My recollections of Wholehope go back to the very earliest days. Although I was not with Bob Jewitt when he first found the place, I recall that at the time he was on the Tyneside YHA committee and that they were looking for a Hostel in upper Coquetdale, to make it easier for walkers to get higher up into the Cheviot Hills. It took some time before Bob was able to get them to approve his idea and even then it was conditional on it costing no more than £50 to do the work. The roof, windows and doors were all in good order but the inside walls were just rounded stones and we had a problem getting cement to adhere to them, but someone had a brilliant idea, we just pelted handfuls of cement at the walls and next weekend we were able to skim them nice and smooth. I worked up at Wholehope until the conversion was completed, with Bob Jewitt, Pitch Wilson, Tug Wilson, Eric and Sadie Kerr, John Gorman, George Baker, Charlie McGonnigal, Walter Wilkinson and many more lads and lasses I cannot put names to after more than 55 years. Bob was in charge of buying all the building materials, which were transported up by tractor and trailer by one of the Alwinton farmers, over the years he did the same with paraffin and coal. One summer, a young teacher from London called David Sevante came up and fell in love with the Cheviots; he came back every year for the whole of his holidays as a volunteer warden, so the hostel was always clean and welcoming. Incidentally, the early history of Wholehope is closely linked to the story of Old Rookland (see my Midnight Fishing Trip story). The old house was declared unfit to live in, so Bert and Mary Hindmarsh moved to a new farmhouse called New Rookland, situated between Clennel House and Biddlestone (later, they moved to Milkhope). Around this time, a rowdy crowd had taken over at Wholehope, so a small group including Charlie McGonnigal, Pitch Wilson, Eric Kerr, Walter Wilkinson and myself contacted the Rookland landlord and, for a very nominal yearly rent, it was ours. We used it for a few years until a huge gale lifted the whole roof off, then transferred our affections back to Wholehope. Charlie used to boast that Rooklands had a toilet with the best view in the district and it was true - from the house it looked like a well built privy, a green sentry box on the hillside, but on closer inspection it only had one side and a back, the rest had been used for firewood before we took the tenancy over. The double tier bunks at Wholehope were replaced with iron beds and the Rooklands gang bought them for a nominal sum, we had one hell of a job carrying them down to the Alwin Burn and up to the house, we must have been mad.
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