The Greta

 This is the book that deep down I always wanted to write.

Which is not to say that I did not want to write any of the other books I have written and published under the River Greta Writer banner; nothing could be further from the truth. It is simply that this book, The Greta, is arguably the most personal and is about the river with which I have had a close affinity all my life, including the years of my childhood when I lived for the best part of 10 years in a terraced house half a dozen paces from the bank of the river at Low Briery, then a working bobbin mill and farm and now a holiday village; which in a nutshell, I guess, tells you a lot about the changing face of the Lake District.

During the research and writing of ‘The Greta’ some people queried how it would be possible to write an entire book about a four-mile stretch of river? No fewer than 272 pages later I have hopefully provided the answer to that question in a publication that has a greater pagination than any of its predecessors in the series of Lakeland books that so far comprises ‘Ivver Sen,’ ‘Joss’ and ‘Jack’s Yak.’

My attachment to the Greta was obvious through my choice of name for the publishing company, River Greta Writer, that I established in 2007 following a working life as a local newspaper reporter on The Whitehaven News and, later, newspaper and magazine editor with The Cumbrian Gazette and Cumbria Life. The words River Greta Writer had a certain ring to them and were symbolic of my sense of freedom after deciding to go it alone.

In cutting loose and setting out as a full-time writer and publisher it was not my firm intention at the outset to write a book about the River Greta. I had been writing pieces at regular intervals about the river and while the idea of at sometime writing a book was washing around in my thoughts – like a twig caught up in a whirlpool on the beck – it only became a definitive statement of intent two years ago when I began my research in earnest.

It is a book that I have inadvertently been researching all my life simply by living close to the river. Like many other people I probably took the river for granted and I suspect that this is a river that has far greater significance for the people of Keswick and the thousands of visitors the town and area attracts than they themselves might realise. To consider the town of Keswick without the River Greta is unthinkable.

It is always there, ever flowing, never ceasing, always constant, high, noisy and raucous or low, soft and musical on its journey from its source and tributaries in the fells and, ultimately, after joining the River Derwent, to the sea.

I love to listen to the Greta at night, while walking home, when the town is largely silent and the full volume of the river’s passage under Brundholme Woods is much more noticeable. It was not without good reason that the poet Robert Southey labelled the Greta ‘the loud lamenter’ and its Old Norse name ‘grjot a’ translates to ‘rocky river.’ When the river is in spate you can actually hear the boulders rumbling along the bed of the river.

There is always something special about walking by the river, to take in the distinctive aroma of the beck and to stand on its pebble strewn bank among clumps of the prolific Greater Woodrush and the occasional golden burst of marigold, watching trout rise or the white-fronted dipper bobbing and weaving on a stone in the middle of the fast-flowing current before hurtling, a brown blur in a hurry, up and down the beck at astonishing speed. The river has many qualities.

To spend time with the river is to relax. Yet it is also inspirational, emptying the mind of troubles and allowing more positive thoughts and ideas to flood in. It is also a great place to sit, to look and, that apart, to do absolutely nothing.

As I worked on the book and developed my ideas, a number of specific themes or subjects began to rise out of the maelstrom and became chapter or section headings. In the order in which they appear in the book they were the river’s source and tributaries; the memorial stone at the foot of Skiddaw near Whit Beck, a tributary of the Glenderaterra; the river dwellers, the people who have lived or still live on its banks; the old stone bridges over the river; the days of water-powered mills and industry; a childhood at Low Briery; wild swimming; Southey and Coleridge and Greta Hall and the family currently living there; flooding down the centuries; wildlife; fishing and fishermen; pollution and, last but not least, The History Files – the latter devoted to how the river ran through the life of the town from the late 19^th Century (1877) to the early years of the 20^th Century (1910).

It soon became clear, especially when interviewing people who live in houses near the river, that the Greta runs not only through some of the most magnificent scenery in the UK – if not the world – but that it also flows through the landscape of our lives.

Writing this book also brought home the importance of the cycle of water and the vital importance of clean water; after all the river has been polluted in the past from the lead mines on Blencathra and with sewage and other rubbish from the town. Good, clean water is, like the river, something that we may be in danger of taking for granted and we pollute water anywhere and anyhow at our peril and must always be mindful of any development that might compromise the quality of the Lake District and its rivers and lakes; now or in the distant future.

For instance, I have concerns about a proposal to bury long-lived, high level radioactive waste in a massive underground repository in Cumbria, in a location to the west of the county and possibly beneath or near the fells from which springs the water that is essential to life. Such a proposal inevitably raises the awful spectre of the possibility of water pollution in centuries to come from a potential radioactive graveyard.

On another level I have worries about the future of wildlife on the Greta. The otter on the river has experienced a welcome renaissance but the threat to the Atlantic salmon is very real and the numbers of fish currently running the river to spawn are diminishing at an alarming rate. It is a problem that is not specific to the Greta but is a wider environmental issue and one that, in my view, needs urgent attention.

The book ‘The Greta’ is a celebration of the river and the vale and the town through which it runs. I only hope that the people who live in and visit Keswick and the Lake District National Park of the future – at a time when it will hopefully be a World Heritage Site – will be able to appreciate and enjoy the river as much as I have done. And that the wildlife, such as the otter, the heron, the dipper and the trout and salmon will all be around to do much the same.

If they are then the Riv er Greta will be just fine and should be able to continue on its endless journey from the mountains to the sea for thousands more years to come.

 The book launch

 And finally . . . the book launch of ‘The Greta’ was an immense success at The Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, on October 21^st. It could not have gone any better had I wished.

The book is now on sale and I am receiving some very positive feedback. If you were not able to attend the launch please go along and see the photographic exhibition of images from the book, the majority of them by Val Corbett, of course). It’s a great little exhibition (not unlike the river) and runs in the theatre’s Circle Gallery until November 26, 2012.

The river itself will just keep on running . . . for an eternity.

 The Portico Prize

 ‘Jack’s Yak’, winner of The Lakeland Book of the Year, has been short listed for the prestigious non-fiction category of The Portico Prize (winner to be announced on November 22).

 Keith Richardson

November 6^th, 2012.