Mock 5

THERE’S SOMETHING AND BUGGER ALL OF IT

THERE’S SOMETHING AND BUGGER ALL OF IT

__Carlisle ____________________________________________________________________

No, no, no, no. On the right-hand side, here, just here coming up, just here coming up. That’s Shaun’s bit.

The reason there’s a lot of heavy transport down here is that Silloth is also a fully working dock.

We want a decent- well I’ve never been, I used to take Christine to Silloth market, she used to like to go to the market, it’s no a car boot sale it’s aA market.

Yeah. And we used to come and have our dinner in here on our way back. What a nice meal it is, we used to get the beef and the lamb, very good.

The village and what not is Abbey town and, obviously, it has an abbey.

Well I would think so.

_____Abbeytown_________________________ I travelled this road for, when I worked for Stevens, for about 10/12 years, and I could never understand that people, you used to see cars in the bloody gutter and through the hedge and what not, and it’s on the straightest bit of road you’ve ever come across like, you know.

Yeah yeah yeah, it’s uh, the abbey is Holme Cultram; you’ll be able to see it before too long here. Wazzocks set fire to it a few years go and burnt it down, and uh, my friend the Arnhem veteran Bob Lee, when he died his funeral was here and it was held in among all the ashes. He made his mind up he was going to get buried at Holme like, you know what I mean, he’s in the church yard there. But um, it’s very, very old; it’s one of the oldest in the country, still stood.

You know when we say we’re going down the farm?

You’re thinking, what did they do? I think that quite often when you see car accidents. You think, how did you do that? That must have taken a fair bit of being able to even do that.

Yeah.

There’s an awful lot of cows along here aren’t there?

If Mary and dad come down for a visit, last time they camped down there, because they’re right next to the lake and they can do their fishing. Dad was sat there fishing whilst Mary was making him bacon butties.

Aye, they’re buck shifting, this is the only trouble the road gets bloody greasy and slippery and what notIt’s not greasy and slippery that causes this here, see I mean like this road is here is straight, you can see, you’ll see there’s a bloody fence and what not where they’ve gone through.

This coming up here on the right-hand side, there’s like two cottages, this is Shaun’s bit, and he has these sort of vans, LDV’s, he breaks them for bits. So, if you want any spares for it or what not you come to see Shaun. He also sells new spares, a lot bloody cheaper than Leyland down.

Is that it there?

There’s a lovely little church there. Beautiful.

I took him some crackers and cheese one day and a cup of tea-well we were talking about when you go about coming down for a week.

I had never seen a man fishing sat asleep on the chair, the rod on his hand, he was sound asleep.

It’s going to depend on weather, like-

__________________________________________________________________________ The fish had probably been biting all morning.

It is, it is supposed, I watched the weather forecast this morning, it’s like black clouds with sunshine around ‘em so you get sunshine and showers, this is the worst day, and that goes on till Monday, on the other side as well. There’s shit all round the room, tralalala.

There’s no use, like.

The abbey being over there, can you see it?

Oh, yeah, not a very big abbey, is it?

No, it isn’t, no. well I mean the thing is, I believe when it was founded it was wooden. If we’ve got time, I don’t know what we’re doing, I’ll take you to Burgh by Sands church, this is where Edward the first lay in state. He died on the march, there’s a big monument out there where he died. But this was built as a defensive tower, by god you can see at the bottom there’s, it’s only small but it’s a big heavy iron gate with a bloody great bolt in it.

the first one, and uh, that’s where he retired to. Forget which one it is now but I think it was that one, there.

They’re nice bungalows, them.

Yeah, we’re not far off Silloth now, it’s just a long winding road, you’re only as fast as what’s in front of you, like. And, if it happens to be a tractor… that’s it, you’re buggered, like.

Now, I don’t know if it’s still here, there used to be a gate way along here, it went down a lane. The lane, it was the track of the old Carlisle to Silloth railway, like. Taken up many, many years ago and uh, you see… oh there it is there look! Ah I don’t know whether you’ll see much, no. It used to come through here where that fence is. Oh, there’s nothing there.

If you look over there you can just see ‘em now.

Look at that sticking up on the right they’re all red.

To take him out.

They’re well lit up at night, it’s run by the navy, it’s a naval place.

And uh, that’s what it does but presumably it tracks, it keeps track of machinery, bloody radio traffic.

Oh come on mate, I’ll bet you he’s going to the chip shop in bloody Silloth, like.

God, the amount of times that bungalows been sold there.

What you’re doing now there, you’re running out towards the coast, just further up on the next corner at Calvo, the mudflats start. They’re all grassed over but they look like a nice big flat meadow and what not, but when you get over there there’s bloody great inlets into em and what not blocked up with seawater when the tide comes in. The wild fowlers get caught off and killed.

