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HEBDEN BRIDGE – MALHAM

Tom Stephenson’s big idea

The next morning I sat in the kitchen of a terraced house in Hebden Bridge. It belonged to a small woman in what I judged to be her late 60s or early 70s, who I had never met until the previous evening, nor was I ever likely to again once I had left. As I sat quietly, she busied herself preparing breakfast, humming gently as she stirred the scrambled egg and checked the toast. I looked round the neat but homely room, at the postcards on the fridge door and a vase of fresh flowers by the window. There was a small pile of ironing on a chair by the door and a few cookery books on a shelf. Outside, some children walked past noisily on their way to school. And as I sat there at the kitchen table, surrounded by all the trappings of everyday life, but an everyday life that belonged to a complete and utter stranger, it struck me that bed and breakfast is a most peculiar arrangement.

Mind you, if bed and breakfast is by definition peculiar, that’s nothing compared to the phenomenon that is the Pennine Way B&B landlady. After I had arrived the previous afternoon, weary and slightly footsore, I went through the customary greetings and then made the grievous mistake of imagining I could simply walk down the tiled corridor towards my room still clad in boots and rucksack. After all, my boots were clean after walking through the town and my pack was completely dry. Short and slight but with a commanding voice that could probably be heard the other side of the valley, Miss B announced that boots (whatever their condition) were to be removed before entering the premises. That’s perfectly fine, I thought, as I sat outside the back door on a bench evidently provided for that purpose. A wide, shallow tray lined with newspaper was produced, on which I was invited to place my boots. I then stood up and shouldered my pack, but was promptly informed that rucksacks were not allowed to be worn when inside the house but instead had to be carried in the arms in a forward position. I stood, slightly stupefied, wondering what on earth I had let myself in for tonight. I had visions of being stood over in the bath by this officious lady instructing me how to scrub my back. Sensing my bewilderment, Miss B relented and explained that she had had too many pictures knocked off the walls of her narrow landing by young men wearing ‘enormous’ rucksacks. I finally made it to my room, clutching my rucksack before me, and opened the door in trepidation, fearing what other house rules I might inadvertently break.

In the end, I must say I warmed to Miss B. I learnt that she had been providing bed and breakfast for Pennine Way walkers on and off for over 30 years (‘but I only open in the summer months – you shouldn’t be walking it at other times’); and despite her stern manner, delivered in the style of a short-tempered maths teacher, I think she may have developed a soft spot for walkers. We chatted over breakfast and she told me she had had a serious operation at the beginning of the year and wasn’t going to do B&B this season. ‘But then Pennine Way walkers began ringing up to book for the summer and I just couldn’t turn them down.’

Half an hour later I said goodbye and, armed with her hand-drawn map showing me the best way to regain the trail above the town, I left the home of a complete stranger to walk 16 miles to that of another.

Miss B is just one of many Pennine Way accommodation providers who have developed a special bond with the walkers who periodically stagger through their doors. The Pennine Way Association’s indispensable accommodation guide first appeared in 1971 and ran for over four decades, edited by the late John Needham. In an article he wrote for the spring 1989 issue of the association’s newsletter, he recalled that in the first edition there were 75 establishments listed and the average price of an overnight B&B stay on the Pennine Way was £1.25 (by 1989 it had hit the heady heights of £8!). John also observed how accommodation provision had shifted to meet demand over the years, so that in 1972 there was only one listing for the Hebden Bridge area but by 1989 there were seven. Pennine Way walkers also made it clear what they thought of the generous hospitality they were shown. ‘It is pleasant to report that we get few complaints; most of the writers have nothing but praise for the ladies who took them in, fed them, and dried them out.’

Some B&Bs were in there more or less from the beginning and became legends among regular trailwalkers. Chris Sainty, former chairman of the Pennine Way Association, is one of many who remembers Ethel Burnop, of Woodhead Farm in Lothersdale, with particular fondness. ‘She was one of the early B&B providers and I remember Tom Stephenson used to drop in if he was in the area,’ he said. ‘It was a working farm in those days and very basic, but you always got a fantastic greeting and a cup of tea with lashings of cake. Her breakfasts were enough to keep you going all day and she never turned anyone away. She loved what she called her “Pennine Highwaymen”. They were her family.’

