Merry Christmas To All

Today we're shipping our final Christmas orders for delivery tomorrow, 24 December.

Kind of hard to believe we've been going for over a year now. And what a year we've had ...

We've got some great memories of our first product arrival (Andy & Simon), our very first customer (Michael Cowan), our first outdoor event (Keswick Mountain Festival), our first retail outlet (Flock-in, Borrowdale) and our first outing in the national press (Sunday Times, 26 July).

Since all these "firsts", we've met over 35,000 of you at all the events and on our website. You've helped Millican to arrive on the scene with a bang and we are truly humbled by the very positive feedback we keep receiving.

After today, Christmas for us will be about closing the front & back doors, to have some time with our family & friends - hopefully Christmas can be the same for you, wherever you are.















A white Christmas?!

Here's to the many adventures 2010 will bring.

Have a great one!

Urban Adventures

Living, as we do, in the Lake District, people tend to assume that we’re rural fanatics. And it’s true that we’ve made a conscious choice to move to the country and embrace a simpler way of life.

But we value our urban adventures too. In fact, we love them. And the greater the contrast with our base here in Keswick, the better. In Cumbria, each village or town may have its own flavour. However, the general look and feel of the place – stonework, scale, foliage – remains the same.

That’s why we love visiting London. We’re always struck by the sheer variety of areas packed tightly together. In London, you can hop on a tube and it pops you out into a different village each time. Perhaps one becomes dulled to this day after day when braving rush-hour crowds. However, we always marvel at the contrast of vintage shops and retro cafes in Angel, the anarchic sprawl of Camden, and the sophisticated delis of Marylebone High Street.


Camden High Street
Photo courtesy of bortescristian

We designed our bags for city use as much as rural adventures. Spilling out of the Intercity train onto the platform from Euston, we always have a mass of papers, i-Pods, clothes and refreshments with us. There’s nothing like a generous shoulder bag or Gladstone bag to carry these things.

We’re also always hit by the information overload coming at us from all angles at Euston Station. Messages on billboards, buses, taxis, shop windows, in free newspapers. No wonder when one looks around that most Londoners march head-down, determined to resist distraction.

It’s probably always been this way for a person going from the countryside to the heart of a city. It must have felt like that for anyone travelling from rural outskirts into the centre of one of our favourite cities – Marrakech.


Photo courtesy of roblisameehan

Pride of place by night is the great central square – Djemma el Fna. Under cover of dark, it transforms into one of the great contemporary wonders of the world – a steaming, aromatic medieval bazaar filled with food stalls, henna painters, acrobats, quack doctors, and performers.


Djemaa el Fna - story tellers

Photo courtesy of Ahron de Leeuw

Worthy of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, the bazaar feels like something out of the Dark Ages. We have also sometimes felt like we’re wandering through a movie set. Only the sores on that beggar over there are real. This quack doctor has a real monkey’s head in his jar. That contortionist truly is wrapping his feet around the back of his neck.

So love our rural retreat as we do, we can’t do without our urban adventures in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and further afield. The souk in Marrakech, the great cafés in Amsterdam, Barcelona’s curvaceous, Gaudi-inspired architecture, Rome’s dense layers of history, the islands around Stockholm, and the avenues and underground of Moscow – these will remain perennial favourites with us.

The landscape, history and people of Keswick remain our home. But we need our city fix from time to time.

Nature Watch

With the Christmas rush, I’m up to my eyes with orders and the business. Nicky’s almost equally busy but I’m having to leave it to her to sort out some of our work-life balance for another week! So this is what she’s been noticing in the outside world, beyond chez Millican.

Nicky writes: I’m enjoying the frosty mornings, walking Archie, our yellow Lab. He’s been doing a good Bambi impression in recent days, funneling along the paths after the scent of hedgehogs and other night visitors.


Archie by the river with Skiddaw in the background

The recent storms and floods up this way have wreaked a lot of devastation in our garden – not, thankfully, our house as we live on a hill – but it always amazes me how quickly Mother Nature bounces back.

Just a week after the floods, we were out on a crispy night, gazing at the clear night sky. With no light pollution here, we have fabulous views of the starscape. There was a full moon, and snow visible on the fell tops like sprinkled icing sugar. Incredible how quickly calm can return when the weather was wreaking havoc just seven days earlier.

The floods had a significant impact on local wildlife. Friends found a red squirrel lying on their doormat during the floods.


Photo courtesy of alan cleaver 2000

Luckily, red squirrels are regulars in this area with an active support community keeping a look-out for intruding greys.

Heading back from the fells to our garden, I spot the chairs still out on our decking. They don’t seem a lot of winter use but, on clear days, there’s nothing like a glass of hot mulled wine and a slice of stollen on the deck. We look straight out onto stunning views of the fells opposite.

Despite these walks with Archie, my work-life balance isn’t actually all that it might be! If you want evidence, take a look at our garden. I’ve been doing my best and, with a lot of evergreen, the plot still looks active. But the piles of leaves blown under plants and bushes by the wind give the game away. And after floods in the garden and the veggie plot for a week, the ground is distinctly soggy underfoot. It’s certainly not the finest moment for our sprouts and broccoli as a result.

The beetroot is still hanging on in there, but the leeks need a good burst of sunshine and that’s a rare thing at this time of year. With sunrise at 8.30am and sunset before 4pm at the moment, the garden isn’t getting much sunlight or warmth. So we have to be content with some somewhat withered looking vegetables at times. The important thing, though, is the taste. And on that score, they still deliver.

So it’s time to prune, clear and put the garden to bed for a couple of months. Luckily I cut and dried our sage and lavender some weeks ago, so there’s enough for the sage stuffing on Christmas day, and small presents of lavender drawer fresheners, hand-made by our daughter.

I’ve also planted some more bulbs for the spring, while I had local gardeners round recently for the winter cropping. My Rowan tree – traditionally planted at the front of houses for protection – now looks like a coat stand. But experience tells me that it will soon bounce back into life. The fir trees have also had their annual haircut, opening up the view to Skiddaw, the Lakeland’s fourth highest fell.

As I head back towards the house, I notice a strange mix of elements. There are the bean wigwams, looking distinctly bare. Mental note – give a lick of paint before spring. Many of the bushes, like the magnolia and Rhododendron by contrast, are already in bud. So seasonal decay mixed with signs of new life.


Our almost empty veggie plot with the view of the fells

I pass the compost bin, currently fit to bursting. We’ve just been given a Bokashi bin too. It can apparently be used to decompose food, even cooked stuff, without attracting rats and other predators. We’re looking out for tips how to use it to best advantage – all suggestions gratefully received – but the truth is we’re not actually sure that we leave enough food to warrant using it.

Influenced by sites like My Zero Waste , we manage to do some meals from “the bottom of the fridge” these days. So we’re actually wondering if we should donate the Bokashi to a bigger family.

Finally, I head back indoors. It’s time to return to the Millican orders. But tonight, I’m looking forward to creating our winter wreath, a real annual ritual. I’ve already cut the holly, fir and rosemary sprigs for the wreath and am looking forward to dumping the greenery all over the wooden floor.

Then, with a glass of damson gin to hand, I’ll make wreaths for my Mum and us. With pinecones recycled from last year, moss pulled from the stones out back, and greenery from the garden, it’s a real home-grown affair. Maybe it’s not as sophisticated as the wreaths you’d find in a florist but I like making them with my hands and the creativity involved. It’s a good reminder that Christmas will be soon upon us. Then it really will be time to put our feet up and stop.

The Art Of Manliness

It’s been fascinating for us to spend some time recently browsing a major US website – The Art of Manliness.

This red-blooded site, designed to celebrate all that is manly (as opposed to macho) in US males, is hugely popular in the States as well as enjoying a world-wide following. Composed of a series of articles, advice and biogs, it certainly gives food for thought about what it is that makes a model man.

And it’s been a pleasure to contribute a recent guest post about our very own model of Lake District manhood, our namesake – Millican Dalton.

We first encountered the Manliness site through its terrific post about Matthew Henson, the black arctic explorer who was a key companion to Robert Edwin Peary. Peary was the white explorer whose name has come down to us as the first to set foot on the northernmost tip of the world in 1909.

