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An exciting new project investigating what it means to be Cumbrian.
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A Bit of Lad? And lets not forget the lasses!
Now thats a phrase that could be used to describe many a Cumbrian character.
Take for instance John Peel the famous huntsman from Caldbeck, immortalised in song by John Woodcock Graves: you know with the coat so grey and the sound of his hounds in the morning!
Hed set off with his dogs at daybreak and cover fifty or sixty miles over some of the bleakest fell country around before retiring for a little light refreshment at the Sun Inn at Ireby.
Oh, OK, perhaps he enjoyed the odd pint or six too. He was a tough man without a doubt but if you look at the landscape he lived in you soon realise that John Peel and his contemporaries had to be tough.
 | | Low Greenrigg |
The house near Caldbeck where John Peel grew up
They were sometimes snowed in for weeks on end. The links with other towns and villages were poor.
There were no waterproof clothes and tractors with cabs were just a blissful dream in those days.
It was a case of survival of the fittest, and some people reckon that its this self-sufficient survival instinct thats provided the genes for todays modern Cumbrian character.
 | | Nan and Kathleen, also from an old Caldbeck family, next to the original fireplace in John Peels childhood home |
There are lots of myths about John Peel, Cumbrias most famous huntsman, but Nan Savage from Whelpo is his great great great granddaughter and probably knows more about him than anyone else. Listen to Nan talking about her notorious ancestor John Peel >>
Of course the Cumbrian personality is a bit of a hybrid; theres a bit of the Cumberland character, some of the Westmorland, a decent helping of Lancashire and a dash of the West Riding of Yorkshire just to put the icing on the cake if thats not mixing our kitchen metaphors too much. Ted Relph, stalwart of the Lakeland Dialect Society, hails from the characterful village of Crosby Ravensworth, slap bang in the heart of Westmorland.
 | | Ted Relph |
Hes come across a manuscript written in the 1890s by one Dr Mason from Kirkby Stephen who put his thoughts about the Westmorland character down on paper.
In his opinion Westmorland folk are independent, intelligent, decisive, self-controlled and witty (although he only reserved this quality for the menfolk!).
Then again he was a Westmorland chap, so hed hardly slate his neighbours. We reckon his best comment is that Westmorland folks are 'capable of great things but not easily fired to do them'. Anyone recognise that as a Cumbrian trait?!
Cumbria is a predominantly rural county. The average population density in England and Wales is 3.2 people per hectare. In Cumbria its just 0.7.
In Eden there are just 0.2 people per hectare. Officially thats called 'supersparse' which has a certain kind of ring to it!
 | | Sue Wrennall |
Sue Wrennall, a farmers wife from near Carlisle, is convinced that this rural outlook is bound to have affected the Cumbrian personality.
Sues completing a PhD at Lancaster University about the identity of livestock farmers and shes sure that many non-farming Cumbrian folks share a lot of characteristics with their agricultural neighbours. Hear Sue talking about the personality make up of a livestock farmer.
More >> The Cumbrian melting pot |
