A feature-length documentary film about Maryport-born miner, rock climber and artist Bill Peascod has been made.
The documentary filmed in Cumbria, New South Wales and Kyoto in 2021 by 28 Dales Later.
When the centenary festival to celebrate the life of Bill Peascod as cancelled due to COVID restrictions in 2020, organisers Dolly Daniel and Linda Wyatt decided to ask Cumbrian performer and media producer Steve Wharton to bring their festival to life on screen.
Drawing on his experience of producing the 28 Dales Later Podcasts about northern England with outdoors educator Natalie Wilson, Steve started to research Bill’s life and uncovered a wealth of archive material relating to Bill held by the Wollongong University Library.
The material was not available online but Steve’s friend, Perrin Walker had just returned to Australia after living in the Lake District and intended to live in Wollongong – where Bill Peascod had emigrated to in 1952.
The film charts Bill’s life from a challenging childhood in the Cumberland coalfields and involvement in the Mines Rescue Teams at the Lowca No.10 and William Pit disasters to his pioneering of new rock climbing routes in 1940s Buttermere.
He became an abstract landscape painter after emigrating to Australia in 1952 where he developed ‘burnt’ paintings.
He returned to Cumbria in 1980 and drew on Japanese influences to paint his beloved fells, which he had resumed climbing with new friends such as Bill Birkett, Sir Chris Bonington and Don Whillans.
Filmed in England, Australia and Japan, the film is presented by Steve Wharton, Natalie Wilson and Perrin Walker.
It features interviews with people who knew Bill, climbing and art specialists, rare archive material, photographs by the Abraham Brothers and a soundtrack by Cumbrian and Australian musicians, including Mike Willoughby and Dave Camlin.
The film will premiere be at the Wave Centre in Maryport on Saturday August 21.
It will be available online soon after with schools and community groups able to screen it for free.
Further screenings, some including Q&A sessions with the filmmakers, will be announced in due course.
