In praise of Wainwright

Wainwright

Spring is in the air.

And with Spring, and the approaching Easter break, Dr Crippen’s mind turns to the Lake District. Natural beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a subjective matter if ever there were, but I can say without fear of contradiction that the Lake District is one of the most beautiful areas of natural beauty in the world.

There are several million tourists visiting the Lake District every year. Most of them seem to spend their time walking round Bowness, Ambleside or Keswick before driving to lay-bys on busy dual carriage ways to have a picnic. The traffic is a nightmare. And yet, even at the busiest time of year, if you walk for a few minutes, you can be quite alone.

Striding Edge

Admittedly, not if you do the really famous walks such as Helvellyn via Striding Edge. For the skiers amongst you, Striding Edge is the black run of fell walking. More difficult than this, and you are climbing. Just as on any black run in a ski resort there will be a “committee meeting” of skiers standing at the top, discussing the weather, work, anything to put off the descent, so there always is at the beginning of Striding Edge, particularly as you approach the chimney.

No Lake District fell-walker will be without a Wainwright.

Wainwright was a grumpy, curmudgeonly Lancastrian, born in 1907 in Audley Range, in Blackburn, a town recently brought to fame by the visit of the USA Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Fifty years ago, Wainwright started to keep meticulous handwritten accounts of his walking in the Lake District. He started this entirely for his own benefit. He had difficultly in getting the guides published and, when finally they were published, he continued to insist that they reproduced his own handwriting rather than conventional typeface.

An excerpt from "The Southern Fells" : a route to Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England

Wainwright was the Borough Treasurer of Kendal, fell-walker, and map-maker extraordinaire. He was a genius.

He was also, Dr Crippen believes, a sufferer from Asperger’s syndrome. Asperger’s syndrome is not that common and, although it has had some publicity over the last few years, most people have still not heard of it.

Hans Asperger

Hans Asperger first described the condition to which he gave his name in 1944. One can debate medical nomenclature endlessly, and there is a lot of discussion as to whether or not Asperger’s is a form of autism. Ultimately it does not much matter. There are similarities.

There is an excellent web-site called OASIS which brings together information from around the world. There are also, I am afraid, a whole load of looney-tune sites run by people with their own obsessions about the causes of Asperger’s and autism. Immunisations, of course. And the “heavy metal chelators”. I do not propose even to reference their sites, but if you are interested in a rational discussion of all these crazy theories, have a look at Left Brain/Right Brain, written by a web site designer who has a daughter who is autistic.

So, what exactly is Asperger’s? The best detailed description of it can be found here in a paper by Lorna Wing from the Institute of Psychiatry in the UK, and also from the introduction to the OASIS site:

Asperger Syndrome or (Asperger's Disorder) is a neurobiological disorder named for a Viennese physician, Hans Asperger, who in 1944 published a paper which described a pattern of behaviors in several young boys who had normal intelligence and language development, but who also exhibited autistic-like behaviors and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills. In spite of the publication of his paper in the 1940's, it wasn't until 1994 that Asperger Syndrome was added to the DSM IV and only in the past few years has AS been recognized by professionals and parents.

Individuals with AS can exhibit a variety of characteristics and the disorder can range from mild to severe. Persons with AS show marked deficiencies in social skills, have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness. They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest. They have a great deal of difficulty reading nonverbal cues (body language) and very often the individual with AS has difficulty determining proper body space. Often overly sensitive to sounds, tastes, smells, and sights, the person with AS may prefer soft clothing, certain foods, and be bothered by sounds or lights no one else seems to hear or see. It's important to remember that the person with AS perceives the world very differently. Therefore, many behaviors that seem odd or unusual are due to those neurological differences and not the result of intentional rudeness or bad behavior, and most certainly not the result of "improper parenting".

By definition, those with AS have a normal IQ and many individuals (although not all), exhibit exceptional skill or talent in a specific area. Because of their high degree of functionality and their naiveté, those with AS are often viewed as eccentric or odd and can easily become victims of teasing and bullying. While language development seems, on the surface, normal, individuals with AS often have deficits in pragmatics and prosody. Vocabularies may be extraordinarily rich and some children sound like "little professors." However, persons with AS can be extremely literal and have difficulty using language in a social context.

Briefly an Aspie is socially inept. He may not respond in a conventional manner to social cues. This may just make him seem shy. It may make him seem objectionable. Wainwright could be both. An Aspie relates better to things than to people. Wainwright related to the Lakeland Fells and to the maps he drew of them.

An Aspie may have interests or, in particular, one overwhelming interest, that occupies most of his waking life. Maps, computer games, train spotting… whatever. Most of us do not use the term Aspie, we have never heard of it. But in the UK we do have another expression. We call them “train spotters” or “anoraks”. The shy teenage boy, sitting in the corner at the party, who says little. But ask him about his hobby and he will give you an exhaustive list of the hundred tallest buildings in the world.

Aspies are not stupid. They are of normal intelligence. A few are particularly gifted. It would be wonderful to be able to say that they were all touched with genius like Beethoven or Wainwright. Sadly, the truth is less interesting.

I believe though, and I have no figures or data to back this up (so I expect to be shot down in the comments column) that some Aspies, albeit without exceptional intelligence, are able to excel in one probably narrow field, because they have abilities of concentration that are denied to most of us. Concentration so strong that it may exclude many of the more normal aspects of life.

The difference between severe autism and “normality” (Dr Crippen uses the word “normality” without defining it but is always interested to receive suggestions as to a working definition!) is a gradation going through a wide spectrum. The severely autistic child presents challenging management problems. There are few people who have never experienced shyness. Most of us are somewhere in between.

Wainwright was an Aspie. He was fascinated by maps from an early age. The fascination was almost to the exclusion of all else. His first marriage was a disaster. He was never there. Read the excellent biography by Hunter Davies.

Recently, Davies has commented:

“His claim to greatness is his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. Over 13 years, in his spare time, he climbed 214 Lakeland fells, getting to each on foot or by public transport, as he couldn't drive, then he wrote up his notes in little home-made books. They were miniature works of art, in that he drew everything by hand, the words and the illustrations.

In 1955, he began publishing them, originally at his own expense, exactly as he had written and drawn them, without an ounce of printer's type. By 1985, despite not a penny being spent on advertising, publicity or promotion, they had sold one million copies. Nor did he do any literary lunches, appearances or signing sessions. If he'd been starting today, no publisher would accept him.

Wainwright loved the fells, loved animals more than humans, and always preferred to be on his own in Lakeland” (Hunter Davies, in the New Statesman).

Wainwright’s books have been a constant source of pleasure to me since I was a teenager. The Lakeland Fells seem a lot steeper now than when I first walked them, but I shall be up there over the next couple of weeks, whatever the weather, with my Wainwright.

Thank goodness for Asperger’s syndrome.

+++++

More details on Wainwright from The Wainwright Society

The complete set of The Lakeland Fells available here

Helvellyn in Winter from Ann Bowker's "Mad about Mountains"