A new book claiming to reveal the untold story of Alfred Wainwright will be released by an award-winning BBC filmmaker tomorrow (Nov 9).

Britain's famous walker, guidebook author and illustrator spent his life documenting the Cumbrian fells for generations to come.

Now the Wainwright Revealed book, by Richard Else, gives us a fresh insight into what it was like to work with the iconic fellwalker.

Author Else produced the now legendary Wainwright series for the BBC.

He recalls how the reclusive Lakeland author became a television star, and reveals the forces that motivated his writing and his life.

Else has won more than 30 major awards worldwide, including BAFTA Scotland and the Royal Television Society. He has also had his work recognised at film festivals in Canada, America, Japan and Europe.

The filmmaker also developed a unique relationship with Wainwright and was the only person the author collaborated with.

Almost a biography of their shared lives, the book is a story of how two people connected through a passion for the outdoors.

Wainwright’s precise and meticulous approach to detail and his obsessive need for order, also leads author Else to conclude that he had Asperger syndrome.

Wainwright, who lived from 1907 to 1991, hand wrote and published a series of famous illustrated walking guides to the Lakeland Fells which have given inspiration to fell walkers for over 50 years ago.

He began the series of guides to the Lake District Fells on November 9, 1952 - and 65 years to this date Else has chosen to publish his book.

He said: “We shared a similar life history and background. We both had experience of poverty.

"Wainwright came from a poor family in Blackburn and I spent a great deal of my childhood with my grandparents who were very poor.

"I think that’s why he agreed to work with me, and no-one else.

“I believed we couldn’t ever have made a film about his work without Wainwright himself, but what we had was an unlikely relationship.”

At the time, Wainwright was in his 70s, and Else early 30s.

Wainwright largely led a very reclusive life, with little contact with the outside world beyond his own family.

Else was the only person to encourage him and persuade him to take part in television documentaries about his life and work.

The book is published by Mountain Media Productions, priced £19.99.