Kendal Mountain Literature Festival 2018 Programme Announced
The 2018 Kendal Mountain Literature Festival programme has today been unveiled, revealing a diverse programme of events featuring some of the UK’s foremost authors of nature, landscape and mountain literature.
(scroll down for the full programme listings)
The four-day literature festival, now in its second year takes place from the 16 - 18 November as part of Kendal Mountain Festival, the largest and longest-running annual gathering of the outdoor community in the UK.
Featuring over 40 authors, poets and writers including naturalist Mark Cocker, Canal Laureate Nancy Campbell, Mountaineer Graham Hoyland and former hospice scribe Tanya Shadrick, this year takes the theme of ‘connection’ to explore the latest and very best outdoor inspired literature from across the UK.
Robert Macfarlane, acclaimed British writer and Kendal Mountain LIterature Festival Patron said: “This is among the most diverse programme of any nature/outdoor festival I’ve seen; so rich in its reach across voices and communities.”
Paul Scully, Festival Manager and Literature Programmer said: “We are thrilled to welcome so many incredible writers to the festival and look forward to being inspired, challenged and provoked by the ideas and imagination of those who have immersed themselves in the natural world.”
In what will undoubtedly be a moving tribute to Britain’s war dead, Kendal Mountain Festival patron and esteemed mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington will join the National Trust’s commemoration of the Great Gift. Reading a eulogy to the fallen alongside a choir of 60 amateur
singers who made news headlines earlier this year when they sang from the 14 summits in the Lake District that were gifted to the National Trust in the years after the First World War by the Fell and Rock Climbing Club and private landowners as an act of remembrance.
Adding to the sense of anticipation around this year’s event are four book launches including Waymaking, a Kickstarter funded anthology of prose, poetry and artwork produced by women, inspired by wild places, adventure and landscape.
Paul continues: "At Kendal Mountain Festival, we believe that inspiring young readers and writers in the outdoors is crucial to developing positive environmental attitudes and values, and so this
year’s festival will feature an array of children’s authors including Jess Butterworth, David Young and MG Leonard."
Literature has been a central part of Kendal Mountain Festival with the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature hosted at the festival since 2007. The 35th Boardman Tasker Award will take place on Friday 17 November when the winner of this years' shortlist will be revealed.
Full Programme Listings
THE BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE
1pm – 5.45pm | Friday 17 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £12.50
Established in 1983 to commemorate the lives of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust celebrates their legacy by presenting the annual Award for Mountain Literature, presented to the author of an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature.
Who will be the 35th winner of the coveted Boardman Tasker Award? Chair of Judges, Peter Gillman along with Kate Moorehead and Roger Hubank have the the difficult task of selecting the winner from the seven shortlisted books;
Nick Bullock, Tides: A Climber’s Voyage
Paolo Cognetti, The Eight Mountains
Ed Douglas and John Beatty, Kinder Scout: The People’s Mountain
Christoph Ransmayr, The Flying Mountain
David Roberts, Limits Of The Known
Doug Scott, The Ogre: Biography Of A Mountain And The Dramatic Story Of The First Ascent
Junko Tabei And Helen Y. Rolfe, Honouring High Places: The Mountain Life Of Junko Tabei
EXTREME SCOTLAND
- NADIR KHAN
7 – 8.30pm | Friday 16 November
Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10
Extreme Scotland is a photographic journey through Scottish adventure sports through the lens of Nadir Khan. Scotland is one of the most diverse extreme sports locations in the world and packs a much well above its weight. For the past 6 years Nadir has been photographing some of the best athletes in the world that test their mettle against the walls, rivers and skylines of this beautiful country. The resulting book shows the beautiful, the brutal, the immense and the majestic landscapes that form the backdrop for stunning collection of images.
Nadir talks about the motivation behind the book and the practicalities of photographing in the sometimes extreme conditions of Scotland , he talks about the emotional ups and downs of working on such a big project over the past 6 years. This presentation is a feast for those that love adventure, for those that love photography and for those wish to understand what it takes to get great images in the outdoors.
THE LIBRARY OF ICE
- NANCY CAMPBELL
9.30 – 11am | Saturday 17 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
Long captivated by the solid yet impermanent nature of ice, by its stark, rugged beauty, acclaimed poet and writer Nancy Campbell sets out from the world’s northernmost museum to explore it in all its facets. From the Bodleian Library archives to the traces left by the great polar expeditions, from remote Arctic settlements to the ice houses of Calcutta, she examines the impact of ice on our lives at a time when it is itself under threat from climate change.
