Penyghent's moods and drystone walls

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Elsewhere in this blog I have posted photographs of Penyghent, my favourite among Yorkshire's "Three Peaks", a small group of mountains in the Pennine range that forms the central backbone of the north of England. Those photographs show the varying moods that time of day, weather and season can bestow on this whaleback that looms over the upper Ribble valley near Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

Today's photograph shows Penyghent in a benign mood, the afternoon June sunshine that falls on its slopes lessening the effect of the dark clouds above. Anyone wondering at the perversity of a person who would build a drystone wall running up the steep slope of the mountain's "nose" should know that such walls were usually a result of the legal enclosure of common land and were required to mark the boundary of the landowner's holding.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Penyghent Seen From Near Swarth Moor
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm (94mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Penyghent, the hill of winds

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On a day such as the one on which I took this photograph Penyghent looks like a benign, undemanding mountain, somewhere that offers a moderately energetic stroll with the reward of a quite good view at the end of it. And, truth be told, that isn't too far from the truth. On a warm, still, early autumn day such as is shown above (or even one a little later), a few rocky scrambles excepted, it is all those things.

However, the Celtic translation of Penyghent's name - "hill of winds" - is a more accurate summation of this Yorkshire peak. I've climbed Penyghent many times and on few occasions was the weather entirely kind. More typically it is windy, often the mountain is in cloud (sometimes of its own making), frequently it is lashed by rain showers and all to commonly it is drenched by steady rain. The latter appeared in bucket-fulls after a sunny, August walk from Settle to the peak with my wife many years ago. Such was the downpour and the strength of the wind that we were forced to pitch our tent near the summit. A small stream was running under our groundsheet by midnight. The next day compensated for our discomfort by being bright, sunny and warm. I've climbed Penyghent in snow and ice and it is far from benign. Low cloud can make it a disorienting place to be.

The photograph above was taken after a walk that took in Attermire and Victoria Cave. The area looks rugged and remote, but if you look carefully below the trees you'll glimpse the tarmac surface of the road that leads to Malham.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 49mm (98mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dales sheep

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The last major outbreak of foot and mouth disease to hit the sheep population of the Yorkshire Dales occurred in 2001. It led to the cull of the vast majority of the sheep in this upland area, most of which were of the Swaledale breed. Farmers had to bring in other breeds from unaffected parts of the country, sometimes varieties that were not as well suited to the rugged terrain as the Swaledales.

I grew up in Settle in the Dales and have visited the area regularly since work took me to live elsewhere in the country. On my returns after the disease was eradicated I found that I was unable to identify most of the breeds of sheep that took the place of the Swaledales, and I wondered if the native breed would ever return in the numbers that I remembered. I'm glad to say that it seems the flocks are being re-established, that many farmers are breeding them and re-introducing them into the limestone dales and high moorland. Some of the varieties that I don't recognise are still very evident, but I have a clear impression that as a proportion of the total Dales flocks they are declining.

Today's photographs show Swaledales on the hills around Attermire and a breed I don't know on a gated valley pasture very close to Upper Settle. The latter photograph was taken early in a walk that also included the second, and the height of the sun makes all the difference between the two shots.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 31mm (62mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A Dales lane

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Lanes, like footpaths, B roads, A roads and motorways etc fulfil a simple purpose - they connect places. However, a distinguishing feature of lanes is that they rarely do so in the most efficient manner. This is because they are often of great age, and some of the places that the lane originally linked no longer exist. Or, the farming carried out in the area through which the lane passes is no longer the same.

The lane in today's photograph is a small affair that links two bigger lanes. This lane rises across a hillside where pasture gives way to scattered trees, rock outcrops, rough grazing and woods. It passes close by an isolated cottage that must once have been the home of a gamekeeper. And perhaps therein lies one of the main reasons for its existence. I'm sure that once it was well marked and maintained. Today it is part footpath, part lane, in some places without an edge, elsewhere with millstone grit drystone walls and trees marking its course. The photograph shows a section with a wall on the right and the remains of a hawthorn hedge on the left. A large beech tree is also a feature, and the lane appears to be wide enough to accommodate a horse-drawn cart.

