Grandpa’s spirit haunts the Lake District
When I last walked on Scout Scar, some 20 years ago, I helped my mum scatter Grandpa’s ashes. I should remember the day clearly, but I don’t. There was wind, straggly hawthorn and a sense of completing a task, I think, but this vertiginous ridge of limestone with preposterously fine views everywhere is lodged in my memory from other walks with Grandpa. In his latter days, slowing up, he eschewed the high fells of his home county and stumped along its lovely limestone edges, from Gatebarrow to Whitbarrow, with his Border Collie, Tess. I returned to Scout Scar recently while visiting Kendal for its Mountain Festival. The town hummed with impressive outdoorsy folk. Even in the bleak winter, head torches bounced down footpaths after dark. The breath of Lycra-clad joggers hung in the air. I felt a wuss taking a taxi a couple of miles out of town to Scout...
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