“on the last few steps of the rocky summit path i see a young man. it’s Sting’s keyboard player”
stuart maconie
IT’S AN IMAGE I recall well. A chilly, autumn afternoon in the eastern Lake District. I have been walking for many miles but the vision in front of me remains stark and unchanging; the bold, distinctive outline of Kidsty Pike, lonely outlier of the Wainwrights, dark and sombre against the slate grey sky and sullen clouds.
Atop it, a figure; a silent sentinel watching me approach, who has in fact been watching me approach for some time now. Why isn’t he moving on, I think, partly unnerved by the eerie nature of the scene and partly because I quite fancy having the summit to myself to enjoy the view, my butties and flask in peace. This is one of my last Wainwrights on my list and it is a relatively remote one. But he remains motionless, one foot on a rock, watching me struggle up the south flank from the valley.
As I approach him on the last few steps of the rocky summit path, I see that he is a young man, bearded and in stylish walking gear. He takes a few paces towards me, looks at me with keen eyes behind his designer specs and utters the (for me now) immortal words “Are you Stuart Maconie? I’m Sting’s keyboard player. Nice to meet you…”
Some of my more famous friends and colleagues in this crazy business we call ‘show’ envy me my very minor state of ‘celebrity’. Mark Lamarr once said to me after an encounter in a pub that it must be nice only being approached by people who like what I do, which is true. In truth, I’m at the level of fame where people are pretty certain I’m their postman. However, I have been recognised a surprising number of times on high fells, coastal cliffs and the like. This very column was occasioned by an incident last week when a young TV sound recordist, the only soul I’d seen all day, asked me how I was enjoying my new radio berth as we met at the rocky windshelter on Great Sca Fell. It was a pleasant few minutes of sociability in a day of solitary wandering
and I told him, honestly, that one of the perks of not being on the radio every day was that I could spend a Tuesday afternoon up here, while all the world was toiling down below.
We rugged and individual outdoor walkers may fancy ourselves immune to the trappings of ‘celebrity’ but you’d be surprised. I’ve been out on the hills (collectively and individually) with mountain guide David Powell Thompson, broadcaster Eric Robson and film-maker Terry Abraham and seen them all approached and recognised by fans; of course in David’s case his flaxen locks are pretty unmistakable. Alfred Wainwright himself was routinely spotted from about the mid sixties onwards when the Pictorial Guides had become a publishing sensation and made him an unlikely star. He relished these encounters every bit as much as you’d imagine, which is to say not at all. I wonder if he’d have posed for a selfie?
Sometimes I’ve felt a bit ‘AW’ myself. Having planned a long and quite happily solo day ascending Scafell Pike one summer, a talkative man attached himself to me soon after leaving Wasdale Head. He proceeded to chatter incessantly all the way up the fell about blokeish bits of pop trivia that, frankly, are the last thing on my mind when I’m out walking. I finally snapped when, dangling above Mickledore’s notorious drop and steeling my nerve, I heard a voice ask “I suppose you’d have been too young to have seen The Strawbs live?”. My reply however must go unrecorded.
Don’t let that stop you coming and saying hello though. I am too young for The Strawbs though not for Sting who I saw with The Police when I was a teenager at the height of his helium voiced codreggae fame. Sting’s keyboard player by the way was in training for walking the Himalayas with his blonde and windswept employer. I wonder if any of the good folk of Himachal Pradesh thought he was David Powell Thompson?