I took the photograph to record the line of hawthorn, but also for the yellow of the early morning light. The beech had lost some of its leaves, but the hawthorn were still clinging on to theirs, the unseasonally warm weather perhaps making them think that summer was still here.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 29mm (58mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on silhouettes

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One of my early blog posts had the title, The eponymous silhouette, and reflected on how the finance minister of Louis XV, Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767) spent much of his retirement with paper and scissors making that to which others gave his name. The piece accompanied a photograph of my wife and some small trees in silhouette form in front of a view across a stretch of water in the Lake District. In those early years I posted quite a few photographs featuring silhouettes, often including my wife, but also of gulls, street lights, ducks and much else. Silhouettes in images are very strong forms with heightened impact. Shapes that are of little consequence when brightly lit assume much greater significance and become more attractive as a photographic subject when seen in silhouette, no matter how mundane the subject might usually appear to be.

Consequently, on a recent walk in the Yorkshire Dales near Langcliffe, the sight of the silhouettes of trees and a couple of gates with a distant valley and mountain beyond, immediately drew my eye. I took a shot of the subject and then, realising how much stronger the image would be with a person in silhouette too, I asked my wife to step into the shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0
Image Stabilisation: On

The hawthorn

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I've always liked hawthorns. They are a hardy tree, able to grow in the widest range of locations from cliff face to lowland meadow, from derelict industrial waste land to city street. And wherever they grow they offer the same four attributes - stark and leafless in winter, green and leafy in summer, covered in white blossom ("May") in spring, and yellow/brown leaves contrasting with red berries ("haws") in autumn. Yes, they have thorns, and if  you want to trim or handle them then thick gloves are required. But that downside becomes an advantage when you plant it as a security hedge to deter interlopers. I have a hawthorn hedge that is impenetrable to all but birds, though cats have found a way through at the base. A further virtue, from my perspective, is that it only requires a single cut each year.

Hawthorn is a long-lived tree and happy to grow in solitary isolation. Many of England's Anglo-Saxon charters mention hawthorn trees as markers of property boundaries. Some significant specimens served as meeting places where villagers would gather to discuss matters of importance.In those long-gone days the new, spring leaves were nibbled by poor children to ward off hunger pangs. This spawned the ironic name for the young leaves of "bread and cheese". Today's photograph shows a lone, gnarled, hawthorn tree on an area of upland pasture and limestone known as Feizor Thwaite a couple of miles from Settle in North Yorkshire. The prevailing south-westerly wind is partly responsible for its shape, but it must also be the result of the attentions of sheep - rubbing and nibbling - as well as the restrictions on its roots imposed by the limestone.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 66mm (99mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Yorkshire Dales sheep shearing

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Walking on the hills above Settle, North Yorkshire, the other week I heard the sound of many sheep from behind a drystone wall. Easing myself up so I could look over the top I saw a large flock of sheep enclosed in the corner of the field. Some were comfortably rotund, sporting fine fleeces and others were scrawny looking, having just had the ovine equivalent of a "short back and sides". Yes, it was sheep shearing time in the Dales.

Today's photograph shows the sheep milling about, the animals yet to be de-fleeced looking quite different from their shorn compatriots. There was a time, prior to the last foot and mouth disease outbreak, when such a scene would have consisted solely of the Swaledale breed. There are some of these present - quite a lot in fact -  with their black faces and white muzzles. However, anyone walking over the Craven uplands today can't help but notice other breeds that have crept in since the last mass cull, and some of these "off cumd uns", to use the Yorkshire expression for interlopers, are also evident.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 34mm (51mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ancient field systems, Langcliffe

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The derelict field barn in today's main photograph can be seen on the first ot the smaller photographs. It is at a position on a line approximately ten o'clock from the centre of the image. It's one of the more recent features of the fields on this section of hillside between Langcliffe and the old Craven Quarry. How old is it? Probably nineteenth century judging by the style and the stone main roof, though it could be earlier. An extension with a slate roof is newer.

