Welcome to the Wainwright Prize
I
introducing those of us who walk but don’t run to the joys of (almost) barefoot off-road running. And the sixth is H is for Hawk: Helen Macdonald’s extraordinary and moving account of her relationship with a goshawk while mourning the loss of her father.
n the depths of a Cambridge winter there is nothing more appealing than a large stack of nature books to read, and this year our senses were stimulated and our imaginations fired by a terrific longlist, itself chosen from a huge range of possibilities. With great difficulty we have whittled it down to a shortlist of six that we believe encompasses the best of the genre published in 2014.
Photo: David Levenson
Two are classic, beautiful nature writing: Mark Cocker’s Claxton and John Lewis-Stempel’s Meadowland. I will never tire of nature minutely and closely observed by those who know and are steeped in their patch. Two represent a search for the spirit and meaning of our upland spaces: William Atkins’ The Moor and Philip Marsden’s Rising Ground, though they could not be more different in their approach. A fifth is Richard Askwith’s Running Free,
It feels as though nature writing is burgeoning: everywhere people are writing about and celebrating nature and its many dimensions. That itself is something to be celebrated, though it makes our task harder. The quality of our shortlist is tremendous and the next stage, of choosing a winner, is a daunting task. Dame Fiona Reynolds Chair of Judges
WA I N W R I G H T P R I Z E.C O M @wainwrightprize
S H O R T L I S T E D
B O O K S
Claxton Mark Cocker n a single twelve-month cycle of daily writings Mark Cocker explores his relationship to the East Anglian landscape, to nature and to all the living things around him. The separate entries are characterised by close observation, depth of experience, and a profound awareness of seasonal change. The writing is concise, magical and inspiring. The book explores how these other species are as essential to our sense of genuine well-being and to our feelings of rootedness as any other kind of fellowship. A celebration of the wonder that lies in our everyday experience, Cocker’s book emphasises how Claxton is as much a state of mind as it is a place. Above all else, it is a manifesto for the central importance of the local in all human activity.
I
Mark Cocker is an author, naturalist and environmental activist whose ten books include works of biography, history, literary criticism and memoir. His book Crow Country was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2008 and won the New Angle Prize for Literature in 2009.
P U B L I S H E D B Y J O N AT H A N C A P E
S H O R T L I S T E D
B O O K S
H is for Hawk Helen Macdonald s a child Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer. She learned the arcane terminology and read all the classic books, including T. H. White’s tortured masterpiece, The Goshawk, which describes White’s struggle to train a hawk as a spiritual contest.When her father dies and she is knocked sideways by grief, she becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She buys Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and takes her home to Cambridge. Then she fills the freezer with hawk food and unplugs the phone, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals.
A
P U B L I S H E D B Y V I N TAG E
Helen Macdonald is a writer, poet, illustrator, historian and affiliate at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. Her books include Falcon (2006) and Shaler’s Fish (2001).
WA I N W R I G H T P R I Z E.C O M
S H O R T L I S T E D
B O O K S
Meadowland John Lewis-Stempel unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren, the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last.
A
P U B L I S H E D B Y B L AC K S WA N
John Lewis-Stempel is a writer and farmer. His many previous books include The Wild Life: A Year of Living on Wild Food, England: the Autobiography and Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War. He reviews books for the Sunday Express, for whom he also writes a regular column.
WA I N W R I G H T P R I Z E.C O M
S H O R T L I S T E D
B O O K S
Rising Ground Philip Marsden n evocative journey around some of the country’s most ancient sites and ritual places, and a profound exploration of the relationship between man and the landscape. From the Neolithic ritual landscape of Bodmin Moor to the Arthurian traditions at Tintagel, Marsden assembles a chronology of Britain’s attitude to place. Drawing also on his travels from further afield, Marsden reveals that the shape of the land lies not just at the heart of our own history but of man’s perennial struggle to belong on this earth.
