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Millican Dalton: A Sublime Midlife Crisis

The relevance of a 20th century cave-dweller to environmental aesthetics.

Wednesday, 23 December 2020

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At the mouth of the cave at Borrowdale, May 2020. Photograph: Lewis Eaton.

On a swelteringly hot day in the North Western Fells of The Lake District, the gaping mouth of a cave offered itself as a refuge and swallowed us mercifully into its cool damp interior. Caves are otherworldly places. This particular cave, set into the hillside of Castle Crag, allows you to peer out at the gently swaying trees and glimmering daylight of the outside world from a viewing point void of light and sound. The daytrip itself had been to seek refuge in The Lakes; an attempt at replacing the stagnancy of a locked-down city summer with a more welcome, less claustrophobic, kind of tranquillity. We spent a few minutes scrambling around on the siltstone, marvelling at the height of the cave walls and exchanging the obligatory comments about feeling small in big spaces. On leaving, I noticed a large, flat stone covered in scrawlings. At the centre in neat, deeply-etched letters read ‘Don’t Waste Words, Jump to Conclusions’ with dozens of smaller sections of writing surrounding this. Each gave names and dates, with many faded with age and dissolving back into the stone’s surface. It was from a frantic Googling during the car ride home that I came to find out we had happened across a sort-of pilgrimage place for hikers: the cave in which a man had lived out his summers for over forty consecutive years.

In 1904, at the age of thirty-six, Millican Dalton gave up his life as an insurance clerk in London in order to dedicate himself to The Great Outdoors. Having spent part of his childhood in Nenthead, the North Pennines, he found life and work in the capital stifling in comparison. From then on Dalton split his year, spending the summer months in the cave under Castle Crag and winters in a canvas hut in Buckinghamshire. Far from your conventional hermit, Dalton was an active and sociable member of the community. He organised camping excursions for the outdoors novice which included teaching hiking, rock climbing, rafting and how to forage for food. What I found extraordinary for the time was that these excursions didn’t exclude women, with one of Dalton’s advertisements for a mountaineering course stating his views bluntly: “Ladies are welcome to the camp. There is nothing new in ladies camping, the custom being at least 10,000 years old.” This rare indiscriminate approach led to Dalton forging a long-lasting friendship with geologist Mabel Barker, who over the years consistently recommended Dalton’s courses to women students and friends.

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Dalton and Barker atop a needle, 1913. The Mable Barker Collection.

- Nov 20, 2015

No Artists: Which artist can’t get no love from you?

1. Your lover asks to paint your portrait, you hate it because...

a) He told me to pose nude for him and you couldn’t even tell it was me. I walked seductively down the stairs 200 times for that? Please.

b) Okay. Firstly, my feminine curves aren’t THAT undulating. What are you trying to say? Also, you know I’ve never liked my nose in profile.

c) I mean, I guess you could say it was accurate... But if I wanted everyone to see my #nomakeupselfie I wouldn’t restrict it to 1 second Snapchats.

2. Whats the most annoying thing your lovers done recently?

a)He found this manky urinal on the street and is trying to set it up in our bathroom, saying its his now. Its like, fine, you can leave the seat up.

b) He mostly ignores me, and then the only time he liked my Instagram was when I dressed up as a sausage dog for Halloween. I wasn’t even a sexy sausage dog.

c) So, his recent hobby is armchair psychology. We Netflix and chill on the weekends, you don’t fucking know me.

3. He’s helping you decorate the house, ugh, it looks worse than before...

a) Are a few pretty pictures too much to ask? No, I don’t want a bottle rack in my hallway. I told him my eyes hurt and he said I should try using my mind. Ruuude.

b) Well, he painted everything blue and then started crying. Next time, keep your comedown to yourself, I prefer rose pink.

c) He said he was a painting pro and offered to do the walls, but I think he was lying? I’m sorry but that finish was NOT smooth, I can still see the brushstrokes.

4. What was the moment you decided it had to end?

a) I passed out on the sofa at a party and he drew a mustache on my face. Seriously? I was running late for my lecture and forgot to look in the mirror...

b) I asked for a guitar for my birthday, and he gave me this weird small one made from cardboard, I don’t think it even had strings.

c) I was looking at his search history and lets just say BBW isn’t going out of business. I mean, whatever, but at least search incognito.

Mostly As = Duchamp

Mostly Bs = Picasso

Mostly Cs = Lucien Freud

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