I've often looked across the valley at these fields, especially when the sun is low, because then the shadows reveal the work of farmers over hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. The most obvious remains are several cultivation terraces or lynchets. These appear to be deliberate constructions rather than those that passively arise due to ploughing across the slope. The west-facing aspect of the valley side would mean that terraces enabled farmers to make easier use of the land and maximise the warmth of the sun. Celtic field systems often exhibit such features, and they continued to be used into the medieval period. There are also a number of close parallel ridges that go down the hillside. These are long medieval fields that appear to have had earth or perhaps stone boundary walls, probably to separate them from neighbouring plots. Some are not unlike the Gaelic "lazy beds", cultivated banks separated by channels, an agricultural system not unknown in England, though some here must surely have been simply narrow holdings (see the photograph taken from nearby with the floodwater). Small, square fields can also be detected that are probably Romano-British in origin.

The narrowness of the Ribble valley at this point leaves only one or two field widths available in the valley bottom. These would benefit from silt deposition when the river flooded but during such times they would be unusable. Consequently early farmers would have had to clear stone and trees from the inundation-free lower slopes to make fields suitable for planting or for improving to make hay and pasture. Grass is the main crop today. It feeds both sheep and cattle, beef and dairy, both as it grows and in the form of silage or hay. The fields that are deeper green, showing less brown, indicate where herbicides and fertiliser have been used to improve the grass. Farmers long ago, as today, must have carefully weighed the costs against the benefits of improving the ground on the higher slopes. Often the answer will have been to run fewer sheep on the unimproved grass of the rougher ground and "tops" and bring them down into the valley for the winter.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.6mm (39mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Penyghent, Stackhouse and limestone

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One of the interesting things about ageing is the perspective that it brings. As a young child I lived in Stackhouse, a small group of houses and a farm that can be barely glimpsed in the trees towards the bottom right of this photograph. Though I was small I got to know the limestone valley side behind where we lived, the cliffs, the beeches, the rowans, the bracken and the sheep that wandered over the rugged landscape. When we moved to live in Settle I continued to walk the area, and I've carried on doing so regularly ever since. As a child, even as a teenager, I wasn't aware that the valley side was slowly changing. But, as the years have passed those small changes have become more obvious.

The bracken has spread, the drystone walls are not as well maintained as they were, the sheep are not almost exclusively Swaledales and are fewer, ash saplings are multiplying in and around the outcropping limestone, and the dew pond is becoming ever more cracked and overgrown with weed. The remains of children's play - dens and the like - are no longer to be seen. Most of these changes must be a consequence of fewer sheep and an increase in the amount of time that farmers are devoting to the core business of producing meat and wool. I haven't seen children on the hills without their parents for decades; a reflection of the concerns of adults and changes in the play of youngsters. Older people can frequently be heard expressing regret at change. However, I think this frequently arises from a selfish yearning for a known past and fear of a different and constantly evolving present and future. I've found myself fascinated by the rise of "scrub" on this part of the "scar" landscape. If it doesn't take over completely the changes that it brings must enrich the wildlife that the land can support.