-That when he comes through sideways they’d make sure they don’t like it up em like,

See people who are going to do this rambling and walking around, they really need to check what they’re rambling on don’t they?

He becomes a kebab

Well, yeah.

I can remember Silloth when Silloth was a very very popular resort, Glasgow fair week, first two weeks in July, there used to be bloody thousands here, like.

The hotels were, like they all went homeless, all the hotels there was a queue of them, they were all booked up for next year, like.

Well you can tell it was like Weston-Super-Mare was, it’s very much smaller obviously, very much smaller, but the thing that warranted them building such hotels as the Criffel with about 500 bloody rooms in it like, great big hotels.

A nice little church, isn’t it?

A man can only pass through it, now you’re talking about when they say a man you’re talking about a man with his armour on, you know with his breast plate on and all, but he can only pass through it sideways. There’s enough room at the other side with a man with a spear and a sword-

He does yes. So, this is Abbey town.

It’s a very pretty old town.

It is.

It’s uh, there’s something and bugger all of it, like, you know.

Well no, a lot of them round here are the same.

Ah, he’s the only shop now. There’s one just up here, Allister, he used to be the main grocer here, he’s been retired a year or two.

The uh, the way Christine used to get her groceries; she just used to phone her order in there. He built himself a bungalow up here,

It’s one of those old cases isn’t it, of if they don’t make their money this week they never will.

____Silloth ______________________________________________________________ No that’s right, yeah.

But uh, I mean it’s with Sellafield having spills, you’ve been warned you can’t swim in the sea, you can’t eat the fish you’ve plucked out of it, all bloody hell, like, you know. Unfortunately Silloth’s taken on the nose like, it’s a holiday resort of the walking dead at the minute like, you know what I mean, they don’t bury them anymore they pat them on the head and they walk em out.

Calvo corner, don’t know where that place ends at. Bloody lorry and all like.

Their air field here, where Michael works, during the war, it was a conversion field for Hudson bombers. The Americans taught the British pilots to fly like, Hudson bombers. And there were that many, they were so bloody unreliable like, there was that many of them, they went down in the Solway, and what not, they called the Solway Hudson’s bay, at one time. But um, we’re not far out of Silloth now.

The, there’s a cemetery on the right hand- the left hand side, just back where those dark trees are there, that’s where all the crews were buried and you can see them, pilot, co-pilot, radio- all the bloody lot.

Now that’s the church yard, that’s the cemetery, in there. Now this is where Michael works, here. This is the farm. But, he would turn through there, that gate, there, and he works in that place that’s lit up over there, that’s when he’s at Silloth.

Yeah but he’s all over the place as well isn’t he?

Well yes he is, but that’s the home base. He actually runs that place now, as far as the engineering’s concerned. Bloody good wage and all. It’s more know how than qualifications with Michael.

Now, this is Silloth over here. These are all the hangers from when it was an airfield, like.

The town of Silloth is kind of over there. The beach is down here, what there is, they’ve actually put the sea defences in, it’s mainly concrete now. There’s a preservation order on it now, as there is in Carlisle, and it’s all to remain cobbled as it were in the 17, 1800s like.

Now, whether you’ll be lucky or not I don’t know, but just further down here, earlier on, and last here too, when the tides in they come round here with the boats and the trawl for shrimp and prawns, and the baby porpoise come in for them as well and you see the baby porpoise, but whether you’ll see them or not I don’t know, I’ve seen them a time or too like, (dogs barking) I think somebody wants out, Mary!

I’m trying!

This is the flower mill here. They just do it straight, the grain comes in at the docks there and they just mill it straight away, it just goes through there.

Will they take…, no they won’t take…, will they take some through to Carrs?

Sorry?

Will they take stuff through to Carrs biscuits, no?

It’s the same company. Well ah, I mean its McVities now though isn’t it?

No it’s not McVities, it’s not even McVities now, it’s a phone company that’s bought it.

Oh is it? I don’t know about them sorts of things, like.

I just know with David working there.

Well there’s no point in stopping at Allonby today because the tide is in and what I was going to show you were the two plates go one under the other, you won’t be able to see it anyway. But we’ll take a run down the coast road.

That used to be the scrapyard down there I don’t know whether it still is, is it? No, no it’s a bloody holiday camp isn’t it?

There’s allotments here.

Yeah, they’ll have to stay as allotments, them.

There we go, the old railway bridge, that’s where the old railway used to run right through there.

Stopped that leaking, Mary, anyway didn’t we?

You have! It’s dry.

Yeah. Went down the, went down the town, it was raining and what not- it was bloody piddling it, it went through the bloody windscreen seal!

That’s Stanwix isn’t it, aye?

Yeah this is Stanwix, yeah. So it must do fair trade because I mean this is three big, biggish, holiday camps they’ve got now. They’ve got Stanwix, the Lido, so you know there must be a fair bit of trade comes into Silloth.

