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Ah, dear old Doddy, the doyen of stand-up comedians; he bubbles-under my list of ‘heroes’, stick tickling the worn-to-the-socks Army&Navy boots of the grumpy AW
in the mountains we forget to count the days
My favourite painting is one of Bruegel’s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunters_in_the_Snow
His ‘The Months’ series of five paintings of which the above is one are utterly and overwhelmingly beautiful. Three are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
I think the problem with me and Breugel is having so many of them on those Athena pictures that we all had in the 70’s; suffered from the ‘Haywain’ effect of over exposure that stops you actually looking at the painting itself and seeing it’s beauty. Time for a re appraisal. We used to have Dali’s Metamorphosis Narcissus on the living room wall but I think it gave the kids nightmares and had to go.
Drone mentions Alf Wainwright. If you watch Julia Bradbury’s Wainwright Walks programme on her climb of Scafell Pike she interviews one of my heros. Joss Naylor the legend of fell running.
A truly remarkable man. Badly injured in his teens he took to running to ease the pain in his back and get fit. He cannot run on a normal track but in his prime he set all sorts of incredible records of endurance in the fells of Lakeland.
For instance, he told Miss Bradbury that, having read Wainwright, he thought it would be a good thing to run all the fells in the 7 books. There are 214 of them for goodness sake including some of the steepest ground imaginable. It took him a week.
My wife watched the programme and realised that she had talked to him when in Keswick one year before we were married. He told her he was going up Skiddaw for a bit of a run. She had no idea that she was talking to a Lakeland legend, such was his modesty.
Finally, I heard a tale that sums the man up and shows the kind of men I have as heros. When he was 70, he decided that he should run 70 fells to celebrate, after all he had run 50 at 50 and 60 at 60. He did it with pacemakers who took it in turns. Many of them 40 to 50 years his junior. I have it on good authority that at one of the stops, his younger companions stocked up with isotonic drinks, energy bars and gels. Joss sat down and had a pint of Guinness and a cheese toastie and then set off on his merry way. Now that is what I call a hero.
I have it on good authority that at one of the stops, his younger companions stocked up with isotonic drinks, energy bars and gels. Joss sat down and had a pint of Guinness and a cheese toastie and then set off on his merry way. Now that is what I call a hero.
Recall an interview sometime ago in which he was asked what he took with him on a run:
"a bit of beck watter and a slice of the missus cake"
A splendid gent who retains the appearance of a particularly wiry stick insect well into his 70s
Why-oh-why did Miss Stevenson insist on referring to the eponymous horse as Josh Naylor: that really did grate
I have it on good authority that at one of the stops, his younger companions stocked up with isotonic drinks, energy bars and gels. Joss sat down and had a pint of Guinness and a cheese toastie and then set off on his merry way. Now that is what I call a hero.
Recall an interview sometime ago in which he was asked what he took with him on a run:
"a bit of beck watter and a slice of the missus cake"
A splendid gent who retains the appearance of a particularly wiry stick insect well into his 70s
Why-oh-why did Miss Stevenson insist on referring to the eponymous horse as Josh Naylor: that really did grate
Can you imagine any one running the London Marathon with "a bit of beck watter and a slice of the missus cake". Pity the horse wasn’t half as good as man.
I have it on good authority that at one of the stops, his younger companions stocked up with isotonic drinks, energy bars and gels. Joss sat down and had a pint of Guinness and a cheese toastie and then set off on his merry way. Now that is what I call a hero.
Recall an interview sometime ago in which he was asked what he took with him on a run:
"a bit of beck watter and a slice of the missus cake"
A splendid gent who retains the appearance of a particularly wiry stick insect well into his 70s
Why-oh-why did Miss Stevenson insist on referring to the eponymous horse as Josh Naylor: that really did grate
Can you imagine any one running the London Marathon with "a bit of beck watter and a slice of the missus cake". Pity the horse wasn’t half as good as man.
I have just been doing a bit of surfing and have discovered that a fella by the name of Keith Richardson has just published a book about him. Try http://www.rivergretawriter.co.uk for details.
I’ve now got the book. It is quite brilliant, not just his running but also his life and work in one of the most beautiful valleys on the planet. val corbetts photo’s are really good and there are some great anecdotes. should be on every sport and Lakeland fan’s bookshelf.
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