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The Old Keeper's Field BookWalter Metcalfe Get the Kit · £29
From the Walter Metcalfe channel

Most of what I know, nobody wrote down. So I have.

The signs the old keepers trusted, for anyone who walks Britain's hills, woods and water, and wants to come home safe.

  • Two books in big print, in plain words
  • Both read aloud by Walter, nearly 3 hours
  • 12 pocket cards + a card for the family
£29£45Founding price
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One payment, yours to keep. Opens on your phone, tablet or computer. Or the book alone for £15.

Walter outside his stone cottage in the Dales, holding The Old Keeper's Field Book and The Keeper's Night Book
2big-print books
168pages in the Field Book
3 hrsread aloud by Walter
12pocket cards
Why I wrote it

The countryside rarely warns you twice.

I've spent over fifty years on the hills. In all that time, the people I saw get into bother were hardly ever careless. They just hadn't been told.

i.

The beck runs clear

So you fill your bottle. Two hundred yards upstream, out of sight, a ewe has been lying dead in it since Tuesday.

ii.

The cows look half asleep

So you cut across with the dog on its lead. There are calves in the far corner, and the field belongs to their mothers now.

iii.

The light's still good

So you push on for the top. By the time you turn round, the cloud's down and the path you came up has gone grey.

"None of it is bad luck. It's things the old keepers knew and never wrote down. This book is me writing them down."

Came here from a video?

The video is one corner. The book is the whole of it.

The book puts it all in one place, in order, with the cases behind it and the rule to take away. So you have it with you when you're out there, and not just when you're watching.

What's inside the Field Book

Twenty-six chapters, in the order trouble tends to come.

You don't have to read it front to back. Each chapter is five or six pages, so you can read one with a cup of tea and stop. Every chapter is built the same way:

1What happenedA real case from the British countryside
2What the keepers knewThe knowledge, plainly, the way it was taught to me
3The Keeper's RuleOne line you'll remember out there
4Before you goA short check for your next walk
5A word from WalterThe bit I'd tell you over the gate
Up front

The Keeper's 12 Rules: the whole book in five minutes

  1. Tell someone where you're going and when you'll be back.
  2. Turn back while turning back is still easy.
  3. Never drink from water you haven't walked up.
  4. If water's loud, it's deep or fast. Leave it.
  5. Cold water takes you before the drowning does. Float first.
  6. Cows with calves own the field. Go round.
  7. The weather on the tops is not the weather in the car park.
  8. Be off the hill an hour before dark.
  9. Read the ground before you choose where to sleep.
  10. If something feels wrong, it usually is. Leave.
  11. Know how to say where you are.
  12. Lost? Stop. Sit. Think. Then act.
Part I

Reading the Land

  1. The Land Is Always Talking
  2. Marks on a Tree You Should Never Ignore
  3. Three Smells the Old Keepers Never Ignored
  4. Tracks, Droppings and What Came Through in the Night
  5. Big Cat or Not? Reading the Sign Properly
  6. Choosing Where to Stop, Sit and Sleep
Part II

Water

  1. Why I Would Never Drink From a Mountain Stream
  2. The Strid, and Water That Looks Like Nothing
  3. Lochs, Rivers and Quarries I Won't Swim In
  4. Crossing Water, and When Not To
  5. Tides and Sands
Part III

The Hill and the Weather

  1. The Highland Rules
  2. Reading Weather the Old Way
  3. Twenty Keeper's Tricks for Heavy Rain
  4. The Last Hour of Light
  5. Bothies: How to Use One, and When to Walk Past
  6. Cold: The Slow Killer
Part IV

Animals and People

  1. Why Keepers Never Cross a Field of Cows
  2. Dogs on the Hill
  3. Adders, Ticks and the Small Things That Do Real Harm
  4. Foxes, Boar and Deer: When Wild Animals Get Bold
  5. People in the Woods: Who to Help, and Who to Walk Away From
  6. Poachers, Lampers and Hare Coursers
Part V

When It Goes Wrong

  1. Lost on the Moor: The First Ten Minutes
  2. Getting Help: What to Say, and Who Comes
  3. If I'm Not Back by Dark (written for the family at home)
At the back

For keeping

  1. The Record: every case in the book, one line each
  2. Keeper's Words: beck, gill, spate, bothy and the rest
  3. Where to find help: rescue, forecasts, bothies
  4. Sources for every chapter

Have a look at a few pages

Tap any page to see it full size
The Record

Real places. Real days. The lesson each one left.