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Allonby__________________________________________________________________ Wouldn’t like to live out here in the winter, would you? You’d be snowed in.

Get back you bugger!

Well, this here, this is all that’s left of the original sand dunes. You see them all over here, the undulations in the land, it’s not rock it’s sand, and, unfortunately the sea is encroaching and what not and these are, these are they’re going. They’re away. The further we get down to the south the higher and bigger they get.

That’s a bit bloody narrow for him innit?

Sea’s a bit rough today isn’t it?

Sorry?

The water’s a bit rough.

Aye, it’ll be too much for Shadow, too much for dogs to go in.

Aye. Yeah the dogs aren’t going in, no. I don’t know whether the tides high yet, whether it’s high tide or not yet.

Looks to be coming in, doesn’t it?

Yeah, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

You can just see over there, that’s Caldbeck, that’s the edge of the Lake District. It’s… you can’t see an awful lot of it, like, you know. It’s unfortunate mate, it might just be that we get on top and you can see, you won’t see much of the Lake District but you can see a good plain view of Sellafield. I’m sure you can. We’ll be going right past Sellafield anyway, right past it.

Not much left of theNo there’s not much left now.

This is where we used to come where these two house are, here.

Alright.

I don’t know whether they’re still occupied, but the bloody seas used to come over and smash the bloody windows in and like, you know. Whether they’re still occupied or not, I don’t know, but we used to come bass fishing here, end of September, end of this month. They don’t like very… do they? They look a bit abandoned, like, ey.

They do, don’t they? Unless that’s a for sale notice?

Nah, they look a bit… nobody living in there is there? No. Yes there is!

Oh there is! Bloody hell.

Aye there’s flowers on the window.

You can’t get much closer to the bloody sea, in fact, like it comes into your bloody front room every now and again, like. It chucks all this sand and shingle and shilly and what not up.

Now then, now then, now then. This is Allonby, you’re coming into it, and there’s no, nah you can’t see anything, unfortunately from about here if you look at angle over there, you can see the sand, the beach, and then there’s bloody big limestone rocks, and these are the bits that’ve broken off the continental shelf, continental plate, as the Atlantic plate went down underneath it, and heaved it up. Limestone won’t bend, it just cracks, but this, this is actually the subduction zone here, one goes under the other, unfortunately its 300,000,000 years ago since there was any subduction so, I don’t think there’ll be much left of it, but you can definitely see a line of boulders going across towards Ireland.

This is the old customs house here. This is the village of Allonby; people come here for an ice cream.

And it’s a lovely ice cream, isn’t it?

Aye it is, yeah, its a little shop on the end.

The Godfather fish and chip shop?

Sorry?

They’ve named that fish and chip shop the Godfather.

Ha-ha, Codfather? Yeah.

Aye, this is the little ice cream shop along here aye.

Aye, it’s here! Can remember when there was a garage on the end here.

We’re not the only onesCould buy fuel.

We’re not the only ones mad, somebody’s tenting!

Someone’s what?

__Maryport_________________________________________________________________ It’s my eyes, I thought that was a tent, I seen a bike and I thought it was a tent! You can tell I’m nearly blind, eh?

Now then, I don’t just quite know which way…

Can you see the two of us driving all the way to Spain in October?

Now see, look over here, look, you see these big banks and what not, these are the last remaining from the desert made sand dunes, when this area was part of Pangea and it was centred over where the Sahara desert is now, and all this over here, these hills, they’re not forced up by limestone or anything like that, they’re pure sand. If you have a look, on here where the grass is growing, it’s sand. Down below it is gravel, and that’s what the sea shore is made of, gravel. And that runs right the way through to, right the way through past Carlisle, I’ll take you, if we’ve got time I’ll take you from a walk down the river with the dog, he won’t object, and you can actually see where the sand is and where the old sea bed was thousands of years ago. If you put your hand in and pulled a pebble out you’d be the first one who’d seen it in about 30, 000 years. On here, right, there used the be, many, many years ago, there was a line of cottages on this here, this was the salt pans, and they used to flood them with water, pump water into them, let it evaporate and make salt. They were the salter’s cottages, they found them about 40 years ago and excavated them, you can see them. They seem to have about covered in now.

This is Maryport we’re coming into now. This is 18th century, 19th century, big sea port. Sailing ships, wooden ships, and there was a big raid by the Americans on in, Jon Paul joans, he stuck a shore with his team spiked all the canons, the idea was to take the town, but, he couldn’t take the town because all his men went off round the pubs and bloody hoeing and what not round the town there he couldn’t get them all together.

