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
Deputy PM visits Keswick
Political heavyweight John Prescott turned the clock back 50 years on Tuesday, to a time when he washed pots in a Borrowdale river and hung his clothing out to dry on trees during a memorable schoolboy adventure holiday in the Lake District.
It was an emotional trip down memory lane for the Deputy Prime Minister when he returned to the youth hostel where he spent that week half a century ago to reopen the building following a £400,000 facelift.
That visit to the Lakes had a profound impression on Mr Prescott’s view of the countryside and life outside the big cities. And now the Labour Deputy PM wants other kids to have the chance to share his experience and sample life in the great outdoors.
John Prescott was just 13 years old when, as a pupil at Grange Secondary School, Ellesmere Port, he was asked by one of his teachers if he would like the opportunity to join a trip to the Borrowdale Valley.
He recalled: “l spent some of the time washing dishes in the river – we had duties to do in those days. It lifted my vision of what beauty was. I remember walking in Borrowdale and hearing names like Scafell brings it flooding back.”
Lizard gets police escort
Keswick town centre police officer John Shaw took an unusual lost tourist into custody for its own protection. And now reptile experts are baffled as to how a five inch long lizard came to be wandering along the busy pavement outside the town’s Post Office.
The P.C. rescued the lizard from amongst the feet of crowds of visitors after someone had reported seeing it near the Post Office in Main Street.
Sergeant Alan Weightman said: “It was just sat there. We have no idea where it came from. Someone probably left it there, but we haven’t a clue why. Initially we wondered if it was a lizard not indigenous to this country.
The lizard was placed in an envelope for safety and taken to the police station until someone from Trotters Animal Farm at Bassenthwaite could come along and collect it and take it away for identification.
Park manager Richard Robinson said: “It is either a common or sand lizard native to this country. How it got into the middle of Keswick is a mystery.” “It’s unusual to see lizards at this time of year, although with the weather having been so good things have been thrown a bit out of rhythm.
“We think it’s just a youngster. We are going to feed it up on small insects and hopefully release it back into the wild next summer. Considering what’s happened to it, it seems quite sprightly.”
30 years ago
Walker Park licence delay
The Walker Park controversy seems set to continue for another few months at least. It must be one of the longest-standing matters ever debated in the Town Council and, more importantly, one on which almost every local person has a firm opinion.
Keswick Football Club first played on Walker Park in 1922, and the official opening of the ground as a football ground was marked with a match between a team of local footballers and a Manchester United team.
Whether or not one believes that Keswick A.F.C. has “user rights” of Walker Park after 70 years – and most Keswick people certainly do! – it is surely high time that this issue was settled once and for all.
Now the Town Council is being urged by one of its members to hold a final decision about granting the Football Club a licence to Walker Park. Councillor Paul Buttle has given notice of a motion for last night’s Town Council meeting urging that a final decision on the licence issue be delayed until the future of Fitz Park has been decided.
The footballers have expressed a wish to continue using Walker Park, their “home” for 70 years. Is it possible that the whim of one man – not a member of the Keswick Football Club – can deprive them of their wish?
And would Councillor Buttle tell the people of Keswick exactly where in Fitz Park he thinks the Football Club can play their matches – on the hockey pitch? The cricket pitch? Or on the bowling green, perhaps? We await his answer with interest.
40 years ago
Compulsory Purchase Order – Ombudsman called in
Town Councillor Eric Impey is to take the compulsory purchase threat to Miss Ethel Young’s garden by the Lake District Planning Board to the Ombudsman.
At the Council meeting Mr. Impey said: “We don’t want to see a Poulson affair in Keswick,” and he added: “In view of the skeletons in the cupboard and what promises have been made behind closed doors, the Ombudsman should be called in by this Council in the light of the inexplicable decisions made by the Planning Board,” he said.
Miss Ethel Young (78) and her brother Frank, whose garden at the rear of their Main Street home is under threat because the planners say access is required for a shops and flats development, were present at Thursday’s meeting of the Town Council Planning Committee to hear the debate. They had written to the Council seeking support and saying that the loss of the garden, used for storage sheds and as a drying green, will cause “much distress”.
Mr. Impey said it was alleged the planners approached developers and private owners of land in the immediate area with a view to joint development. Through guaranteeing a through, the planners could have left themselves open to a substantial claim from the developers.
