April 2009

Your letters

Life in Linton

The article about Linton Camp (Feb) triggered some memories for me. 

In the 1940s Bradford Education Committee ran Linton Camp School as a country boarding school for vulnerable city children. My father, Wilfrid Hardaker, spent some months on the teaching staff, prior to taking up his first headship at Wapping Road Junior School. After this he used to go up to Linton to do relief weekend and holiday duties. My mother, brother and I sometimes went too, living in a cottage in the village belonging to one of the teachers. We always enjoyed these trips because on Saturday evening we went to go to the film night at the school. The downside to the visits was the sight of Grassington Hospital on the hill; a dreaded place to a child because that was where people were sent when they caught TB.

In the early days of 1947 my father was prevented from going to Linton because the roads were closed thanks to snow, but eventually he set out and on his return described how the bus had crawled along from Skipton with prisoners of war shovelling away the snow drifts to make a path through. I did wonder whether the group digging away in the photograph from Littondale (In ‘That was the month that was’) included a POW.

Olive Main, Peterborough

Yorkshire poetry

Mrs Greenwood asked for poetry about Yorkshire dales and moors (Feb).

During the early 1920s W H Auden stayed in Skyreholme and wrote a number of poems about the area including one entitled Appletreewick and two about Skyreholme Mill. These can be found in a collection called Juvenilia published by Princeton University Press.

S Jolly, Wakefield

The days of winter fun

The article about severe winters really interested me as I was born in 1931 and I have survived a few.

One winter in the 1950s a friend and I went on our bikes to the youth hostel at Ingleton. On Saturday nights they had what was known as the ‘Tannerhop’ in the town hall.

Next day, accompanied by a Bradford cyclist, we rode on a just passable Widdale Road up to Hawes. From there we tackled the three mile one in four climb of Fleet Moss where the snow was six feet deep wall to wall all the way, all done on fixed geared bikes and no such luxury of gritted roads; we must have been fit to arrive home in one piece.

Years later I was a member of the Yorkshire Ski Club and for a modest £5 subscription we had several pistes to choose from. One really popular venue was on High Wind Bank, just past Kilnsey and on the tiny road to Hawkswick. There we used to rig up a petrol-driven tow line which would pull up at least three at a time. All levels of skiers had a great time there.

Sadly now the winters have ceased, I believe all the tows have been sold, though who would buy them I can’t imagine.

Francis A Forrest, Barnoldswick

family ties

Re Mrs S Smith’s ‘Family Quest’ requests (Jan) I may have some useful information. Although I have no knowledge of my great-aunt, Lucy Lascelles (born in Sheriff Hutton in 1897), working for a Belchamber family in Heworth Green in York, she may well have done – especially if it was caring for children. I do know that she worked for a Dr Cameron in Clifton, York, in the early 1930s. She would take the children out in a pram and sometimes went to Heworth Green, where her sister’s parents-in-law lived. She also worked for families in Ayrshire and Leeds but none of our family knows much about Lucy’s career, although we have photographs of her as a young girl.

Sadly, she died in 1941 in Menston, the diagnosis being a brain tumour, and is buried at Sheriff Hutton.

Tony Wright, Mowthorpe, Terrington

War trenches at Redcar

I found the Yorkshire War Secrets article (Jan) most interesting, and wondered if the studies had come across any reference to the construction of defensive trenches at Redcar at the start of the war. I recall the construction and demolition of the anti-tank concrete barriers erected across roads leading to the sea front, and the concrete blocks on the beach, which I am sure are well documented. However, I believe that the trenches, being the seaward side of the barbed-wire fences, were not so obvious.

I thought they were built by white Russian refugees. I remember one of our group started to learn Russian in order to communicate with them.

They were billeted in timber huts in a compound built on undeveloped land in Salisbury Road (Grove?), and I remember visiting on frequent occasions watching the strenuous excavation work along the sand dunes along the stray.

