Tony Rathbone – a few words …

Having had enough of the beatings and abuse of my childhood and teenage years, one day I got the National Express away from Tees-side which, via a circuitous loop of Northern England, eventually dropped me on a cold wet winters night in Keswick. I stayed a few nights in the YHA there, and a few more at the Longthwaite Hostel down yon end of Borrowdale. Whilst at school we’d come to Borrowdale on outdoor ed trips, and had been told about Millican Dalton and his cave on the hillside behind Grange.

I spent the best part of the next 6 months living in ‘The Cave Hotel’, making forays down to Keswick to buy food and look for work. I did some labouring bits and pieces and eventually found work in an outdoor equipment shop. Apparently my attire and my general hygiene were a bit ‘unbecoming’ after a Summer in the cave, so the job was dependent on having had a wash, and having incinerated the clothes I stood up in. I rented a room in Keswick therafter.

It was one of the mornings walking down Stanger Street to the shop that I first met Tony Rathbone. ‘You’re the new lad in the other shop’ he observed, ‘how you doing lad ?’ he asked. And we nattered a bit, and went on our ways.

Over the next year or so I saw Tony many a time. By then he owned several shops in the town, and whilst walking between them, or towards home on The Heads, he would stop and pass the time of day with anyone. I learnt a while later that as well as being disarmingly friendly, he was also just keeping his local knowledge topped up. Who was doing what, what was going on where, who was involved.

One time I bumped in to him in the depths of winter and we wandered down to the side of the lake and sat and nattered, and he recounted being a kid and ice-skating out in to the middle of the lake. Fitness and resilience to hardship was something that Tony had in spades but didn’t seek to brag about. I thought he was impervious to the cold.

Time rolled on and I moved down to Hawkshead to help run the YHA, and then off to join the Army after a short time at Uni.

I was sat in Helmand, Afghanistan having a brew with a bloke about 10 years ago, nattering about the hills that we both missed, and what ideas we had for when we got home on Rn’R. My colleague mentioned that he fancies doing a long walk or run in the Lake District. One thing led to another and I fired an email off to Keswick. Years before Tony had put me on to a book called ‘Joss Naylor MBE Was Here’, the account of Joss Naylor’s traverse of all 214 Wainwright Summits in the Summer of ’86. In my email I mentioned that I used to know Tony Rathbone, and would they mind posting a copy of Joss’s book out.

The book duly arrived, and with it was a handwritten note signed by Cpl Rathbone. Tony had been in the RAF, and, having been told about my email, he started to write to me, clearly recounting the walks and banter we had had the best part of 20 years previously. All his notes started with Sir, and oftentimes he’d write ‘stood to attention writing this, Sir’ …. Sometimes he’d include a copy of the Keswick Reminder newspaper.

On one trip home on Rn’R I managed to book a small cottage on the road through Rosthwaite in Borrowdale. Arriving at night after a journey of about 7500km, I opened the door of the cottage the next morning and went off in search of a pint of milk. I stepped out the cottage and bumped straight in to Tony. ‘Now then youth, are you AWOL ?’ he asked, without missing a step. He’d taken the bus down the valley and was on his way to present the prizes at the Borrowdale Fell Race with Joss.

Despite being at war within sight of the mountains of Central Asia, I oftentimes yearned for the fells of the Lake District when I was home. A sort of hefting. I had broken the abusive chains and ‘fled’ there when I was able, and decades later would still wander to the belvedere outside Millican’s Cave and brew up and press pause.

I’d pop in to Rathbones and ask where Tony was, and if he was in town one of his sons would ring him and we’d have a wander and a pint. If he wasn’t at home he’d be off flying his paraglider, or, most recently riding his bike …

In 2014 Tony beat the Guinness world record and became the oldest person to complete the Land’s End to John O’Groats ride. He travelled with his friend, Bill Skipper, and the pair raised money for local charities completing the 867 mile ride in 11 cycling days.

I went up to see him later that Summer and we drove round to Patterdale to see the ‘Paper Bridge’ art installation in Grisedale by Steve Messam. Tony took some pictures, and I vividly recall his eagerness to stop and chat to anyone about anything and pass the time of day with folks young and old. On the way back we passed the old farm that he said he had been brought up in in the valley.

Not content with the previous summers bike ride, Tony then went the other way round (John O’Groats to Land’s End) in 2015, he rode solo, unsupported and unwitnessed, and therefore not recognised by Guinness, albeit he took less time and broke his own record.

It wasn’t long after that ride that he woke up on the floor of The Bank Tavern in Keswick having collapsed mid-beer. Then followed a series of emails from his son Paul telling me what had happened to his Dad. I believe there was an episode of many (seven ?) heart attacks in one night. Tony summarised it later by saying, ‘I’m a bloody Rathbone, I’m not giving up over a few heart attacks’. He then had ‘serious’ heart surgery in Newcastle and was sent home to convalesce. Or at least he should have been.

I caught up with him in March ’16. Having been given a training programme of several weeks long to do a zimmer frame assisted shuffle from home to the newsagents (Youdale’s on Main Street), he had, in Paul’s words, ‘smashed it’ in 5 days. A few days after that he was caught timing himself, and trying to get his PB done. Always with a Mars Bar hidden in his pocket like a bairn with sweets they shouldn’t have. He had the sweetest of tooths.

We went for tea in The George not long after that, he was funny, and telling stories about the town, recognising his friends, and chatting about his flying escapades (paragliding over nudist beaches in Spain with his camera !!). That was probably the last time I saw the bright shining lights on in his eyes.

The few times after that that I saw Tony his health and his memory were deteriorating. We’d sit on the sofa in his lounge and, well, the lights weren’t on, but we would turn the pages of a walking guidebook and you could see the flicker of recognition.

I remember always being grateful for time spent with Tony, more as a wise older friend, despite him being nigh on twice my age. His deep understanding of people and place always impressed me, as did his willingness to pass the time of day with anyone, and be genuinely interested in their story. Years ago he told me to ‘understand my soldiers’, and said that he had learnt that lesson from his National service and cared dearly for all of his shop staff, and took an interest in them as far more than ‘just’ employees. He was also genuinely interested in my military service and we’d often swap stories and compare notes about his service. A thing that binds service personnel is ‘the blokes’ and many decades later he could still recount his colleagues in the RAF, and spin daft stories and mishaps and capers that they, like all ‘squaddies’, had got up to.

I was in my office today and, grabbing a cuppa, flicked through social media quickly, and those Rathbone eyes looked back at me …

Rathbones of Keswick tweeted that:

‘Sadly, Tony Rathbone died this morning. A pioneering hang glider, pilot, cyclist, hill walker and a truly good man. Off for his last flight and missed by us all’

I can’t raise a glass to him because I’ve given up the drink. Doubtless he’d rib me mercilessly for that, but I will journey up to the belvedere at Millican’s Cave soon, brew up, and pour out two teas and unwrap two Mars Bars, and sit for a while.

Go well marra.

Photographs:

1 – Tony Rathbone by Robert Rathbone

2 – on the belvedere

3 – Me ‘ascending’ The Paper Arch by Tony Rathbone

4 – Millican Dalton reading the newspaper outside Youdale’s Newsagents in Keswick