A Quick Reminder: Looking back through the archives of The Keswick Reminder from around this week 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago
20 years ago
Teenagers rescued in night fell search
In the early hours of Wednesday morning two ill-equipped teenage boys from Gateshead were eventually rescued from Helvellyn by an RAF helicopter, after spending the night stuck above a steep gully, following an all-night search by around 30 mountain rescue volunteers.
After receiving mobile phone text messages from the two 18 year olds, members of Keswick and Patterdale Mountain Rescue Teams had spent the night scouring the Helvellyn range in an attempt to identify where they were situated. The rescue teams switched on the blue flashing lights on their vehicles in the hope that the teenagers would be able to spot them in the dark and guide them to where they were stuck.
The boys, who apparently became separated from other members of their party of eight, were reported overdue when they failed to turn up at their accommodation at Fisher Place.
Keswick Mountain Rescue Team leader Mark Hodgson said: “They were ill-equipped. Their footwear was totally inadequate and they hadn’t a clue where they were other than to say they were at the top of a steepening gully.”
Mr Hodgson said the rescue teams had searched from 10 o’clock on Tuesday night and returned just before 5am on Wednesday. He had called the helicopter out at first light, which found the boys within a quarter of an hour and brought them down from where they had been stranded.
“They thought they had been to the top of Great Dodd, but I don’t really think they had,” said Mr Hodgson. “They went to ground at the top of the gully and raised the alarm with their mobile phone.”
The boys were located by the RAF helicopter in Brund Gill, behind Brown Crag above the King’s Head Hotel at Thirlspot.
30 years ago
Town assembly ends in chaos
Chaos reigned as last week’s annual Town Assembly was brought to a close by the Mayor, Maysie McCambridge, while another Town Councillor, Paul Buttle, was calling for a referendum over the future of Keswick’s former railway station.
The Town Assembly is traditionally a formal meeting which receives reports of Council activities and last week’s meeting did, in fact, receive some well-presented reports from the councillors responsible for the various committees or representation on other bodies.
Mr. Buttle, who is not standing for re-election to the Town Council, needed the support of ten electors to call a referendum in order, as he said, “to put the issues into the arena of public debate”.
He is totally against the letting of the building by the owners, Allerdale Borough Council, to Lakeland Plastics, the successful kitchenware firm from Windermere, who won an appeal for the change of use of the station building into a shop and restaurant.
The site has also been requested by Keswick Art Share, as a venue for local arts at no charge for the first twelve months.
Allerdale’s choice of Lakeland Plastics is, claimed Mr. Buttle, “a commercialisation too far” for the area. And he added: “As residents of the Lake District we should shun it and value the building a lot more than simply as a place to sell plastic goods.”
He was told by Allerdale Councillor John Branthwaite: “I don’t think it behoves you to decry their business.” Councillor Branthwaite added that the station was a special building which needed maintaining and the firm had signified their intention of doing this.
Councillor Sean Crawford said he did not believe a referendum would be a wise course to follow, and the Mayor pointed out it would cost over £1,200 to run.
Mr. Buttle asked the assembly to vote on their preferred use of the building and it was pointed out that one of his supporters was not a resident of Keswick or of Allerdale, but of Eden District. Mr. Buttle then called to question the right of the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Stephen Hogarth, to vote as he lived in St-John’s-in-the-Vale – this, in spite of the fact that Mr Hogarth was born and brought up in Keswick, running his business Greta Motor Body Works in Keswick until his recent retirement. He is, of course, a resident of Allerdale district.
The Mayor then closed the meeting. As Mr. Buttle continued to call for a referendum, people attending the meeting were standing up and putting on their coats ready to leave the Moot Hall; he eventually walked out of the hall, claiming there was a desire to suppress debate.
40 years ago
Civic society call for fresh ideas
Keswick Civic Society averted one crisis on Tuesday night, but their new chairman told the annual meeting that, without new ideas, it could fold up in the next twelve months.
For most of the past year the Society has been operating without a secretary. At Tuesday’s meeting the chairman, Mr. Harold Bestley, said he would become secretary and Mr. Norman Akerman agreed to take over as chairman.
Mr. Bestley pointed out that the arrangements during the past year were not acceptable. And in taking office Mr. Ackerman was critical of lack of support from local people. “If it needs a bit of effort or sacrifice people don’t want to know,” he said.
Mr. Akerman asked: “Where are the Councillors, the Chamber of Commerce, hoteliers and restaurateurs, the people with a vested interest? They should be in this thing. Where are these People? One gets desperate.” And he told the thinly attended meeting: “This room ought to be packed tonight. This Society will either move in the next twelve months or close.” He would not be content to let the Society dawdle along. “We should not have to go cap in hand for membership fees,” he remarked.
The Society needed new ideas, but Mr, Akerman said that when they organised a recent competition in which scores of local school children took part, only forty-eight people came along to the exhibition. “There is something sadly wrong in the state of Keswick on matters such as this,” he said.
Mr. George Bott said: “It is unbelievable that in a town like Keswick we can not have a very strong Civic Society.” He praised those who had kept the organisation afloat during the last year and suggested that approaches might be made to the Chamber of Trade and Hotels and Caterers Association to try and enlist their interest.
Keswick runner sets record
Threlkeld runner Peter Haworth defied both the course and the cold conditions to win Sunday’s Galloway Milk Marathon in a record time.
Peter, a member of Keswick Athletic Club, cut five minutes off the record with a time of 2 hr. 27 mins. 11 secs. The race was run over a hilly course from Newton Stewart and, because of the cold weather, some of the 400 competitors had to drop out suffering from hypothermia.
Peter was last year’s winner of the Cumbria Lakes Marathon which starts at Cockermouth.
50 years ago
Town assembly
The chairman of the Keswick Society, Mr. Sean Crawford, made a double plea, for the setting up of a study group to consider the town’s future policy, and for the Town Council to sound out local opinion, at Monday night’s annual town assembly in the Moot Hall.
He urged the Council to form a study group to produce a policy and development plan for Keswick covering all aspects of the life and work of the town.
He also called on the Council to make some effort to sound out local opinion when major policy changes were being considered.
Referring to the structure plan for Cumbria and its effects on a local level Mr. Crawford commented that unless the Council quickly set out for themselves a target and a plan to which they could work over the next four, five or six years, Keswick will get a continuation of the “piecemeal and generally haphazard” development which, in his opinion, should not occur in a town of this nature.
He felt that haphazard development was something the County Council and Lake District Planning Board were working against and it was something Keswick Council also ought to work against.
Mr. Crawford said his second resolution had been brought to mind by the recent decision of the Council to re-open the case for moving the Saturday Market to Bell Close car park. This was something mooted last year when it was received with considerable opposition, and he was concerned to know why the proposal had come up again in view of the position last year.
Mr. R. P. Rogers said they should be determined to get the feeling of Keswick people and he was sure that feeling would be against the moving of the market.
Mr. Rogers went on to criticise the decision linking Keswick with Allerdale and said the body of people who signed a petition against the move had been completely ignored. “It is no use calling ourselves a democracy if views of the majority are not going to be listened to,” he said.
The Council clerk, Mr. Tom Nicholson, said: “I would not necessarily say the Town Council wanted to go in with Allerdale. They didn’t have a great deal of choice in the matter.”
