met.

Despite Wainwright being a great correspondent who replied promptly to every letter, it was obvious he wasn’t a ‘people person’ and never entertained the idea of meeting in person.

I first read about Margaret in Hunter Davies’s Wainwright biography published in 1995. Several of her early letters appeared in the book but I never knew her whereabouts until members of the Alfred Wainwright Books & Memorabilia Facebook group, Maggie Allan, and Roger and Ann Hiley, from Loweswater, told of her.

Within days, I had arranged to meet Margaret in Brighouse, West Yorkshire, where she had lived for most of her life with her husband, Richard, who had recently died, and their daughter, Catherine.

Margaret and Richard were both keen walkers and her first letter to Alfred Wainwright was in early 1971, when she informed him that when ascending Graystones in the North Western Fells, it was now possible to reach Spout Force without the aid of a machete.

He responded almost immediately by thanking her for the up-to-date information. That initial letter sparked a writing relationship that was to last many years.

Richard and Margaret were expecting their first baby, and Wainwright was very keen for that child be introduced to the hills at the earliest opportunity. Catherine Ainley was born in the April of 1972 and Wainwright was delighted. He insisted that she should be taken to the top of Smearsett Scar, featured in his recent Walks in Limestone Country publication, before the end of the year. They took the advice, and on October 10, 1972, Catherine had bagged her first summit. Margaret still owns the same first edition book used on the walk that day.

Wainwright insisted he would buy Catherine her first rucksack, and Margaret asked if Catherine could collect it in person when she was old enough – but the rucksack arrived in Brighouse in the next post.

When Catherine was a little older, she used the rucksack for all her outdoor adventures. Nearly 45 years later, she still has it in her possession.

In the following years’ correspondence, Wainwright talked about his passion for Scotland’s spectacular mountains, and the various projects he was working on, including his now famous Coast to Coast Walk book, and Westmorland Heritage.

Having been sending her letters to the Gazette office, one weekend, when Richard was playing cricket in Kendal, Margaret found Wainwright’s home address in the local phone book.

He issued a cheeky warning when her letter arrived.

“Since you have discovered that I live in a house and not a room at the Gazette office there seems little point in further pretence. Yes, write to me here if you prefer but don’t get too affectionate; my wife grabs the post first.”

Margaret would go on to share many of her Scottish holiday stories with the author and one spent at Cladich on Lock Awe, in Argyll was particularly memorable.

Hundreds of caterpillars were hanging from the trees, which Margaret said she found “loathsome”.

Wainwright teased her saying: “Thank you for the eight-page account of your second Lock Awe holiday, all of which made good reading apart from your vindictive attack on innocent caterpillars – sweet little things, I always considered them. You must really learn to love your fellow creatures.”

He would then go on to litter his pages with beautifully coloured caterpillars just to wind her up.

It wasn’t long before Margaret revealed to Wainwright her love for steam trains, but he was horrified at the thought of the smoky trains tearing round the countryside.

In 1983, Catherine then aged eleven, wrote the first of her own letters to the man who had furnished her with her first rucksack. Receiving a lovely letter in return.

“Do you remember the first hill you climbed?” It asked.

“I do. It was Smearsett Scar in Ribblesdale. In those days, your mum used to like me.”

In 1984, Richard was offered a new job in Norfolk. The whole family was uprooted from Brighouse and moved south. Wainwright was not impressed, despite his earlier misgivings about Brighouse.

“Norfolk is not the place to fritter away your life. You are a creature of the hills and should be amongst them. Norfolk is a foreign country and you are an exile.”

As it happened they returned to West Yorkshire 16 months later, with Wainwright declaring: “Dear Margaret, Great news!! Back to the hills and moors and steam engines. Now you can start living again”. He suddenly started to like Brighouse.

The correspondence continued until February 20, 1990, a year before Wainwright’s death in February 1991.

His final words of advice were to: “Enjoy this wonderful life we have. But take my advice – keep away from Norfolk”.

After his death, Margaret went to meet Wainwright’s widow, Betty, at Kapellan, the animal rescue centre at Grayrigg, near Kendal to which he devoted much of his time and money. She gave Betty some King Alfred daffodil bulbs to plant there. She asked Betty if she thought Wainwright would have agreed to meet up.

“Perhaps he would have,” Betty replied.

During the few hours I spent with Margaret, I could sense that she cherished her friendship with Alfred Wainwright during those years: she even named her cat after him. It was a joy to hold all those original letters and see the rucksack he bought for Catherine all those years ago adding a human side to the story.