Digging for information

By Karen Barden

Rummaging among rock fall in a desolate, damp cave, it is hard to believe this was one man's home for nearly 50 years. "I'm not a superstitious person at all, but there is definitely an atmosphere here," says Harvey Wilkinson, registrar at Abbot Hall, in Kendal, who has been helping the gallery gather information on legendary Borrowdale caveman Millican Dalton.

"This was a guy whose life reads like something from a popular novel," explains Harvey. "He was the superman of the day. He had the dullest job imaginable an insurance clerk in some London office. It was at complete odds with the lifestyle he wanted, so he just took off to find it."

The Professor of Adventure became a particular success with the ladies, according to Harvey. In the new 20th century they were finding their feet and revelling in newfound independence. Millican's modus operandi proved compelling as they joined him camping, climbing, sailing, or whatever exciting activity was on offer. "Women looked on him as a guru figure. He probably treated them as equals, which would have been unusual then and for that reason alone would have made him popular. It was certainly felt shocking in some Borrowdale circles that he was entertaining unchaperoned females."

Wearing his hand-sewn jacket, long shorts rolled up, ex-army puttees on his legs, pieces of material wrapped around his feet, to avoid socks, heavy clinkered hand-made boots and a large felt hat, topped with a long pheasant's feather, Millican was easily spotted in quiet, conservative Keswick and Borrowdale.

Keswick writer Alan Hankinson said he had once spoken to an elderly lady, who had been one of the professor's climbing clients in the 1930s. "She said he was a wonderful guide and cheerful, enlivening company, but there was one problem. He smelt rather, so you always tried to get up-wind of him." His skin was dark, like weather-beaten leather.

While the River Derwent with its deep rock pools flowed a couple of hundred yards from his cave, Millican is not known to have bathed there for hygienic purposes.

"There are no biographies around, only fragments of information," said Harvey Wilkinson. "Coming to the place where he lived for so long, you feel something," he added, glancing around the two roughly hewn chambers, bereft of any potential creature comfort. "Millican Dalton has left a real mark on the place."

2:44pm Thursday 10th April 2003