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
Triple delight for ospreys – amazing Bank Holiday ‘hat-chick!’
Extremely delighted and amazed members of the Lake District Osprey Project team revealed on Tuesday of this week that three chicks have hatched out in the osprey nest overlooking Bassenthwaite Lake, providing unexpected and unique excitement for visitors to the Whinlatter Centre during the Bank Holiday weekend – the first time that three eggs have successfully hatched in the nest since the osprey pair known as GreenXS (female) and NoRing arrived to nest in Cumbria in 2001.
The first two chicks hatched out within a few hours of each other on Friday night and Saturday morning, with the third chick hatching out on Monday afternoon – previously the ospreys hatched out twins in 2002 and 2005, but until last weekend they have never had triplets!
30 years ago
‘Wilk’ – a celebration of his life
Self-taught Keswick cartoonist ‘Wilk’ may have died just over two years ago, but plans to stage a celebration of over a hundred of his famous caricatures to coincide with what would have been his 90th birthday will still go ahead.
An exhibition, the first-ever of Wilk’s rare talent, will open at Keswick Museum and Art Gallery on 4 June for three weeks. It was the idea of his son Bill Wilkinson, who has now retired to his native Lakeland after a career as a sculptor and teacher, spent mostly at Falmouth School of Art.
He said: “As far as we know, the oldest drawing in existence dates back to around 1930, but Dad did so many drawings – on everything from sugar packets to sweet wrappers – so perhaps people still have some original Wilks which we don’t know about and if anyone does, we’d love to hear from them.”
Wilk was a fan not just of Cumbria (although he hated its winters!) but also of Jennings beers and he spent time in several local pubs. He was known to say: “I never had a bad pint of Jennings, they just varied a little.”
He was also a keen follower of the Blencathra Hunt and many of his caricatures feature hunt staff from seasons long forgotten. He did much of his drawing whilst enjoying a pint of Jennings beer and often gave the finished work to the publicans as a gift. So there are many other Wilks to be enjoyed in Jennings pubs in the area, where landlords proudly display their share of this unique Cumbrian heritage in their bars and lounges. Visitors to the exhibition will find a guide to the location of the Jennings pubs in the area which are Wilk galleries.
“My dad has never had an exhibition before,” Bill confirms. “His galleries were the pubs and his legacy is really a celebration of most of the 20th century. We’ve been planning this for three years now and the only really sad thing is that Mum died earlier this year and will not see the finished exhibition.”
25 years service
A member of the staff of the Keswick branch of Boots was presented with a watch and a bouquet of flowers by the District manager of Boots, Ian Sutherland, to mark her 25 years service with the company.
Margaret Pattinson started work on 14 June 1971 when the branch was in Station Street, where the Leather Shop is now situated. She then lived near Bassenthwaite but has since moved to Wigton, and she travels to Keswick to work each day.
40 years ago
Almost 2,000 run Keswick’s Race Against Time
They came and did just what Bob Geldof asked – voted with their feet. Nearly 2,000 people participated in Keswick’s spectacular response to the Sport Aid “Race Against Time” on Sunday.
It was a sight Keswick people have never seen before and are unlikely ever to see again – nearly 1,700 runners, joggers and walkers in a huge multi-coloured crocodile ascending Latrigg Fell. And while mums and dads, grandads and grandmas, schoolchildren and toddlers were struggling up the fell to the 1,203 feet high summit, dozens more were doing their bit by walking and running around Fitz Park.
The day brought in £2,500, but it is highly likely that the final figure, when various payments and sponsorships have been collected and sorted out, will top £3,000. And virtually the whole of that sum was gathered in by treasurer John Potter from Barclays Bank in the space of half an hour from 3-30 to 4 o’clock.
Organisers admitted that they were snowed under. One of the officials, Mr. John Cameron, said: “The response has been overwhelming. People have been so generous in giving of both effort and money. We were besieged with people wanting to sign in and pay over donations.
