The tales of Beatrix Potter

A workaday Lakeland Beatrix dressed at home in eccentric garments. Visiting her at Castle Cottage, at Near Sawrey, an arty couple called Josephina and Delmar Banner, had to pass through the gardens of two other houses to reach it. They were confronted by a small, green, knockerless door.

Sculptress Josephina recalled: "There was a long silence. Then we heard little clogs toddling along on the flags beyond the door. They toddled up to the door. Then they stopped. We felt it was just like a little mouse, stopping to sniff the air, to try to detect who was coming. Then, gradually, she opened the door until it was two or three inches wide.

"We saw her little face peep through. She recognised us. She opened the door a little and said: 'Coom in'. And do you know what she was wearing on her head? One of those old-fashioned tea-cosies which are knitted and have a hole for the spout. It was a blue tea-cosy. She looked so cute, like one of her dressed-up little animals."

This is one of many anecdotes about Helen Beatrix Potter – to use her full name – which I jotted down and collected within 10 years of her death, in 1943, from people who knew her.

Beatrix had a London childhood. She was born the daughter of well-to-do parents whose fortune came from industrial concerns in Lancashire. Beatrix was virtually a prisoner in a large, well-furnished house. She was lonesome because she was closely chaperoned and mother did not permit her to make friends with other children. They might bring germs into the house.

The Lakeland connection came about when the family had long summer holidays, first in Perthshire, where a young Scottish nurse fired Beatrix's imagination with stories about witches and elves inhabiting the hills and glens. The Potters then sojourned, at length, by some English lakes. At Wray Castle, close to Windermere, she met the vicar, Canon Rawnsley, a founder of what became the National Trust. Beatrix was to become one of its most generous donors. The Potters summered at Lingholm and Fawe Park, on the western shore of Derwentwater. In Beatrix's imagination, one of the islands had resident squirrels which crossed the lake on rafts, using their upturned tails as sails.

The Potters rented Lakefield, at Sawrey, for a holiday in the summer of 1896 and it was while holidaymaking here that she bought Hill Top Farm, the cost being met by money received as royalties for her books, plus a small legacy from an aunt. The main part of the house, which is owned by the National Trust, is a mecca for Potter enthusiasts.

Hill Top was to fulfil all her longings for roots and a house. With advice and help from John Cannon, the farmer, she attuned herself to local farming, having a sheepdog called Kep. Her first farming venture was with pigs. She then became passionately fond of Herdwick sheep.

Tom Storey, her shepherd, was living at a cottage in Sawrey when I chatted with him about his long association with Beatrix's farming activity, and especially Herdwick sheep, the native breed of the Lake District. I heard about her big farm at the head of the Troutbeck Valley; of how she visited the place in a chauffeur-driven car, then sat on a hillside, taking in the sights and sounds of wild Lakeland. She had her own little room in the big farmstead. I was able to examine the many little pottery items she had kept there.

Beatrix, who lived with her parents until she was almost 40, was to spend her later years at Near Sawrey, more precisely in the tucked-away Castle Cottage. The Lakeland residence had begun with sadness. She was not in the best of health and was grieving over the death of Norman Warne, one of three brothers connected with the publishing house of Warne who had special responsibility for her little books. They became engaged.

News of Norman's death reached her while she was holidaymaking with her parents in Lakeland. He was her one true love.

A local farmer gave me details of one aspect of her courting days with Willie Heelis, a local solicitor who had been helpful when he was acquiring property and land. Willie came from a family traceable to the Craven district of Yorkshire, where, in 1652, a yeoman named John Heelis, of Addingham, was given a 99-year lease on land at Skibeden by Lady Anne Clifford.

During his courtship days, Willie would leave his motorbike behind the wall in the farmer's garden before walking to Beatrix's home. After marriage, he would travel by car to his office at Hawkshead.

His progress was traceable. He was apt to crash the car gears at the approach to every corner. Sometimes they went fishing from a flat-bottomed boat on a local tarn they had stocked with trout.

Beatrix found animals so appealing that she bottle-fed a tiny black female pig until it was capable of feeding itself. In later life, Beatrix was to be recalled as a small woman, somewhat tubby, with fresh-looking face and silky-white hair. She generally wore clothes of homespun wool. A straw hat was held in place by black tape under her chin.

As an author, her writings and vivid illustrations had a special appeal to children. Yet the children of Near Sawrey were – according to a local woman – somewhat scared of her strange appearance and manners. They were inclined to flatten themselves against the walls as she went by.

Older folk, who noticed that she was socially indifferent, were inclined to sum her up as being somewhat eccentric. She did show many kindnesses to local people in need.

On my first venture into Beatrix Potter country, I had pocketed a copy of the Tale of Benjamin Bunny, dedicated to the children of Sawrey. Having crossed Windermere by ferryboat, I trudged up Ferry Hill, recalling a story that when Beatrix was hereabouts on a wild, wet day she was briefly accompanied by a tramp. He mistook her, in her dowdy clothes, for one of the nomadic fraternity and remarked: "Ee, it's a dirty day for the likes of you and me to be on t'road, missus."

I walked in a landscape little changed over many years. Many of the fields were full of wild flowers. The cattle were of the native breed. There were still one or two working horses. The tourists were sparse but discerning. Staying the night at a local bed-and-breakfast, I slept in an iron bed in a room so small that if I stretched I might simultaneously feel pressure on the top of my head and the underparts of my feet.

Little had been known about Beatrix's personal life and inner thoughts until, in 1966, Leslie Linder – who had cracked the secret code of cipher-writing she used – published his translation.

She had been 27 years old when she began writing and she laid down her pen for serious work at the age of 58.

During those creative years, she wrote letters, painted and composed rhymes to the delight of children the world over. It was all done for pleasure. She could not bear to think of "writing to order".

Beatrix was passionately fond of the local sheep breed. She ensured that Herdwicks were kept on her many farms. Whenever I was in the Sawrey area, I'd pop in to see Tom Storey for what Lakeland folk call a crack (gossip). He explained his wheeziness to me by saying he was pigeon-chested. It had been for this reason he had flitted from his native Barrow to the clean air of the Lake District. Tom told me that Willie Heelis had done a lot for the farming community, giving helpful advice "even on Saturdays" if a farmer called at his home and asked for it.

Beatrix lived through the early part of the Second World War and knew the sound of engines on enemy aircraft as they headed for Barrow-in-Furness.

On her death, in 1943, Beatrix was cremated. It was Tom, her shepherd, who scattered her ashes on higher ground, according to her confidential instructions.

Beatrix Potter: Her Lakeland Years by WR Mitchell, Great Northern Books, ISBN 9781905080717. To order your copy @ 15 plus 2.75 p&p per book, call our order line 01748 821122, Mon-Sat 9am-5pm. Or send a cheque or postal order, made payable to Yorkshire Books Ltd and send to Yorkshire Books Ltd, 1 Castle Hill, Richmond DL10 4QP. Order on line www.yorkshirepost. co.uk/shop.

Tomorrow on BBC2, 5.45pm, Rene Zellweger stars as Beatrix Potter, in the film, Miss Potter.

YP MAG 12/6/10