Fell Ponies and Life of a Mountain
/For someone like me who loves to live and work outdoors, Life of a Mountain: Helvellyn was a stirring film. But for someone like me who has been intimate with Fell Ponies for more than two decades, the movie was even more impactful. If you haven’t seen it already, there’s a reason this film is recommended by the Fell Pony Society. If you are fascinated by the stewardship of this breed, it is an important piece. You can watch the trailer (click here), though no Fell Ponies are featured. If you’re in the UK, you can watch the movie on-line. It’s also available for purchase by clicking here. I am grateful to a Fell Pony colleague who loaned me her copy until I can purchase a copy myself.
The film about the peak Helvellyn in the Lake District of Cumbria does an exemplary job illustrating the many, many ways that the mountain is loved and admired. From bicyclists to skiers, from lichen experts to wildwater swimmers, from school children to disabled hikers, from paragliders to the Royal Air Force and more, each group’s appreciation of what the mountain means to them is vividly portrayed with live and timelapse video and interviews. So where does the Fell Pony fit?
Globetrotter Fell Pony broodmares sheltering in the lee of a wall on a fell in Cumbria. Courtesy Libby Robinson
Libby Robinson of the Fell Pony Heritage Trust is one of the earliest to be interviewed in the film, and images of the ponies are frequently shown through the first hour or so (Libby kindly lent me the photo here of her ponies sheltering behind a wall on the fell where they live nearby). Libby tells me that the opportunity to participate in the film was a spinoff of the Trust’s Heritage of the Hill Bred Fell Pony Exhibition in 2019. The following quote from a 2021 newspaper article about the film best sums Libby’s message, “Fell Ponies are just as important to Cumbria’s heritage as the lakes, rivers, fell farms and stone walls, the natural landscape formed by nature then shaped and moulded by mankind. Nowadays millions visit each year (apart from 2020) and they need to know alongside all this spendour of the landscape that for centuries the culture of the ponies – a proud and noble working animal – has been a part of all its history.” (1)
When we view Cumbria and the Lake District from a Fell Pony perspective, it is easy to lose sight of the myriad other ways in which the region is viewed. For me, seeing so many different perspectives alongside that of our ponies was incredibly educational. It’s no longer a surprise to me that our ponies are often invisible in the National Park, and it’s a wonder at all that they appear in this film. Libby’s efforts to bring more attention to our breed continue to bear tremendous fruit.
Claire Beaumont of Gowbarrow Hall Farm was another of the interviewees in the early part of the film. Fell Pony people will know Claire for her use of some of Libby’s Fell Ponies for conservation grazing at Gowbarrow Hall Farm. Claire has also added to my understanding of the long history of Fell Ponies in the vicinity of her farm northeast of Helvellyn (click here to read more).
When the Lake District National Park received World Heritage Site status in 2017, Fell Ponies were completely absent from the voluminous documentation supporting the designation. I was startled that that was the case since Fell Ponies are native to the landscape that is now in the national park. Then began my education about how the World Heritage Site designation came to be and how Fell Ponies might still be incorporated in it. I have since been documenting how Fell Ponies fit within the three major themes of the park’s plan for implementing the designation (click here to read more). Those themes were each addressed in the film.
The first of the themes to be addressed in the film was Identity (click here to read more about the three themes). The Identity theme encompasses the agro-pastoral landscape and the early industry of the region and how these two human influences shaped the landscape that is known and loved today. From a Fell Pony perspective, I thought it was tremendous that this theme took top billing since it is the one that most allows Fell Ponies to become more visible in the National Park and the World Heritage Site. The second theme – Conservation – was also discussed in a way that allows Fell Ponies to claim their rightful place in the region’s story, both from a conservation grazing standpoint and from an acknowledgement that a rewilding of the landscape, which is causing trouble for many native breeds, isn’t an over-arching goal in the Lake District. The Inspiration theme, ably illustrated by an opera singer and a poet among others, appears to have the least relevance for Fell Pony enthusiasts due to its narrow definition so far.
At one hundred fifty minutes in length, the film drags after the first hour when our ponies no longer show up in any images or stories. The middle third of the film is heavy with recreational use of the mountain, but I had to re-read a Fell Pony Society newsletter to find a story about a Fell Pony on Helvellyn. In 2017, Vyv Wood-Gee attempted to ride one of her ponies to the summit to honor the late Mary Longsdon, MBE, whose ambition to climb Helvellyn went unfulfilled before her death that year. Vyv’s trip report is aptly titled “Hell on a Fell,” full of double entendres. “Forget blue skies and perfect pretty pictures. Yesterday was Hell on a Fell: about simply trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other, standing firm whatever life, or the weather, chucks at you, and about contemplating life and death, rather than proving anything to anyone, or gloating over achievements…. When the weather turned against us, I swithered repeatedly whether to turn back, but with Micky snorting at lost souls emerging from the mist, eventually we made it to the top. An inadequate tribute to a truly remarkable person. RIP Mary. You were up there with us in the swirling mist and driving rain.” (2) To see the entire piece including pictures illustrating the adverse weather Vyv and Micky dealt with, click here and navigate to page 80.
Despite the film dragging in the second half, the entire piece is worth watching for anyone interested in the present and future stewardship of our breed in its homeland. The context it illustrates is important for all of us to contemplate.
“Fell Ponies’ starring role in Lake District Film, Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, 9 January 2021.
Wood-Gee, Vyv. “Hell on a Fell,” The Fell Pony Society Magazine, Autumn 2017, Volume 35, p. 80.
© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021