We recently spent a few days in the place of my upbringing. We experienced quite a bit of rain, not unusual for the area, and something that people settling there on the back of a couple of pleasant summer holidays soon have to come to terms with. However, we did have one unseasonally balmy day when the Ribble valley showed off its colourful trees, the hills could be walked in shirt sleeves and distant Penyghent could be photographed without its obscuring cap of cloud.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Glacial erratics and Samson's Toe

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One of the pleasures of growing up in the Yorkshire Dales was that school geography lessons sometimes referred to physical features that you already knew or that you could easily visit. The cliffs, gorges, tarn, sink holes, lead mines, clints and grykes etc of the area around Malham were cited as archetypes in the text books we used. So to be able to walk to the area from my home and examine these at first hand was a wonderful thing. The interesting rock strata of the Yoredale Series was clearly visible in the sharp, stepped profiles of Penyghent and Ingleborough, both ever-present on the horizon. The nearby classic fault line marked by the cliff along the edge of Giggleswick Scar was equally famous. And the much photographed Norber boulder field, with its glacial erratics of dark gritstone perched on the light grey native limestone, was but an energetic walk or an easy cycle ride away. It was through my exposure to the latter that I came to recognise other, less prominent, erratics scattered around the limestone hills where I lived.

The examples I was most familiar with were scattered across the area known as Attermire. These dark coloured lumps of rock were like ugly ducklings against the white of the Carboniferous limestone. Moreover, even though I knew that great sheets of ice, tens or hundreds of feet thick had transported them from places where they were the native rock and then, as the ice melted, deposited them on top of the entirely different rock of the Craven area of Yorkshire, it was still difficult to imagine such a process in action.

I recently photographed a glacial erratic that I never saw when I lived in the Dales. That's not because it was too distant from my home: in fact it's quite near. The fact is I'd never before walked the footpath that takes you past it. I learned that it had a name too. It's called "Samson's Toe" for reasons that are, I think, fairly obvious. I'm only aware of one other erratic (at least it's usually described as one) that has a name and that is the Great Stone of Fourstones near High Bentham. This enormous lump of rock with steps cut into it is better known to historians than geographers because it has long served as a boundary marker.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21.1mm (57mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Meadows and the Yorkshire Dales

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There are few areas of Britain with a landscape that isn't heavily modified by man or that still exhibits climax vegetation. And, whilst most people know that this is true of lowland, agricultural areas with their improved fields, hedges and obvious drainage, rather fewer appreciate that it is also the case in most upland regions too.

This is as true of the Yorkshire Dales as it is of the Lake District, Dartmoor or the North York Moors. On my recent visit to the Dales, standing above Langcliffe, overlooking the Ribble valley, the limestone above Stainforth and the distant peak of Ingleborough, I made a mental effort to imagine what the mountains, hills and valleys would look like without the past few thousand years of man's influence. Gone would be the drystone walls that characterise the limestone and gritstone areas. Gone too most of the closely cropped grass that sheep produce. The fields of the valley-sides and much of the moorland would have large areas of scrub and trees with only summits and exposed or wet areas clear. Valley bottoms would be thick with trees and streams and rivers wouldn't be confined to single channels by excavation, bank reinforcement and levees. The variety of plant and animal life would be much greater too. A few areas of the Dales - and other upland and lowland areas too - retain ancient characteristics. However, we shouldn't forget that the landscape that people admire, and which is protected by statute in the form of National Park status is, for the most part, man-made.

Some of those artificial features are, it has to be said, very attractive. Take meadows. These are entirely the product of farming, of the need to produce a grass crop that can be stored and used to feed animals during the winter months. When I lived in this area I enjoyed watching and occasionally helping with the hay harvest. I appreciated too the way that flowers - buttercups, vetch, clover, cowslips, scabious and more -  populated the hay meadows before the grass was cut. In the last quarter of the twentieth century silage supplemented and replaced hay on many farms. However, hay fields never disappeared entirely though their flowers frequently did as maximising the crop led to the application of nitrogen and other chemicals. Today I get the impression that with a greater awareness and the subsidies available for "environmental" farming, that hay has made something of a comeback. Not just hay, but deliberately planted wildflower meadows such as this one at Lower Winskill where farming and environmental education exist side-by-side.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18.5mm (50mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Yorkshire Dales barns

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A recent few days in the Yorkshire Dales re-acquainted me with some stone barns that I've known all my life. Some continue in use much as they always have, others have fallen further into a state of dilapidation, and some are in the process of being converted to new uses.