Teacher and guidebook writer Alan Binns also recalled how the Burnops were always kind and welcoming to his groups of schoolboys on their Pennine Way walks in the 1960s and 70s, never once refusing anyone shelter. The record, he believes, was probably set in July 1968, when on just one night there were 26 walkers inside the farm and 46 tents in the field outside.

David Blowers was another who used the pages of the Pennine Way Association’s newsletter to praise the Burnops’ unfailing hospitality. He recounted the highlights from his walk along the Pennine Way in July 1979 with two fellow sixth-formers:

Woodhead Farm was such a welcome sight and we had been told that a meal from ‘the Burnops of Woodhead Farm’ was something not to be missed, so our first approach to Mr Burnop was tactful: we asked if the pub in the village served meals and to our delight he answered by saying that his wife may cook us a meal. Feeling in a better mood we went to put the tent up.

A paragraph dedicated to Mr and Mrs Burnop:

These are the most amazing people that I have ever come across. They allowed us, and the two French ladies [also walking the Pennine Way], who were having bed and breakfast and evening meal, to use their washing and toilet facilities. Not only that but they were friendly and the meal, well just take a look at this: Soup, roll and butter, roast steak, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, sprouts, carrots, runner beans, cabbage, cauliflower, biscuits and cheese, strawberries and ice cream, tea … wonderful.

We spent most of the evening in their house, both before and after the meal, talking just as if we were at home. Mrs Burnop even asked us what we would like to watch on the television … such luxury.

The Pennine Way deliberately bypasses Hebden Bridge, because when the route was originally plotted there was little to attract walkers. Early in the last century, it was a prosperous mill town, famous as the centre of the trade in fustian (thickly woven cotton cloth with a short nap or pile, like corduroy and moleskin); but bust followed boom and by the 1960s it seemed to be in terminal decline. Some industry limped on, but shops were empty, houses were being pulled down and the valley was littered with redundant and dirty mill buildings. In his 1967 book A Guide to the Pennine Way, Christopher John Wright describes the scene: ‘This very narrow gorge of the River Calder has cotton manufacturies, clothing mills and dye works crowded into the valley, and the smoke and smell of industrial effluent fills the lungs.’

Then, during the 1970s and 80s, Hebden Bridge began to reinvent itself as an influx of artistic and creative people moved into the valley; and after that a new wave of wealthier, trendy incomers brought in further vitality. There are still the steep cobbled streets and tightly packed rows of traditional ‘double-decker’ housing, but the once grimy old mill town now boasts dozens of small independent shops, as well as cafés, bars and places to stay.

I walked into the town centre to soak up the atmosphere of what The Times described in 2013 as ‘the coolest place to live in Britain’. It’s likely that if the route of the Pennine Way was being plotted today, it would pass through Hebden Bridge, not least because it was also the first official ‘Walkers are Welcome’ town in the UK. This initiative was launched in 2007 and now includes over a hundred towns and villages nationwide where visiting walkers are assured of the best possible service.

The latest development is the Hebden Bridge Loop, a new walking route connecting the Pennine Way with the town centre to encourage walkers to stop and visit. The idea came from Dave Brooks, co-director of Hebden Bridge Hostel. When he walked the Pennine Way in 2012, it occurred to him that trailwalkers were missing out by not entering Hebden Bridge or nearby Heptonstall. Dave and the local walkers’ action group worked together to create a waymarked route from Callis Wood to the town centre, then up to Heptonstall to rejoin the Pennine Way near Hebble Hole. And what, I asked him, about those purists who say it’s not the official route? ‘Well, what about the Bowes Loop?’ replied Dave. ‘If Bowes can have a Loop, then so can Hebden Bridge.’

The Bowes Loop, much further along the path, is an alternative section of the trail via the County Durham village of Bowes. It was introduced early on, to offer more accommodation choices, but ironically there are few places to stay in Bowes these days so the Loop has lost much of its original purpose.

