This picture taken Aug 25, 1925.  Charlie is on the right.

The left hand picture, hard to see, is the entrance to Beeston Castle.  The picture on the right was taken on the road between Great Budworth and High Legh, all on the same date.  The picture below was obviously a camp site in Delamere Forest, but not Charlie’s, he didn’t start camping until years later.

Two more pictures follow here taken at the same Easter weekend, of Swallow Falls and one of Tom slouching against the handrail on the path to Miners Bridge.  Charlie did write in his photo album years later the following:

“We met at Betws-Y-Coed on Easter Saturday night, March 31, 1923 and concluded our tour together, and a casual aquaintanceship  quickly ripened into firm friendship.  The comradeship was perfect and all sufficient.  Others, equally welcome, sometimes joined us, at times we travelled alone, but alone or in company our regard has never, or never will, diminish”.

Rather phrophetic words for such a young man, but that was their relationship at the time.  This website is struggling for material and many photographs are untitled, so if I insert no comments, it will be because there are none !!

This is the first picture of Charlie Chadwick and Tom Idle we have ever seen.  They first met on this Easter Weekend in 1923 at a B & B near to Betws Y Coed and immediately hit if off.  Their interests were similar and neither had like minded friends who loved the countryside as much as they did.  Tom Idle is a thread that ran through Charlie’s life for quite a few years until it all ended when Tom decided to get married in 1931.

I

We R 7 Fold

 Now in the We R Seven Fold

          Was drawn a merry company

Of careless youth which kept aloof

From wine and women, and, forsooth

From everything that gave them proof

          Of shackled liberty!

And what high revels did they hold?

          This very merry company

A happy band which roamed the land

And sought and found on every hand

The beauty spread by Nature’s wand

          Each season’s livery!

Yet was their festive humour fold

          This ever ready company!

Which sought upon the dining board

The tempting viand – the liquid poured

And many a pantry’s gourmet-hoard

          To hold high revelry!

          Untitled and almost certainly unfinished (regrettably)

North and west from Richmond Town

          There lies a highland wide and fair

Where roads go rolling up and down

          And into woodlands winter-bare.

I rode to keep a trysting time –

I feared no storm the year did store

Nor feared the icy-fingered rime

          Nor stealthy snow that drifted o’er.

The grey November day did hold        

Dim vistas flung on moor and vale

The nearer ridges grey and cold

          The farther fells in etching pale.

The sweeping river far below

          Did merit more than casual glance

As did the remnant autumn glow

          Betimes the gloomy moor enhance.

The tryst I kept by Marrick den

          In dalliance thus the day was spent

Till shadows lengthened in the glen

          The shadow-wraiths that came and went.

They came emboldened by the night

          They flung their cloak o’er tree and stone

Made all the earth bereft of light –

          Hill, vale, and river, all as one.

The path was on my mind emboss’d

          Each darken’d eve returning late

Quite certain I could ne’er be lost

          ‘Tween Marrick Tower and Richmond Gate!

I prayed to see above the glen

          The frosty moonshine wan and high

To soften the view within my ken

          And secret shades to beautify.

But now I stumbled in the night

          While round the icy devils press

My light flung back upon my sight

          A circled, sightless, spaciousness!

The snorting beast with chilling sweat

          Beneath me plunged in frenzied fear

Or panted in a woeful fret

Or ceaseless champed the bridle gear.

What ailed my beast, my faithful nag

          Erstwhile so fleet and sure of foot

Twas not her nature thus to lay

          Nor mine to weild the spurred boot.

From a loose MS in Charlie’s poetry book.

I think this is not Charlie’s work, but if not, whose ??

Unfortunately, that concludes all that is in Charlie’s notebook.