“When you consider Keswick’s 5,000 population, to have around 2,000 people in the park for a single event makes the whole thing all the more remarkable. I don’t think any other town or city in Britain will have had a turn out of forty per cent of the population.”
Mr. Cameron added: “We had less than two weeks to set the whole thing going and really we had no idea what sort of response we might get.”
No major outdoor gathering can really succeed without the weather. And anyone who had been asleep between mid morning on Sunday and 7-00 p.m. would have thought the event a disaster. It rained and blew a gale throughout the previous night and the rain returned again shortly after the last walkers had come down off Latrigg.
In between, as co-organiser Ross Brewster said, it was “nothing less than a miracle. We know that Bob Geldof has a reputation for getting things done and it seemed as if he had even ordered the weather to come right.”
Seventy year ram show record
Retired farmer Mr. Billy Wilson maintained his remarkable record of visiting every one of the last seventy Keswick May Fairs and Herdwick Ram Shows on Thursday. One of the judges at the event in Town’s Field Mr. Wilson, of Scarness, Bassenthwaite, recalled attending the show for the first time with his parents as a little boy. In those days it was one of the main family days out.
He has been judging cattle and sheep at local shows for over forty years, and retired from farming eleven years ago. One of his great hobbies is clay pigeon shooting, and he is a former captain of the national team.
Born at Watendlath, he follows a family tradition for his father, known as “Herdwick Billy,” was instrumental in the formation of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders’ Association in 1916.
Mr. Wilson’s wife Elsie presented the prizes on Thursday when, although entries were similar to last year, the quality of the sheep was slightly down after the poor winter weather. The championship went to Mr. Robert Tyson of Grasmere with a two shear tup and the reserve was a four year old ram exhibited by Mr. Harry Robinson of Whicham near Millom.
50 years ago
Keswick Council
Mrs. Barbara M. Robinson was elected Mayor for the coming year at last Thursday’s annual meeting of the Town Council, and Mr. N. Beanland was elected Deputy Mayor.
Mrs. Robinson said that it was with some regret that she took the appointment which would normally automatically have gone to last year’s deputy mayor, veteran councillor Mr. Percy Sanderson.
Mr. Sanderson, because of illness, failed to enter his papers before the closing date for nominations for the recent Council elections, but it is understood that he is to stand in the by-elections to be held next month for the vacant seat for the East Ward.
Mr. Beanland was applauded by his fellow councillors when he intimated that he would stand down in favour of Mr. Sanderson if he was returned in the by-election.
In her first statement as Mayor, Mrs. Robinson said that the town of Keswick would always be foremost in the minds of councillors, and that one of her own main aims would be the protection and preservation of the very valuable assets that have been left to the town by generous benefactors in the past.
Luvin’ Thru The Ages
The Theatre Club’s latest production, given at the Queen’s Hall, Lairthwaite School last Thursday, Friday and Saturday, was a revue on the subject of “Love” from Victorian times to the present day.
This break from their usual presentation of a three-act play enticed good audiences to each performance. The revue consisted of three one-act plays linked together with music, the plays being set in Victorian and Edwardian eras and the early thirties.
Each play was well produced and only one effective stage setting, designed by Meryll Evans, was used with the addition of various “props.”
Music was a special feature of the production, and here the Theatre Club was fortunate in having a trained ballet-dancer, Anne Bulman, who gave three quite different dances and also took part in the first play. Dorothy Fawthrop of Grasmere and Richard Dewhurst sang the duet “Do you Love Me” from “Fiddler on the Roof”, and Christopher Reed, another guest performer, sang three songs, one of which, “Send on the Clowns” from “A Little Night Music,” accompanied Anne’s Clown dance.
Vera Birkett, piano, Fred Bulman, violin and Bob Dean, percussion, provided an excellent accompaniment, and pupils of the School of Dance and Mine were the dancers.
