Kids living below Blencathra still dwell in a Just William world, more than 90 years after the first book in the series was published. Up they clambered into a flowering cherry tree with several trunks – but devoid of carvings, as today's penknives have rounded points to concur with health and safety.
Adjacent is a bench looking out to the Helvellyn ridge: ideal for discussing Outlaws' matters after throwing scooters on the grass. Two boys were visitors from London, their village counterparts showing them how to tickle trout under the banks of the river Glenderamackin. "Splat" meant a fish was jumping for a fly. "Splish" was a kingfisher fishing on the river under the bridge of the old Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith railway, while "plonk" was the noise a water vole made as it dived. "Ploop" was an acorn dropping into a pool.
They learned the reviving qualities of the juicy half-inch stem at the bottom of the best grass in Threlkeld quarry. Just wind a head of grass round the index fingers and pull. The most succulent end comes out clean, white and firm and tastes like aniseed balls. They also liked the taste of fresh green trefoil wood sorrel leaves, and they made neat fiddles too – out of lamb's tongue grass which can be "cracked" acrossways and the two ends pulled gently apart to reveal violin strings. They dug pignuts from under small white flowers fields with their blunt-tipped knives. They learned how to make a shrill whistle from a sycamore twig, and a simpler one from the hairy stem of beaked parsely growing on hedge banks. Break off a short length, cut a nick in the hollow stem, place a finger over the other end and blow.
When the scarlet pimpernel flower closed it warned them to have their Gore-Tex and wellies handy. They also saw how the rear end of a cow gets up first, but a horse rises front end first.
