John Hawkridge (1948-2020) was a disabled mountaineer who is well-known for his ambitious walks and climbs despite his condition - Cerebral Palsy. He was born in West Yorkshire and lived in the area most of his life. He has featured in documentaries and interviews, in addition to writing books about his experiences (including Uphill all the Way and Sticks and Stones: an Autobiography). He chose his journeys based on what would give the best views and satisfactory scenery, so it is no surprise...

John Hawkridge (1948-2020) was a disabled mountaineer who is well-known for his ambitious walks and climbs despite his condition - Cerebral Palsy. He was born in West Yorkshire and lived in the area most of his life. He has featured in documentaries and interviews, in addition to writing books about his experiences (including Uphill all the Way and Sticks and Stones: an Autobiography). He chose his journeys based on what would give the best views and satisfactory scenery, so it is no surprise that he also liked to document these journeys on film so that they could be remembered. He has done many hikes, ranging from recommended local footpaths, to challenging expeditions at international mountains such as Mount Everest in 1988.

John was born on the 19th August 1948, and was one of the first pupils to attend Larchfield School in Harrogate, a Leeds Education Authority residential school for disabled children. During his stay at Larchfield, he was fitted with metal callipers (a type of leg brace) to aid his walking. John later moved to Potternewton Mansion School in Leeds as a day student. He received two bouts of experimental surgery in 1959 to attempt to straighten his legs, though this resulted in him ending up in a wheelchair and having to learn to walk again with the aid of crutches.

In his autobiography, Sticks and Stones (1987), John describes how his interest in hiking and mountaineering began. Despite his admission that he had previously ‘detested’ walking, in September 1968 he attempted to climb the summit of Skiddaw: a mountain in the Lake District just outside of Keswick in Cumbria, which at the height of 3,054 feet tall is the sixth-highest peak in England. Though he describes this expedition as a failure, he returned the next year with better equipment and a few friends to further his hiking pursuits.

In an interview with Richard Smith for the British Library’s oral history project - Speaking for ourselves: an oral history of people with cerebral palsy – John discussed how he first began filming his hiking adventures. In the mid-1970s, John bought a good-quality Super8 cinecamera, which was a popular tool for amateur home-movie makers at the time. He would take it with him to film himself on hikes and rock climbs, and then would make the footage into little cine-films to show people whenever he was ‘entertaining’.

By the late 1970s, John’s films had reached the notice of Yorkshire TV, who sent someone to look into making a film with him. In the above interview, John described how the director was really impressed with the content of the films, but said he was unable to show them or make a film out of them. As the director claimed, the public “wouldn’t be able to take it”, as John doing all of this walking without any help was not what people had come to expect regarding disabled people and their abilities. Despite the fact that John had already written several articles about his hiking for local magazines such as The Dalesman, and was well known around Yorkshire, it was apparent that the TV people were “frightened” of the image of disabled people he portrayed. (John Hawkridge Interviewed by Richard Smith, 09:03:24-09:06:19).

As John needed both of his hands on his sticks when walking, he often brought friends along with him to do the filming. Most commonly he was accompanied by Graham Thackwray or Philip Finch, or sometimes both on different days of the same long hike. Besides the Three Peaks of Yorkshire, films of John’s hikes in the YFA collection include The Dales Way: YFA 6777 https://www.yfanefa.com/record/_peFMbACdgZiPFyFxFMFpW, and Ascent of Scarfell Pike: YFA 6780 https://www.yfanefa.com/record/_1eF1rzHoFnFAFDFwFzp
The Three Peaks of Yorkshire is a popular circular route that covers three of the most well-known hills in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Each Peak can be climbed individually, which is often recommended as a good way to practice for completing the full circuit in twelve hours (known as the 3 Peaks Challenge). The Peaks feature heavily in John’s autobiographies, as it was an area which he returned to several times throughout his hiking career. He describes the route in his 1991 autobiography Uphill all the Way: “The Three Peaks are Pennyghent (2,273 feet), Whernside (2,419 feet) and Ingleborough (2,373 feet). The walk is about twenty-five miles over rough hills with nearly 5,000 feet of ascent and is normally completed in a day. It has become a recognized and gruelling test of ability and endurance, recommended for strong walkers only. Many more people start the walk than finish it. This was the sort of challenge I needed. To compensate for the time it would take me, I should have to carry a load between thirty and forty pounds, no mean feat in itself. It would need skill to navigate the course and tremendous willpower to keep going.” (Uphill all the Way, 1991, 141)

John had already climbed each of the Three Peaks individually in 1971. He returned in December 1975 for a solo attempt at the full route, but this was cut short early due to an injury in the icy conditions. In June 1976 John attempted the Three Peaks again, accompanied by his friend Graham Thackwray. This was once again cut short due to the weather, and because the alternative route John had planned for was not ideal. John attempted the Three Peaks a third time in July 1976, this time by the “officially recommended route” (Uphill all the Way, 1991, 143), accompanied by his friend Philip Finch. Third time lucky, they completed the whole route in 57 1/2 hours, 30 of those being spent walking. Upon reaching the end of the route in Horton, John was presented with a shield and made an honorary member of The Three Peaks of Yorkshire Club, an honour usually reserved only for those who complete the walk in twelve hours.

In 1981, John undertook the Three Peaks again at the request of his friend Roger Sharples - a senior teacher at Moorfield School for physically handicapped children in Preston, Lancashire – who wanted to do a walk with John to see him overcome his physical difficulties first-hand. The two were also accompanied by friends Dave Colsey and Norman Harrison. Graham Thackwray, who is credited with the camerawork for the film, is not mentioned in John’s autobiography as a member of this party, though he presumably accompanied them in order to provide the filming.

In his interview for the British Library’s oral history project, John describes how this walk deviated from the ‘original’ route of the Three Peaks, which was first initiated in an early issue of The Dalesman magazine around 1948. As John tells it, the original route went from a pub in Dent (a small village in Cumbria), across Whernside to another pub, and then across Ingleborough to yet another pub in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, North Yorkshire, then across Pen-y-Ghent to a collection of villages known as Littondale, and a final pub where the walk ended. John explains that knew he could do the route, as he had done it before, but didn’t want to follow this route because the ascent of Whernside from Ribblehead (an area of moorland in the Yorkshire Dales National Park) was so steep he never wanted to do it again. He claims that the official path of the Three Peaks has since been re-routed from this particular ascent, because it was, in John’s words, “horrendous.” John compared the difficulty of his earlier ascent of Whernside to his experiences in the “boggy part” of the Lyke Wake walk across the Yorkshire Moors, and even some parts of his climb of Mount Everest, saying that “sometimes in life you just have to be satisfied that you’ve managed to achieve something once.” (John Hawkridge Interviewed by Richard Smith, 11:38:00 – 11:42:29)


Sources:
John Hawkridge, Sticks and Stones: An Autobiography, Leeds: JH Productions; Bradford: Harvestime, 1987.
John Hawkridge, Uphill all the Way, London: Penguin Books, 1991.
“John Hawkridge interviewed by Richard Smith,” audio recording, British Library, Speaking for ourselves: an oral history of people with cerebral palsy, Recording date: 2005-02-15, 2005-03-01, 2005-03-21, 2005-05-16, 2005-06-09, 2005-06-27, 2005-07-27, 2005-08-30, 2005-09-05, 2005-11-04