CHARNEY HALL Tarn Hows
In the Summer term the boys in their final year would sit the entrance examinations for the respective public schools which either they or their parents had chosen. The more intelligent pupils (whatever that meant) would be encouraged to apply for a scholarship and if awarded, the whole school, as a way of celebration, would be given the day off and be taken by coach to Tarn Hows.
Invariably the weather was hot and sunny - whether that was to due to immaculate timing and accurate weather forecasting by Maxwell Duncan or just plain luck I cannot remember. To the inmate of a preparatory school this was like a Bank Holiday. Something for nothing - no work (lessons) and a day out with packed lunch (instead of pay) in a beautiful part of the Lake District.
In the 1950s Tarn Hows was completely unspoilt. There appeared to be no designated car park so the coach was just parked off-road. The path around the shoreline, a popular walk today, was not clearly defined and it was unpaved like the majority of Lakeland paths in those days.
We sprang out of the coach and straightway, with towels around our waists, we donned our swimming trunks. The brave ones dived in and disappeared off shore. The water was cold but not freezing like the Grange Lido, so for me, being a non-swimmer, it was a case of gingerly paddling in the shallows, coming to terms with the crippling discomfort of the sharp stones on the slimy lake bed and avoiding the embarrassment of loosing my foothold and falling over.
Boys interested in entomology tended to look for newts, in particular the Great Crested variety which we had recently discovered in shallow ponds near the site of ‘The Tanks’ * in Eggerslack Wood, near the gate onto the fell on Hampsfell Road. They tended to hide in the green algae which was the cause of all that slipperiness under foot.
The Great Crested Newt Credit : Wordpress.com
Suddenly someone found something black stuck to his leg. At first I thought that it was a slug but it swayed around like a caterpillar looking to move to another leaf. It was persistent and when compared with slug speed, was quick. Someone cried out l e e c h ! and we all left the water a lot quicker than we had paddled in.
It was my first meeting with a leech. On closer inspection there were many in the shallows of Tarn Hows. Nobody had warned us about them. There was no way that one of those blood sucking worms was going to have a meal on me, so I spent the remainder of my time in the water looking under all the loose stones where they could be lying in wait!
And then there were the dragonflies (damselflies), beautifully suited in iridescent blue or red hues. They landed on the plants and rushes near the lake side. Some were stuck together, flying in tandem - we knew what they were up to. Moths did the same thing but usually on a tree trunk or stone wall…
The black and yellow ringed dragonflies were something else. They were large and appeared aggressive, catching their prey on the wing and ‘despatching it with a single crunch’. You could hear their wings whirring and they appeared to me to be Nature’s answer to the helicopter. We were warned that they could give you a painful bite if you got up close and personal with them.
Flies were everywhere. The heat and humidity when rarely experienced in the Lake District brought them out in droves. The silent ones were the worst. Light of feet, with large cloudy wings, flying slowly almost to a hover, looking for an arm or a leg, they could suck your blood without even being noticed. We observed that the more blood they sucked, the larger were their abdomens - quite disgusting!
So on future outings to Tarn Hows we ventured forth fully briefed and prepared to repel the enemy.
On the first outing we had learnt that all was not necessarily what it seemed. On future scholarship celebrations, and we were blessed with quite a few in my time, we rejoiced in the freedom of experiencing one small beautiful and peaceful part of the Lake District in the knowledge that as senior boys we would climb those majestic Lakeland hills on Sunday walks in years to come.
1956 was a cold year. During February half-term when parents would visit, staying overnight in one of the traditional Grange hotels, my father heard that Tarn Howes had frozen over.
So off we set the next day, braving the freezing weather, to see the tarn in winter clothing.
The view from the road as we drove over from Hawkshead was astounding. In the centre of the tarn people had formed a large circle, perhaps 100 feet (30 metres) in diameter. In the centre others were skating around in circles, displaying their skills and enjoying a spectacle which has probably not occured many times since!
The hardest decision was where to access the ice? There was no sign as to how the skaters had managed to reach the centre and the ice appeared thin and was cracking and groaning around the perimeter.
To cut a short slippery walk even shorter we managed to reach the skating rink, enjoyed an unforgettable experience and retreated off the ice the way that we had come.
There still lurks the question in the back of my mind. What would have happened if we had fallen through the ice? I don’t think that it was that thick and I didn’t see any ladders….
* ‘The Tanks’ were a mystery. Large and sinister they had been abandoned by industrial man long ago. Nature had reclaimed the site which had become thickly wooded and although the name was used as a reference to one of our walks, once reached we were not allowed to explore them.
Leeches:
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