The Old England Hotel In The Lake District
I gather you don't like it, he said; I do
I gather you don't like it, he said; I do. It is one architect's doodle that has come off. It seems to work. I am afraid that, brought up as I was in a family devoted to the design and production of cars, whose basic theory was if it looks right, it usually is right, I have tended to apply this theory, not only to cars, but to buildings and many other artefacts. The result is that although I appear to be in a minority this yacht club building never quite 'clicked' with me.
It is true' that it is now complemented, balanced, and its shock effect diminished by new extensions to its larger neighbour, the Old England Hotel, but I still have the feeling that this design, in this setting, is wrong, and that its corrugated roof described as being symbolic of water could equally well surmount a factory devoted to the production of transistor radios.
We stood at the steamer pier, which at this time of the year was occupied only by quarrelling gulls. Soon it would be the centre piece of this busy holiday resort, and the steamers which we had seen at Lakeside two hours earlier, still in hibernation, would be embarking and disembarking a new season's passengers. I pointed across the bay road to the terrace of fiats built in staggered echelon. Quite sure that he could not possibly approve of these, I made no comment. He gave these too an appraising look, then turned to me and grinned.
Remember the old adage painted on the firecurtain of the Garrick Theatre back in the old home town? he asked. I did indeed, and although he was now applying it, somewhat unfairly, in a context different to that originally intended.
I took his point as I recalled the words which admonished those who would hurl abuse, or possibly tomatoes, at struggling thespians:
La critique est aisee, mais l'art est difficile. Which put me quite firmly in my place. So be it, I said; but I'd rather look at these, and I indicated the green huts of the lake boatmen, also in staggered echelon close to the pier and at the end of the promenade, reminding one of the Victorian bathing huts of yesterday. Once these huts were the individual 'head offices' of the old Bowness boat hiring families the Tebays, the Bisphams, the Campbells, the Hodgsons and the Flemings. These families between them controlled the 'closed shop' of plying for hire in the bay, vying with each other in raucous tones as they sought the patronage of the passerby. By now competition is a thing of the past, and only the original names are recognized on the headboards of the huts.
The descendants of the old families have merged and trade now under the blanket title of the Bowness Bay Boating Company. They still maintain their own craft, but profits and resources are shared. The old rivalries are gorie, and maybe some of the fun is missing, for there is no fun in a monopolyaonly profit at the end of the season.
Great characters some of these boatmen. Choose a day when business is slack, when the rain lashes the lake, and the wind from Langdale whips the surface into fury, and when the boat men sit in their huts, puffing their pipes, or busy themselves in baling out their locally built larch and mahogany rowing boats. Choose this kind of day and take time out to have a yarn with them, for they will not try to coerce you into venturing on the lake, not in this weather, not just for the sake of a hiring fee.
by: Adrian Vultur
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