A
Photo: Stephen Parker
P U B L I S H E D B Y G R A N TA B O O K S
Philip Marsden is a writer and journalist. He is the author of several works of travel writing and non-fiction, including most recently The Levelling Sea and The Barefoot Emperor, and a novel, The Main Cages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
S H O R T L I S T E D
B O O K S
Running Free Richard Askwith ichard Askwith wanted more. Not convinced running had to be all about pounding pavements, buying fancy kit and racking up extreme challenges, he looked for ways to liberate himself. His solution: running through muddy fields and up rocky fells, running with his dog at dawn, running because he's being (voluntarily) chased by a pack of bloodhounds, running to get hopelessly, enjoyably lost, running fast for the sheer thrill of it. Running as nature intended. Part diary of a year running through the Northamptonshire countryside, part exploration of why we love to run without limits, Running Free is an eloquent and inspiring account of running in a forgotten, rural way, observing wildlife and celebrating the joys of nature.
R
Richard Askwith is Associate Editor of The Independent. His first book, Feet in the Clouds, won Best New Writer at the British Sports Book Awards and the Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape and Tradition.
P U B L I S H E D B Y V I N TAG E
WA I N W R I G H T P R I Z E.C O M
S H O R T L I S T E D
B O O K S
The Moor William Atkins he story of the moors – from Bodmin Moor, Dartmoor and Exmoor in the southwest up to the Scottish border, viaYorkshire and Northumberland – and how they have shaped our people, culture and industry. In this deeply personal journey across our nation's most forbidding and mysterious terrain,William Atkins takes the reader from south to north, in search of the heart of this elusive landscape. His account is both travelogue and natural history, and an exploration of moorland's uniquely captivating position in our literature, history and psyche.
T
Photo: Jonathan Ring
P U B L I S H E D B Y FA B E R & FA B E R
William Atkins grew up in Hampshire. After studying art history, he went on to work in publishing, where he edited prizewinning fiction. He now works as a freelance editor, and studies and writes about Britain's marginal landscapes. He lives in north London.
L O N G L I S T E D
BRITANNIA OBSCURA Joanne Parker hat is the shape of Britain? The country’s outline, looking a little like a wingless dragon, is instantly recognisable on any map or globe. But jostling within that familiar profile are countless vying maps of the country. Some of these are founded on rock – or on the natural features of the land. But far more are built on dreams – on human activity, effort, and aspiration. Britannia Obscura is an exploration of just a few of these surprising hidden Britains.
W
ON SILBURY HILL Adam Thorpe ilbury Hill in Wiltshire has inspired and perplexed people for generations. Poets and artists have fathomed their deepest thoughts searching for the hill’s hidden meanings, archaeologists have tunnelled through earth for fragments that prove its purpose. But for all this human endeavour, Silbury Hill remains a mystery. On Silbury Hill is Adam Thorpe’s own projection onto Silbury’s grassy slopes. It is a chalkland memoir told in fragments and family snapshots, skilfully built, layer on layer, from Britain’s ancient and modern past.
S
THE WALKER’S GUIDE TO OUTDOOR CLUES & SIGNS Tristan Gooley his book is the result of two decades of pioneering outdoors experience and six years of instructing, researching and writing. It includes lots of outdoor clues and signs that will not be found in any other book in the world. As well as the most comprehensive guide to natural navigation for walkers ever compiled, it also contains clues for weather forecasting, tracking, city walks, coast walks, night walks and dozens of other areas.
T
B O O K S
COUNTING SHEEP PhilipWalling ong before we were a nation of shopkeepers, Britain was a nation of sheep. Full of stories, history, trivia and humour, Counting Sheep explores Britain through its most influential animal. Philip meets some of the sixty native breeds that thrive in this country; he tells stories about each, meets their shepherds and owners, learns about their pasts and confronts the present realities of sheep farming.
