The town of Craven Arms, in the Shropshire Hills, is named after an inn. It grew because it became a railway junction. One line traverses Shropshire, the other goes deep into the Welsh hills. For some years the town has been a customary stopping-off place on bookshop expeditions in these parts, because it has an excellent charity bookshop. Here, for example, my colleague Mr Howard once found a copy of the UK first edition of John Crowley’s Little, Big, which is most uncommon. On another occasion a trolley outside had numerous early Philip K Dick paperbacks, which he soon scooped up.
The incidental conversations in the shop are also sometimes diverting. I once overheard a customer asking if they had any jigsaws with large pieces as her dog preferred these. I was thinking that this was a remarkably bright canine, when she went on to explain that if she does one with smaller pieces it takes too long, and her dog gets impatient and starts to eat the pieces.
On a recent visit I was perusing the pamphlets as usual, when I came across a fascinating local history publication, A Night in the Snow, or, A Struggle for Life on the Long Mynd by Rev. E. Donald Carr, originally an 1865 monograph, but here in a new 1998 edition (with notes by Andrew M. Jenkinson). This tells of a Victorian parson’s ordeal when he got benighted in the Shropshire hills in a blizzard while crossing from one of his churches to another. ‘Whyever did his parish let him make the attempt?’ the volunteer at the till said to me in a scandalised tone, almost as if it were a recent occurrence.
The Long Mynd, as the booklet explains, is an area of high open moorland some ten miles by about three, which lies to the north and west of the Victorian spa town of Church Stretton. It is fissured by narrow ravines and drenched in bogs. There was only a rough track across the terrain, and even today the roads bears signs saying that they are ‘not maintained in winter’. The vicar recounts that the last fair of the year in Church Stretton was known as ‘Dead Man’s Fair’, because of those who succumbed when returning from it late across the moor.
Beneath the Mynd is the secluded village of Ratlinghope, which reads like the name of a Dickensian character, but is in fact pronounced locally as something like ‘Ratchup’. I’m not sure that makes it any better. The churchyard here has an unusual monument, the memorial to the last known sin-eater in England. This is notable both because it is relatively late for such a custom (Edwardian), and because the sin-eater was not an outcast or indigent, as was usual, but a prosperous local farmer, who regarded his task solemnly.
In early Victorian times, this village had no clergy house and therefore had difficulty in attracting an incumbent. The Revd Mr Carr was the priest at Wolstaston, on the opposite side of the Mynd, and so he agreed to look after Ratlinghope too: as he diffidently notes, he thought they would prefer ‘half a loaf’ to no bread at all.
The route around the base of the Mynd between the villages was some twelve miles: the way across was much shorter, but also rougher. This he would take each Sunday afternoon to hold a service in the further village, a journey that was ‘pleasant enough in fine weather,’ as he notes, ‘but less enjoyable when fogs hung heavy over the hill, when the tracks were slippery with ice, or when falling snow concealed every landmark’.
It was the latter case that prevailed in the great blizzard of 29/30 January 1865. Carr had managed to get across from Wolstaston to Ratlinghope and to hold a service there, but on his return journey the winds whipped up fiercely and more snow fell. He could barely see in front of him, was often wading through drifts or crawling on all fours, and frequently fell. He tried to make for a fir plantation he knew, where there would be some shelter, but missed it and wandered far off his course.
The rest of the night was a constant desperate struggle, in which he several times tumbled down steep slopes and was only saved by techniques he had learned in the Swiss mountains, by his determination to carry on, and by good fortune. In the course of his falls, he lost not only his over-gloves, but his hat and boots too. It was beyond dawn before he at length stumbled into a settlement.
Mr Carr’s narrative is very vividly written, like the memoir of some Antarctic explorer. He has a clear, calm style, and recounts each of his misfortunes on the Mynd without melodrama or exclamation, even with glints of humour. He would have been a sound writer of strange tales, but this account of his night on the moor seems to have been his only book. In this edition, there is an additional, much later, note by him, in which he explains that he toned down some of his descriptions because it was thought they would scarcely be believed, so extreme were the conditions.
Some time after his ordeal, he and others retraced much of his remarkable route, which would be hazardous and inadvisable even today. He gave talks on his experience and was prevailed upon to turn these into this written account, which was sold to raise funds for his church, and ran through several editions. His boots were recovered and are now preserved in a museum.
(Mark Valentine)
