In what is planned to be an ongoing Wednesday night event, some of the world's greatest adventurers are being lined up to tell their story and show their images utilising the Brewery's state-of-the-art digital projector.

Kendal is the natural gateway to the Lake District's mountains, so it's entirely appropriate that the first lectures are all to be given by some of the world's greatest mountaineers – who all just happen to make their home in Cumbria. To start things off is a family who couldn't be more Cumbrian.

Over three generations a remarkable family, the Birketts – who all hale from Langdale – have crashed through the barrier of what was previously thought to be impossible in rock climbing.

It all started in the late 1930s and early 1940s when quarryman Jim Birkett put up the hardest climb of the day, and in doing so broke open the traditional middle-class hierarchy of British mountaineering.

Move forward 60 years and the family is still at it with grandson Dave, who is universally acknowledged to be the world's best traditional rock climber. Over the past few years he has put up a string of the most demanding, not to mention dangerous rock world climbs.

Getting together with award-winning author and winning photographer Uncle Bill – who's no mean climber himself – Dave will kick off the new adventure lecture programme on Wednesday, April 23, when they'll both tell of the life, times and improbable adventures of the Birkett dynasty.

Following on in May, comes Doug Scott – without doubt Britain's finest and most popular high-altitude mountaineer. In a new lecture called Life and Hard Times Doug tells of how he first got into climbing as a 12 year-old Boy Scout and then – despite his Scout Master telling him "to behave!" – he went on to become the first Englishmen to climb Everest.

Doug commented: "Our first climbing rope was my mum's washing line, then we realised that probably wasn't up to the job – so we got hold of a car tow rope instead. Looking back these are the memories that are the most important. It's not so much the climbs, it's the people that I climbed with."

The lecture programme has been put together by Robin Ashcroft, who is best known as the project manager for the critically acclaimed and award winning Everest: The Top of the World at the National Mountaineering Exhibition. For more details, go to www.breweryarts.co.uk/adventure or call the box office on 01539 725133.