RORY DELIVERS 2013 WAINWRIGHT LECTURE

Rory has delivered the 2013 Wainwright Lecture, on the 75th anniversary of Alfred Wainwright’s ‘Pennine Journey’ – the celebrated author’s 11-day walk through the Pennines in 1938. It was this walk that inspired Wainwright’s first full-length book, although it was not to be published until 1986. He also received a lifetime honorary membership to the Wainwright Society.

Introduced as a “man who could outwalk Wainwright”, Rory declared that it was an honour and a privilege to speak to the assembled audience, which filled Rheged’s main auditorium. In a talk that was based on his walk around his constituency and the Border region in 2012, Rory discussed the area’s history as a Middleland and as a Roman colony; the importance of geological divisions; and the relationship between communities and landscapes. He paid tribute to Wainwright, who he declared “symbolised someone at one with the soil and the landscape, at the very end of the age of Romanticism.”

Wainwright Society Secretary Derek Cockell said: “It was an inspirational lecture and we have received only complimentary comments about Rory’s talk.”
For a full-length version of Rory Stewart’s lecture, please contact the Wainwright Society at http://www.wainwright.org.uk/.