Todays's photograph shows a modest barn near Settle called Far Thornber Barn. Most Dales barns  that are out in the fields have names. Often these relate to the first owner, to the location or have a name whose origins are lost in the mists of time. Sometimes the last part of the name is "Laithe" rather than "Barn", a word that derives from the Old Norse (ON) word "hlatha" meaning barn. This reflects the influx from predominantly Ireland and Norway of Norse settlers in the years after 800 AD. In this area, a mile or so south of Settle, there is a cluster of barns that I know well. The oldest is Brigholme Barn near Giggleswick, by the River Ribble, which apparently dates from the seventeenth century. The last part of its name comes from the ON "holmr" meaning a dry, raised place in wet land - a suitable location for a barn -  and the first may derive from either the Old English "brycg" or the ON "bryggja", both meaning bridge. In my childhood it was piled high with bales of hay. It's now surrounded by newer structures that serve modern farming better, but is still used, cared for and maintained with traditional methods (lime mortar etc) as befits a listed building.

A few hundred yards from the barn in the photograph is the oddly named Fish Copy Barn. A more "architectural" structure than many it has a "porch", carved stone decoration and a late nineteenth century date stone with the owner's initials. For many years it was roofed, and the upper part of the porch was notable for a pile of song thrush nests about six feet high, the work of successive generations of birds each building on the nest below. Now it stands forlorn, unwanted and roofless amid a patch of waste land. By the A65 road the cluster of Cleatop Barns (named after the nearby house and wood) are in the process of being transformed into offices, retail space and a restaurant: a sad end for these distinctive buildings.

I visited Settle in a period of unseasonally hot weather with clear blue skies - not ideal for walking on the limestone and millstone grit uplands or for photography. This shot, however, was taken on the first morning of my stay when some low cloud pierced by patches of sunlight made photography much easier.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sheep, Penyghent and rain

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 Anyone who knows the Three Peaks of the Yorkshire Dales (Ingleborough, Penyghent and Whernside) usually has a favourite. And most people, when asked, name Ingleborough as the one they like best. It features in countless photographs and there's a lot to like about that particular mountain. It has a great flat-topped profile against the sky, the result of the differential erosion of the rocks in the Yoredale strata. Its location next to the Chapel Beck valley gives it a looming mass that is quite awe inspiring. And the limestone on and around Ingleborough is very prominent, adding to its rugged appeal. Then there's the Iron Age hill fort on its summit and the very accessible caves and potholes on its flanks. Whernside is usually placed third in this beauty contest. It is a lump of a peak, a whaleback that is difficult to pick out from some angles, and it doesn't have the characteristic profile that the other two share. Its proximity to Ribblehead railway viaduct is a plus, but its comparative anonymity is reflected in the much smaller number of photographs that it attracts.

However, my favourite is Penyghent. Why? Well, I could see it easily daily from Settle when I was growing up in that market town: I had to go on to the hills to view Ingleborough and Whernside. I noticed its changing moods and colours through each season. I walked to it and up it on a few occasions, and in later years climbed it with my family more than I did the other two. Then there's the clinching argument that means I could choose no other - in primary school I was in the "house" named Penyghent Blues! We competed against Ingleborough Yellows, Whernside Greens, and Pendle Reds (named after the Three Peaks and a Lancashire peak, all visible from in or around Settle).

It was only in later years that I learned that Penyghent is Celtic for "hill of winds", and that it is a monadnock (also known as inselberg) that stood above the glaciers that flowed round it in the recent Ice Age. In fact I know more about that mountain than I do about the sheep in the foreground of this photograph. They are a breed that is a more common sight in the Yorkshire Dales following the foot and mouth sheep culls of 2001. It must be one of the types listed on this informative website. But which one? I really can't decide.

