MOUNTAINEERING AND GAMES
SIR,—Is not Mr. Harold Nicolson comparing two recreations that are quite dissimilar in his delightful article in last week's Spectator?
I share with him to the full his distaste for " set games." Cricket has always se.nned to me to be a melancholy game, and Bridge and other card games I find frankly tedious. Golf may be left to its admirers without serious self-denial, and Rugby football (the only set game that I ever played) loses its fascination with retreating youthfulness. But mountaineering, tramping or cycling are different. I once scrambled among the Alps when Mr. Amery (to whom he refers) was also occupied in the same recreation, and still recall the thrill of those far-off days when the keen, cold air from the mountains acted like a strong stimulant, the silences only broken by the call of the Marmot and the distant tinkling of the cow-bells in the valley below.
I have memories of walks over the Lakeland Fells that are among the happiest in a lifetime, and pictures of quiet inns after a strenuous day's tramping, when I sat before a peat fire with a friendly volume in the lamplight, that are still pleasant to recall. I can still recapture the thrill of coasting down from the heights of the Grampians on a cycle, after a steady three- miles' climb, a memory that makes the heart beat faster ; of journeys in North Wales at Whitsun when the keen wind blew from the snow-capped mountains around me. Those were the great days.
I hope that Mr. Harold Nicolson's article will not deter the youth of today from being thrilled by similar experiences.
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