I’m afraid the docks are like historic now, they’re a bit like Gloucester docks, they’ve stopped the fishing because of the pollution in the Solway, and the fact that they were decimating the bloody fish, like, you know what I mean. All this here, all this is sand dune, the biggest one left is the one where we’re going, St Bees head, this was all made, like I say, when we were all a desert. Aha then, the next place, this is Maryport, the next place is Workington but I really am going to turn left here, I really don’t want to go through Workington, it would be a bit shorter but it isn’t, it’s one of them things. Do you want to have a look round Maryport? There’s not really much to see, we can have a day out to here is you like, we’ve got to come past it again to, well more or less anyway, got to come past it again to go to Dunstan Hill. To

hit Workington from here, it’s alright coming to other way, but I’ going against the one way system, you see what I mean, It’s a bugger of a place to get through, here is better. They’re about as good here as Carlisle at digging bloody roads up and what not; they call it the holey city Carlisle.

It’s not a place I’d fancy living in this.

Where, Maryport? Yeah well it’s one of them places. I didn’t know you moved into Maryport I thought you moved out of it, like.

One of my sons used to live in Maryport.

Which side of the bloody road are you on, like?

There’s a turning, there’s a crossroads, there’s a turning to the right, go down there about a mile and you come to broaton Moore which is the, I think it’s a bit further along here, it’s the nato ammunition store, full of missiles and rockets and Christ knows what, nato. Christ I’ve lived here nearly 50 bloody years, like, you know about time… ooh look at that, what I could do with a van like that, LDV… going to do my van like that ey. I think this is a cross road here, yes it is you go down where that cars coming out, that takes you to the ammunition… Okie dokie you should, from the top here, be able to see right out to the beginning of the west central lakes but I think today you’re not going to, however… yeah you can see it in front of you, it goes up much more, you can only see until the cloud line, It goes up much more than that.

Not yet, but it’s, it’ll be right in front of you in the middle of the road. Just a bit further here. Thought you’d have seen it by now, maybe not. It’s all the bushes and trees, they grow up, so you’ll see it in a minute, well, you ought to. There it is, there, see it there, love? That’s Lowca church, that’s the end of it just there. You shall see it on the slope on the sand, that’s where it gets pushed downhill. I want you to look to your right in a minute, over here, and you’ll see a sand dune that’s at the end of it.

That’s where everything was moved to save the church. I mean Lowca church is not in a…. there is a village of Lowca but it’s stood absolutely on its own, the Normans built it oh god, well, it’s after 1066, I think it’s a but 800 years old, I’m not sure… This is low Morrisby there; I’m going to turn left in a minute to go up to the top. Can you see where it’s been flattened out and that sand dune up there has got an unnaturally shaped end that very abrupt?

That’s where we had to cut it back to stop the church being shoved down the hill.

I’m going to turn left here to take you up to the golf course. It’s very steep up here but this is the way to the old Morrisby open

Workington___________________________Whitehaven______________________________ cut, I was engineer for, when I was with coal baord I was engineer for all this round here. I’m sorry you didn’t get much of a look at Lowca church; you might be able to see more from the top of the hill. Ah bluey, get up here!

Yeah, I was just thinking she’s pulling well isn’t she?

Oh aye, aye aye. There used to be a big gateway up here, half way up this hill, that used to take us onto it… there’s absoloutly no sign that there was ever a bloody open cut here. You might get a better view of Lowca; we’ll be coming back the other way, not here. Now then, where’s the golf course?

Oh baby, whether we find the golf or whether we don’t, you ain’t going to see nothing. Bloody awful isn’t it?

Beautiful weather to go camping in.

Is this it? Whitehaven golf course? That’s the boy, that’s the bishop’s knickers.

Look at them playing golf in the rain.

Nah there’s nothing to see mate, usually you can see, you know what I mean? Sorry mate. You see all this at one time, all this was where the golf course is here, this was all open cask, and to do what’s been done here where they’ve turned it into a golf course, it was cheaper for the bloody coal board and what not to just give it to them as a golf course and say here just do what you like with it, like.

So this used to be open cut mines?

Yes this was, yeah and all round here. All round here, it’s massive.

All up the hill where you’ve been, all this along here.

But uh, we give it maybe 100 years break because they’re, the sand dune is constantly… these are with the atmospheric pressure on them with the wind and the water, they’re constantly sinking, they’re being pushed down, but that’s why this one knocked about 20,000 tonnes off its side and what not, they become unstable.

Some rain down here isn’t it?

It is, aye. I wouldn’t be surprised, we’ll go out the other way but, I wouldn’t be surprised if it floods down here.

You’ll have to make your own mind up. It’s what they call a river

plain, and it is a water which is narrow and deep, that, that, when you look are a mere, meres are wide, long and shallow. A water is narrow, deep, okay? And fairly long. And tarns… tarns are just puddles in the calderas of the old volcanoes okay now?