I took my photograph from above Little Stainforth about half way through a walk that took in Giggleswick Scars and the valley of the River Ribble. Descending from the limestone near Smearsett Scar we were glad to see the rain enveloping the mountain rather than us!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Swaledales and fashion

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Striding out on the limestone grasslands of the Craven uplands of North Yorkshire I was starting to feel sorry for the sheep. For the Swaledales in particular, the breed that is the mainstay of the local farms. A very dry spell of weather meant that the grass wasn't growing as lushly as it should have been in late May, and the animals were having to be fed supplements brought to them by shepherds on quad bikes. The temperature was unseasonally cold too, with a northerly wind causing me to don a jacket. The lambs looked to be faring quite well, their mothers' milk and what food there was stimulating the thick, curly fleece that offers very effective insulation against the bad weather. No, it wasn't the youngsters that I was concerned about, it was the ewes. Quite a number of them had fleeces that were dropping off their backs, hanging down in rags, the missing pieces blowing about among the nardus grass or caught on the drystone walls and barbed wire. Sheep shearing in the Dales usually starts at the end of May. Had it been postponed due to the weather, I wondered, or was there some other reason for the dishevelled look of the local inhabitants?

Then it struck me. Perhaps this wasn't a case of shearing delayed, but was a matter of sartorial choice on the part of the Swaledales. Could it be that a quirk of the evolutionary process was causing them to follow the precedents of some of the higher life forms who pass their way; in particular the fashionably dressed youngsters on outdoor pursuits courses, or those dragged on to the hills by enthusiastic parents (my children know that of which I speak). The sheep must have seen the ripped jeans, stonewashed shirts, artificially distressed jumpers and artfully revealed midriffs, and thought, "At last, the humans have a fashion that we can copy!" Either that or they're taking the rip and having a good laugh at our expense. What do you think?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 83mm (166mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Walking and computers

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There seems to be a general feeling that computers are good for democracy. Supporters of this viewpoint cite the Chinese government's restriction of its citizens' access to the internet as telling evidence of the proposition. And it's undoubtedly true that they give the individual in a society access to information, the means to manipulate and interpret it, and the power to communicate with the like-minded and our politicians.

However, computers can also be used in an anti-democratic way too. Most notably they allow governments, through the amassing and manipulating of data, to believe that they are in a better position to direct and organise society, than are local people and local politicians: they are a dangerous, centralising force. Take the current panic over childhood obesity. The government has collected data, is collecting more, and has come up with an answer - more physical activity in schools. Surely I'm not alone in thinking that if overweight children is the problem, then making them jump about in schools isn't the answer. But, computers in the government's education department know, to the minute (they think), how much physical activity school children undertake each week, and it's not enough! So the decree went out that all, throughout the country, should receive a minimum of two hours weekly during school time. Money was spent, organisers were appointed, and a grand strategy involving webs of high schools with feeder primaries were urged into action. It will have virtually no effect! Child obesity will only be solved by deep-seated life-style changes that include eating better and eating less, and walking and cycling more. This involves government leaning on food companies, planning for bikes and pedestrians, restricting cars, and yes, education, but in the widest sense. However, those strategies don't make politicians very popular. It's much easier to have a grand, trumpeted, school-based initiative and look like you're doing something!

One thing I've started to notice is that when I go walking the majority of the people I see doing it for pleasure are "older" people. If I go to the "honey-pot" locations like the Lake District, the balance shifts towards the younger end, and organised groups of children and young teens can be seen. But elsewhere it's mainly the "oldies" - like my wife and I - people for whom walking has been a lifelong way of getting about, and a source of enjoyment. The photograph shows my wife climbing a stile over a limestone wall on Gigglewick Scars in the Yorkshire Dales. I framed the shot so the wall acts as a line leading to the figure, or from the figure into the surroundings. The image was taken with a wide zoom lens at 44mm (35mm equivalent), with the camera set to Aperture Priority (f6.3 at 1/400 second), ISO 100, with -1.0EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen