In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors

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The Lyke Wake Walk is a 40-mile footpath that spools more or less horizontally across the entire width of the North York Moors, from Osmotherley in the west to Ravenscar in the east, at the sea. Devised by local farmer and writer Bill Cowley in 1955, it is much longer than typical recovery runs – which are usually just a few miles – but it feels like a satisfying distance: substantial but not punishing, spanning a day of summer light, but no more. And I am excited by the notion of covering the entire width of the North York Moors in one go. In Her Nature won the prestigious British Library Eccles’ Award (now called the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award). No, because I’m quite bloody-minded and I don’t see why I should be deprived of it. Running is fundamentally important to me, physically and emotionally. I take my lager up to my bedroom, which has spectacular views across Robin Hood’s Bay. I run myself a bath and, when it is full, I balance my cold glass on the side and lower myself into the hot water. Flakes of peat float free from my skin and I let my legs rise up too and hover just below the surface. I lie completely still in the warmth and it is so lovely I could cry. On 4 August, I am supposed to be running a marathon: my 14th. I would usually spend the days immediately before and after exchanging tips and debriefing with fellow runners, but I lie in bed, staring at the window or sleeping. I let the battery of my sports watch run down. Its assessment of my current fitness level changes from “maintaining”, to “recovery”, to “detraining”. Finally, it switches itself off. I do not recharge it.

I think that, in public messaging around this area, there is a bit too much emphasis on keeping women ‘safe’ and not enough on the main goal which is protecting women’s freedom. The idea of keeping women safe can sometimes treat men’s violence as an inevitable fact of life and puts the onus on women to restrict their activity accordingly. Alex Telfer/Eyevine Rachel Hewitt in the North York Moors In Her Nature is an urgent, beautifully written and fiercely important book. By framing the remarkable life of the pioneering mountaineer Lizzie le Blond within her own profoundly moving memoir of loss and endurance, Rachel Hewitt has produced an extraordinary double history: of women’s achievements in the great outdoors, and the relentless challenges women face in staking a claim to their own physical presence in sport, landscape and public space.’ – Helen Castor, author of She-WolvesFrazer, Jenni (19 January 2022). "Tributes paid to academic and activist against antisemitism Pete Newbon". Jewish News . Retrieved 19 January 2022. My second bookwas A Revolution of Feeling: The Decade that Forged the Modern Mind, published by Granta in 2017. A Revolution of Feelingis about emotion: it explores how the emotions that we allow ourselves to feel are shaped by our societies, cultures, politics, and languages. In particular, my book is interested in emotional change– radical shifts in how people think and talk about emotion – and I was interested in how this is bound up with dramatic political change. A Revolution of Feelingexplores these ideas in the context of one historical decade: I trace how the 1790s saw the collapse of radical political projects and, with them, the ushering-in of a new way of thinking about emotion. My book tells the stories of five political radicals who began the decade as embodiments of the late enlightenment’s spirit of buoyant optimism, but ended it crushed by disappointment and disillusionment; harbingers of a new cultural attitude towards emotion, defined by pessimism, conservativism and individualism. With intimate attention and in beautiful prose, IN HER NATURE moves deftly between the inner life and the great outdoors. Rachel Hewitt shows that not only do women have a history as runners, climbers and adventurers; we also have a right to the outdoors that is as crucial - and fragile - today as it ever was SARAH DITUM

A book of courage, grief, anger, wisdom and fortitude. It demands our attention.’ – Hermione Lee, author of Virginia Woolf You can,” I say. “It’s just a matter of building up distance, slowly. And it’s so worth it: I’ve had the best day.”

As a result, she went in search of the foremothers who blazed a trail at the dawn of outdoor sports in the 19th century. During her research, she discovered that all too often women had been pushed to the periphery of outdoor sports and activities. Hewitt R. ‘That Experienced Surveyor, Colonel Mudge’: Romantic Representations of the Ordnance Survey Mapmaker, 1791-1830.

In her Nature reanimates the stories of the past to reveal, brilliantly, the conditions through which women so often have to battle in the present... [it] will make you want to run, and to experience something of the hard-won emotional and physical freedom that Hewitt's prose so movingly evokes DAISY HAY, author of Dinner With Joseph Johnson The young woman behind the bar looks down at my peat-splattered legs and asks: “Have you walked here?” Willy is the family member to whom I’ve been closest for most of my life, even after he and my mother divorced – but there is no official name for the relationship between a stepfather and stepdaughter after the “step” between them has been dissolved. I’m not sure that I even count as a relative any more.

Dr Rachel Hewitt

Rachel Hewitt is an award-winning writer whose books meld history, biography, memoir and nature-writing. They include A Revolution of Feeling: The Decade That Forged the Modern Mindand Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey . She lives in Yorkshire, has three daughters and until recently was a lecturer in creative writing at Newcastle University.

My third book, In Her Nature, is part-memoir, part-biography, which explores contemporary and historical experiences of women in public space, and the factors that constrain women’s freedom outdoors. With an initial focus on outdoor sport and leisure (especially trail-running, hiking and mountaineering), In Her Nature identifies and analyses the factors that make women’s experiences outdoors distinct from men’s, including caring responsibilities, clothing and kit provision, and street harassment and sexual violence. My book explores how men’s constraints on women’s freedom and safety in public space tighten and loosen under particular historical conditions, and I narrate the biography of one woman – mountaineer Elizabeth Le Blond (1860-1934) – who lived through a period in which women’s freedoms became significantly curtailed, before turning the lens onto the constrictions negotiated by contemporary women, including myself. Also, the impact of bereavement is not just emotional – it’s also logistical. I’m now the sole parent to three children and that brings challenges such as finding the time and focus to ready the book for publication. Brave, brilliant and quietly furious, In Her Nature makes a powerful, original case for women claiming space VICTORIA SMITH, author of HagsThe author reflects on her own experiences and how running has helped her through some traumatic periods of grief which is something I can relate to. Although various sports and activities are covered Hewitt has concentrated much of her research on women’s mountaineering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She covers the life of Lizzie Le Bon in fascinating detail and she is someone who was unknown to me. That’s probably because despite having read a fair bit of climbing literature it was very male oriented. Whilst all this is happening Rachael her husband Pete & 3 precious children move from London to the north of England with Mattie the cat. This part of the book was impressively honest & captivating. Insightful, compelling, and rightfully outraged, In Her Nature brilliantly reclaims the hidden histories and contemporary experiences of women running, hiking, climbing, and taking up space in the world. An essential read, as well as a moving, revealing, and empowering one JON MCGREGOR, author of Reservoir 13