You see it’s a beautiful view right across here, you can see sod all today, nothing. This is St Bee’s village down here, now there’s an interesting thing here. Where they were digging in the churchyard, here, in St Bees, right? They dug up a lead coffin, and this was on that programme the medieval dead, right, now there’s no record of anybody ever having been buried in a lead coffin in there, but then again, the cemetery was being used before records were really kept. They opened up the coffin and inside was the body of a knight, who had presumably died of, had been injured and died of his wounds. Now then, they did an autopsy on him, they could tell by his stomach content what he’d had for his last meal, they got the DNA because the blood was just about right, there was very, very little decomposition at all, so they wondered how old it was and thought it couldn’t be that old, and they put it up for a DNA test, and it came about that he’d died in somewhere around 1368, and his body, sealed in the lead coffin, with no air getting to it was…

Oh that’s a big dog!

St Bernard, aye. Ey, badger! That’s the village down there and the railway station, here is to the beach and the head. Now you can see sand dunes, you can tell that they are sand dunes like, can you, can you not? Long rolling things. Unfortunately it’s not going to be a day for doggy swims; it’s going to be windy as bloody hell to put that awning up. We’re going to have to put it up because we can’t sleep anywhere bloody else.

You can now, just over there, just see the top of Sellafield, okay?

It’s bloody massive.

I didn’t realize just how big it was until I seen it on the television.

Oh Christ, it’s massive. I worked for Stevens when we did the land clearance, for the thrp plant, and that was frd kia, built the bloody thing. Bloody hell fire, I left Stevens in 91, so what does that make it? 91, 2001, 2011, nearly 50 years isn’t it? And it was built before that, it’ll be built just over 30 years, it was built purely for processing the nuclear waste.

This looks a better road Ah that’s it there, that’s Sellafield, the big thick chimney that’s stood up, they’re dismantling that, and that is one of the original

____St Bees______________________________Ravenglass____________________________ two. The other one caught fire and the uh, uh I told you about it the other day, they had to pump it full of liquid concrete to put the bloody fire out and that could have been another chernobyl.

But it’s no longer in use that, now; they’re again in a lot of trouble trying to dismantle it.

The road, at some time in the past 40 years, has been moved, because it used to run right the way past the past the pan, so they’ve shifted this road.

Right, on your side now we go past end of the estuary, you might see pheasant and maybe the odd deer along here as well, further up, that’s not guaranteed, but we saw pheasant once. This here above us is the road we came in on yesterday, if we could have seen anything you’d have been looking down on all this. This is the very top end of the estuary, when the tide is coming in. You’ll probably see Herdwick sheep as well, unfortunately the lambs aren’t lambs anymore, they were when you came down. You see the mountains over there? That’s where Wastwater is, that’s where we’re going tomorrow. Up into those mountains, but only on the edge, you can’t go any further because the road doesn’t go any further. You might be lucky if the other train… this is the passing point, the other train will come the other way with a bit of luck. Actually Lake District is best in spring or winter; it’s spectacular in winter after a good snow, like.

Did you see the picture of the stag? When we were going past there?

The brown one is a mountain totally spoiled by bloody logging.

Is that why the trees are spare? Because they’ve logged it and taken it all off?

Yeah, they’ve taken all the trees off, they do plant others, maybe in Lisa’s life time but in mine, no, it’ll be like that. They spoil it.

Every now and again, you can see a shovel, that’s so they can clear the snow off in the winter to get the train though, like, you know. Passengers have to get off and man the shovels, like. See the trees where they’ve all fallen over? There was one there.

See they’re not deeply rooted, they’re only in- what actually happens is the same around Carlisle, when the river floods, the sand and what not around them goes soggy, and it loses its grip, when the wind blows the tree over it pulls its roots out like those big mounds, you know. This is a mountain, you can see the mountain in decline, it’s fallen off, it’s disintegrating from this end, the ingress of water in the winter and then the freezing, it’s surprising how all the limestones apart, it’s splitting it, and it’s disintegrating.You can see the proper scarring on there as well where they’ve taken the trees off it.

These are typical Lakeland houses here, now the tradition seems to have gone now but at one time they all had red doors, Mary’s still got one, but uh red doors, a red door was Lakeland, like. You have a look and they don’t waste the mountains like, they build all the bloody bridges out of it, the houses are made of it, they’re even crushing it to put on the roads, like.

To be a mountain it has be over 2,000 ft., right, to be classed as a mountain. Now then, there’s only 125 in the whole of the country, and 82 of them are in Scotland. Now this is the Lakeland village here, is you want to see an ancient village there it is, there. See where they’ve been logging there? there’s a line of trees between us and the logging, now it’s not because they’re forced to leave it there, the line of trees are oaks and hardwoods and they’re not allowed to fell them, you need national, you need national park or forestry commission approval to fell an oak in here, unless it’s of an danger and then the national park will send the foresters to do it, like.

This, this I believe over here is I think is the fishing crag, over here, another mountains that’s fallen away at the end, you know, like, I mean in the end all this lot will go the same way as the big volcano did, it will end up back under the sea. Eventually. It took the volcano 100,000000 years to disappear, like, you know what I mean that’s a bloody long time, and it’s been gone 400,000000 years, the only bits that are left are, in its twilight years, is the old man of consistent, that is made up of lava, it’s death row sort of thing, in its prime it was a very explosive poisonous bloody thing.

This is where they used to make the advert there, do you remember years ago? ‘We smoked our clears, cool as a mountain stream’ that’s where they made it, just down there. Here we come; I think this is the end of the line now.

I can’t understand why people worry any way at all, you know, like, because I mean you wake up in the morning, don’t you? And you’ve two things to think about; are you ill or are you well? If you’re well you’ve nothing to worry about. If you’re ill you’ve two things to worry about; are you going to live or are you going to die? If you’re going to live you’ve got nothing to worry about.

If you’re going to die, you’ve got two things to worry about; are you going to heaven or are you going to hell? If you’re going to heaven, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If you’re going to hell you’re going to be too busy shaking hands with all your bloody mates down there you won’t have time to worry, will you? You just won’t. It’s logical. Lake District logic, that.

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Dalegarth___________________________________________________________________ It was where the Galapagos Islands are now, and it’s come round in a big circle. It came from where the Galapagos Islands are now, over to where South America is now, right the way round to where South Africa is, and it came round in a great big wheel.

St Bees, with the dunes, they were formed when it got to where the Sahara desert is now; there was no Mediterranean in that time. The Mediterranean didn’t exist. And it kept on wheeling, wheeling round, then 65,000,000 years ago, at the time of the great extinction, which is the extinction of the dinosaurs, we also had the breakup of the continents. That is when America, and the Americas, split off and went over that way, and Antarctica broke up, with Australia attached to it. Antarctica and Australia went that way, new Zealand broke off from those two and went further up, and India broke off the side and where just about Madagascar and mogodisia are now, and that broke off as a piece of land, which is India shaped now, and it was also pointed at the top. And, it collided with the Arabian, what is now Arabia.

And this point pushed in, and it pushed up the Himalayas and the Tibetan plains, and all you can see now is the bit of India that what was like this, you can’t see what was like this because it is now, what is now part of the Himalayas, and what not, you know? It’s part of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plains. And then, Australia broke away from Antarctica, Antarctica drifted over, and at one time Antarctica was tropical, and Australia went over that way. Antarctica didn’t become Antarctica, until New Zealand split over, and stopped the hot water current, stopped the warm water current. Then, it froze. And it’s the same as Britain is today, is it not for the Gulf Stream we would be a frozen bloody mass. We’d be like Greenland and Iceland. It’s only for the fact that the current comes over, and it takes 1000 years. It starts off here, it goes down, round the coast of Britain, round the coast of south Africa, up into the Arabian gulf and India, through the Indian ocean, and then it turns and loops round on the east side of Australia comes back, crosses over itself, but one is going under and the others coming over, its hot watered you see, it’s warmer water, it’s rising. And that comes back round the cape, round the cape, the African cape, the south African cape, goes out across the Atlantic to the gulf of Mexico, it sweeps round- this is where the gulf of Mexico comes from, that current swinging round in there, then I heads back for us. Hits Ireland, splits, and this is why the weather is shit here, you can go up to Ullapool in Scotland and the grow palm trees in their gardens there. Because the Gulf Stream splits on Ireland, and half of it goes up that way and the other half goes down over Devon and Cornwall, you see? And that’s where things happened. When the continents broke up, you’ve more or less got- we’re used to seeing the land masses as they are now, but if we came back in say, 300,000,000 years’ time,

you’ll probably find that it’s all gone, it’s all one big land mass because that’s where but’s heading at the moment, everything’s closing in again, you see? We nearly had, after the last ice age, we nearly had another one, because Canada was full, in the middle of Canada of you have a look at a map, Canada is a bunch of lakes, its loads and loads and loads of lakes, and these are glacial, and they’re left after the ice age. Well, when the ice melted, it filled Canada full, of water, basically the middle it was like a bloody big inland sea, and eventually what they call the ice wall, which was the remains, the remains of a bloody great glacier, it broke. And the water came out, and into the, what we have now is the north Atlantic. Now, now this created the way it came out, you could quite clearly see where it came out, the great ice wall was along here, and when it came out the water came out with such force that it created the St. Lawrence seaway, it washed all the land away, and left- apart from the rocky bit- and left newfoundland, where it is now, and it dug all with such a force, this is fresh water, and it came out with such a force that up routed the seabed, and this is why the titanic is 2 ½ miles down. Now, if you go a little bit further over, right, they have what they call the fog area, it’s where they call the grand banks, and they used to fish, the Portuguese used to sail sailing ships on with these wooden boats, what they call the dories, and they used to fish for cod with hand lines. So they could fish with it with a hand line, and hit the bottom of the Atlantic there. And this is where it’s blown, now, if you imagine –I could show you how it works in my fish tank at home to be honest with you- the force of water hitting the sand, it blows it up into a cloud and propels it that way, then the sand then settles out, and this went on for thousands of years. Well, aye, thousands of years didn’t it? But what actually happened was, all that induction of water, of plain water, it diluted the sea, and the salt in the sea, it diluted it down so far that it couldn’t start, the warm water, the cold water current going round because there was not enough sand in and not enough salt in to sink, so the gulf stream very nearly stopped. Because the way the Gulf Stream works now, and this is why we get so much shit and water over here, it’s the evaporation off the sea. The salt level in the sea becomes so dense, that it has to sink, and it draws the water down with it and takes it along the coast of England. And it’s replaced by warm water from the Gulf of Mexico, at the other end of the Gulf Stream coming back up here and replacing it, alright?

