Tom Warburton and Tim Watson capture the Wainwrights

PHOTOGRAPHY TOM WARBURTON PAINTINGS TIM WATSON

Armed with his trusty Leica, a cheery disposition and his artist best mate, a retired local government worker took to the hills in search of ‘victims’ and vistas.

Uncomfortable about asking strangers whether he could take their pictures, Tom Warburton’s daughter designed him a business card to alleviate any concerns and give him credibility among the hiking fraternity. The tactic worked as not a single person, man, woman nor child, refused to have their picture taken and Tom now has a huge collection of black and white images to share with his fellow walkers.

His friend, Tim Watson, meanwhile has a collection of paintings created from the sights they witnessed on their walks.

“We were both 60 this year and wanted to do something to mark it so we thought about walking the Wainwrights – and we said this out loud in the pub on New Year’s Eve so had to follow through,” says Tom, of King’s Meaburn, near Appleby.

He has been interested in photography since he and Tim boarded at Queen Elizabeth School, Kirkby Lonsdale, in the 1970s. Tim went on to study fine art at Newcastle University and is now a professional landscape artist.

“I’ve always been interested in photography and love taking pictures of people – we were allowed a camera at school and to use the dark room,” explains Tom.

“I was planning trek in the the Himalayas to the source of the Ganges so thought walking the Wainwrights would make a good warm up and be a chance to get fit. In the end the 214 Wainwright peaks proved to be five times the height of the Everest, but we set off, Tim like Legolas from the Lord of the Rings, me more like Gimli, one of the dwarves in his wake, and the people we met made the whole experience worthwhile.”

They started the Wainwrights on January 3 this year and Tom completed all 214 on August 22. Tim is finishing them off now while Tom is in India.

Climbing Helvellyn through the murk from Glenridding one day the cloud became inverted and walkers bonded, enjoying a special moment revelling in the Brocken spectre, a rainbow shadow on the haze.

“There was a rabbi and three students, a couple of sisters, Bea and Gracie, and everyone was ecstatic about being up there,” recalls Tom. “There was such a bond between us because it had been so grim at Glenridding.”

90-year-old on Gowbarrow Another day on Gowbarrow, Tom met three men, one of whom was in his 90s. “He had done all the Wainwrights and the Munros in Scotland, and he was with his pals who were in their 70s but it was no bother at all to them,” says Tom.

“At Dale Head I met John who was in his 70s and he had been walking the hills since he was 12 and new every twist and turn, then I met a family with a three-year-old who had walked all the way. They were off wild camping. There was Peter and his dogs too and a son and his elderly father.

“There was a group from Blackburn on top of Great Gable, one time, talking about getting their visas as they were about to set off to drive to Pakistan. I asked if I could go with them and they said maybe next time. Another family I met in west Cumbria were walking in memory of their son who had died suddenly. They set up a charity and were going out every week, the mum, dad, brother and a scout troop.”

There were times when Tom wondered what he was doing. “I was on Mungrisdale Common, beyond Blencathra, one occasion slogging through a foot of snow and I did question why this was even in Wainwright’s book,” he says. “But then on Armboth Fell, Thirlmere, even Wainwright thought the same saying it’s not worth climbing. It’s basically crossing a bog to reach a rocky outcrop.

“On Black Crag I met a family from Melbourne and another day Andrew from Adelaide. He had been coming to Cumbria for years to climb the Wainwrights and was expecting to finish next year. He was at university in the UK and had a good friend from west Cumbria who he visited regularly leading him to fall in love with the Lakes.

“I got chatting with a lady from America who was walking on her own. She was caught a little off guard when I approached but was lovely once she’d got over the shock. She was visiting to walk the peaks for three weeks.

“I must have talked to more than 100 people and everyone was great. People are just delighted to have their pictures taken. Nobody ever said no to me taking their picture and I would say that more than 70 per cent took up my offer to email them the picture afterwards. I had a great time and certainly felt a lot fitter. Chatting to people has been one of the joys and I have loved finding out about people.”

Tom’s retirement is proving to be a far cry from his 30-year career with the Environment Agency, regional development and housing bodies and Newcastle City Council.

Bea and Gracie on Helvellyn It is also a welcome return to a lifestyle that satiates his wanderlust which started when he was young. After studying biology at university he spent two years travelling to and around Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and India. “It was great being in my 20s travelling round the world, often working on farms driving combines – what’s better than that?” says Tom, a farmer’s son who is married to Anna and has two daughters Ella, 26, and Jess, 24.

Later he also worked for a friend who was a travel blogger and enjoyed trips to the Gambia and Galapagos as a result. In recent years he has travelled to Poland and Ukraine to help refugees.

All the time he recorded his life in pictures. He recalls working in Newcastle during the COVID-19 pandemic making a pictorial record on lockdown for the local authority. “I was involved with the emergency food and medicines response,” he says. “I started taking my camera and taking pictures of the council’s response in nursing homes, GP surgeries and hospitals. I met senior staff involved with infectious disease control and was even allowed into ICU. I documented the response, and it was published as a photobook as a type of official record.”

With his latest collection of photographs he has no real idea what to do with the images and cannot see that they would ever make a book. But Tom persists with his love of black and white photography which he terms ‘classic’.

“It is interesting that Tim and I do the same walk but come back with different perspectives,” he says. “He is thinking about painting landscapes, from panoramic snaps he takes on his phone, while I am looking for potential ‘victims’ to photograph. He paints in colour acrylics and I am visualising in black and white so we come down with completely different records of the day.”

As he currently works his way through the Himalayas, to the glacier that is the source of the Ganges, Tom, no doubt, will be merrily chatting and snapping to create the next chapter of his extraordinary life.

See more of Tom’s pictures at tom-warburton.com/wainwrighters and Tim’s paintings at timwatsonartist.co.uk/colour/. Both can also be found on Instagram @TomWarbie and @TimWatsonartist

Father and son on the Nab