I do like what the enterprising folk of Hebden Bridge have done and I like the idea that the Pennine Way can evolve and improve, offering future walkers more choice and a better experience. I also like the fact that Dave proudly displays a large map and photos of his own Pennine Way walk in the entrance of the hostel. This comfortable and welcoming independent hostel adjoins the Birchcliffe Centre, a former Baptist Chapel that is now the base for a lively arts and heritage charity called Pennine Heritage (which Dave is also involved in). The charity is devoted to preserving and promoting the landscapes of the South Pennines, and its local oral history recordings and photographic collections include, most fittingly, archive material from the Pennine Way Council (which later became the Pennine Way Association).

Some short but lung-busting climbs were needed to finally exit the Calder valley and leave the colourful denizens of Hebden Bridge behind. The noise and bustle far below fell silent as I steadily made my way up across sloping pasture and deserted lanes towards the expanse of Heptonstall Moor.

Before I climbed the last field, I took a breather and veered off to visit Highgate Farm, just off the route. This is the site of a small but legendary shop known as May’s Aladdin’s Cave. It all began 35 years ago when farmer’s wife May Stocks was asked by some passing Pennine Way walkers if she could spare any fresh milk or eggs for their breakfast. This kept happening, so she asked what else they needed and, as her daughter-in-law told me across the counter, it just grew and grew. The converted stable building is crammed full of everything Pennine Way walkers could possibly want – hence the Aladdin’s Cave tag – from toiletries and newspapers to tinned food and cold pies, fresh fruit and home-made cakes to ice creams, bottled beer, and spare hats and socks. There’s a deli counter, fresh sandwiches and jars of sweets.

‘We stock what walkers ask for,’ I was told. ‘Plasters, talc and gas canisters seem to be popular.’ She went on to explain that it has become a community shop for the residents of Higher Colden, and as I stood there agonising between a giant square of flapjack and a tempting sticky bun, there was a regular stream of local people popping in for this and that, or simply to chat. Although Pennine Way walkers are no longer the shop’s mainstay, they remain important to May, a sprightly 76-year-old who still has a regular newspaper delivery round. You can camp for free in the field by the farm, and over the years she has dried boots, sown broken rucksack straps and offered moral encouragement to those wearying of Calderdale’s steep slopes. In the end I bought the enormous square of chocolate-covered flapjack, thick and rich and very filling. It kept me going till teatime.

I finally reached the top of the slope and stepped out onto the high open ground. Ahead of me, the hills broadened out and there was quite a lot of nothing. By this I mean that there were some small, far-off reservoirs, a few farms and clumps of trees, but above all a lot of open pasture and moorland. It felt like a landscape emptying out – but in a nice way – as if the Pennine landscape was pushing back its shoulders after all that built-up stuff and reasserting its more natural self (not that reservoirs and grouse moors are all that natural). I was struck, in particular, by the incredibly open vistas, how the yawning moorland rolled away, one gentle ridge after another. It wasn’t a dramatic landscape in the conventional sense of the word and there were, for instance, no plunging gorges or soaring peaks that grabbed your attention, but the general wash of this bare Pennine canvas was oddly mesmerising. I went back to the words of Tom Stephenson, a man so attuned to the hills of northern England, to see whether he could explain the effect of these moors on the senses. In an interview with Marion Shoard in 1977 (reproduced in The Rambler magazine of February/March 1989), he said: ‘You get the idea of a flat skyline, but you’re up and down all the time. It’s that attraction of them: the long lines, the level lines in the landscape characteristic of a sort of table with a sharp nose … you get the effect of plains receding as far as you can see, as one range of moorland succeeds another. That gives you a great sense of distance you wouldn’t get in the Lake District because you have a mountain interrupting your view in one direction or other.’

What was especially noticeable was the lack of people. A solitary runner, a post van and a couple of tractors were the sum total of life for the best part of two hours that morning, as I made my way by path and lane via Graining Water and the trio of Walshaw Dean Reservoirs. I paused on the far side of the middle one to read some large and evidently VERY IMPORTANT public notices. Huge boards, in vivid colours, shouted warnings at me that cold water kills, bathing was prohibited and there was a danger of falling along the bywater channel. I didn’t even know what a bywater channel was, but walking along it sounded risky. In fact, I found out that it was simply an artificial trench running alongside the main reservoir to carry away excess water, and I found this out because the Pennine Way now ran beside it.