Henson was a trusted and gifted partner to Peary on many expeditions and yet systematically uncredited on every occasion. White history is only now fully recognising what a critical role Henson played in Peary’s expeditions and how falsely he has been sidelined for many decades.


"Commander Peary and Matthew Henson at the North Pole" by Austin Mecklem

Photo courtesy of dbking

Significantly, Henson is still remembered even today by the Inuit of Greenland. They tell stories of him and sing of ‘Mahripaluq’ (‘Matt, the Kind One”). For the truth is that while Peary was condescending towards the Inuit people, Henson took them to his heart. Henson wrote:

“Many and many a time, for periods covering more than twelve months, I have been to all intents an Esquimo, with Esquimos for companions, speaking their language, dressing in their clothing, living in the same kind of dens, eating the same food, enjoying their pleasures, and frequently sharing their griefs. I have come to love these people. I know every man, woman, and child in their tribe. They are my friends and they regard me as theirs”.

Henson’s story and our time on this website set us musing about the art of manliness, UK-style. The truth is that we don’t tend to celebrate the red-blooded Englishman in the same way as our American cousins. British derring-do has been a-plenty in the past but tends to be celebrated in more understated ways in our culture. Think of the stiff upper lip corridors of The Royal Geographic Society.

It’s probably fair to say that, as a post-imperial country, we’ve also become somewhat embarrassed by our Victorian forbears. Too often their expeditions and adventures were the other side of the coin from imperial looting and pillaging. We find it hard to separate the two activities now and to recognise what was admirable about certain individuals, however historically blinkered their attitudes to power, class and race.

Having said that, look at current audience and media interest in Bear Grylls, and you conclude that a fascination with the adventuring Englishman persists.

It’s also fair to say that in contrast to American or Aussie models of manliness, we value a more offbeat, humorous angle in their British counterparts.

Millican Dalton wasn’t a recluse but he was certainly an eccentric. That is, he found his true nature lay somewhat wide of the agreed centre of society and chose to live on the margins, in his own pioneering way, instead.

He combined quirky humour, adventuring zeal, homespun wisdom and political polemic in equal amounts. And in contrast to Matthew Henson, he hardly looked the model of manliness. With his frayed shorts, skinny legs and trailing beard, he appeared more like an emaciated Robinson Crusoe.


Which is probably why we’ve taken him to our hearts here in Cumbria. Because of his mix of contradictions. Well-educated and well-read but living in a cave. Classic adventurer but addicted to Woodbines. Of Quaker lineage with strong pacifist views that he frequently communicated in letters to Winston Churchill. Yet also overgrown child, delighting in romantic tales of boyhood and still shinning up trees like a reckless schoolboy.

We like our British heroes with this mix of plucky spirit and confounding eccentricity. With the explorer’s spirit and some self-mocking humour to boot.

So let’s continue to hold these kinds of heroes to our heart. But let’s not forget to enjoy their humour, failings and, frequently, political incorrectness. You can’t always have a man who’s a model in every aspect of his life.

Whodunnit

It sometimes reads like a game of Cluedo.

The universal consensus is that global warming is increasing. Yet the arguments around who is responsible rage as fiercely as ever. Whodunnit?

As the Copenhagen Summit on climate change kicks in, we’ve been poring over the avalanche of media articles on the subject. And while there is a significant majority of scientists who now conclude that global warming is man-made, the sceptic camp remains as vocal as ever.

Photo courtesy of rose of red rock

The Do Lectures cover plenty of this material, while we’ve also been fascinated to learn this week that the history of studying climate change didn’t begin with Al Gore and the new millennium. It actually has a venerable history stretching back to the turn of the nineteenth century.

It was in 1824 that a French physicist, Joseph Fourier, discovered the “greenhouse effect” whereby gases in the atmosphere trap heat like the glass in a conservatory. Thirty-seven years later, John Tyndall – an Irish physicist – took up the topic and identified carbon dioxide as one of its causes.