The Library of Ice is a fascinating and beautifully rendered evocation of the interplay of people and their environment on a fragile planet, and of a writer’s quest to define the value of her work in a disappearing landscape.
Nancy Campbell writes poetry, art criticism and narrative non-fiction. She is currently working with the Canal & River Trust and The Poetry Society as the UK’s Canal Laureate.
THE SALT PATH
- RAYNOR WINN
9.30 – 11am | Saturday 17 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.
They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.
The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life- affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.
THIS PLACE I KNOW: A NEW ANTHOLOGY OF CUMBRIAN POETRY
- KATIE HALE, KIM MOORE & POLLY ATKIN
11.30 – 11pm | Saturday 17 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
This Place I Know, A New Anthology of Cumbrian Poetry, brings together a contrasting collection of voices in recognition of the great and continuing tradition of Lake District poetry.
The poems are inspired by the particular effect that Cumbrian people and places have on the imagination. Contributors include some of the region’s best known poets, including Helen Mort and Jacob Polley as well as a number of young, less well recognised and previously unpublished writers.
This is an exciting vibrant anthology which captures and awakens the spirit of Cumbria in a way that only poetry can do.
THE MAN WHO CLIMBS TREES
- JAMES ALDRED
11.30am – 1pm | Saturday 17 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
James Aldred is a professional wildlife cameraman and self- confessed tree hugger, whose passion for climbing trees was born of his desire to film the elusive and secretive wildlife found high in the rainforest canopy.
In his first book ‘The Man Who Climbs Trees’ James takes the reader on a journey around the world via ten of his most memorable canopy climbing expeditions. Whether it’s to film Harpy eagles in their nest in Venezuela, Gorilla’s foraging 150’ above ground in the Congo jungle, or Sir David Attenborough twenty storeys up in the Costa Rican rainforest, the books main characters are the wondrous trees encountered and climbed along the way.
James grew up in the New Forest and has spent the last 25 years filming regularly for clients such as the BBC and National Geographic. His efforts have earned him an Emmy award and several BAFTA nominations.
YETI: AN ABOMINABLE HISTORY
- GRAHAM HOYLAND
1.30 – 3pm | Saturday 17 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
Graham Hoyland, the climber who was responsible for finding the body of George Mallory on Mount Everest, has been on another quest. On an expedition to the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan he found and filmed footprints of the mythical Yeti in a part of the country which has never before been visited by Western explorers.
In a lost valley near the unclimbed mountain Gangkar Punsum, Graham Hoyland believes he was stalked by the mysterious Yeti, a beast so unspeakably powerful that locals says it can kill a yak with one savage blow of its fist.
Hoyland hears tales of the Yeti from Sherpas who report that they are impossible to track. He explores the literary hinterland behind the legend and hunts for the Yeti’s American cousin Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and her African relative Mokele-Mbmebe.
What leads mankind to the belief in monsters, and what happens when we are confronted with the brutal creatures of our nightmares?
THE IMMEASURABLE WORLD: JOURNEYS IN DESERT PLACES
- WILLIAM ATKINS
1.30pm – 3pm | Saturday 17 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
One third of the earth’s land surface is desert, much of it desolate and inhospitable. What is it about this harsh environment that has captivated humankind throughout history? From the prophets of the Bible to Marco Polo, Lawrence of Arabia to Gertrude Bell, travellers have often seen deserts as cursed places to be avoided, or crossed as quickly as possible. But for those whose call deserts home, the ‘hideous blanks’ described by explorers are rich in resources and significance.
Travelling to five continents over three years, visiting deserts both iconic and little-known, Atkins discovers a realm that is as much internal as physical. His journey takes him to the Arabian Peninsula’s Empty Quarter and Australia’s nuclear-test grounds; the dry Aral Sea of Kazakhstan and ‘sand seas’ of China’s volatile north-west; and the ancient monasteries of Egypt’s Eastern Desert. Along the way, Atkins illuminates the people, history, topography, and symbolism of these remarkable but often troubled places.
THE SMILE OF THE WOLF
- TIM LEACH
1.30pm – 3pm | Saturday 17 November
The Bindloss Room, Kendal Town Hall | Tickets £10
The myths and legends of the past are not just tales of gods and heroes - they are the stories of places and landscapes, too, where every mountain, river, and island has its own saga to tell.