Beyond the reservoirs, the path took to slabs as it gradually made its way up to the top of the hill. However, unlike some of the newer paved routes that I’d been treading over the last couple of days, this one was laid as long ago as 1989 by Calderdale Countryside Service and it was interesting to see how well it had bedded down, with vegetation fringing the stones all the way along. New moorland vistas now opened up ahead, with Haworth and Keighley over to the right. But the main attraction was much closer to home. The trail descended to a ruined building, variously called Top Withins, Top Withens or simply Withins. The main part of what was evidently once a small, simple dwelling was roofless and sat in isolation next to a couple of trees towards the top of the moors. In any other situation this would be just another neglected and unremarkable old building, slowly decaying year by year; except here small knots of people all over the hillside were making a beeline for it, following waymarked paths from Haworth that even included signposts in Japanese.

A prominent plaque fixed to one of the walls explained that the building was associated with the Earnshaw home described by Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights. Erected by the Brontë Society in 1964, the plaque and its carefully chosen wording interested me as much as the dilapidated building. It was a masterclass in non-committal. ‘The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described. But the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights.’ The notice finishes with the slightly irritable comment: ‘This plaque has been placed here in response to many inquiries’. You can almost hear the author of the notice sighing.

There wasn’t too much to see and I felt slightly out of place among couples in white trainers and sunglasses. I wondered what they expected to find there, and whether they felt their three-mile trek across the moors from Haworth was worth it. I did consider making the reverse trip, perhaps nosing round the Parsonage Museum for an hour; but the sun was shining and I thought I’d really rather be up on the moors on my own than jostling with holiday crowds in a busy tourist village.

The last 20 miles or so had reminded me how the South Pennines have a surprisingly rich literary association. Near the path back at Standedge there had been a memorial to Ammon Wrigley, a local poet from Saddleworth, little known today but in the early 1900s he had a large and enthusiastic following. The Calder valley, and in particular Mytholmroyd and Heptonstall, was the stomping ground of the young Ted Hughes, whose poetry captures the sparse Pennine landscape in much the same way that the Brontë sisters evoked the mood of the windswept moors a century earlier. As I’d noted a few miles back on Heptonstall Moor, from a purely scenic point of view these rather bare and bleak uplands are no match for the preceding Peak District or for the Yorkshire Dales that follow; but for many artistic types, and evidently some Pennine Way walkers, this very emptiness gives the South Pennines a special character. It’s as if the sheer desolation fires the imagination and the wide and rather featureless horizons unlock some creative spark. As Ted Hughes observed in his poem ‘Pennines in April’: ‘Now, measuring the miles of silence/Your eye takes the strain’.

There’s certainly something about these stark and deserted moors that touches you. Already I felt it, even if I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, let alone had the eloquence of Emily Brontë or Ted Hughes to express it. For 50 years, the Pennine Way has shone a light on our relationship with high and open country, on our basic need to have access to natural and uncluttered spaces where we can be challenged like this. It doesn’t matter whether we walk the Pennine Way for a fortnight, a day or even just an hour or so. Even up here, sandwiched rather ingloriously between Burnley and Bradford and where the endless slopes of heather and acidic grasses can sometimes verge on the drab, this path is our portal to another world. It’s an interface between people and landscape, and a reminder that there are other things in life besides email, shopping and celebrities.