And in 1894, Svante Arrehenius – a thirty five year old physicist in Sweden heartbroken by the collapse of his marriage – decided to focus his mind by tackling a complex mathematical problem. Often labouring fourteen hours a day, he worked out what the effect of different amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases would have on global temperatures.

At the end of his year of slings and arrows, he mused, “It is unbelievable that so trifling a matter has cost me a full year”. His trifling matter was to have estimated that doubling the amount of gas would cause global temperatures to rise by 5C-6C – almost exactly the same conclusion reached today by scientists with superfast computers at their disposal!

Our own take on the Copenhagen Summit is that its attempt to unite the world around a single global issue is to be welcomed, if ambitious. As the 350 campaign has made clear, the target of 350 parts per million as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere represents an important touchstone for future debate.


Photo courtesy of RichardO

And yet we’re not scientists. We feel pretty ignorant in the face of the arguments coming from climate change campaigners and sceptics. We simply don’t have the scientific expertise.

But we don’t see the question of whodunnit as the central issue. The question of whether humankind is or is not responsible seems less pressing to us than a different thought. Namely, that reducing our reliance on fossil fuel and CO2 emissions is surely a good step whatever.

Although it is important that scientists make their respective cases, finally nothing is going to change simply because we place humankind in toto– or even Western countries alone - in the dock. Change is going to happen when we each begin to make different individual choices about how we manage our lives based on our knowledge.

And for this, we need a more extensive programme of education. We all need to become much more conscious of our choices and critical of our consumer suppliers. We certainly don’t feel angels in this regard at Millican. We’ve made significant steps in terms of creating a business run on sustainable lines. But we’re aware of our shortfalls and failings. There are some key areas in which we’d like to manufacture using different materials and we’re waiting on developments in those areas to make costs more manageable. There will always be more that we can do.

However, we’re glad to have got started on making more conscious choices and whittling down our over-consumption. The Copenhagen Summit surely represents an important moment in time. The momentum behind these issues has reached critical mass. The ball is rolling so let’s all roll with it and determine how we each can influence the future for the better.

When The Times back in the 1930’s asked a number of writers for essays on the topic ‘What’s Wrong With The World?’, the author G.K. Chesterton sent in the shortest, most succinct reply:

“Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterton”

He dunnit. I dunnit. You dunnit. We all dunnit.

Women and Wanderlust

Recently visiting Wanderlust and Lipstick - a top website for women travellers - we were reminded of one of our favourite female adventurers.

Mabel Barker was a woman way ahead of her time, a passionate teacher, a fearless rock-climber, and a devoted friend of Millican Dalton.

Sometimes people presume that we must sell our travel bags mainly to men. But that’s not true. We had as many women as men scouring our Millican retail stand at this summer’s shows. And they weren’t all shopping for their menfolk!

The truth is that women love adventuring just as much as men, and Mabel Barker is an inspiring role model in this regard. So what can we learn from her life about leading a life of bold adventure, unconstrained by social convention.

Remember Your Childhood Passions

Mabel grew up with a love of nature. She clearly had a bug for the outdoors in her blood. Her father was an enthusiastic cyclist on his Penny Farthing, later riding a motorbike into his 80’s. However, even he and Mabel’s mother were sometimes alarmed by their daughter’s passion for cycling and fell-walking. Mabel never lost touch with these passions, pursuing them throughout her adult life with students and friends.

Let Fellow Adventurers Encourage You

When Mabel brought a party of school girls to the Lake District in 1913, she first encountered Millican Dalton. We can guage something of his impact on her by his first recorded words to her when they went climbing. “Skirt detachable? Take it off?” Hardly words for the ears of a genteel young lady in Edwardian England!

But the fact is that Mabel and Millican had plenty in common in their heartfelt desire to carve out their own way in life. They were both well-educated, both passionate about Nature, and both opinionated about society, freedom and the value of experiment.

When Millican ordered Mabel’s skirt off, she wrote, “I obeyed and knew the feel of the rope for the first time”. It was the beginning of a close bond between them that would see them climbing in the Lake District and Austria, and shinning up trees in Epping Forest! Millican encouraged Mabel in her passions and whetted her appetite for further adventure.

