MY LAKELAND
Terry’s three favourite places in the Lake District
1 Heughscar Hill, above Askham. “For me, it’s no effort to get to it from home and it’s one of those small fells that gives big views. I go up there a lot and just sit and relax.”
2 Whiteless Edge, above Buttermere. “I like the composition from there, looking down to Buttermere and over to Gable, especially in the late evening in late summer, when the light starts coming down the valley.”
3 Charnley Crag Cairn on the southern flanks of Esk Pike. “It gives you an epic view of Upper Eskdale and the Scafells. Because you’re on a bit of an edge, they’re right there in your face.”
but I split things down into smaller goals and keep going.”
It seems something of an understatement when Terry refers to himself as a “tough cookie” and I’m not surprised to hear his wife Sue would rather he got a “proper job”. He hesitates a moment and then, admitting she’s right to worry, lists an inventory of horrific accidents, including having his finger partially severed by a drone, falling five metres into a river and smashing his skull in a near-fatal bike accident. “I’ve broken bones and all sorts, and I still go out. It’s mind over matter. I think, ‘forget the pain, I’ll get my reward with all the joy of the experience and the views I capture on camera’.”
Terry’s love of being immersed in nature stems from his Nottinghamshire childhood, including many happy hours spent on his grandparents’ farm. “It wouldn’t happen nowadays, but my grandparents, or my mother, would just let me out the door and see me at tea-time,” he recalls. “I’d be out in the countryside, climbing trees, making dens, watching wildlife.”
His love affair with Lakeland began when a school friend invited him, aged 13, to join a family holiday in Patterdale. Suddenly, the outdoors took on a whole new meaning. “I just wanted to run everywhere on the fells. I couldn’t believe such beauty existed.”
Looking at it through adult eyes, he adds:
“It’s the aesthetics. You go to places like the Highlands and, although there are some iconic mountains there, they don’t have the character of the individual Lake District fells. And how the weather dances around those fells and in the valleys is always different.”
After Life of a Mountain: Helvellyn premiered in November 2020, Terry promised Sue he’d take things a bit easier, but it’s hard to imagine this hard-working film-maker slowing down. After telling me of plans to focus on small-scale projects, he confesses he has a more ambitious idea germinating.
“Something very different,” Terry adds intriguingly. But you can be sure that, whatever it is, it won’t keep him away from his beloved Lakeland fells.
“I wanted to run everywhere on the fells. I couldn’t believe such beauty existed”