The Fairy Steps

In 1999, my first marriage came to an end and I moved out of the house in Barbon and rented a place in Beetham, which is on the A6, just south of Milnthorpe. My new home was set in a terrace of six backing onto a steep hillside. 

They had been designed by an architect and were quite odd: the central heating, for example, was in the ceiling. Slightly less unconventional was setting the living room on the top floor so that it looked out over a rather splendid view. I really liked it.

During the week, I was working in Edinburgh but I had my daughters two weekends in three, which was a bit tough but they hated the idea of me being sad and missing them during the week so that encouraged me to socialise and get out and about in the evenings during the week and at the weekend I'd tell them about work and my friends. 

On a Sunday afternoon, unless the weather was really foul, we'd walk up through the woods to "the fairy steps", a fissure in the limestone with very approximate 'steps' from top to bottom. The story went that if you could get all the way down without touching the sides, the fairies would grant you a wish.

I don't think any of the girls ever managed it but I would go first and hide treats - sweets or biscuits - at the bottom and tell them that the fairies had left them. This appeared to take the sting out the failure to earn a wish.

After yesterday's run, I decided to go back there today with Dan for our walk.  We parked down by the Heron Theatre and then walked up. In my photo you can see the chap I once used to call "the little fella" squeezing his way down. 

From the bottom - where I surprised him with a flapjack that the fairies had left from him - we headed west through Underlaid Woods to Hazelslack and then back along Dolly Wood Lane to Slackhead, which is where my old house is. 

It's funny to think it's twenty years since I lived and ran around here and how much has changed. Thanks to everyone battening the hatches down for the Millennium Bug, I enjoyed my only period of unemployment while living here in January and February 2000. I remember taking my mobile phone out when I ran in case any agents called and logging onto Jobserve using my 28.8k modem to look for work lol

My extra is of those houses at Slackhead. My one, number 2, was just further away, around the bend.

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