Country Diary: Lake District

It was on the sharp, conical summit of Stickle Pike that I saw someone I thought I knew leaning against the cairn, with its incomparable view of Caw and Corney Fell. He was reading a book and eating a sandwich and seemed oblivious to my somewhat clumsy approach. "Now then, Martin," I said. "Getting ready for this month's Brewery concert?" But I realized when he glanced up through his wire-rimmed glasses that, rather than Martin Roscoe, who lives nearby, it was someone who looked similar. After my stuttered apologies, this fell walker said he was certainly not a concert pianist, nor even a classical music fan. Few climbers I have met like this particular kind of music, and I have always kept my taste for it to myself.

Harry Griffin, who wrote this column for 53 years, was not one of those who detested such music, however. Each time I visited his fell side flat in Kendal, he would address the keyboard of his upright piano and play a request - say, the Organ Grinder from Die Winterreise, or Haydn's variations in F minor. Martin Roscoe, who arrived at fell walking relatively late in life, finding a new world to take him out from his universe of music, would have enjoyed his company.

I once clambered to the top of Stickle Pike with this favorite of the concert halls, and he mentioned an impressive list of Lakeland summits ticked, including scrambles on Jack's Rake, Lord's Rake and Sharp Edge, when mist once lured him down from the top of Blencathra on to its intimidating, slippery crest. Such an experience he would rather have done without, he said, admitting to being moderately cautious on mountains. Had a rock rolling down a fell side ever damaged his hand while he was reaching for a handhold? No, he said, nor were his hands at that time insured.