Stock Ghyll and Ambleside in Black and White

We are heading back to 1982 for this entry. Long-standing readers will know that I have a vast collection of photographs from my freelancing days from the 1970s through to 90s.

Every now and then as technology gets better and screen resolutions get larger I get the urge to re-scan my old film negatives and the quality always makes me feel it's worth the effort. It could be the scanning software (not though the scanner which I don't upgrade as often), or it could be Adobe Photo Shop software. It could even be my skills with the Adobe. But probably not...

Anyway whatever it is, the photos here were taken on 5 May 1982. On this day we had driven up to Ambleside in the Lake District and walked up the river or stream - I'm never certain as to whether there are rules that say when a stream becomes a river... Anyway the water in this case is called Stock Ghyll. "ghyll" is a northern word for narrow valley or ravine or mountain stream and is derived from the Norse "gil". We climbed up this fairly steep ravine as far as Stock Ghyll Force - "force" being another local word for "waterfall".

At the time I was regularly supplying photographs as stock images to a number of magazines. The two local magazines most inclined to actually use them were Lancashire Magazine which at the time was a bi-monthly magazine who encouraged me to start writing articles for them and Lakescene - What's On In Lakeland which was a small A5-size magazine that gave a monthly round-up of special events taking place in Cumbria over the next month.

Despite the small page size, Lakescene printed one photograph full page every issue on the right hand on the first opened page. Two of the photographs from this article would eventually make their way onto this exalted page.

Which is the reason why I took so many of them in portrait orientation. I used to research my magazines quite thoroughly. What was the ratio of colour to black and white? In 1982 only top end magazines had much colour apart from maybe the cover. Lakescene, with a relatively small readership, used black and white even on the cover and making that spot was an even more satisfying achievement than their full-page "page 3" spread.

Then I checked the ratio of portrait to landscape photos, whether human figures were always/never included, whether views were identifiable or general, whether they were balanced, tended to be dark or light in tone, whether they were always taken in sunshine or was bad weather sometimes included etc. If you wanted to be successful it was no good sending a magazine photos that they would never even consider. Doing your homework was essential. Editors were busy people. They would send your photos back (if you had supplied a stamped and addressed envelope) but never, ever, with a letter saying "We would have accepted these if..."

And here, having walked back down the hill into Ambleside, taking photos all the way, we arrive back to see Stock Ghyll make the stone-lined curve at the foot of the hill to flow underneath the quaint Bridge House.

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An Hour In Ambleside

I know I went quiet for a bit there! But a lot was going on in March, so here's the first of a few articles to let you know what was happening.

We'll start with the second week in March which saw us heading up into the Lake District for a day with Gill and Grace to celebrate Fran's birthday. We stopped off for a quick coffee at Lakeland in Windermere before heading up the side of the lake to Ambleside.

The weather was being very kind for March - not warm, but very sunny. We left the pram in the car and Grace walked, stepping out very proudly with Mum holding onto her reins for safety. She must have been exhausted with all the walking we did but I only had to pick her up once when she decided it had just got too much as we were about to cross the road. The cars stopped, the green man lit up and Grace sat down...

So we went into the Apple Pie Bakery for some lunch and a rest and the prospect of a proper glass with a straw had her wide awake and ready for something to munch. I had a sausage and egg on a brown barm and I'll be back for another as soon as I can! Absolutely yummy!

The Apple Pie Bakery is the first shop you come to walking into town once past Ambleside's most famous sight...

...which is The Bridge House, a tiny two storey building built over the River Stock. Fran went to look round the pottery shop and came back with another little cottage to add to the sprawling conurbation that her collection has grown into. Happy Birthday Miss Franny!

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Ambleside Visit

I had a day off work yesterday and we had a trip out to Ambleside in Cumbria, at the head of Lake Windermere in the Lake District.

Poor Eddie had to go to work, but we picked up Gill and little Grace and headed up the A6.

Bowness turned out to be heaving and we did a circuit of the full car parks and carried on to Ambleside, arriving close to lunchtime and having a roast beef dinner at the Queen's Hotel.

Whilst the ladies headed for the shops, I wandered around taking photos of the wonderful Bridge House and the Old Mill with its water wheel. It's a hard climb, but well worth the effort to walk up the road beside Stock Ghyll until you come to the waterfall - Stock Ghyll Force. But quite apart from being too full of roast beef, I didn't have time. Maybe next time...

I wandered round for a bit before meeting up with the others. The pram was making it difficult to get into the shops they said. So I dutifully pushed Grace up and down ("Keep her moving, she'll go to sleep") round and over the same bit of ground, round the other way over the same bit of ground but now in a clockwise direction... Grace smiled beautfully at me every time I bent to see under the hood. But she did eventually drop off to sleep, no doubt thinkng that it was getting boring seeing the same bit of scenery every 30 seconds.

In the end I was thinking fondly of a snooze myself, but they came out of the tiny shop they had gone in - how could they spend so much time in there?!?

