Walt Unsworth 1928-2017
W
Roly Smith leads the tributes to an inspirational guiding light
alt Unsworth, who has died after a short illness
at the age of 88, could justly be regarded as the
father fi gure of British outdoor writing.
He founded the respected Cicerone Press with his
climbing friends Brian and Aileen Evans exactly 50 years
ago this year. Frustrated at the price of practical climbing
guides to the Lake District, they got together to produce
their fi rst independent guide, which sold for eight shillings
(40p), in 1967.
Together they made an ideal team, with Walt as the
writer and Brian as the artist, designer and printer. The
guide sold well, and the proceeds of each new book went
into the production of the subsequent one.
He was born at Ardwick, Manchester and educated
at Abram, near Wigan, where he fi rst met his wife,
Dorothy. Walt began fellwalking in the Lake District as
a youth during the Second World War. Rock climbing
was a natural progression, and during the 1950s, he was
one of many young tigers, such as Joe Brown and Don
Whillans, for whom the “bob-a-night” (5p) Wall End Barn
in Langdale almost became their second home.
After conscription and service in the Army, Walt was
off ered an assisted place at Chester Teacher Training
College and his fi rst teaching job took him to as a science
teacher to Wolverhampton. Later he became Head of
Physics at Birch Road Secondary Modern School at
Walkden, Manchester.
But his fi rst and abiding interest was always climbing
and the outdoors, and he introduced many of his pupils
to the hills, many of whom, like Eric Price of Worsley, still
used to visit h im in later life. While at Birch Road he also
introduced one of the fi rst Duke of Edinburgh Schemes, a
fact recognised by a visit from the Duke himself.
He eventually achieved his ambition of becoming
a full-time writer, specialising in walking, climbing and
travel. He wrote several climbing guides himself, notably
to Anglezarke Quarry, near Horwich, where he made
many fi rst ascents. His English Outcrops (Gollancz, 1964),
illustrated by John Cleare, was described as “one of the
seminal books of post-war climbing.”
Walt eventually became editor of Climber (later
Climber and Rambler) magazine, where he was known by
his staff as ‘Uncle Walt’, on the recommendation of Chris
Brasher in 1962. As editorial adviser to the publisher,
Holmes McDougall, he also named and helped launch the
revamped magazine as The Great Outdoors (now TGO).
He was also one of the founder members of the
Outdoor Writers’ Guild – now the Outdoor Writers’ and
Photographers’ Guild – in 1980, and later became its fi rst
president.
Cicerone Press produced over 250 well-respected
guides “for walkers and climbers, written and produced
by walkers and climbers” under his leadership. Walt
gave many Guild members their fi rst opportunity to be
published, and he was always fi ercely supportive of them.
Walt had published twenty elegantly-written books of
his own, including Portrait of the River Derwent (Robert
Hale, 1971); the groundbreaking Encyclopaedia of
Mountaineering (Robert Hale, 1975), and his defi nitive
histories of Everest and Mont Blanc.
As a former teacher, he was justly proud of the fact
that his trilogy of childrens’ books based in the Peak
District during the Industrial Revolution – The Devil’s Mill,
Whistling Clough and Grimsdyke (Gollancz, 1968-70) –
became recommended reading as part of the National
Curriculum.
Walt won the ITAS Prize for Mountain Literature at the
Trento Festival in 1992 for his Everest book, and I was
honoured to present him with the OWPG’s prestigious
Golden Eagle Award for distinguished service to the
outdoors in 1996. Never has the award been so richly
deserved.
As a travel writer, Walt and his wife Dot visited many
countries around the world, either privately or as a guest
of tourist boards or travel companies, and he wrote up his
trips for many national newspapers. The couple married
in 1952 and had two children; Gail, a retired radiologist
and now garden plant specialist and Duncan, a former
BBC cameraman and photographer. Walt had fi ve
grandchildren and two great granddaughters.
In later years, he delighted in running the annual
Milnthorpe Art Exhibition from Harmony Hall, his elegant
Georgian home, for the Milnthorpe Men’s Forum, raising
thousands of pounds for local artists and charities.
Walt’s quietly-spoken, sometimes gruff , Lancashire
burr always communicated good, no-nonsense, northern
common sense, and he was enormously supportive of me
when I became chairman of the Guild in 1990. He was the
mentor and guiding light to so many prospective outdoor
writers, and will be sadly missed by the entire outdoor
community.
His advice to would-be outdoor writers, expressed
in an interview with Stephen Neale last year, was:
“Don’t miss anything. Keep your ears open and pick up
something that no one else is thinking about and see what
you can do with it, and you may succeed.”
autumn 2017 | Outdoor focus 3