Summary
ONE of the things I've always admired about Hunter Davies is his steadfast refusal to write about sky, trees, birds. An old-school hack, he won't waste time on description, doesn't beat about the bush - certainly doesn't ponder what kind of bush it is. All of this is amazing when you're on the third leg of the journey to meet him - train, bus and finally taxi, and your driver is telling you about the Cumbrian cabbies he knew who were killed by Derrick Bird, about the Great Flood of Cockermouth - and you're almost oblivious to the area's notoriety for the hardest of hard news because of its gobsmacking beauty.
In best Hunteresque tradition I won't dally over it, but suffice to say there are mountains and there are lakes. This is the Lake District where the writerly couple of Davies and Margaret Forster spend half the year in a white-walled former carpenter's cottage, circa 1860. You might think Davies was just as ancient, given his towering output, but he's a mere 74, wearing well despite a knee op, and still with that full head of dark hair and mouser, forever tying him to the Swinging Sixties and all those pop stars and footballers.See the full content of this document
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Saved From the Skip
The house is on a hillock which protected it from last autumn's flooding and there's Hunter in his garden, safe from water and watery words, beckoning me up to the conservatory. "I don't do nature," he confirms in his shorts...
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