In this talk and Q&A, historical fiction writer Tim Leach, whose previous work draws on the mythic worlds of Ancient Greece and medieval Iceland, will explore the relationship between historic and present landscapes, past heroes and modern adventurers, and the themes of personal quest, fellowship, and risk.
Set in the harsh landscape of 10th century Iceland in a world of ice and snow, Smile of the Wolf is an epic story of exile and revenge, of duels and betrayals, and two friends struggling to survive in a desolate landscape, where honour is the only code that men abide by.
The Smile of the Wolf has been described as “an epic story of exile and revenge” by The Sheffield Telegraph, and was named Book of the Month in The Times.
GROUNDWORK & LANDFILL
- TIM DEE
3.30pm – 5pm | Saturday 18 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
A groundbreaking new book from the author of The Running Sky and Four Fields, Landfill confronts our waste-making species through the extraordinary and fascinating life of gulls,and the people who watch them. Original, compelling and unflinching, it is the nature book for our times.
In Ground Work Tim has brought together a wondrous array of writers in this wonderful anthology of nature writing.
TRANSLATING MOUNTAINS
- YVONNE REDDICK
3.30pm – 5pm | Saturday 18 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
Translating Mountains tells the story of Yvonne Reddick’s love of hiking, her father’s death in the Highlands, and her determination to continue hillwalking in his memory. These poems explore
risk, obsession and grief, but they also take us on an uplifting journey towards healing. Translating Mountains won the Mslexia Magazine women’s poetry pamphlet prize and was a favourite pamphlet of 2017 in the Times Literary Supplement.
Yvonne Reddick lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Central Lancashire. She has completed classic treks and scrambles such as the Tour du Mont Blanc and the Black Cuillin. Her poetry about mountains has won a Northern Writer’s Award, a commendation in the National Poetry Competition, the Poetry Society’s Peggy Poole Award, and a Creative Futures Literary Award.
CONNECTION TO NATURE EVERYDAY
- PANEL DISCUSSION WITH ABI ANDREWS, JAY ARMSTRONG & NATASHA CARTHEW
5.30pm – 7pm | Saturday 17 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
TRAVELS & TOURS IN CUMBRIA BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF ‘THE LAKES’
- CHRISTOPHER DONALDSON & IAN GREGORY
7.30pm – 9pm | Saturday 17 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
Did you know that one of the first recorded climbs of Langdale Pikes was made by a disabled veteran? Or that it was once customary for fashionable ladies to ascend Skiddaw on side-saddle?
In this session we’ll explore some of the sensational stories and curious facts about early travellers in Cumberland and Westmorland from the period before the lakes became the Lakes. We’ll also spend some time considering how the accounts of early travellers map onto the terrain of the region. In the process we’ll reflect on how people’s perceptions of the fells changed with the passage of time. We’ll also have the chance to think about the continuing relevance of the accounts of early travellers in the present day.
TIDES: A CLIMBER’S VOYAGE
- NICK BULLOCK
7.30pm – 9pm | Saturday 17 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
Nick Bullock is a climber who lives in a small green van, flitting between Llanberis, Wales, and Chamonix in the French Alps. Now retired from the strain of work as a prison officer, Nick is free to climb. A lot. Tides is a treasury of his antics and adventures with some of the world’s leading climbers, including Steve House, Kenton Cool and Nico Favresse.
Join us to hear about Nick and his partners as they push the limits on some of the world’s most serious routes: The Bells! The Bells! on Gogarth’s North Stack Wall and the Slovak Direct on Denali, among countless others.
Nick’s life can be equated to the rhythm of the sea. At high tide, he climbs, he loves it, he laughs and jokes, scares himself, falls, gets back up and climbs some more. Then the tide goes out and he finds himself alone, exposed, all questions and no answers. Only when the tide turns is he able to forget once more.
THIS GIRL DID: DOROTHY WORDSWORTH AND WOMEN’S MOUNTAINEERING
- JOANNA TAYLOR, ALEX JAKOB-WHITWORTH AND LOUISE-ANN WILSON
9.30am – 11am | Saturday 17 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
200 years ago, on October 7 1818, Dorothy Wordsworth and her friend Mary Barker climbed England’s highest peak: Scafell Pike. Dorothy’s account of the feat is among the earliest surviving accounts of the feat, and was a pioneering event in the history of women’s mountaineering.