J M Coulthard, Devon

the yorkshire giant

In January’s edition, an interesting article on Henry Alexander Cooper left me wondering if it was possible to locate and pay my respects to a fellow Yorkshireman, as I have lived in Calgary for the last sixteen years.

I knew of the location of the cemetery as it is near where I work, but I was only able to obtain a basic plan of the area from the internet. One day at the end of January, I had an hour to kill, so with me being a few minutes away, I acted on impulse and thought it might be worth a try.

For half an hour in minus twenty-nine degrees centigrade weather, I searched by simple deduction, looking at the period of time on old gravestones, hoping one would carry the information I was looking for. I was right in assuming the north to central area of Union Cemetery was the place to look, but I was wrong about the age of the headstone! Heading back to the car after the wind had told me I had been out long enough, I was scanning the last of the rows on my right when the words ‘Yorkshire Giant’ jumped out at me. Pure luck had helped me locate his final resting place.

The words at the bottom state that the headstone was replaced in 2004 by his great-grandniece, Marilyn Ward.

I do hope that this will benefit Mr Lowe in some way. He is located in section C, row 7 or 8, by the fork in the main entrance path way.

C M Simms, Calgary

A dog's life

I loved the story of the Broughton Poachers (Feb) and that part of the story where the dog did not feed and so gave its master (a poacher) away to the police. This brought to life a tale an old uncle told me fifty or so years ago. It seems that his father was a well known trainer of poaching dogs in the Cheshire area where he lived in the time before the First World War, and one of the things Uncle told me was that “the dogs were so well trained they would not feed unless the food was given by the correct hand i.e Right Hand = refuse to eat, Left Hand = eat the food”. 

I must admit that at the time I could not see the use of that and said so to uncle; “Well,” said he, “it shows how well trained they are”. I must admit that this answer satisfied at the time, however, after reading the article in your magazine could the real answer be a little more cunning and have an altogether more useful purpose?

M White, Scarborough 

The horror of horse hair

Thank you to Bill Wellburn and Jean Hopkins for their letters regarding women’s cricket in Yorkshire, which were of great interest and very helpful.

The article ‘Lime Preserve’ (Feb), was of great interest to me about the dangers of lime to the eyes, which I did know about, but the horse hair is also a danger to users for it carries bacteria. I had first-hand experience of the damage that it can do to the eyes as well.

During the Second World War, I lived in a house built in 1851 on the outskirts of London in an area that suffered a great deal from enemy action.

One night, bombs dropped in our road and as a result, the ceiling and wall plaster came off the walls, as did some bricks. A large window was blown into a room and landed perfectly square onto a table in the centre of the room without a pane of glass broken, and with two or three bricks still attached to the window frame.

However, a fortnight later, I had a nasty problem with one of my eyes and I was referred to the Moorfields Hospital in London for treatment. I had a severe infection caused by the horse hair in the plaster – I attended the hospital for treatment for about fifteen months. It took years to finally clean – eighteen years before it stopped flaring up. I was very relieved to read that precautions
are taken nowadays.

Mrs J L Waltes, York

Sheffield stirrings

I reply in answer to Hugh Ebbins’ letter (Feb). I myself was at the Playhouse in Sheffield seeing the ‘The Stirrings’ in 1966. It made a deep impression on everyone who saw it, and some of us have never forgotten the words of ‘To be a Sheffield Grinder’ and ‘The Stirrings in Sheffield on Saturday Night’. My husband and I later went to see it at the Crucible in the 1970s. I still have the LP and the programme, plus a sheet with the words on. If Mr Ebbins would like to contact me, I would be happy for him to see them.

Cynthia Parr, cynthia.parr@talktalk.net.

Back Issues

I have about twenty old Dalesman mags dating back to 1947, mostly 1980s. I will give them away to good home.
David Leggott, dleggott@btinternet.com

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Dalesman, The Water Mill, Broughton Hall, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 3AG
Or email: paul@dalesman.co.uk

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