He also claimed that while Miss Young was away from home, the developers had knocked a hole in the garden wall which opened the garden up to dogs, rubbish and vandals.
The actions of the planners and developers were “despicable,” said Mr. Impey who called for an inquiry into the whole affair.
Councillor George Hodgson said: “I find this repulsive in a free and democratic society. It is a case of big brother coming in wielding the heavy hammer.” It seemed so simple to remove one unit from the development and use a new entrance from a different place which apparently had been approved by the County Council Highways authority.
The Mayor, Mr. Martin Jordan said he would like the Youngs to know that when the Town Council previously considered the planning proposal they had no idea it was going to result in a compulsory purchase order.
Councillors decided to contact local County Councillor John Thompson and M.P. Dale Campbell Savours about the issue, and to write to the chairman of the Development Control Committee of the Planning Board, Mr. Roger Hannah, asking for the deletion of one of the units from the plan as a solution to the problem.
After it was pointed out by the clerk that the Council could not go to the Ombudsman as a body, Mr. Impey agreed to submit the matter on their behalf.
50 years ago
Mrs. A. Charters
A well-known Keswick lady, who was the last surviving member of an old local family, died at Ravensfield on Thursday. Mrs. Annie Charters was born in Keswick in 1888, and was the elder daughter of Mr. John Wilson of the Waverley Hotel. Her brother, the late Mr. Tom Wilson, was a local “character” who for many years wrote a weekly letter in the Cumbrian dialect to the “Reminder” which he signed “T’PUP Chap,”; and her younger sister, Mrs. Mary Rigg, was also a much respected member of the community.
Mrs. Charters had lived in Keswick all her life apart from the first world war years when she worked in the munitions factory at Gretna.
In 1917 she married Mr. John Charters, also of Keswick, who for many years worked as a painter for the late Mr. F. J. Rothwell, and in 1944 they moved to Portinscale where they ran the village shop and post office until they retired in 1961. They then moved back to Keswick and lived with Mrs. Rigg at The Crossings, High Hill. Mr. Charters died in 1967, shortly before they would have celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, and Mrs. Charters spent the next two years at Derwent Close. She moved to Ravensfield in July of last year.
Mrs. Charters took a great interest in the activities of the town, and was a Vice-President of the Women’s Section of the Keswick Branch of the Royal British Legion, a founder member of the Townswomen’s guild and of the “P.U.P.’s” and a member of the committee of the Friends of the Mary Hewetson Hospital.
The cremation took place on Monday and by special request there were no flowers, but those who so wished were asked to give donations to Ravensfield, where Mrs. Charters had received so much care and comfort during the last year of her life.
Protest rally
Approximately eight hundred people walked to the top of Latrigg on Sunday afternoon as a protest against the A66 improvement scheme. The rally was organised by the Friends of the Lake District and set off from the central car park at 1-30 p.m.
Supporters from all parts of the country, including some babies and small children, and joined by a few local residents, heard speeches on the summit of Latrigg by Lt.Col. Gerald Haythornthwaite, chairman of the National Parks Standing Committee; Mr. Colin Speakman (Leeds) of the West Riding Branch of the Ramblers’ Association; and Mr. David Rubinstein (Hull), National Vice-President of the Ramblers’ Association; and others; who expressed their opposition to the scheme and advocated a route for heavy goods vehicles outside the National Park.
In the speeches the road improvements were called “Rippon’s Folly,” and described as “lunacy,” “a desecration” and “a juggernaut highway.”
At the end of the meeting, a resolution was put deploring the decision of the Secretary of State for the Environment to approve the proposals, which it was alleged, would do irreparable damage to the Lake District landscape and destroy the essential qualities and character of that part of the National Park.
The resolution urged the Secretary of State to hold up the construction of the road so that much less damaging schemes providing for a more modest by-pass of Keswick, and the diversion of heavy traffic to a route outside the National Park, could be adopted. This resolution is to be sent to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State of the Environment, and all M.P.s.
Both on the Central Car Park and at Spooney Green Lane, the walkers ran into heckling and verbal opposition from a number of local people who, in some cases, were generally derisive of the Friends of the Lake District and in others sought to emphasise the need for a by-pass from Keswick’s traffic point of view.