At this event, we will premiere a short film created as part of the project This Girl Did: Dorothy Wordsworth and Women’s Mountaineering by the award-winning filmmakers Jago Miller, Richard Berry and Ben Barden, in collaboration with Cumbria-based artist Alex Jakob-Whitworth, the Wordsworth Trust and academics from Lancaster University. The film interweaves a performance piece by Jakob-Whitworth that reimagines Dorothy’s ascent of Scafell with details from Dorothy’s account of the excursion and research on Scafell Pike’s cultural history.
Alongside the film premier, this event will feature talks by Joanna Taylor (University of Manchester) on the history of Dorothy’s climb, and Alex Jakob-Whitworth and Louise-Ann Wilson on their creative responses to Dorothy Wordsworth’s legacies for walking practices.
NO EASY WAY
- MICK FOWLER
10.30am – 12pm | Sunday 19 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
Mainstream news reports about climbing are dominated by action from the world’s highest mountains, more often than not focusing on tragedy and controversy. Far removed from this high-altitude circus, a group of visionary and specialist mountaineers are seeking out eye-catching objectives in the most remote corners of the greater ranges and attempting first ascents in lightweight style.
Mick Fowler is the master of the small and remote Himalayan expedition. He has been at the forefront of this pioneering approach to alpinism for over thirty years, attempting mountains that may never have been seen before by Westerners, let alone climbed by them.
Join us as Mick recounts a series of expeditions to stunning mountains in China, India, Nepal and Tibet. Alongside partners including Paul Ramsden, Andy Cave and Victor Saunders, he attempts striking, technically challenging unclimbed lines on Shiva, Gave Ding and Mugu Chuli – with a number of ascents winning prestigious Piolets d’Or.
THE SHAPE OF A PLACE: WALKING, ART AND THE LANDSCAPE
- AILEEN HARVEY
10.30am – 12pm | Sunday 19 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
Aileen Harvey is an artist whose work focuses on the experience of place. She uses photography, drawing and writing to engage with landscapes, especially the mountains of northwest Scotland. She will be talking about the importance of walking to her practice, based upon the way it places us in the landscape and shapes our perceptions.
Her work aims to draw out the specific qualities of a particular place at a particular time, and walking is a part of this, bringing movement and the subjective experience of a particular human body.
Aileen will also discuss the non-visual aspects of images, and how drawings and photographs can be alike. Her work borrows from the landscape - sometimes materials such as pigments, stones or drawing sticks, or else systems, hierarchies and patterns. She is interested in how people and places form one another.
OUR PLACE: CAN WE SAVE BRITAIN’S WILDLIFE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE?
- MARK COCKER
12.30pm – 2pm | Sunday 19 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £10
In Linescapes, Hugh Warwick unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of the lines we have drawn: as our lives and our land were being fenced in and threaded together, so wildlife habitats have been cut into ever smaller, and increasingly unviable, fragments.
Hugh Warwick has travelled across the country to explore this linescape from the perspective of our wildlife and to understand how, with a manifesto for reconnection, we can help our flora and fauna to flourish.
Linescapes offers a fresh and bracing perspective on Britain’s countryside, one that proposes a challenge and gives ground for hope; for while nature does not tend to straight lines and discrete borders, our lines can and do contain a real potential for wildness and for wildlife.
ENTWINED LINES: ART AND CLIMBING
- MARK GOODWIN AND PAUL EVANS
12.30pm – 2pm | Sunday 19 November
The Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
Artist Paul Evans and poet Mark Goodwin will explore climbing and art as entwined forms of movement, through an in-the- moment combination of poetry and drawing. Mark will speak poems whilst Paul – responding directly to the rhythms of the words – draws onto a large spread of paper, with charcoal and pigment. This developing performance is still very much in the realms of live improvisation, something that reflects much of what climbing is about. Paul and Mark will be pleased to receive questions about such improvisation after the drawing is complete.
This session will also include a vibrantly illustrated presentation on how landscape has inspired the work of both poet and artist.
WILD WOMAN SWIMMING
- TANYA SHADRICK
1pm – 2.30pm | Sunday 19 November
The Bindloss Room, Kendal Town Hall | Tickets £10
Join Tanya to discover the life and writing of the late Lynne Roper, a visionary wild swimmer whose diaries are a celebration of the close-knit communities that form wherever strangers meet to swim together.