I wasn’t finished with the Brontës quite yet. Dropping down sharply to Ponden Reservoir, I paused to admire Ponden Hall, a 17th-century farmhouse that’s reputed to be the Thrushcross Grange of Wuthering Heights. After climbing back up even more steeply, I strode out across Ickornshaw Moor and realised I really was on my own. There was absolutely no one around. A skylark trilled somewhere above me; in the far distance, a faint whine could have been a chainsaw; but otherwise there was just me and an awful lot of silent and rather featureless moorland. I stopped to have a break, resting my back against a stone wall and staring out in an unfocused way across the open slopes. Just an hour before, the moorland had been positively teeming with life above Haworth, and yet here, in the middle of July, the Pennines seemed utterly empty. The same had been true this morning around Walshaw Dean Reservoirs. It might not be the pristine wilderness experience but in these pockets of the unfashionable lower Pennines there were snatches of solitude that I hadn’t really expected.

Again, returning to Marion Shoard’s article in The Rambler magazine, I found that Tom Stephenson had summed it up well: ‘There’s a silence that you can almost hear. The wind in the different kinds of vegetation: you hear that in different tones – a whisper or a rustle on the ground, the heather and so on. There’s the sound of a curlew, the plovers, the little plaintive peep peep, and the snipe drumming in season. They’re all part of the attraction. Then there’s the different shades in the vegetation: grey-green, grey in winter with the heather sooty black. It’s surprising what different tones you get in the landscape. I like the moors at all times of year. The Pennine moors are even more colourful in winter than in summer.’

I spent the night at Cowling, an untouristy Pennine village just off the trail on the A6068. There seemed to be an unending stream of traffic heading from Burnley to Keighley, or Keighley to Burnley, including huge wagons that made the pavements shudder. My B&B was tucked away just off the main street, a short terraced row where Susan and Sandy couldn’t have done any more to make a footsore Pennine Way traveller more welcome. As soon as I arrived, I was ushered through the kitchen and sat down in the tiny back conservatory amid the geraniums and wellies, a cup of tea and slice of home-made lemon drizzle cake thrust into my hands whether I liked it or not. Where had I walked from? How did I feel? What was the weather like? Susan, in particular, was a keen rambler herself and empathy flowed in waves. Cowling might not have been the prettiest place I stayed in, but the welcome at Woodland House was certainly among the warmest.

A couple of hours after I arrived, another Pennine Way walker plodded wearily through the door. I’d already encountered Barry several times on the trail since Edale, including amid the murk of Kinder Scout on day 1; but although our walking schedules were overlapping, we hadn’t had much chance to talk and swap stories. Middle-aged and single, average height with thinning dark hair and a rounded face that easily burst into a smile, Barry was a paramedic from south London and was looking, he said, to get away from it all for a while. He was affable and interesting, but he was also exhausted and wanted an early night. Judging by his limp, he was also suffering with from sore feet, so we agreed to set out together the next day.

The following morning, as I prepared to go down to breakfast, there was a distinctive smell in the house, an almost medicinal odour that seemed faintly familiar. I presumed Susan had been cleaning the kitchen or unblocking the drains. Barry was already seated at the breakfast table, a sheepish grin on his face. As the odd smell intensified, he pushed back his chair, unclipped his sandals and raised his bare feet. Ugly great blisters covered almost all of his toes and one of his heels in great weals, the like of which I’d only seen in photos in first-aid books. Barry had evidently been treating the blisters with an antiseptic powder, and presumably before that they had been liberally sprayed with some sort of industrial-strength solution – hence the all-pervading smell throughout the house. It awakened dim and not altogether comforting memories of bathrooms and communal changing rooms from my youth. Susan came in with plates of bacon and eggs and promptly went back out. I told him to put his revolting feet away and we tucked into breakfast.

So how on earth had he managed to get this far with such debilitating injuries? Didn’t they hurt? He explained, with a wink, that he had a ‘well-stocked’ first-aid kit, by which I think he meant that there were perks to being a paramedic. He mentioned the strong painkillers that he’d been taking since day 1, plus the various foot ointments, lotions and second-skin dressings that now adorned his beleaguered digits. I got the impression that his first-aid kit not only accounted for a significant proportion of his rucksack weight but also probably contained items that were kept under lock and key in most dispensaries. When we finished breakfast, I asked to look again at his bare feet, oddly fascinated that blisters could appear in such dramatic shapes and sizes, one of them spanning several toes, and wondering at what point the patient should be hospitalised. My feet, in comparison, were blister-free and in decent shape. I took a couple of close-up photos, which made Barry hoot with laughter and Susan, who had come in to clear the table, scuttle back to the kitchen once more. Looking back at those photos afterwards, I marvelled at how he carried on. The pain might have been dulled by pills and the toes cushioned with artificial-skin dressings, but it clearly still hurt. Evidently grit and determination count for much on the Pennine Way.

