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.