And then the process starts all over again. But, it’s the warm water coming up that causes the evaporation that goes up here and this is why it bloody rains up here so much, it’s because of this. But, it takes 1000 years for the water to leave the IcelandGreenland-England area here, to travel down and around, and around Africa and Australia, it takes 1000 years for it to go round

____Ravenglass______________________________________________________________ there and then come back.

We went up, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it’s a very popular picture for calendars, and there’s a very, very old bridge, and it’s a pack horse bridge and it’s built of stone. And, it’s got a keystone in the middle, called Ashness Bridge; it’s very very pretty the river is underneath it, it’s beautiful.

The tourists aren’t bloody helping because they’re having to make bigger car parks and what not which is damned- I don’t believe in that it’s bloody unnatural, like, you know- but the village of Watendlath, which is very, very small, is further up. Now, there’s two big overhangs of rocks, and I just, just, just got the van through them when I took your mam up there, but they’ve closed up some more I can’t get the van through there anymore, they’re slipping, they’re sliding, but I can’t. I tried, I was going fishing with John, my mate John, and we just couldn’t get it through, just could not. I just squeezed it through with your mam but I can’t get it up there anymore. All it is, is a big tarn up there full of trout and what not, handy for a picnic and what not , it’s got swans and geese, it’s got all the bloody lot in there.

Do you remember that, when we went to Watendlath?

Tell me what was there and I’ll probably remember it.

Well it was a bloody great puddle full of trout and what not, and we went over Ashness Bridge, yes, and we just got the van between the overhangs of rock, do you remember?

I do.

Well, they’ve moved now.

I remember sitting there going over the bridge with my eyes shut, I do remember that.

This is where, this is where you went yesterday, see the La ’al Ratty track? In the bottom there, there’s a railway track just in the bottom, I’ve just seen it but it’s… there it is look, there.

It’s lovely looking over at them mountains isn’t it Yeah, I’ve told you this is the west, this is the west central. There we go, Muncaster Mill just down there, that’s worth a look at. I don’t know whether they’re still open, it’s an old fashioned flour mill there, it worked on the water wheel that they resurrected.

Can’t believe we’d had that rain, can you?

Bloody hell I woke up a couple of times, it was bloody lashing down.

You talk in your sleep, you. Tony.

Do I? I don’t know, never heard myself. Must be asleep. Don’t know about that one.

Basically, over there, see where those mountains are over there roughly? That’s where we’re going, down this side. That’s the other side of the mountain that you saw yesterday. But if you have a look up here you can see between the mountains, there’s a massive glacial- the glaciers came down here it’s a massive glacial valley between two lots of mountains. See these, to go tomorrow, these are the sorts of roads you’re on to go Ullswater way. It is shorter but much longer if you know what I mean, time wise it’s far longer. And, if the weathers bad it’s not ideal to drive in, like, you know.

Where are we going tomorrow?

Dustan hill, I believe. Sticking to the plan.

You forget what day it is when you’re camping.

All it is, is a little packhorse bridge, it’s no suspension bridge or anything, it’s just a… over a ditch, like.

Now, there’s Great Gable right in front of us, she’s got a hat on at the minute, that’s great gable right in front of you.

It doesn’t matter, it’s water under it, Mary got used to it I was hugging her real tight every time we went over a bridge with water under it.

We could hardly see them last time could we?

I can’t get the van up there now, we’ve had another coat of paint put on it, like, do you remember going through those rocks? Well I can’t get there because that rock overhang has now moved by about 4 inches since then and I can’t get the van through anymore. It won’t fit through.

That’s beautiful.

We couldn’t see them at all, we couldn’t see this.

