The Real Beatrix Potter

by Nadia Cohen

  Thousands of children were desperate to meet her, but they had no hope; Beatrix never wanted to do public readings or book signings, nor had she the faintest interest in giving speeches or attending literary launches, festivals or functions of any description. Interviews and photo shoots were entirely out of the question.

  Warnes had always automatically dismissed out of hand any requests that came in on her behalf, without troubling Beatrix with the details. She had never wanted to know what was being said about her, and had made it abundantly clear that nobody was to be given her address, under any circumstances, and Warnes carried out her wishes faithfully. It was well known that she guarded her privacy fiercely, and that was just how she liked it.

  She had a fearsome reputation, especially among local children who were sometimes afraid of her fiery temper. Fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones claimed that in 1940 her younger sister and a friend were slapped by Beatrix for swinging on her gate, although she later admitted that there were many old ladies who resented noisy young evacuees careering around the villages, and insisted on good manners. Wynne Jones was among many families who moved to a Quaker commune on Lake Coniston to escape the Blitz.

  Historian Liz Hunter McFarlane explained:

  Beatrix could be inept socially, and awkward around children although children adored her. People think she hated children as in her later years she could be cantankerous and would tell them off but she was old and ill, she was not used to having them around and did not particularly understand modern children.

  She was shy and inexperienced with children but she liked them if they were well behaved. She allowed groups of Girl Guides to camp on her land and would often join them around the camp fire in the evening. She was generous with children, often giving away copies of her books, but she did not go to schools or libraries, as modern authors do, perhaps because she was far too busy running her farms.

  She adored getting letters from children and would reply to as many as she could. She found the correspondence with young people fulfilling and rewarding, especially when she was older.

  ‘But she did not enjoy meeting large groups of people, and from the time she bought Hill Top in 1905 she chose to live a fairly isolated existence. She was an eccentric character, she came across as painfully shy and brusque, and socially she was fairly inept. She could be quite acerbic and certainly would never suffer fools, particularly in later life.

  She wrote when she needed money to buy land, but promoting the books was never of any interest to her.

  One of Beatrix’s main concerns was bringing unwanted attention to the quiet village of Sawrey, where people went peacefully about their business regardless of their famous resident. She was embarrassed if nosy admirers came and peered over her fence, especially if they left a mess or disturbed her neighbours in any way.

  Beatrix had wanted to give something back to the American market, but when it emerged that four books had been published in America in quick succession, her old friends at Warnes demanded permission to publish the stories in Britain. They were justifiably hurt that after many years of unswerving loyalty, Beatrix appeared to have abandoned them in favour of a new wealthier American publisher. She was reluctant, but they argued to at least be allowed to publish Little Pig Robinson for the UK market, and Beatrix relented. She agreed that she owed them something.

  It appeared simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, but was never anywhere near as popular as any of its predecessors. Both publishers could tell that Beatrix’s heart was not in these new projects, she certainly had no desire to travel all the way to America and take up the marketing opportunities that would make her a superstar. All she wanted was her share of the profits to fund her latest far less glamorous passion: sheep farming.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Flocks of Herdwick sheep featured in the stories Beatrix cobbled together for her American readership, as did countless other working animals from around the neighbourhood which she had come to know well. Although Beatrix had been training herself to see animals largely as working tools with jobs to do, there was something about the hardy, lonely Herdwick sheep that survived in harsh conditions on high fells which stirred her childhood imagination once again. Ever since she arrived in Cumbria, Beatrix had been enchanted by these distinctive mountain sheep which were bred locally. She often sat for hours, transfixed as she watched them scrabbling over steep rocks and crags, and decided she would like to invest in a small herd with plans to expand it just as soon as she learnt how to breed them. She had plenty of land on which to fuel her fascination, and she relished the idea of being known as Mrs Heelis the successful shepherd, rather than Miss Potter the author.