However, the emergency treatment seemed to be working, at least for now, because when we set off together Barry kept up a reasonable pace with only the trace of a limp. As we made our way slowly through the fields and along the lanes, I gently began to coax his story out of him and understand more about his motivation for walking the Pennine Way. It transpired that he’d fairly recently broken up with his long-time partner, and acrimoniously too, so I immediately assumed that plunging off head first into something as different and extreme as the Pennine Way would provide a welcome distraction and perhaps a chance to recover some self-esteem. But Barry didn’t labour the point and I sensed there was more to it than that. In conversation over the next few miles with this sociable, gentle man, one or two more pieces of the jigsaw emerged and slotted into place. As we stood above Lothersdale and gazed down at the village tucked away in the fold of the hills, and to the moors peeping over the horizon, he spoke about how all he could see from the window of his town centre flat was the side of another house. He told me how, as a paramedic for the last few years, he was regularly called out to people our own age who, through drink, drugs, smoking or obesity, were killing themselves before his eyes. Then when one of his own close friends, an ostensibly healthy 40-something, suddenly dropped down dead, it really shook him. ‘I told myself, you have to live life, make the most of this one chance you’ve got. But when I told my daughter I was going off to walk the Pennine Way she said I must be mad, at my age!’ He chuckled, but with a look of resolve.

At Lothersdale, Barry decided he would take a breather. Since I was keen to press on, we said our goodbyes and I climbed up to the bumpy open top of Pinhaw Beacon. Suddenly new vistas were revealed as the ground fell sharply away to the lush green fields of the so-called Aire Gap, the first of three distinct geological breaks in the Pennine chain. To the west, the distinctive outline of Pendle Hill filled the view, while ahead the Yorkshire Dales were beckoning and the Pennine Way was about to go through one of its most exciting transitions.

It’s useful to have some basic understanding of the rocks that underpin the Pennines, in order to grasp how it’s translated on the surface and what that means for the walker in terms of visible scenery and likely conditions underfoot. Until now, I had been walking largely on gritstone and shale, over rounded moorland covered by thin, harsh, acidic soils, water-retaining peat and blanket bog, an environment that supports only a few plant species. Soon I would switch to limestone, a light and permeable rock created by the deposits in a shallow sea 300 million years before. In a limestone environment, most of the surface water disappears underground and the thin, turf-covered soil is punctured by cliffs and rocky scars. A few prominent peaks, such as Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough, stand proud due to their harder caps of millstone grit. Further north, a volcanic injection of dolerite into the rock strata created the distinctive Whin Sill, today visible as a highly resistant dark rock that forms the crags of High Cup Nick, the waterfalls of Upper Teesdale and the high points of Hadrian’s Wall. In the far north are the older Cheviot Hills, with their hard and resistant granite core, which also owe their height and shape to volcanic activity.

All that was to come. For now, the Pennine Way dropped steadily towards the leafy fields around Thornton-in-Craven and, for the next few miles, traversed a landscape of very small grassy hills known as drumlins, formed out of glacial deposits. A waymarked path peeled off to the left heading for Earby, a mile and a half off the route and an unwarranted diversion for Pennine Way walkers if it wasn’t for the presence of a small youth hostel.

One of the enduring charms of Pennine Way youth hostels is their sheer variety. In contrast to the busy modern hostels at Edale, Malham and Hadrian’s Wall, you also get the likes of Earby, located in the back streets of a former mill town between Burnley and Skipton. The 22-bed, self-catering hostel is a modest and unremarkable terraced cottage and the sole reason it’s a hostel is that it’s the former home of Katharine Bruce Glasier. She was a Quaker and early campaigner for women’s rights, co-founder of the Independent Labour Party, together with Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald, and altogether a remarkable all-round social reformer. After her death, the house was bought with donations to a memorial fund and presented to the YHA in 1958. When the hostel was threatened with closure, Pendle Borough Council stepped in to save the property, then leased it back to the YHA. It’s typical, quirky Pennine Way.

