A Tale Or Two about Trail layers.

La’al Billy Teasdale,frae Caldbeck was as great a favourite among hound trailers as he is with regular patrons of Grasmere sports. After winning the fell race at Grasmere on Thursday he ran one end of the senior and maiden trails at Caldbeck on Friday. One admirer said he could run both trails himself. ‘Give him five minutes start and he would beat the hounds themselves ‘.
That was an extract from the ‘news ‘ from 1961.
Billy was a legend , but not infallible. One night, on his beloved Caldbeck fells, he was due to lay the senior trail and as usual made his way to the split which was marked with a stick, it was a real pea souper of a night and much to everyones dismay the trailers got lost.
On being asked ‘what went wrong’ Billy replied , ‘ lost! ‘ we couldn’t even find the bloody stick.’
Another legend was Tommy Graves frae Ambleside ,who , as wanted by the sports and show Committee, had to lay the trail exactly to time , not a minute early or a minute late.
And for years Tommy’s timing was ‘spot on’.
How ! it was asked does he, after walking two hours or more in all types of conditions, manage to get it right every year.
The answer was clear when he was spotted sitting behind the last wall, drawing on his pipe, waiting for the exact moment to jump over the wall and continue down the finish right on time. They even sang a song about him.
That’s a just a couple of tales – there is a tale about a trailer who was that slow the hounds caught up with him. I’ve no idea who it could have been, perhaps it was just a magical story about a cragsman.