Why a Booktrail?
1971: Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2018
Towards Mellbreak
What you need to know before your trail
Harold runs Ard Farm following on from many generations of the same family. Out on the fells, he feels his father’s presence, and there is hope that he, his grandmother and his Uncle Joe will be able to take the farm forward and prosper. But their way of life is under threat. Farming is undergoing huge change and increasingly harmful intervention. As the years pass, and Harold has a son of his own, he strives to keep control of his land, to make a go of it, even while forces he cannot understand are gradually destroying him…
Travel Guide
Cumbria
Towards Mellbreak is a hymn both to the landscape of Cumbria and to a disappearing world. It gives an account of the struggle to preserve traditions and beliefs in the face of change.
This is quite a tough and painful portrait of a family over many years and through the generations. Starting in the 1970s and following on through the 1990s, the landscape and culture and communities change. This is not the Cumbria you will be used to from the tourist brochures – but this is an honest and raw account of what it’s like to live on the land, live from the land and depend on the land.
Work on the farm, in the rural Cumbrian landscape is a constant battle. The elements, the soil, the changing landscape and the changing role of the countryside and the authorities in the big cities. These places and communities are like a dying breed and the struggle to maintain their rural charm and rural way of life is threatened in various ways over the years.
This book is like settling down in someone’s farm kitchen with a hot bowl of soup and listening to them talk, then walking with them through their landscape, sniffing the aromas of the farms with the fresh air and the scent of history and tradition trailing not far behind.
Crummock Water
And there it was, Crummock Water. A swell to its edge A silver offering before Mellbreak Valley on the other side. Clouds over there often blaze-bellied, breaking for streaks across the twin peaks as if the heaves were in conversation.
Hymns continued to streak through the fields between silences, the sound of Sourmilk waterfall drumming as they neared the lake, And in time, they all gathered along the the shore to look out over Buttermere towards Honister Pass; Fleetwith Pike leaning into the water before the wind reflected its reflections like a fleece
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Towards Mellbreak
Destination: Cumbria Author/Guide: Marie-Elsa Bragg Departure Time: 1970s – 1990s
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