  If the books she had recently published in America showed anything of Beatrix’s state of mind at this time, it was that she had had more than enough of writing. Children’s stories no longer held any interest to her, and she could not be happier about the situation she found herself in. She had no resentment over a lack of interest in her later books. If the criticism stung it was not for long, perhaps because the original stories were still bringing her a great deal of money, which she was spending wisely and well. She already owned Hill Top and Castle Farm where she and William lived together, and she had gone on to purchase another, Courier Farm, as well as a number of surrounding cottages which she rented out to farm workers. Over the past decade she had been steadily amassing as many small properties as she could, and was building a broad knowledge of the practical side of owning land, usually by throwing herself physically into whatever tasks were required, no matter how brutal the labour may be. Beatrix understood that the fastest way to learn was by rolling up her sleeves and simply doing the job. She had an excellent memory and retained all the theoretical guidance she was given, but a large flock of sheep would require hundreds of acres of farmland to graze on all year round.

  So Beatrix started to set her sights higher, and by 1923 she had the confidence to make her boldest purchase yet. When she heard that a sprawling 2,000-acre estate called Troutbeck Farm was coming up for sale, she told William she wanted to buy it straight away. It was a wild fell farm with just one solitary farmhouse, but it caught Beatrix’s eye because it was to be put on the market complete with its stock of hundreds of home-bred Herdwick sheep. It was a major investment, but Beatrix was a woman of independent means and with nothing standing in her way, she took it off the market in one fell swoop. Now Beatrix was ready to fully embrace her passion to protect these little fleecy Herdwicks, which had been breeding prolifically in the high Cumberland crags since the Stone Age, and seemed in danger of extinction.

  Archivist Liz Hunter McFarlane explained what a crucial turning point buying the Troutbeck estate was for Beatrix:

  In 1923 Beatrix was able to buy her largest farm so far, a huge rugged fell farm with acres of wild landscape unsuitable to almost anything but breeding Herdwick Sheep. The estate had been failing because of the harsh conditions but Beatrix was determined to save it with a view to leaving it to Rawnsley’s new National Trust. She fully supported his idea of preserving the Lake District intact forever, and the best way she saw to ensure that was to buy as much land as she could afford.

  It may not have been her intention, but Beatrix was becoming something of a local saviour. Following the death of her father and brother she knew she would soon become the sole heir of her mother’s vast inheritance, so had no need to worry about falling into debt. The vast new estate became the main focus of Beatrix’s farming work, and she also splashed out on one of the first motorcars the village had seen to make the winding 12-mile drive from Sawrey up to Troutbeck every day. The car was another extravagant purchase but Beatrix saw it as a wise investment, since it meant she could reach her land regardless of the weather, which was often not in her favour. Even when there were no specific jobs to be done on the farm, or she allowed herself a rare day of rest, Beatrix would still drive up there if she could spare the time, and simply immerse herself for hours in the vast space
and solitude it offered her. Beatrix would often spend entire days alone at Troutbeck, happier than she had ever felt before. Some days she would make a point of walking up to high vantage points, such as Troutbeck Tongue or Lowther Brow, to take in sweeping views across her vast estate, stopping to enjoy a frugal lunch of bread and cheese at a beauty spot known as High Buildings, perched inside a tumbledown old shelter which was sometimes used by shepherds for protection against the elements during lambing season.

  The solitude Beatrix found in discovering new aspects of the swathes of land she owned inspired her to write passionately about the countryside:

  Troutbeck Tongue is uncanny; a place of silences and whispering echoes. It is a mighty table land between two streams. They rise together, north of the Tongue, in one maze of bogs and pools. They meet and unite below the southern crags, making the table land almost an island, an island haunted by the sounds that creep on running waters.

  From the highest point of the Tongue I could look over the whole expanse; Woundale and the Standing Stones; Sadghyll and the hut circles; the cairns built by the stone men; the Roman road; Hollilands and Swainsdale, named by the Norsemen; and the walls of the Norman deer park stretching for miles.

