A visual record of farming in Cumbria seen through the eyes of 40 extraordinary farmers has scooped the 2023 Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year Award for award-winning photographer Amy Bateman.
As well as winning her individual category, Amy beat more than 50 entries to win the overall accolade at a charity awards ceremony at The Inn on the Lake, Glenridding, where an audience of more than 100 people had gathered to hear more about the shortlisted books.
The full list of category winners for Lakeland Book of the Year 2023 includes:
- Prize for Landscape & Tradition — Forty Farms, Amy Bateman.
- Illustration and presentation — My Lakeland, Jim Watson.
- People and Business — Between Before and After, Edita Mujkic
- Literature and Poetry — 163 Days, Hannah Hodgson
- Guides and places — Extreme Lakeland, Nadir Khan and Tom McNally.
- Fiction — The Bingo Hall Detectives, Jonathan Whitelaw.
- Lakeland Book of the Year —Forty Farms, Amy Bateman.
Amy said: “Winning this award is just amazing, it’s very overwhelming.
“It’s for the farmers, I couldn’t have done it without them. If they hadn’t welcomed me to their tables and told me their stories and let me photograph them, some of them in some of the darkest times, then this book would not have happened. I am very grateful to every single one of those 40 farmers for letting me into their doors.”
Head judge Fiona Armstrong added: “This is one of the strongest literary fields we have had.
“It has been so hard to decide who wins and who is shortlisted. We have worked our way through a treasure trove of beautifully crafted and presented books.
“Which just shows how much talent there is here in Cumbria, and how much interest there is further afield in writing about the county.”
This year’s ceremony also raised more than £1,200 in support of PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide in the UK), a charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people.
The Lakeland Book of the Year Awards 2023 was organised by Cumbria Tourism, the official destination management organisation (DMO) for the Lake District, Cumbria.
The judging panel also included the director of Wordsworth Grasmere Michael McGregor; author Kathleen Jones; and renowned broadcaster and former Cumbria Tourism president Eric Robson.
