A strange offer and not I suspect from a wellwisher but his friends and fellow campaigners persuaded him to stay

A strange offer, and not, I suspect, from a wellwisher, but his friends and fellow campaigners persuaded him to stay. His real work was at home.Rawnsley's greatest work, for which we must all be grateful, was the National Trust. The origins, for him, went back to 1885 and a local dispute concerning public footpaths along Derwentwater and over Latrigg Two landowners had closed the paths with barriers. He wrote letters of complaint, which the landowners ignored on the grounds that no one was really interested, that Rawnsley was one of just two or three agitators stirring things up.

Rawnsley led a deputation of 400 to the home of one of the landowners, and then a public march of 2,000 along the footpath that had been closed. Next he held protest meetings in London, Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool and elsewhere. Finally, he took the campaign to court, to the Carlisle assizes, where the case was won and the footpaths kept open.In 1893, Rawnsley was alarmed when the Lodore Falls and the island in the middle of Grasmere came up for sale. He felt that such sites should always be available to the public, yet there was no existing organisation capable of buying and caring for them.Many years earlier, Wordsworth had suggested that there should be some body to protect the Lakes John Ruskin had mouthed much the same. But it was the bold, energetic and practical Canon Rawnsley who put these noble ideals into practice.He contacted two other notable campaigners, with whom he had worked defending footpaths and other causes, both of them old friends: Octavia Hill and Sir Robert Hunter.

The three met at the Duke of Westminster's house in London for a preliminary meeting - and from this the National Trust was formed, attaining legal status in 1895. The Duke was made president and Rawnsley was the first secretary, a position he held for the next 25 years, till his death in 1920. The first life member was Rupert Potter, Beatrix's father.Which brings us to Rawnsley's second great achievement. He was the first president of the Cumberland Nature Club, which took children on nature walks.His interests and campaigns expanded to a national level, and many of them now seemastoundingly modern: against pollution in streams; pro- organic farming; up with pure milk; down with white bread.He believed that the new fashion for bleached bread was "starving the nation, robbing it of bone for the body, enamel for the teeth and proteins for the tissue". So active was he in this campaign that a bread manufacturer threatened libel action.There were also some fairly eccentric, not to say dopey passions, such as bonfires. It would be like the elephant standing on two legs, the man being shot out of a canon, the woman with a beard down to the floor. The second coming of Big George has been unparalleled in boxing history.

Not only is he the oldest man ever to win the heavyweight championship, he is also among the most popular. This is a deleterious state of mind in any profession, but particularly hazardous when your livelihood depends on trading blows with men intent on rendering you unconscious. True, he had signed a multi-million-dollar contract to fight the then champion Evander Holyfield, but by then the ferocity that made Tyson the most famous heavyweight since Ali appeared to have lost its animal-like intensity.Oddly enough, his being convicted of an odious crime did not turn the bulk of the American public against him Far from it. As we rapidly close in on Tyson's 25 March release date, the benefits of Iron Mike's enforced absence from the ring are becoming increasingly obvious. Our man Pringle hit 64 off 77 balls with four fours and four sixes Downton struck a run-a-ball 77 Rice claimed five wickets to restrict the English total India take on the West Indies in the final today.. Italy's Pietro Vitalini clocked the best time, but deteriorating weather meant only 37 skiers finished the race - 11 short of two-thirds The US team have lodged an official protest Provisionally, however, the result stands "It really pisses me off," Kitt said.