L
THE ASH TREE Oliver Rackham sh is one of the commonest trees in the British Isles – there are nearly as many ash trees as there are people. Perhaps this is why we take them for granted. Poets write of oak, yew, elm, willow, rarely ash. No books have been written about ash trees before. Ash Disease brought this under-appreciated tree to our attention. In response, Oliver Rackham has written the first history and ecology of the ash tree, exploring its place in human culture, explaining Ash Disease, and arguing that globalisation is the single greatest threat to the world’s trees and forests.
A
WALKING HOME Clare Balding n Clare Balding's family, walking just took too long she galloped through the countryside and she galloped through life. Then, in 1999, Clare took a call from a BBC producer looking for a presenter for a new radio series. 'Do you walk?' she asked. 'Well, I walk the dog...' That series,Ramblings, is still going strong – and Clare's caught the walking bug. Now she wants her family to share some of that pleasure. Clare and her brother Andrew are determined to conquer the Wayfarer's Walk, a 71 mile route. What could possibly go wrong?
I
WAINWRIGHT’S WALKING GUIDE TO THE LAKE DISTRICT FELLS BOOK 1: THE EASTERN FELLS REVISED BY CLIVE HUTCHBY This new edition of Wainwright’s Walking Guide to the Lake District Fells has been comprehensively revised. Paths, maps, diagrams and route descriptions have been checked and corrected throughout. £12.99 - Hardback -
ISBN
9780711236288 - March 2015
We asked the shortlisted authors to tell us about a golden moment on the coast My favourite piece of coast is the shoreline around North Ronaldsay, the northern most of the Orkney Islands. It is just 6km long and at the house where my wife was brought up, family legend has it that the Atlantic runs up to the backyard; yet from the front bedroom window one looks out towards the North Sea. Low, flat, windy and increasingly devoid of people (the school now has three children) North Ronaldsay is a place of flag-roofed crofts, grazing pasture and flower-rich meadows.You slowly realise that the magical atmosphere of this place resides in its three great modern absentees: a lack of artificial light, a lack of mechanical noise and a lack of any need to know the time. I am Derbyshire born and bred, but arriving on North Ronaldsay feels like a homecoming; leaving is tinged with a sense of loss. Mark Cocker
It was a homecoming walk along the dunes at Minsmere on a soft March afternoon in 2002. I’d spent nine long months in Idaho at the beginning of the War on Terror and had halfway forgotten the quiet magic of an early English spring. Still horribly jetlagged, I sat down with my back against one of the concrete WWII tank-traps that litter that part of the coast. There was marram grass around me, a sea of pale phragmites reeds before me, and behind them a tracery of distant oaks against the steady blue-grey sky. I shut my eyes, breathed in the soft Suffolk air and fell fast asleep to the sound of skylarks and the steady drag and fall of waves on the beach behind me. Twenty minutes later I woke up in a state of the deepest, calmest joy. It was the most restorative experience imaginable. Helen Macdonald
We are driving to Borth on Cardigan Bay, because that’s where Herefordians go to the seaside on the August Bank Holiday. Always. We land at Borth’s top end, slide open the windows so that the dawn-creech of the herring gulls and the ionising air of the Irish Sea banishes the car-fug; then we drift along the town’s improbably long, one horse-street, playing the mirthful game: What’s changed in Borth since last time? Nothing!... I see myself age nine (wearing a rollneck jumper; it was the pre-fleece 1970s) gathering driftwood on the straight-mile of shoreline, then spotting a coloured Art Deco brooch. But it wasn’t a treasure made by man; scratching away the storm-dumped twigs and grit I uncovered the beak and then the body of a puffin. There was not a mark on its innocent white chest. I had finally laid eyes on a puffin – and it was dead. John Lewis-Stempel
Visit wainwrightprize.com for more Q&A with the authors
Leaden (like a fisherman’s weight) rather than golden; but memorable: an aborted attempt to race around Devon’s Burgh Island on a day so choppy that front crawl was impossible. Proof that it’s possible to feel (and actually be) seasick while swimming. Once I’d been plucked out by a lifeguard, I sat wrapped in a tartan blanket drinking sugary mint tea and, like someone’s proud great-aunt, watched the other (triumphant, elated) competitors file across the finish line. William Atkins
