It rained. Boy did it rain. 

It began with the usual excited anticipation that precedes these happy travels. The early start in London, the night bus, the train from Euston, being met at Oxenholme and the final rendezvous in Coniston. We had never scheduled a Lakes trip this late in the year before. The November rain felt like a vague portent of things to come. Perhaps I’m painting a gloomy picture but it was a world apart from the lush parade of late Summer magnificence on our previous visit last September. 

In the dusty Kodachrome carousel of my memory our Lake District adventures are always sunny and bright. However, when I think about Coniston in November 2024 dark clouds are front and centre. I shot these these photographs with my precious Fujica film camera and I’m now reviewing them several months later with a more objective eye. A lot has happened in that time. Colours are dulled. Some of these dear friends have lost loved ones and our bond is such that we all feel it.

It’s easy to feel depressed in these uncertain times. Worries about family, money, work, health, and the fragile state of the World. Winter blues.

There is common perception that males of a certain age are generally disinclined to address their mental health. Perhaps too embarrassed, beholden to some misinformed belief that it’s ‘just not what real men do’. But not us. One of the things I love about my mates – this amusing cabal of eternal Scouse schoolboys, this band of brothers who I have known for over 50 years – is that we’re comfortable revealing our innermost hopes and fears to each other. Problems shared, halved, discussed and solved over long walks and fine ales in some cosy Lakeland hostelry. It’s therapy. I feel blessed to have it in my life. Whenever the clouds close in we’ll support each other until they have rolled on by. 

Of course the weather isn’t always sunny and bright when we visit the Lake District. The law of averages says that it couldn’t be so – It’s one of the wettest places in Britain. Just like life, it isn’t always perfect. It only feels like that to me because it’s my happy place, both mentally and physically.

There is a bleakness about these photographs. At one point I decided I wasn’t going to do anything with them. My usual experimentation with double exposures and imaginative composition just didn’t seem to work this time. The vibrant colour palette I always look for was absent. It was only after I compared them with the fresher, more verdant photographs from our Lakeland jaunt the following Spring that I realised there was value in these muted images after all. 

The pictures are an important respite on a long journey. I now embrace them. They are part of a bigger picture. Light and shade. Clouds and sunshine. You can’t have one without the other.