The book doesn't frighten you with made-up stories. It walks you through things that happened on British hills and shores, what the record shows, and the one thing that would have changed it.

1971
The Cairngorm Plateau, November. A school party set out across the plateau for a two-day exercise. Caught by blizzards, five pupils and their eighteen-year-old trainee instructor died. It is still remembered as Britain's worst mountaineering disaster. Chapter 12, The Highland Rules.
2004
Morecambe Bay, 5 February. Twenty-three cockle pickers were cut off by the incoming tide after dark. Local cocklers had tried to warn them. Chapter 11, Tides and Sands.
1995
Bodmin Moor. A government inquiry into big cat reports found "no verifiable evidence", and said it couldn't prove there wasn't one either. What a keeper actually looks for, and what it usually turns out to be. Chapter 5, Big Cat or Not?

Every case is told with care for the people involved, and every source is listed at the back so you can check it yourself.

Only in the Complete Kit

The Keeper's Night Book

The Field Book is how to get home. This one is what keepers talk about once they are home, by the fire, after dark.

  • The big cats of Britain, and what's actually on record
  • Black dogs: Black Shuck, and the Barghest of my own Dales
  • The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui
  • Lights on the moor, and why keepers never follow them
  • Loch Ness, from someone who's stood on the shore
  • The keeper's gibbet, hares and witches, poachers' tales
  • Four things I've seen myself and still can't explain

Twelve chapters in big print. Each one is sorted plainly into the story as it's told, what's on the record, and what I make of it. Read aloud by Walter too: half an hour, in 13 tracks.

Get both books · £29
The Keeper's Night Book cover: Walter by the fire with an oil lamp
Made to be used, not just read

Listen to it. Print it. Put it on the fridge.

Walter resting in his leather armchair by the fire, with Nell the springer spaniel asleep at his feet
For your ears

Read aloud by Walter

Nearly three hours of Walter reading to you: two and a half hours for the Field Book in 29 tracks, and half an hour for the Night Book in 13. Every chapter has its own track. Put it on in the car on the way to the hills, or in the evening with your feet up. If small print tires your eyes, this is the way to have it.

In Book + Voice and the Kit
Four of the printed pocket cards on a kitchen table: the Keeper's 12 Rules, Water, The Last Hour of Light, and Lost
For your pocket

12 Pocket Cards

Print them at home on ordinary A4 paper and cut them out. Each one is the size of a postcard: small enough for a jacket pocket, plain enough to read in the rain. Water, cattle, weather, the last hour of light, and what to say when you ring for help.

Only in the Complete Kit
The two pages of the If I'm Not Back by Dark card held on a fridge door with magnets
For the people at home

"If I'm Not Back by Dark"

A two-page card for the family. One page is your route and the time you'll be back. The other tells them exactly when to call, who to ask for and what to say. It's the page I'd most like every walker's family to have.

Only in the Complete Kit
Choose how you'd like it

Pay once. Keep it for good.

The whole Kit costs less than a tank of petrol to the Dales, and it's yours for good. These founding prices are for the first 200 readers, then they go up to the prices crossed out.

Everything in the Complete Kit on a kitchen table: the Field Book on a tablet, the Night Book on a phone with earphones, three pocket cards and the family card
Best value · everything

The Keeper's Complete Kit

Both books, both read aloud, and everything to print
£29£45
Only £8 more than Book + Voice, for a whole second book, its recording, the cards and the family card.
  • The Old Keeper's Field Book, 168 big-print pages
  • Read aloud by Walter, 2½ hours
  • The Keeper's Night Book, 12 chapters. Not sold on its own
  • The Night Book read aloud, 30 minutes
  • 12 Pocket Cards to print
  • "If I'm Not Back by Dark" family card
Get the Complete Kit · £29

Book + Walter's Voice

Read it and hear it
£21£30
  • The Old Keeper's Field Book, 168 big-print pages
  • Read aloud by Walter, 2½ hours
  • The Keeper's Night Book
  • The Night Book read aloud
  • 12 Pocket Cards
  • Family card
Get Book + Voice · £21

The Field Book

The big-print book on its own
£15£23
  • The Old Keeper's Field Book, 168 big-print pages
  • Walter reading it to you
  • The Keeper's Night Book
  • The Night Book read aloud
  • 12 Pocket Cards
  • Family card
Get the book · £15
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Prices in pounds. Outside the UK, the checkout shows your own currency. Buying for someone else? Tick "Give as a gift" at checkout.

MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE 30 DAYS
30-day money-back guarantee

Take it on your next walk. If it's not for you, you pay nothing.

Read it, listen to it, use the cards. If within 30 days you feel it wasn't worth it, reply to your receipt email and you'll get a full refund. No forms, no questions, and you don't have to give a reason.

Walter Metcalfe

1Pay securely

By card, PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Your payment is handled by Gumroad's secure checkout, and your card details are never shown to us.

2Check your email

Your link arrives within a minute or two. No account to set up and no password to remember.

3Press the button

The book opens and the recordings play, on your phone, tablet or computer. Keep the email and you can come back to it any time.

Walter in his armchair by the fire with a mug of tea, Nell asleep on the rug beside him
From Walter

Fifty years on the hill, written down plainly.

I was sixteen when I first went out on the hill with a stalker in the Highlands. Up there, the weather or the ground will kill you long before any animal does, and you learn to listen to both.

Later I came south to the Dales and kept the same moor for the best part of forty years. Most of what I know, nobody wrote down. It was passed from one keeper to the next, out on the hill.

Now I'm writing it down, the way it was taught to me: what to look for, what to leave alone, and the signs that tell you to turn back.

Walter Metcalfe

So you know what you're getting

Who this is for.

It's for you if…

  • You walk, ramble, camp, fish or just like being out in Britain's countryside
  • You watch the channel and want the whole of it in one place
  • You'd like a book you can listen to as well as read
  • Someone in your family heads out on the hills, and you'd sleep better if they had this
  • You like plain talk and real cases more than survival-show nonsense

It's not for you if…

  • You want a printed hardback in the post. This edition is digital
  • You're after a foraging guide. I won't tell you what's safe to eat
  • You want gear reviews or gadgets
  • You want a mountaineering or climbing manual
Questions folk ask first

Before you buy

Is this a paper book?

No. It's a digital book with recordings. Nothing is posted. It arrives by email straight after you pay, and you can print any page you like, the pocket cards especially.

I'm not good with computers. Will I manage?

Yes. After you pay you get an email with a button. Press it and the book opens. The recordings play like any other on your phone. You don't need an account or a password, and the email stays in your inbox so you can always find it again.

Is it safe to pay?

Yes. Payment is taken by Gumroad, a checkout used by thousands of authors. You can pay by card, PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and your card details are never shown to us. It's one payment, once.

How do I listen to Walter reading it?

Press play on the page your email opens, or save the recordings to your phone. There's one for each chapter, and they play on any phone, tablet or computer, and in most cars.

What if I lose the email?

Search your inbox for "Gumroad" and it'll be there. If it isn't, reply to any message from us, or write to Gumroad with the email address you paid with, and it will be sent again.

Can I give it as a gift?

Yes. Tick "Give as a gift" at checkout, add their email address and a message, and it goes straight to them. The Complete Kit makes a good present for anyone who walks on their own.

I live outside Britain. Is it still useful?

The cases, places and phone numbers are British, but most of the knowledge (water, weather, livestock, the last hour of light, getting found) holds on any hill. It's a good read before a walking trip to Britain, too. The checkout shows the price in your own currency.

Will I be charged again?

No. One payment, once. No subscription, nothing to cancel.

What if it isn't for me?

Reply to your receipt email within 30 days and you'll get a full refund. No forms and no questions.

Everything I wish someone had told me before my first winter on the hill.

Read it once at home, and you'll see the countryside differently on your next walk.

Get the Complete Kit · £29
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30-day money-back guarantee · arrives by email in a minute or two · or the book alone for £15

The Keeper's Complete KitBoth books, both read aloud, + cards · £45 £29
Get it · £29