  Years later she recalled how she would sit perfectly still for hours on end, simply watching the animals and wildlife that inhabited her very own fields and fells: ‘I loved to wander on the Troutbeck fell. Sometimes I had with me an old sheepdog, Nip, or Fly; more often I went alone. But never lonely. There was a company of gentle sheep, and wild flowers and singing waters.’

  Having been repeatedly pressed to reveal what inspired The Fairy Caravan, Beatrix reluctantly agreed to write an article for the American magazine The Horn Book in 1942, explaining that she came up with the story after believing that she may have seen fairies at work in that magical place she loved so dearly:

  Another time all by myself alone I watched a weird dance. It was far away in that lonely wilderness behind the table land on Troutbeck Tongue,’ she claimed. ‘In the midst of this waste of yellow bent-grass and stones there is a patch of green grass and a stunted thorn. Round the tree – round and round in measured canter – went four of the wild fell ponies. Round and round, then checked and turned round and round reversed; arched necks, tossing manes, tails streaming. I watched a while, crouched behind a boulder. Who had taught them? Who had learned them to ‘dance the heys’ in the wilderness?

  Oftentimes I have seen managed horses cantering round the sawdust ring under a circus tent; but these half wild youngsters had never been handled by a man. While I was watching them I remembered how I had been puzzled once before. In a soft muddy place on the old drove road I had seen a multitude of little unshod footprints, much too small for horses’ footmarks, much too round for deer or sheep. The finding of these little fairy footmarks on the old drove road made me first aware of The Fairy Caravan.

  Beatrix was at her most content during those solitary days spent rambling around Troutbeck and found herself identifying more closely with the Lancastrian-born shepherds than she ever had with any literary luminaries from London. To her mind, these hardworking shepherds had real talent, and she would watch them closely as they toiled, intrigued by the simplicity and beauty of what she saw, quietly respectful of the way their traditional craft appeared to involve a particular mix of practical problem-solving skills and a quite poetic love of the land passed down through many generations, which she felt honoured to be allowed to witness.

  Like them, Beatrix now carried a carefully polished wooden shepherd’s crook, which she used for support during uphill climbs, stopping to lean on the crook when she was puffing and grew out of breath: ‘There is something very lovable about the silly sheep and the simple out-fashioned talk of those that work the soil and the flocks,’ she wrote.

  To Beatrix, the Herdwick flocks were far more fascinating than the ordinary everyday sheep that grazed in the lower fields, meadows and pastures. She was constantly impressed by the way the plucky Herdwicks managed to clamber up and down crumbling rocks to reach inaccessible crags, often cut off from grass for days on end, exposed to beating sun, harsh winds and even snow. Beatrix was astonished when she heard stories from shepherds about how tough little Herdwicks had been known to be buried under snow drifts for days, even up to two weeks on occasion, surviving on little more than moss and nibbles of their own wool before sheepdogs eventually found them and they could be dug out by shepherds bashing away the snow with their crooks.

  As well as admiring the remarkable resilience of the sheep who always seemed to manage to find their way home, however far they roamed, Beatrix was repeatedly impressed by the extreme risks the shepherds would take too, barely hesitating to climb to high and dangerous spots themselves to rescue their Herdwicks if they were stranded. The long nights the shepherds spent out in the cold and dark when their flocks were lambing enthralled Beatrix too, and she was eager to do whatever she could to help. Beatrix was certainly not squeamish, and would cheerfully mop up blood during lambing season, or help deal with whatever pests or diseases afflicted the flock. Beatrix was so concerned by the problem of maggot flies that she even invented a device to trap them herself which proved so successful it was soon being widely used across the district. She took a modern and scientific approach to solving age-old problems, which endeared her to even the most cynical and hardened shepherds.