When you get there it doesn’t seem so high and you think, ‘Oh my god these aren’t high mountains’, but you’ve been going up ever since we left the main road, and you were going up before that,

Wast Water_________________________________________________________________ since we left St. Bees. Ravenglass beach is obviously at sea level, but you’ve been going up ever since, apart from like this where we’re going down, but you go up more than you go down. We’re still a bit off the lake yet, but looks like the water’s running as well which will make it- well it bloody should be, the amount of bloody shit that came down.

Now you can see all the Herdwick lambs. When your mother came up in May, these were just little things like this running about, like, you know. They’re still black now; they won’t go grey until spring next year. About spring, and they’ll be another crop of black ones about. Have you ever seen a- did you notice on the Ratty yesterday, some of the sheep have got red spots on their back? And different coloured spots on? Well, right, some people will tell you it’s to distinguish which ones are to go to slaughterthis is the river that comes out, there’s plenty of water in it, yeah, plenty of water in it… -but in point of fact they’re not. They can’t breed the Herdwick sheep, they won’t breed in captivity. It’s got to be loose on the Fells. So, the rams have to be let loose with them, you see what I mean? Now then, the- anything Mary?

No. So the rams, when they go out, they have a harness on them and they have what they call a ruttle block, underneath and it come in different coloured soft, it’s like grease paint. Right, now then, when the ram does what he’s supposed to do with the ewe, this is on his chest, and it rubs all of the colour onto her coat, you see what I mean? And it goes right through. So then they know when they count the spots which rams worth its keep and which ram needs to go to the bloody pop shop, like, you know. They’ll you go look, a couple of lambs there. The Herdwick lambs are very prolific and you don’t need many of them before the whole bloody jobs done, you know, like. Can you see the fault lines here in the rock, on there?

Ooh there’s another ambulance is it? Yeah, mountain rescue.

Someone’s chucked themselves off. Oh, there’s another. This is the problem now; I can’t see down both roads, I can see down that one, I can’t see down here. Right, you might see some more sheep; it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility. Yes, nice little waterfall, that’ll have come from the top. Hey do you know, I think that water falls actually slowed down since the last time we were here. These are the Herdwicks, they’re the locals. It seems to have slowed down, that waterfall, do you know that?

Since, when we first got here. I suppose it’s only so much water and when it’s come down its down, like. You’re coming up to the deepest bit now, toward this end. Compared, it’s fairly deep there, but in comparison it’s shallow there.

It’s not a very wide road is it?

It’s not a good road, no. No. That’s the best bit the stop for dogs; it’s a bit cobbly getting down, that way. There’s one thing about it though, I tell you what, like, with all these people about size does matter, like, doesn’t it ey?

Its funny shaped isn’t it.

Yeah.

I like them trees, there.

There we go, look. Another waterfall there, somewhere.

42 mile and we’re home.

Yeah I mean, like, we’re only 42 miles and we’ve done 13, so to us, like, Ravenglass is 55 miles away. We can hit it in, taking it steady we can hit it an hour and a quarter. St Bees is just over there. The fact is we haven’t come to the turn off for St. Bees as we would use it coming to from Carlisle. You see it’s handy for a weekend; we can hit the lakes nay bother like you know. We don’t bother because it’s lousing with bloody tourists. The only problem is they bring about… I don’t know what they bring, but something like 25 million a year into the Lake District, like.

This is, this here is all the same, sand dune, sand drift. The other thing is Whitehaven, all up round here with the open cut and what not, you’ll get the idea, it’s a big coal area, and the pit was over there in Whitehaven at the top near the soap powder factory, and the pit was marsh on, and it was, the seams went right out under the Solway so they were actually boaring under the sea. Then one day, it just ran out. They ran it up, a stone wall right in front of them, and the stone wall was caught by -this is the St. Bees turn now, where we went down- yeah, it’s where there a fault in the earth, you see what I mean? The coal went up and the stone went down, so the hit he stone wall and the coal was either below them, or above. And they found that the coal was above them, but, if you’re in a tunnel under the sea it stands to reason that you don’t mess about too much with the roof, like, you know what I mean? So it closed, it finished.

Did you hear the bloke saying yesterday that he’d taken his van over Hardknott pass? Well Hardknott is over there, and it goes over this mountain here, it starts with Hardknott which runs into Wrynose and then that runs in to Whinlatter, so there’s three passes that you come through, Hardknott being the worst of them.

__________________________________________________________________________ I don’t think he was very impressed driving on it.

It’s fearsome, it is, it’s fearful. I wouldn’t take you up it. I honestly wouldn’t. No I just wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take you up it.

If you can see it, Knoxwood is over here. This is where the only nesting pair of osprays is over here. Over on the other side, which is on the way back to Carlisle, there’s a viewpoint. This is it on the end here, Knoxwood. We’re running up to Skiddaw now. Here’s a better view of the lake here now.

What lake’s that now?

This is Bassenthwaite Lake; it’s the only lake in the Lake District.

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