This short westward extension to Earby might have had a precedent, back in the days when the Pennine Way was simply a provisional line on a map. The original plan was for the Pennine Way to reach Malham by a slightly more westerly route, via Widdop Cross and Wycoller. The grouse moors around here were, like those of the Peak District, among the most fiercely guarded in the Pennines in the 1930s; and in fact it wasn’t until the Open Access legislation of 2000 that you could legally access much of Boulsworth Hill for the first time. This was undoubtedly in the mind of Tom Stephenson when the idea for a continuous walking trail the length of the Pennines was first aired in his ‘long green trail’ article. What could be done to unlock these private moors so that the public could walk them in freedom?

Tom was born in Chorley in 1893 and spent his early years at Whalley, just a few miles away from where I was standing, on the far side of Pendle Hill. He stayed in full-time education until the age of 13, which was quite rare for a working-class Lancashire lad in those days, then began work in textile printing. Despite the (illegal) 66-hour week, he managed to escape the calico factory and, on the first Saturday after starting work, climbed Pendle Hill. It was a transformative experience and one that inspired his lifelong love of walking and the countryside. In his memoirs, Forbidden Land, he wrote: ‘Across the valley were the Bowland Fells; and away to the north Ingleborough, Pen-y-ghent and the other Pennine heights, all snow-covered, stood out sharp and clear in the frosty air. That vision started me rambling, and in the next sixty years took me time and again up and down the Pennines and farther afield.’

In a later conversation with Gerard de Waal, he went further: ‘That’s where the Pennine Way was born. I was just 13 years old when I climbed Pendle Hill. I can remember standing on the top and thinking how I wanted to climb each and every one of the hills I could see.’

Despite the long working hours, Tom regularly walked four miles to Clitheroe library to continue his reading; then, after scraping together 30 shillings, he bought an old bike so he could complete a 16-mile round cycle ride to Burnley for night classes. Eventually, after much hard studying, he won one of only two scholarship places to study geology at the Royal College of Science (now Imperial College) in London. What seemed a promising future was scuppered by the intervention of World War I. Tom, already an activist in the growing Labour movement, declared himself a pacifist and was initially given an exemption; but later he was arrested, court-martialled and sentenced to 12 months’ hard labour at Wormwood Scrubs, followed by a further term at Northallerton jail.

Upon release, he continued his political activity, any chance of resuming his studies now gone. Initially he returned to printing, but before long began to develop a successful career in journalism, writing about walking and the countryside and repeatedly pressing the case for greater access to the Pennine hills. By the early 1930s, he was reaching a national audience, first as editor of the TUC-controlled Hiker and Camper magazine, then via his regular contributions to the widely read Daily Herald newspaper. The editor gave him more or less free rein to press the ramblers’ cause, and this was the platform that allowed him to conjure up the idea of a long green trail.

Many years later, when the Pennine Way was officially opened, Tom was quoted as saying that, when he wrote the famous 1935 article, he never imagined the Pennine Way would ever be realised and that he was taken aback at the public’s enthusiastic response. Perhaps he was being typically modest, but immediately following publication of the article, he and fellow access campaigner Edwin Royce were persuaded to persevere with the idea by T (Thomas) Arthur Leonard, another of the great campaigners of the time, who among other things co-founded the Co-operative Holidays Association.

So, three years after the article appeared, in February 1938, a Pennine Way Conference was held at Hope, in the Peak District, in a guest house run by the Workers Travel Association. The aims were to consider the proposal in more detail with like-minded people and to decide what to do next. Among the invitees were ramblers’ federations, YHA groups and footpath preservation societies. Both the invitation and the full minutes are reproduced in Chris Sainty’s 2014 guidebook The Pennine Way and are available to view in the Ramblers’ Association records held at the London Metropolitan Archives. They make fascinating reading.