We inevitably had to go into the gift shop to buy another little cottage for the sprawling conurbation that Fran now owns. Lilliput Lane quite early on became Lilliput Village and then town and then city and now rivals Greater London for the number of buildings I think...

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A Day on Lake Windermere

Yesterday we took advantage of both being off work on the same day and drove up to the Lake District.

There wasn't a surplus of parking spaces to be found in Bowness, but I managed to squeeze the car into a space and we paid to go up to Waterhead at the top of the lake on the regular sailings.

These go every twenty minutes from Bowness Pier and you can get off at Waterhead and return on a later boat which is exactly what we did.

It's a half hour journey from Bowness to Waterhead and here we are, approaching Waterhead Pier. We took the small somewhat ramshackle bus into Ambleside. The bus is an electric vehicle and I suspect may have started life as a milk float... Still, it's cheap and cheerfull and takes you from the pier to the Lion Hotel in the centre of Ambleside.

We had some lunch - well a breakfast actually - in Daisy's Cafe with a mug of "milky Nescafe". Ooh! Much better and far less pretentious than Star(after your)bucks or Costa(fortune). And we got a decent normal sized mug of excellent coffee instead of having to buy a bucket full of froth over too-strong espresso!

We walked the mile back to the pier at Waterhead to catch the returning boat to Bowness. On the way Miss Franny graciously ordered - er... I mean allowed - me to buy an addition to the Lilliput Lane cottage collection which over the years has grown from a hamlet to a sprawling conurbation. She came out with three new cottages. Three!!! Well, to be fair one was a freebie, but even so, where she's going to put them I don't know... It's a good job they don't come with streets and cars because there's no space between the houses to drive anything wider than a scale pram...

We had an ice cream at Waterhead whilst waiting for the boat to come. They do a chocolate dip ice cream. Which means an ice cream cone dipped upside down into molten chocolate which solidifies all round it. Somewhat scrummy, though quite messy to eat. I had my other hand full of camera and bags of cottages so had to put up with Miss Franny laughing whilst cracked chocolate stuck out from my mouth and melting ice cream ran down my chin... At least I had the camera and could avoid photographic evidence...

Half an hour later we arrived at Bowness again. Miss Cumbria was just setting off with a full load of passengers on her tour. The "Lakes" attract people from far and wide. You are as likely to hear Japanese and American accents as northern English accents. The Lake District was famous for its poets and artists and authors.

We walked back to the car, past the rapidly growing funfair being set up next to the car park and thanked our lucky stars we had not gone up there today. There's a huge air show today at Windermere with the Red Arrows appearing. Unless you arrived about 7:00am this morning there won't be a single car parking space available or a single road without a massive nose-to-tail queue...

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Windermere Sunset

The last entry of the 4 October 1981 Lake District set.

We had ended the day at Ambleside and before we set off back we watched the sun disappear over the horizon from Waterhead, the northern tip of Lake Windermere.

We walked along the lake edge for a while drinking in the tranquillity and loving the colours in the sky.

This sort of photograph was notoriously difficult to print and I've never seen these black and white photos look so good!

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Ambleside at Dusk

Every now and then you have to do something on impulse. This particular one didn't end up with a slapped face...! Fran has been working some grotty shifts recently. Either we have been up at the crack of dawn so she can be in work at 7:00am or she has been working late. A couple of times a 10:00pm finish has been followed by a 7:00am start.

The other day she finished at 4:30pm and arrived home looking like she didn't want to do a right lot. I offered to cook or we could go out for a meal. She chose the latter. Now stop right there that reader - yes, you! My cooking is not so bad!

So she got changed and we set off and motored north into the Lake District, heading across to Newby Bridge and then up the eastern side of Lake Windermere until we reached Ambleside.

We parked the car and walked up into the village and had a meal in a pub. It was just starting to go dark when we came out and I suggested a walk before returning to the car and heading for home.

We walked up as far as the Bridge House - the tiny cottage sitting on top of a bridge over the river. It was in darkness and not offering a great photograph at that time of evening so I concentrated more on shops or pubs that were lit up.

Arriving back at the car we ignored the motorways and ambled down the A6 through Milnthorpe, Lancaster and Caton before turning off towards Blackpool just after Garstang. We were home by 9:00pm but it had made a good change. Hurray for the simple things in life!

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Wedding Gig at Windermere

Last night we played in Windermere. It was ages before anyone fished us out... No, we weren't in the lake, we were at the Lowood Hotel, up near Ambleside, playing for the wedding of Kelly and Steve in support of a rock band who took over from us later on.

An early night for us then but a great night none-the-less, as there were a few inflatable guitars being passed round the audience and we got people to come out with them to help us play some rock and roll numbers!

Afterwards we headed over to Kendal to visit David's sister, Elaine and her husband David. They had made a fabulous meal for us and we were in a great frame of mind as we set off back home around midnight!