Thank You, Ann Bowker

      

Thank You, Ann Bowker

I’m afraid I don’t know you, Ann Bowker.

You’re only a name on a screen.

I don’t even know what you look like,

but I always find out where you’ve been.

On Bleaberry Fell or Helvellyn,

On Skiddaw or Thunacar Knot,

On Catbells or Bowfell or Froswick;

I know that you’ve conquered the lot.

You walk on these glorious mountains

whether it’s fine or it’s wet

with your favourite digital camera,

then you post the results on the net.

I remember, remember the Haystacks,

Silver How, Wetherlam too,

but now I must sit and click on a mouse

to follow the tracks I once knew.

But - thank you a million, Ann Bowker

for letting me share in your climbs.

Without you I would not be able

to relive those happier times.

It’s not quite the same just to sit here

enjoying the views on a screen,

Scafell, Great Dodd and Yewbarrow…

but to Hell with it   -  that’s where I’ve been!

Barbara Moyes

Derby 2008

My mother wrote this, aged 86, to acknowledge the internet posts of a woman she had never

met, but whose experiences of walking in the Lake District she treasured long after 

she was ableto walk the fells herself.  

I recently discovered that the mysterious Ann Bowker had, herself, died in May 2021. 

See here.

Photo credit: Lionel Bidwell

Do Not Lie Down In That Hot Sun

Do Not Lie Down In That Hot Sun

Do not lie down in that hot sun
Your skin will burn and peel, but not get tanned;
Red raw you’ll be, and have no fun.

You ladies, you go out and think you’ve won,
You know that oils and creams have not been banned;
Do not lie down in that hot sun.

Young studs, be careful in the day, for as night’s begun,
You’ll wish to dance and sing and soon get canned;
Red raw you’ll be, and have no fun.

Crazy days of beer, banana boats and beaches can be done,
But seek the shade that often lies so close at hand.
Do not lie down in that hot sun.

As burning, bursting rays of UV light, as from a gun,
Pour down from cloudless skies upon that arid land.
Red raw you’ll be, and have no fun.

And you, my child, grown up, burnt like a bun,
Your youthful ageing skin, I see it blister there upon the sand.
Do not lie down in that hot sun.
Red raw you’ll be, and have no fun.

Explanatory notes

Written during the long hot summer of 2005, whilst staying at the charming and isolated VillaNelle in the south of France. I learnt my lesson that year; no longer will I lie in the sun, unclad.

It was sheer stupidity on my part. I know that now. At times the pain in my Dylan Thomas became unbearable; poetic justice you might say. So I penned these words of warning to anyone foolish enough to bare all, like me. Perhaps it would have been better to have simply called it “Rage, rage against the burning of the light!”.

I owe a debt of thanks to the men and women of the French postal service who, throughout that summer, carried up to the Villa all my deliveries of calamine lotion and sun cream. I knew none of their names, of course, just their service numbers. To anyone considering a stay in that delightful villa, I especially commend to you Facteur 50.

Words (and blisters) by N Moyes