Millican Dalton reading the Daily Herald
outside Dixons the Keswick newsagents
on the corner of Station street and St John Street

“there were many who smiled at the tall, lean figure,
dressed in an open-neck shirt, green or brown cord shorts,
climbing boots or sandals and an Alpine hat”

Millican Dalton …
• born April 20th 1867 in Nenthead in the Pennines.
• named Millican after his mother’s maiden name.
• quaker.
• attended the Friends School in Wigton.
• father died when he was aged 7.
• family moved south and lived at Walnut Cottage, Stony Path, Essex.
• worked in London as an insurance clerk.
• keen cyclist and camper.
• left London aged 30.
• built a forest hut at Marlow Bottom, Buckinghamshire where he lived during the winter months.
• worked as secretary to the Holiday Fellowship in Newlands for a couple of years.
• camped at High Lodore.
• moved to a cave under Castle Crag in the 1920’s.
• named his cave “The Cave Hotel”.
• mountain guide.
• styled himself ‘Professor of Adventure’.
• offered ‘Mountain rapid Shooting, Rafting, Hair-breadth Escapes.’
• was always addressed as ‘The Skipper ’.
• made his own clothes.
• vegetarian.
• grew potatoes on the terrace outside his cave.
• baked his own bread.
• ate hazelnuts picked from the woods around his cave.
• collected ample firewood from the surrounding countryside.
• climbed trees in winter to keep fit for climbing.
• bachelor.
• a popular guide among the lady climbers.
• invented trousers that could convert into shorts.
• took the Daily Herald.
• pacifist.
• often wrote to Churchill demanding he stop the war.
• admired George Bernard Shaw.
• had strong views on almost everything.
• teetotaller.
• smoked Woodbine cigarettes.
• drank large ammounts of coffee.
• washed infrequently.
• was more likeable when he was standing down wind.
• built a raft named Rogue Herries.
• lit a fire on top of Napes Needle to mark his 50th accent and made a pot of coffee.
• during the cold winter of 1947 his hut burned down; undaunted he moved into a tent.
• contracted pneumonia.
• spent his last few days in a hospital ward.
• died on the 5th February 1947 in Amersham aged 79 years.