Savage's Drift was selected, just after the last war, as the north-east slope that each winter seemed to attract the greatest depth of snow in Lakeland. It was also of the required steepness and length to attract skiers. Other areas explored, I remember, included the upper slopes of White Side and Stybarrow Dodd to which we trundled a converted farm tractor for use as our first primitive rope tow.

In the happy days before global warming curtailed our winters we would usually finish a day on Raise by skiing down the zigzags to Keppel Cove and along the mines road or straight down the fellside to Glenridding. There were days when we had to ski in blizzards or rain or when the snow had turned to ice, but mostly I remember sunny days when we looked across Lakeland to the smooth dome of Cross Fell in the snowbound Northern Pennines, and the glistening white slopes stretching below us seemed almost as wonderful as the Alps. Will 2000 bring another winter anything like the ones we remember so fondly?