Ten year old completes Lyke Wake Walk

Then in 1966 - Heather Cowley said simply: “It wasn’t all that difficult. It was a bit tiring – but I would do it again.” It was spoken like the true record breaker she is.    For at the tender age of ten, Heather is the youngest person ever to complete the 40 mile Lyke Wake Walk over the moors from Osmotherley to Ravenscar. Her father Bill Cowley, a Swainby farmer who founded the walk ten years ago, accompanied her. So too did two friends Mr. W. Walking and his 12 year old daughter Anne.

Some 7,000 people have completed the walk, and Bill Cowley has made 21 crossings. The craze has certainly caught on in the Cowley family. Mrs. Cowley has covered the distance three times, 17 year old John fifteen times, and David (15) six times. Only William jnr has shown little interest in the family sport, he is only four years old.
  
Heather told me: “I suppose it was my brother’s taunts that made me want to do it. They said it wasn’t the kind of thing a slip of a girl could accomplish.” Her achievement makes her eligible for membership of the Lyke Wake Walk Club, which holds two “wakes” each year.
  
Now in 1999 - Heather, now Mrs Heather Kent, lives in Blaydon Tyne & Wear. She recalls that the Lyke Wake Walk became a way of life with her, and she completed the walk a dozen times or more since that first excursion.
  
“On one occasion as a teenager I actually walked the 40 miles alone, setting out in the early hours in brilliant moonlight. It took me about 14 hours to reach Ravenscar”
  
We wondered if she would allow her two daughters (Hazel 11 and Eleanor 13) to set out on a walk like that today.
  
“Probably not, which is a shame. I used to walk home from school in Swainby to Potto Hill Farm where we lived, down a lonely country lane and never gave it a second thought. But you do read about some dreadful happenings these days.” 
  
Her spirit of adventure continued when she went exploring India at the age of 18, and she still enjoys walking in the Lake District and trekking in the Pyrenees with her husband Malcolm.
  
Recently Heather accompanied her mother Mrs Jean Cowley, to the annual Winter Wake in Thirsk which is organised by those who have completed the Lyke Wake Walk. “It was just like old times” she said.Her father Bill Cowley died in 1994.

This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Now & Then Magazine