Maggie’s Cancer Care and who was Maggie?

(Many thanks to Angela for this insight)

There won’t be many Orienteers in Cumberland who haven’t heard of Maggie’s Cancer Care, after both WCOC’s New Year’s Day event at Mawbray and the Wrens’ of Border Liners traditional event on Whittas next to Binsey both supported the charity via Ian Teasdale of WCOC and his Just-giving website “Terminalhillness”. Ian with terminal cancer is aiming to summit all the Wainwrights while he is fit enough to do so, and sponsorship is rolling in along with people’s admiration of Ian’s attitude and effort.  

But what is Maggie’s Cancer Care and who was Maggie?

I first came across the Charity some ten or more years ago. Other than I once Controlled an Orienteering Event for SOLWAY at the nearby Dalswinton Forest, I can’t remember why or how or what caused me to come across a web-site for the Garden Of  Cosmic Speculation at Portrack, but it held an annual Open Day in support of the Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, where gardeners opened their gardens to the general public every once or more times a year, with admission charges supporting the Scheme and the charity of the gardeners’ choice. Portrack opened on May Day Bank Holiday each year in support of Maggie’s Cancer Care. (It isn’t open this year, 2026, due to building works. Roll on 2027!)

The name “Garden Of  Cosmic Speculation” was enough to rouse anyone’s interest and their website had some fascinating pictures.

LOOK FOR YOURSELVES!  Google any of:- Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Portrack House, Charles Jencks, Maggie Keswick Jencks, as well as Maggie’s Cancer Care.

So we went that May Day and had an amazing day out round weird and wonderful structures designed by the owner of Portrack, Charles Jencks, who was, amongst many other similar interests, a landscape designer, architectural historian, cultural theorist and author of over 30 books, and his wife Maggie Keswick Jencks, a writer, artist and garden designer and member of the well-respected local Keswick family.

I thought it would make an astonishingly interesting Orienteering area and was so enthusiastic that when we went back the following year, the McQuillens and O’Donogues from Solway turned up as well. But we sadly agreed that Orienteers trampling round what was clearly a very well-maintained park wouldn’t be welcome and we abandoned the idea.

(See https://gardenofcosmicspeculation.com/ for more amazing photos)

Although I still have dreams of their Big Conical Hill, with two intertwining spiral paths up it, so you could run up one and down the other without causing any collisions! (As an aside there were in  my childhood, two intertwining spiral staircases at Finsbury Park railway and Tube stations in London, surrounded by a wire-mesh “cage”, so an interested spectator on the mainline platform could watch people going up one or down the other and never meeting each other. The fascination is still there after 75 years!)

Maggie died, of  the return of her breast Cancer, in 1995. When told of the return of the cancer in 1993, she and Charles were left in a windowless corridor to process the news. There they felt compelled to do something to ensure that there was “Somewhere better to go, outside but nearby to the hospital” where the could “meet other people in similar circumstances and receive support”, so that people should not “lose the joy of living in the fear of dying”.

And so Maggie’s Cancer Care came into being! (There’s plenty more on the Web.)