  When there was nothing practical they needed her to do they let her sit and simply watch the sheep, glad that she too saw the great beauty in their smoky blue fleeces, strong thick legs and tiny hooves. They were so nimble that Beatrix often remarked that they reminded her of pretty kittens. She even found it adorable when the rams were being aggressive in battle, locking their fine curled horns together when they met, and when they were on a rampage they could even sometimes outrun the sheepdogs. Beatrix found herself equally absorbed by the activities of the sheepdogs, and how their owners appeared to pass their traditions, knowledge and skills down through generations of shepherds with barely a word exchanged between them. Beatrix had already invested in several sheepdogs of her own and trained them up from puppies in her farmyard, making them practice rounding up the hens before moving on to sheep wrangling duties. But try as she might to remove all traces of sentimentality, to her they were never simply farm tools; she gave her favourites the run of the house and each evening the dogs curled up by the fireside with her and William.

  What is most surprising about how much Beatrix was able to learn about sheep farming and the ancient folklore surrounding it is how welcoming the gruff farmers were of her. Generally speaking shepherds would guard their traditions fiercely, and tended to be loath to waste their precious time helping newcomers or outsiders.

  They certainly were not used to women taking so much interest in their work, but it was immediately apparent that Mrs Heelis was not some soft gentle woman passing through from London on a whim. They could tell she was different: she was serious and they appeared to accept her very quickly. It was clear to them that Beatrix was determined to make a huge effort to learn as much as she could, and there could be little doubt by now that she was there to stay. Like her fellow countrymen she did not suffer fools, and she was certainly not afraid of hard work. She proved herself by toiling at the land just as much as they did.

  Beatrix was careful not to let her great personal wealth alienate her from her new friends, and they soon realised that to her being rich simply meant buying power – not only increasing the amount of land being protected for future generations of local people, but she could also improve and enhance the way that land was maintained. Installing electricity in the barns made their work easier, and she had the means to be able to invest in the very latest veterinary treatments for her animals, which helped to turn around the ailing farms.

  Beatrix was never high handed with her money; she wanted to be treated as an equal. She politely and cautiously asked around to discover who were the very best shepherds and farmers, and after liste
ning attentively to the advice she received, Beatrix went and sought out the best people. She used her wealth to shrewdly offer them more money than they were earning to leave their jobs and come and work for her. Beatrix understood that she required men to labour on the land, but she certainly did not underestimate the power of women either. After hiring the men, Beatrix personally ensured that the wages were paid directly into the hands of her workers’ wives, so that it would be spent in ways she approved of! She was well aware that many men would stop off at the pub after work rather than taking their wages straight home, and it infuriated her. The men did not get a say in the matter.

  Having picked up the business side of sheep farming very quickly, Beatrix started putting her knowledge into practice and was soon becoming a familiar figure inspecting the offerings on display at all the sheep fairs in the area. She understood how important it was to invest in the right livestock, and many aspects of purchasing animals and licensing them for sale at markets would make its way into her later stories.

  She was easy to spot at the fairs. Being one of very few women she stood out, dressed in her thick grey Herdwick wool tweed skirts with various sweaters, coats and jackets layered on top of each other. Beatrix made quite a peculiar sight, but she did not care what she looked like – she had far more important things to worry about than her eccentric appearance. If anything, she appeared to take great delight in defying conventional expectations of a woman of her age and social standing. She understood that if she wanted to be taken seriously as a farmer then she needed to look like a farmer – even though all the other farmers for miles around were men.

  Her appearance had altered in the countryside, as she no longer had to attempt to maintain the painful pretence of being interested in looking presentable. She dressed practically for the weather, nothing else seemed of any importance anymore. Beatrix was of course a wealthy woman, but she had no interest in lavish spending on herself. Even when she inherited vast sums from her parents, she preferred to maintain a frugal lifestyle, since blending in with the villagers was very important to her. Those who remembered her towards the end of her life recalled fondly that Beatrix had started to resemble her famous character Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, the hedgehog who rambled around the countryside without a care.