A Devon paramedic, Lynne began swimming outdoors while recovering from a double mastectomy. Warm, funny and fearless, she was soon at the heart of The Outdoor Swimming Society, inspiring others to swim wild, ‘read water’ and take educated risks as she did. For five years, until a brain tumour made swimming and writing impossibly hard, Lynne recorded her adventures in over sixty wild waters across Dartmoor and the Devon/Cornwall coasts.
The book has an extraordinary backstory: shortly before her death – on just a single meeting – Lynne entrusted her diaries to writer and artist Tanya Shadrick for posthumous print publication. Two years later, this book keeps the promise Tanya made that day.
By turns lyrical and adrenaline-fuelled, solitary and communal, this is a book for outdoor swimmers, nature lovers and all who prize the wild and free.
THE GREAT GIFT OF FREEDOM
- WITH SIR CHRIS BONINGTON, THE FELLOWSHIP OF HILL, WIND AND SUNSHINE’ CHOIR
2.30pm – 4pm | Sunday 19 November
The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £15 with £2 from every ticket sale going to ‘Fix the Fells’ charity.
In partnership with the National Trust and the Fell & Rock Climbing Club, Kendal Mountain Festival presents a unique event about the Great Gift War Memorial. Hosted by Paul Rose, fresh from his BBC series about The Lakes, the event will feature a portrayal of the War Memorial story by Dr Jonathan Westaway, Research Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire specialising in the histories of mountaineering, mountain environments and exploration. There will also be contributions from FRCC members Sir Chris Bonington, and Richard Hargreaves, great-nephew of Geoffrey Winthrop Young. Plus the Fellowship of Hill, and Wind, and Sunshine Choir will perform on stage, led by Cumbrian songwriter, musician and teacher, Dr Dave Camlin. We will also hear from the team of National Trust rangers and volunteers who restored the huge Scafell Pike summit cairn, camping and working in all weathers.
WAYMAKING
*OFFICIAL BOOK LAUNCH*
3pm – 4.30pm | Sunday 18 November
Kendal Town Hall | Tickets £10
Kendal Mountain Festival is thrilled to host the UK launch of this highly anticipated anthology of prose, poetry and artwork by women who are inspired by wild places, adventure and landscape.
Waymaking aims to continue the legacies of Gwen Moffat’s Space Below My Feet and Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain which set a precedent for women writing about wilderness that isn’t about conquering landscapes, but instead about living and breathing alongside them, becoming part of a larger adventure.
The contributors of this inspired collection include award-winning author Bernadette McDonald, world-leading climber Hazel Findlay, adventurers Sarah Outen and Anna McNuff and edited by award-winning poet Helen Mort; Kendal Mountain Festival Artistic Director Claire Carter; Heather Dawe, one of the UK’s leading endurance athletes; and Vertebrate Publishings, Camilla Barnard
Join us for a dynamic event with readings from the editors and contributors, and the chance to join the discussion. Helen and Claire will be present along with award winning mountain writer Maria Coffey, performance poet Gevi Carver, and others from the anthology.
HIGHER CALLING
- MAX LEONARD
2.30pm – 4pm | Sunday 18 November
Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10
Why do road cyclists go to the mountains? What is it about the high peaks that inspires us and why do we love something so hard?
Max Leonard’s Higher Calling is an exploration of the central place of mountains in the folklore of road cycling, the mystique that surrounds climbers and why amateurs feel compelled to follow them.
What do we see and feel when riding in the mountains? What do they take, and what do they give back? And why are there even roads there in the first place?
Interweaving adventure, travel and nature writing with the rich history of the Grand Tours and the riders who conquered the iconic cols, Max Leonard drives snowploughs, tends to sheep, breaks
into bunkers and encounters stories of courage and sacrifice, war, obsession and elephants along the way.
THERE’S ALWAYS THE HILLS
- CAMERON MCNEISH
4.30pm – 6pm | Sunday 19 November
Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10
Award-winning mountaineering writer and television presenter Cameron McNeish reflects on a life dedicated to mountaineering, hill-walking and long distance backpacking. Following his career as an international long jumper he has for over forty years written, edited magazines and presented television programmes about walking and climbing, meeting some of the greatest characters of the mountaineering world.
A prolific author, he has also led numerous treks to the Greater Ranges of the world and was editor of The Great Outdoors Magazine for over 20 years. He recently candidly recalled the ups and downs of a full life in his best-selling autobiography, There’s Always the Hills.