Dare To Do Things Differently

One of the boldest ways that Millican and Mabel flouted convention was in their arrangements for Mabel’s brother’s wedding day in 1919. After a church service, the quartet headed up to a cave used by Millican on the flank of Castle Crag in the Lake District. There they enjoyed a wedding breakfast of chicken, boiled by Millican in a billycan. No wedding dress or morning suit for bride and groom. It was tweeds only!


"Sports after wedding breakfast" near Millican's Cave, September 1919. Photo taken by Mabel Barker.

Later that afternoon, the quartet enjoyed themselves climbing in and around a set of nearby quarries. Typical of Mabel that she should have encouraged her brother in this eccentric and unusual wedding day!

Take The Lead At All Opportunities

As a woman, Mabel would have been used to deferring to a man in Edwardian society, especially one who had superior knowledge to her. However, Millican quickly spotted her climbing ability and was happy to let her take the lead on their expeditions. Mabel wrote, “When we climbed together, it was rather a shock to find that I was expected as a matter of course to take the lead”.

Later, she also proved a pioneer in her expeditions with another climbing partner, C. D. Frankland. In 1925, she ascended Central Buttress on Scaffel Crag - the hardest route in the Lakes which had only been conquered three times and never by a woman. The following year, with Frankland, she became the first woman to traverse the Cuillin Ridge on the Isle of Skye. Mabel always seized an opportunity and was unafraid to lead.


Photo courtesy of keepwaddling1, Cuillin Ridge and Loch Coruisk

Find The Fun In Life

Mabel was a passionate educator and thinker about issues of earth, community and sustainability. But she was also tremendously spirited and fun. One of her pupils caught this mix of elements in her nature: “She believed strongly in social progress for women, wanted to live on her own terms. She was very direct in manner, wore tweeds, and had hair coiled on her head. She had a great sense of fun, wanting to engage with young people. She was fond of animals, owning black labs and retrievers, and a pet jackdaw called Johnnie that used to sit on her shoulder”. Mabel even owned a pet badger called Judy. Albeit Judy was dispatched to London Zoo after she bit her owner!

Turn Tragedy To Good Account

C.D. Frankland was one of Mabel’s dearest friends. In 1927, aged forty-one, she was climbing Napes Needle with him when he fell to his death. Mabel had to descend to reach his body. She cradled his head in her hands, mourning her dearest climbing partner.

Frankland’s death didn’t break her spirit, however. In many ways, Mabel felt that he had died doing what he loved and had found his natural resting place in his beloved landscape. She wrote, “I can be glad that my friend is dead... There is nought to fear, and the mighty mountains shall keep the rest”.

Moreover, Frankland’s death seemed to prompt Mabel to initiate change in her own life. It was after his death that she set up a pioneering school in Caldbeck, Cumbria, developing a radical curriculum for her pupils. The school became a innovative force in combining practical education with the wide outdoors. So students were encouraged to climb boulders, make looms, go brambling, build dams and igloos, and make marmalade.

Be Yourself At All Costs

As an adventurer, Mabel was not a woman cut out for domestic cares and anxieties. She has been described as carefree with money. Her generosity also extended to a warm sense of hospitality. After she settled in Caldbeck, she would keep a pan of broth on the stove for the benefit of tired hikers who trudged past her door.

Mabel resisted living in the shadow of any other human being, despite her passionate interest in people and community. She never dropped out of society like Millican, preferring to work within society’s margin to achieve her goals. She could enjoy a close friendship with the Caveman of Borrowdale but she found her own way to express herself and to put into practice her ideals. In short, she had her own original mind and didn’t allow herself to over-influenced by others, however much she admired them.

Even on her deathbed in August 1961, she could make a passionate plea that rights of access to the fells should remain for walkers. She lived by her convictions and spoke them out, right to the end.

There are other sides of Mabel that we’d love to share more - her innovative views for the time about the importance of connection with the earth, and her radical agenda for outdoor education - but these will have to wait for another time.

For now, we hope you’ve taken some inspiration from this unusual woman - surely the very match of our namesake, Millican Dalton.