Alfred Wainwright's biographer suggests he was Autistic

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Alfred Wainwright ("A.W.") MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991) was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, published between 1955 and 1966 and consisting entirely of reproductions of his manuscript, has become the standard reference work to 214 of the fells of the English Lake District. Among his 40-odd other books is the first guide to the Coast to Coast Walk, a 192-mile long-distance footpath devised by Wainwright which remains popular today.

Wainwright's Pictorial Guides have been in continuous publication since they were written and have sold more than two million copies.[Although a number of more up-to-date guides are on the market, his books remain among the most popular for their depth, detail and unique style. His division of the Lake District into seven areas, and choice of fells to include, have been followed in whole or in part by subsequent writers such as Mark Richards. The Coast to Coast Walk is one of the most popular long-distance footpaths in the United Kingdom despite its lack of official status, and has spawned various guidebooks by other authors. In 2003 it was voted the second best walk in the world in a survey of experts conducted by Country Walking magazine. The popularity of Wainwright's books of drawings and arge-format photographic books has not matched that of the guides.

He was famed for his stubborn nature, insisting his intricate Lakeland guidebooks be printed in his own handwriting and balking at any outing that would involve him missing an episode of his beloved Coronation Street. Now a new biography of the renowned fell walker Alfred Wainwright by one of his closest associates argues that he may have been on the autistic spectrum.

The claim is made by Richard Else, a Bafta-winning film maker who coaxed Wainwright on to television in the 1980s and became so close to him in his later years that they were often mistaken for father and son. The pair made three BBC series and travelled more than 5,000 miles together, exploring the Lake District, Scotland and the Pennine Way, as well as Wainwright’s own creation – the Coast to Coast walk.

Wainwright Revealed, which is published this week, offers an affectionate portrait of an unintentionally awkward man who understood the hills more than other people.

Else admits he has no medical background, but points to his subject’s obsessiveness and need for a “compulsive rigidity” as evidence of possible autism. Wainwright survived on a diet consisting almost exclusively of fish and chips, ideally eaten at a Little Chef. He absolutely had to know the latest Blackburn Rovers score (and latest Coronation Street plot) and had worked his way through every single book about westerns in Kendal library while ignoring every other genre.

Wainwright’s “need for all-enveloping order” can be seen in his seven-volume masterpiece, A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, argues Else. The books follow a distinctly idiosyncratic approach, obsessively cataloguing each fell in a range and listing every ascent, rather than just the most rewarding or easiest. He ranked all aspects of the Lake District, listing not only the best fells and summits and finest ridge walks, but also the best square mile: around Castle Crag in Borrowdale.

“I believe AW may have been, in the terminology currently used, ‘on the spectrum’,” writes Else, who has consulted with doctors who admire Wainwright and who, he says, agree that his amateur diagnosis “seems consistent with what we know about him and his work”.

Jane King, one of Wainwright’s two stepdaughters, who deal with the literary estate, has considered Else’s theory. “He certainly did have some traits that nowadays might be considered on the autistic spectrum — the order in his life and the obsession with his work. The fact that he spent 13 years doing these guides, which was an amazing feat, but how many people would spend 13 years doing these guides every evening?”

King was a teenager when she first met Wainwright and says he liked to have his meals at fixed times and had a “very ordered” daily routine: “Every evening he just went up to his study and wrote and drew, apart from coming down to eat and Coronation Street and very special occasions. That’s a fairly unusual pattern, I think.” But, she adds: “If he hadn’t been like that he would never have produced these guides.”

When Else wrote to Wainwright in 1982 as a young programme maker, he held out little hope that the great man would agree to be interviewed on camera. Despite wide acclaim, no radio or TV producer had succeeded in interviewing Wainwright, who appeared to show no interest in the limelight. He had a reputation, Else admits, as “a curmudgeonly, difficult and off-hand man”.

Wainwright’s initial reply was typically blunt: “[Appearing on television] is not my cup of tea at all”, he said. “If you are wanting autobiographical details, you will find all I am prepared to divulge in my book titled Fellwanderer.”

Since his death, Else has reflected on why Wainwright behaved as he did. “I have thought about his attitude and psychological makeup, in particular the way he behaved with other people, and I came to the view that this was not deliberate or the action of someone who wished to be awkward,” Else writes in the book. “That Wainwright behaved in the way he did was, I concluded, an involuntary act.”

Jane Harris, the director of external affairs at the National Autistic Society, said: “The suggestion that an influential figure like Alfred Wainwright may have been autistic is certainly interesting and shows that the general public are becoming more aware of autism. This new awareness is encouraging, but it’s impossible to retro-diagnose a person. The diagnosis process is detailed, carried out by an expert team and requires the child or adult to be present to answer a range of questions about how they see and experience the world.

“We do know that many autistic people find the noise, unpredictability and frantic pace of a city overwhelming and prefer tranquil spaces. So although we can’t say for certain that Alfred was autistic, if he had been, this is a reminder that throughout history, autistic people have been sharing their passions and unique skills to the huge benefit of wider society.”