Our Dad was Bob Jewitt, the link between the personalities mentioned in the various references to Wholehope on this website and the YHA system that regulated the development and maintenance of Hostels in the late 1940's. In those early post-war years, Dad and his mates travelled far and wide, his usual group comprising himself and three other South Shields lads (the only name we can remember is Campbell ("Cam") Crockett who emigrated to Australia in the 1950's and recently died). Sometimes, they took the Kielder railway line, eating breakfast in the dining car en route up the North Tyne. They camped out as well, but often made use of hostels, in particular Alnham, and in 1947 or 8 they all went to Norway in search of more demanding terrain.
We once asked Dad why he and his friends decided to convert Wholehope into a hostel - his answer was surprisingly practical. The existing hostels didn't give very good access to the Cheviots and they wanted somewhere which would give them a more central base. No-one had cars in those days, and on one pre-Wholehope occasion Dad and a largish group walked all night in order to get access to Windy Gyle and the section of the border ridge to the South. It obviously made a big impression on him, he remembered that they arrived on Windy Gyle in darkness and that lighthouses were visible on both coasts.
He told us that in the late 40's and early 50's, people in upper Coquetdale had a simple life, without modern amenities, and that local farmers and shepherds were unfailingly helpful and friendly while the hostel was being renovated. Apparently, water supply was always a problem - my understanding is that it came from the burn behind the house. The hostellers included a Northumberland miner who suggested that they excavate a swimming pool in the burn. Dad apparently agreed that this was a good idea, so the following weekend, the miner turned up with a collection of explosives and detonators, proposing to blast out a pool! Presumably they managed to dissuade him. One of the things that came across from Dad's descriptions was how popular the hostel was in its heyday - however many people turned up, they were all squashed in somehow and conditions must have often resembled an air raid shelter. Dad also remembered evenings of ghost-story telling (see The Halloween Party). Photos on the website show Norway posters on the walls - perhaps these originated from Dad's expedition there in 1947 or 8?
Jack Lawton seemed to be something of a legendary character among Dad's group. Dad said that he had been injured in the war, fitted with a caliper and told that he would never walk without it. Apparently he became a fearless and tough walker and one day on a summit he took off the caliper and threw it over a crag. We still have a copy of Poucher's "A Camera in the Cairngorms" given to Dad by Jack Lawton for Christmas 1947, which they spent under the Shelter Stone in the Cairngorms. It is inscribed "In memory of an overnight walk and its repercussions". We presume that this refers to the overnight walk to Windy Gyle - but we don't know what the repercussions were, perhaps this heroic effort prompted Dad to set up Wholehope?
Regarding life at Wholehope, Dad was always a bit vague. He spoke of his walking days as the best time of his life, a time that he left behind when he got married, and it was too painful for him to go into detail about it, because it reminded him of what he had lost.
Why did our Dad have such bittersweet memories of his walking days? Why didn't he just carry on walking? He married in February 1953 and Alan was born in December 1953. For all practical purposes, that was the end of his walking exploits, because walking wasn't a meditative activity for him; it was inseparable from being with a gang, having a laugh, doing slightly reckless things. Many young marrieds nowadays haul young kids up hills, for our Dad that wasn't the same thing as life at Wholehope.
We visited Wholehope in about 1967 and it was still in a reasonable state of repair, fairly watertight and apparently in use as a bothy. My Dad and another Dad walked up with a gang of under 10s. Like most bothies, it contained a communal food store including chocolate - somehow we were persuaded not to scoff it all. Over the next few years it gradually fell into ruins, marking the end of an era and the end of a way of life that had energised and motivated our Dad and his mates, real characters of a type rarely met in today's fast-moving and competitive society. Sadly, Dad died in 1999. He was 75, not a bad life-span for someone who was diagnosed as a diabetic when he was 13 years old.
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