Review: A Newt in Hard Tarn by Derek Cockell

In his Personal Notes in Conclusion at the end of Book 1 in the Pictorial Guides series – The Eastern Fells, Alfred Wainwright wrote about an encounter he had had with a newt that inhabited the dark waters of Hard Tarn. What could its purpose and mission be, living in the waters of this isolated tarn high up in the mountains of Lakeland? His contemplations led him to think about himself – these two beings sharing a common bond at that moment in time. What were his thoughts? If that small creature had a purpose and there was meaning to its life, then how much more did he have a purpose, a mission to fulfil?

Hard Tarn is situated on a narrow shelf of rock at the foot of the steep crags of Nethermost Pike, high up in the remote hidden valley of Ruthwaite Cove in Grisedale, not far from Helvellyn, the most ascended mountain in the Lake District. Even today, the tarn has very few visitors, the way to it being pathless in the latter stages of the climb out of Grisedale.

This book has been over 12 years in the making initially being conceived in 2011 but put on hold whilst Derek Cockell, its author, had other commitments as Publicity Officer and then in 2013 as Secretary of the Wainwright Society for a further seven years. In 2020 he picked up the idea again after reading a biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge where the author of the biography, Richard Holmes, compared the fellwalking exploits of Coleridge to that of Wainwright, stating that he believed that Wainwright could be Coleridge’s “Great Inheritor”. Struck by this comparison, Derek started to look for other parallels between Wainwright and the Romantic poets, particularly Coleridge and Wordsworth who both spent time in the Lake District walking on the fells and then writing about the landscape and nature they had encountered.

This book seeks to define how Wainwright interpreted his vision and purpose through the medium of his books and his correspondence with his many followers and admirers. Derek seeks to explain the philosophy shared by Wainwright and the Lake Poets of the Romantic era, covering themes such as Nature and the natural world, landscape, beauty, imagination and the emotions. Chapters include details of the Solitary Walker, Industrial Landscapes, True Craftsmen and Conservation.

The book includes many quotations from Wainwright’s books as well as numerous examples of Wainwright’s pen and ink sketches showing his consummate skills as an artist.

For any lovers of the Lake District and Wainwright’s books, this is a terrific read and would make an ideal Christmas gift for anyone familiar with the Lake District. It is available through the Wainwright Society website at www.wainwright.org.uk or most good bookshops.