The Greta

The Greta is more than a book about a river.

The book embraces the river as a central theme, a timeless current running through the life and times of the Lake District town of Keswick. The author Keith Richardson describes the Greta as the greatest little river in the world. Only four miles long it is a stream of immense beauty, especially in the higher reaches where the beck runs below Brundholme Woods. It is a river of endless fascination.

This book looks initially at the source and tributaries of the Greta and at the river dwellers, past and present, who have lived or still live on its banks - in some cases for their entire lives - and the impact that being by the river has had upon them. The author himself lived by the river, at Low Briery, the location of a working bobbin mill, and he relives his childhood experiences of those days.

The impact of the river extends to Greta Hall where the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey lived and worked in the first half of the 19th Century and from then to the present day and the family currently living at Greta Hall, high above the river as it flows through the town.

The history of the river includes the 27 water-powered mills that sprang up on its banks in its industrial heyday of the 19th Century and, before that, in Elizabethan times when it was a base for smelting works linked to copper mining. The book also reveals the extent of the pollution that was prevalent in the Greta, especially but not exclusively, at that time in the river's life, the mid to late 1800s, when it was little more than a running sewer poisoned further by the lead mines on Blencathra and when all aquatic life, including trout and salmon, was regularly wiped out.

The river's wildlife is also examined through the separate fortunes of two species, the river otter, enjoying a renaissance of late, and the Atlantic salmon which, in the writer's view, is increasingly under threat of extinction in the Greta and its tributaries. Other natives of the riverbank and surrounding woodland, kingfisher, dipper, heron, and red squirrel also appear.

The old stone bridges over the river are featured and the floods that have affected the area badly over the years. The author focuses on the river anglers, characters who have fished and - in some instances poached - the river man and boy. The final part of the book is devoted to how the river ran through the life of the town from the late 19th Century to the early years of the 20th Century and this provides an extraordinary image of the Keswick of yesteryear that is amusing, enlightening and tragic.

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THE WRITER

Keith Richardson lives in the Lake District town of Keswick, a stone’s throw from the River Greta. ‘The Greta’ is his fourth book under the banner of the River Greta Writer publishing house, the others being the award winning ‘Ivver Sen’, portraits of Lakeland shepherds & 'Jack's Yak' - which also featured the impressive artwork of Keith Bowen - and ‘Joss’, a biography of the legendary Lake District fell runner and shepherd Joss Naylor. www.rivergretawriter.co.uk

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Val Corbett lives on the eastern fringe of the Lake District where she has worked as a freelance photographer for over 25 years. She is widely known for her landscape photography that captures the unique light of the Lake District. Besides having several books of landscape images published, she has photographed gardens throughout the UK and her work regularly appears in books and the gardening press. Val’s work was also prominent in ‘Ivver Sen’ and ‘Joss.’ www.valcorbett.com

SALES OUTLETS

River Greta Writer, Keswick. Tel (017687)74284. keithr@rivergretawriter.co.uk
The Keswick Reminder, Station Street, Keswick.
Bookends bookshop, Main Street, Keswick & 56 Castle St, Carlisle.
Michael Moons Bookshop, 19 Lowther Street, Whitehaven.
Fred Holdsworth Bookshop, Central Buildings, Ambleside.
The New Bookshop and Coffee Shop, 42/44 Main Street, Cockermouth.
Sam Read's Bookshop, Broadgate House, Grasmere.
Just for Ewe, Fairfield House, Coniston.
Suttons Book Shop, 48 Market Street, Ulverston.
Treeby and Bolton, Lake Road, Keswick.
Viridian Gallery, St John's Street, Keswick.
Waterstones, Kendal, Barrow in Furness and Carlisle.
Pete Bland Sports, 34A Kirkland, Kendal (‘Joss’ book only)
Front Runner, 296 Sharrow Vale Road, Sheffield (‘Joss’ book only)