Where are you from?

Another Thursday-Pete-walk.

In the late Fifties and early Sixties a loose gang of us assembled at weekends in Langdale and later at Keswick to climb and carouse. At other times  Bradford based members frequented pubs and clubs where live jazz reigned - Elvis and the Beetles were rubbish. Pete was a notable member, and in 1960 he and I had a holiday in the Jotunheim in Norway wandering over glaciers and making a good ascent of Galdhopiggen by a non-tourist route.

As to be expected we all eventually went our different ways. Forty years later I had moved to Arnside (2000)  after losing my wife to Motor Neuron Disease. I joined the gym at the very upmarket Holgates static caravan leisure park at Silverdale. I was supposedly training for my forthcoming GR10 walk (the Pyrenees from Atlantic to Mediterranean).

Working on a rowing machine I started talking to a little guy on the next machine:

"Do you do some running?"

"No, but I've done a lot of climbing and walking"

"Where do you come from?'

"West Yorkshire"

"Were you in the Yorkshire Mountaineering Club?"

"Yes, What's your name?"

"Conrad. Conrad Robinson"

"Bloody hell, stop rowing! Put your hand there mate. It's Pete. Pete Mansbridge!"

And so, not recognising each other we had re-met - the conversation was heard by other gym members creating a major talking point for ages afterwards.

Pete and his wife Liz had a static holiday caravan on the site, but shortly after they bought a house in Arnside and Pete and I have climbed twenty eight Munros together, walked the Lancaster canal and had our Thursday walks now running into hundreds I reckon. I also learned from Pete that another member of the original gang was living in Arnside, Pete Hindle and his wife Linda, and Pete H. joins us from time to time on our walks as he did yesterday on a pleasant road walk starting at Docker with snow covered Lakeland, Shap and Howgill fells in the various backgrounds as our route circled.

PLEASE CLICK TO ENLARGE

The two Petes and Docker viaduct - not far from the Grayrigg derailment disaster in 2007

Distant Whinfell Beacon

Zoom to the Howgills. A bright start had turned into a dull day

Me and Pete somewhere in Wales circa 1960. Pete was renowned for his beret, his long super quality Norwegian stockings and immaculately maintained Italian boots, all contrasting with my generally sloppy appearance.

Elvis and The Beatles were rubbish!

In the 60s musicians’ unions allowed American jazz performers to visit the UK. In Bradford we saw most of the celebrated American jazz bands and performers at St George’s Hall, and we had the Students’ Club in an atmospheric cellar where individuals from the American groups came afterwards playing with local jazz guys into the early hours.

We mixed those enthusiasms with rock climbing at weekends, and for some, earnest and voracious discovering of “good books”. We all had collections of jazz LPs, which were lent and swopped. Jack, not one of the readers, was a wool-sorter riving apart sheeps’ fleeces by hand and his fingers were like forty grit sandpaper - that combined with a lack of any feeling for the delicate vinyl was a death sentence by scratching, to any treasured LP lent to him -  that was if you were “lucky” enough to have it returned.

My walking friend Pete was part of all this. Recently we reminisced and Pete lamented the non-return of a treasured LP.  

I  bought the remastered cd version of Pete’s favourite: Sonny Side Up, featuring Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, and Ray Bryant.  We now wallow in nostalgia playing this driving to and from our walks.

There are fiercely competitive solos between Rollins and Stitt and in the fourteen minute track, After Hours, a long piano solo from Ray Bryant invoking visions of an empty jazz cellar and an old guy sweeping up as the lone pianist and bass player indulge in a haunting exploration.

Sonny Side Up, along with, Kind of Blue (Miles Davis), are two of the all time greats of jazz recordings.

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