Lyke for Lyke

We woefully reported as much on June 9, regretted that Britain's most eccentric long distance walking outfit was finally being laid to rest and added that a last wake - always a wake - would be held on Saturday October 1, 50 years to the day since the Lyke Wake Walk began.

There can be no doubt about it. It is as dead, as Mr Dickens observed, as a doornail.

On the same night, however, and close to the walk's opposite extreme, another wake will be held - to celebrate the birth of the New Lyke Wake Club.

The Lyke Wake Club is dead, long live the New Lyke Wake Club - that's if they haven't done one another a mortal mischief first.

It is all rather bizarre, though by no means as improbable as the Lyke Wake Walk itself.

Stretching the 40 moorland miles between Osmotherley, near Northallerton, and Ravenscar on the North Yorkshire coast, it began on October 1, 1955, after moors farmer Bill Cowley had issued a challenge in the Dalesman magazine.

Mr Cowley, who died in 1994, began the club soon afterwards. It had a coffin motif, issued black edged cards to all who completed a crossing and conferred "degrees" like Dirger, Master of Misery and Doctor of Dolefulness according to the number of successful attempts.

The column is itself a Master of Misery, though that may come as little surprise.

By the 1970s, up to 15,000 walkers annually completed the oft-arduous route, a total - it's reckoned - of around 160,000 crossings. Then other long distance walks took a foothold, the moors became eroded, annual numbers fell to below 500 and the club - which never had a constitution or membership list - decided on the last rites.

That's when the new club began knocking, Lyke for Lyke, on the oak lid. It has a coffin motif, issues black edged cards and has degrees like Doctor of Dolefulness...

Their October 1 wake will be at the Golden Lion in Northallerton, a traditional Lyke Wake venue; the original club's do is at the Ravenscar Hotel, another long time favourite.

"There was a lot of unpleasantness at the wake which decided to close the club, but we want to be positive," says new club secretary Gerry Orchard - who signs letters "Yours in traditional gloom and despondency" and has "tiredlegs" as part of his e-mail address.

They also claim to follow closely in Bill Cowley's footsteps, to have "great respect" for him and his widow and to have the blessing of the old club's "Council of Elders". Unlike Bill Cowley, they also have the advantage of new technology.

The founder's filing system, says the new club, consisted of a tea chest into which he threw letters after he'd replied to them. "When the tea chest was full, Bill made a bonfire of the contents and started again."

Gerry Orchard says they were "very disturbed" when the old club closed, but had no say in the matter. "The clash of wake dates is sad, but that's the golden jubilee date. Unfortunately, the old club secretary seems to have blanked us."

Gerry, who lives in York and is an industrial chemist in Northallerton, has completed the walk more than 130 times - "I really must count them up" - and admits some "blistering" failures, chiefly in midwinter.

We took a short evening walk with him on sunlit Strensall Common, near York, the venue shared by a couple of panting huskies, before adjourning for a gentle hour in the pub with Gerry and his partner, fellow outdoor enthusiast Julie Bushell.

His first crossing was as a schoolboy, after someone else dropped out. "In those days I'd have caught the bus across if there'd been one. It was a terrific battle but I made it and I was hooked.

"The walk has history, tradition and some wonderful people. I suppose it's become an addiction, but sometimes you can have a healthy addiction."

Free membership is open to all who've completed the walk, no matter when; already around 300 have joined. "If that's lack of interest, I'd hate to see us when we're busy," says Julie.

As a fund raiser, the new club is also selling for £20 limited edition car stickers of a skeleton carrying a coffin. "We intend to continue the old traditions and maybe invent a few of our own," says Gerry.

Paul Sherwood, secretary of the original Lyke Wake Club, says that the decision to close was taken democratically. "The new club doesn't have our blessing. The way in which some people treated Bill Cowley's widow was extremely offensive."

The Lyke Wake Company Ltd will continue. "If the new club starts infringing our copyrights," says Paul, "we shall jump on them."

The simultaneous wakes go ahead as planned. Whose funeral is it, anyway?

* Details of the Lyke Wake Club and its "thoroughly morbid artefacts" can be had from Gerry Orchard, 4 Cavendish Grove, Hull Road, York YO10 3ND or at www.lykewake.org