Irvine Hunt - author

Lakeland Yesterday - Vol II

Published April 2011

In this second volume of Lakeland Yesterday Irvine Hunt creates a vivid collection of old photographs and stories from a century ago when people crowded the streets at Cumbrian hiring fairs, a straw in their caps to show they sought work; when boys of 14 stripped bark from trees for the tanneries; when horse-drawn coaches were more common than cars.

Pictures of cycle races, daring climbers, pioneering aviators, of travelling circuses and dour-looking criminals; of slate miners, charcoal burners, shepherds, maids and farmhands - the men and women who have left their mark on one of Britain's best-loved landscapes.

Follow the tab above for a small selection of the pictures featured in the book. There are many more, almost 200 in all.

Veteran journalist Irvine Hunt has sourced some fascinating photographs to illustrate this wonderful dip into Lake District history.
Cumbrian life is featured in all its manifestations and plenty of characterful faces from the pages, including such characters as George Smith, the Skiddaw Hermit, Will Ritson, the famed Wasdale Head storyteller, and the original Grasmere Gingerbread maker Sarah Nelson.
There is even a rogue's gallery of miscreants who appeared before the Kendal magistarates in the 1800s.
Some of the photographs have never before been published - coming straight from family albums.
A great read and real nostalgic treat! - Allan Tunningley, Westmorland Gazette

Examples of bygone transport - a 'boneshaker' bike, carriages, horse-drawn ploughs, early aircraft, even a pig - are among the treasures in these 'Memories of the Lake District & Cumbria in words and period photographs'. There are shots of Ruddy Mary, who sold rudd stone for reddening steps and window surrounds; of 'mighty George Steadman', champion Cumberland and Westmorland wrestler; and of early pupils at Newton Rigg Farm School.
Irvine Hunt's meticulous research and elegant and enlightening prose do full justice to the fascinating photographs, some published here for the first time. - Cumbria Life

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Irvine Hunt is the author of nine books including an adventure novel, The Drover's Boy; a book of evocative short stories, Road to Paradise; and Norman Nicholson's Lakeland, a prose anthology.

A colourful literary life has included five years as a sub-editor at The Daily Telegraph, film making in Norway, personal assistant to the general manager at the National Film Theatre, a lecturer on cinema history for the British Film Institute, and a nine-month trek round Spain and Portugal.

Irvine Hunt and his family live in the English Lake District.