Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

need of rest from the incessant air raids and so we usually had a quiet time; the lack
of our own transport was limiting. We might go to a film and they came to tea at
Green Gables. In November 1940 our brother Peter arrived for a brief visit; the three
brothers had lunch at the Burnside Hotel and then went on to Dungeon Ghyll,
Langdale where we had a walk. I don’t think I saw him again until the end of
December l943 when I went home for several days to see him - on home on leave
from Africa after three years service.
In the New Year I went skating on School Knott Tarn, a great pleasure. A few
days later we drove to Rydal Water to skate and on to Middlerigg Tarn. Shrove
Tuesday came and although I’d never tossed a pancake before managed five or six
without dropping them. At the beginning of March l941 we made a real holiday of
Half Term and Mrs Woods took us to Grasmere where we had lunch at the cafe on
the bridge, then walked up to Easedale Tarn. We also paid a visit to Heaton
Cooper's Studio and he was very pleasant and talked and showed us his water
colours. They included one that particularly impressed me: it was a snow scene with
trees and a lake and he had depicted the snow by leaving areas of the paper free of
pigment.
For part of Christmas and Easter I usually enjoyed going on holiday with the
Woods, to stay at a farm in one of the Lakeland Valleys. We spent one Christmas at
Seatoller in Borrowdale, at Mrs Bland's house, which was prominent as one walked
up from the main valley towards the village. We enjoyed another Christmas at Yewtree
Farm, Stonethwaite, and one Easter at Mrs Plaskett's in Rose Cottage,
Rosthwaite - the Post Office. There we had a suite on the side overlooking the path to
Watendlath and would take walks up there, as well as along the river and down the
valley towards Grange, or up towards Langstrath. One Easter we stayed at
Elterwater, at ‘the Barn’, a large house on the northern side of the village overlooking
bracken and grass. We had walks to the lake and along various paths in the valley
and up towards Silverhow.
Often I would go off for the day on my own, which I enjoyed; it was a challenge
and I was rapidly learning to find my way about safely, with map and compass. I
quickly became very familiar with most of the tops and the routes to them. One day
I took Mrs Woods, who was even then, though only in her mid-fifties, a bit frail, up
Great Gable, by way of Aaron's Slack to Windy Gap, before tackling the rocky route
to the top. At the steeper points I pulled her up by her walking stick. She did very
well and it was a great day for her, because of the family associations and memories
of earlier excursions with her family.
At Elterwater we visited the studio of Bernard Eyre Walker, a water colour
painter whose work I greatly admired. He was said to be colour-blind, but he
produced very impressive paintings of the craggy hills and rocky valleys. One in
particular, of Langstrath from above, Mrs Woods bought and I coveted it. The
Woods knew him and I enjoyed talking with him about painting and the hills. They
also knew a garden designer at Chapel Style, Mr Pierce, who lived in a picturesque
farm, and they had one of Eyre Walker's paintings of the barn there, with dappled
shade. From studying this I learnt how shadows should be painted with muted
colours in blue and neutral tones. Living as a refugee with the Pierces was Ernst
Schwitters, a refugee from Austria who became well known, something of a
44