I used to have a 1920s harbour launch with an inboard engine and on calm days, it was possible to nudge into tiny cliff inlets (‘zawn’ in Cornish) that are only accessible from the water. One of these in particular, near St Anthony’s Head on Cornwall’s south coast, I visited a lot one summer, carefully anchoring fore and aft. The snorkeling was wonderful and afterwards, from the boat’s foredeck, I could watch a pair of peregrines work back and forth along the cliffs. Philip Marsden
As a runner who loves wild places, I’ve countless happy coastal memories. I think the most golden are from a week’s holiday in Brodie (in a National Trust cottage), a few weeks before my first marathon. My dog and I trained for hours a day on the dunes between the Culbin Forest and the Moray Firth. It was magical: never quite finding the same route twice, utterly absorbed in the environment, with breathtaking views, delicious air, and seals and seabirds for company – and each session ending with the same strange challenge of finding our way back through the vast empty forest to where we were staying. I’ve never felt fitter, or more full of strength and hope. Richard Askwith
WA I N W R I G H T P R I Z E.C O M
www.wainwright.org.uk
The Wainwright Society was formed in 2002 and now has over 2000 family members. The Society promotes Alfred Wainwright’s vision of introducing a wider audience to fellwalking and caring for the hills. The Society contributes to public debate on issues affecting landscape quality and the quality of life in upland areas, particularly the Lake District. Over the past few years, thousands of pounds have been raised for various good causes including Mountain Rescue Teams, Search and Rescue Dogs, Fix the Fells and Cumbria Wildlife Trust. The Wainwright Memorial Lecture has attracted a number of prominent speakers including Hunter Davies, Alan Hinkes and Rory Stewart MP.
Photo by Derry Brabbs
Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2014: The Green Road into the Trees by Hugh Thomson e interview Hugh Thomson who won The Thwaites Wainwright Prize in 2014. He is a writer who explores, rather than an explorer who writes, and in The Green Road into the Trees turned his attention to his own country, England.
W
Walking across England’s ancient trackways and green grass roads, Hugh explores the legends, literature and natural world that define us, and the undercurrent of regret running throughout our history; what he calls 'the unicorn disappearing into the trees'.
agriculture having already occurred by 1000 BC. And the way southern England was once covered with linden trees, which have almost died out – the trees referred to by ‘the green road’. If there was one place in the UK you would recommend everyone visit where would it be? Stonehenge. Although, as I complain in the book, it should be made much more open to public access.
What do you think brought about your desire to explore England? I had been travelling for a long time in foreign countries and I wanted to bring the same sort of Did you discover any concerns about the prehistoric past and how people live now to historical sites on the journey, which you did not my own. know about before you set off? How did you decide what Ravensburgh Castle, the largest journey/route to take in Iron Age hill fort in the East of The Green Road into the England, and yet a place one Trees? I have lived on the Icknield Way cannot visit as there is no public for many years so it was an easy access. choice to want to explore it for the whole of its 400 mile length. What are you currently working on? Two films for the BBC on India What surprised you the and Pakistan, a Radio 4 series in most on your journey for Peru, a novel, and a sequel to The The Green Road into the Green Road into the Trees. Trees? The way the Bronze Age had defined our landscape so much, with most deforestation for
Photo: MLR Photo.co.uk
Hugh Thomson is the author of To find out more about Hugh, please visit his website at five previous travel books, the www.thewhiterock.co.uk most recent of which, Tequila Oil: Getting Lost in Mexico, was serialised by BBC Radio 4 and shortlisted for the 2010 Dolman Best Travel Book Prize. He has led many research expeditions to Peru and is a leading explorer of Inca settlements. He has also taken filming expeditions to Mount Kilimanjaro, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Mexican Sierra Madre.
