Synopsis
Christmas is still a magical time of year in the Peak District, Britain's most popular National Park. Many customs, like the ancient village carols and posset cups, are still retained despite the mass uniformity of the celebration of the festival in the world outside, and unlike many other popular tourist honeypots, the visitors don't stop coming to the Peak District in the winter. The Peak's close proximity to the major conurbations of Sheffield, Manchester, the East Midlands and West Yorkshire mean that the visitors- particularly the walkers- never stop coming, as they have years before the National Park came into being 50 years ago. Local people will tell you that the Peak District weather consists of six months of bad weather, then six months of winter. Although global warming and climate change may have put paid to the arctic winters of the past, some of the most evocative writing about the Peak has been used to describe those bitter winter months. This varied and refreshing anthology of some of the best writing on Peakland winters is by one of the Peak District's best-known authors.
It looks at how Christmas is spent in the homes of great landowners - like the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth- and in those of the humble cottagers and farmers, who have to eke out a living on the edge of the forbidding and frozen moors. Special emphasis is given to the outdoors, and there are wonderful accounts by Ernest Baker of the renowned Kyndwr Club of some of the earliest Expeditions across the then-forbidden moors of Kinder Scout and Bleaklow. Winter didn't stop Sheffield's famous Clarion ramblers, either, and G.B.H. Ward's instructions: "We go, wet or fine; show or blow" are included are included. Other excerpts tell the reader more of the extremes of Peakland weather, and the time-honoured, locally-composed carols which are still sung, not in the village church but in the local pubs, around Christmas time. There are tales of tragedy, like the heroic sheepdog, Tip, and laughter, which show the gritty, Peakland character. No Christmas story -telling would be complete without a ghost story.
This is provided by Laurence du Garde Peach, which takes us back to the Roman fort of Navio, near Brough, and the days when Christianity had only just arrived in the hills of the Peakland. If you are looking for the perfect for a lover of the Peak District this Christmas, look no further than this handsomely-produced and profusely-illustrated volume.
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