WA I N W R I G H T P R I Z E.C O M
Photo: David Levenson
J U D GES OF THE WAINWRIGH T P R I Z E 2 0 1 5
Dame Fiona Reynolds ame Fiona Reynolds DBE became Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 2012. She came to the college from the National Trust, of which she was Director-General from 2001-2012. Before becoming DG of the Trust, she was Director of the Women’s Unit in the Cabinet Office (1998-2000), Director of the Council for the Protection of Rural England and Secretary to the Council for National Parks. Fiona is the Senior NonExecutive Director on the Executive Board of the BBC, a Non-Executive Director of Wessex Water and became chair of Green Alliance in December 2014. Fiona was appointed CBE for services to the environment and conservation in 1998 and DBE in 2008.
D
Paul Evans ature writer, radio broadcaster and senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, Paul is best known as a contributor of Country Diaries for The Guardian; a writer and presenter of natural history documentaries and spooky docu-dramas on BBC Radio 4. Herbaceous, his collection of botanically-inspired poetic prose, was published 2014 and Fieldnotes from the Edge, a journey into Britain’s secret wilds, is published in summer 2015. His background is in the nature conservation movement and horticulture.
N
Katie Bond
Bill Lyons xecutive Editor of Countryfile and Secret Britain on BBC One and also responsible for COAST on BBC Two, he's made programmes for both ITV and Channel Four as well as the BBC, specialising in current affairs, history and archaeology. An EMMY nominee and three times finalist at the New York Film Festival he's also a winner of the British Archaeological Awards with Blood Red Roses, while his ITV factual drama, Titanic - Birth of a Legend won an RTS for Best Visual Effects. His bedtime reading is Alfred Wainwright's Guide to the Western Fells.
E
Nigel Roby igel is owner of The Bookseller and its offshoot We Love This Book. The Bookseller is one of the UK’s longest running magazines. First published in 1858, it is at the heart of the book trade from reporting on the latest sales to predicting the bestsellers in the months ahead. Nigel is a keen walker and very occasional sea kayaker. In both cases, the West and NW of Scotland take some beating.
N
Fergus Collins
ublisher at the National ditor of BBC Countryfile Trust and previously Magazine, writer and a keen Marketing and Publicity amateur naturalist, he spends Director at Bloomsbury, her most of his spare time lifelong passion for books wandering the hills and byways coexists happily with a love of around his Monmouthshire the outdoors, walking, gardening and travel. She is home – and reads vast tracts of nature writing to associated with The Wild Network (reconnecting survive his daily commute. kids with nature) through involvement in the film ProjectWild Thing.
P
E
‘Haze-fire, smeuse, tarn, ghyll, hoarhusk, gruffy ground . . . words are not just a means to describe landscape, but a way to know it and love it.’
LANDMARKS ROBERT MACFARLANE
From the author of the Sunday Times top-ten bestseller The Old Ways
‘He has a poet’s eye and a prose style that would make many a novelist burn with envy’ John Banville
AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW
@wainwrightprize Many thanks to the title sponsors:
Thank you to the Judging panel:
The Wainwright Prize is a literary prize that celebrates the very best writing on the outdoors, nature & travel in the UK – created in memory of Alfred Wainwright, whose pictorial guides to the Lakeland Fells are still available in lovingly reproduced form today.
Dame Fiona Reynolds Chair Fergus Collins Countryfile Magazine Katie Bond National Trust Nigel Roby The Bookseller Magazine Bill Lyons Executive Editor of Countryfile Paul Evans NatureWriter Thanks also to the Public Relations team at FMcM Associates. Thanks to National Trust for their support
Thanks to Stanfords for their support
The Thwaites Wainwright Prize is owned and created by Frances Lincoln Publishers
Executive Director: Alastair Giles Designer: SteveWells Production Manager: Danielle Bowers
A celebration of the b auty and diversity of be o d our dynamic i coastline li Available a in hardback at Nation nal Tru ust shops and bookshops ww ww.nationaltrustbooks.co.uk
www.wainwrightgoldenale.co.uk
@ Wainwrightale