December 2009

Your letters

Drivetime

The article ‘The Glory days of the Jowett’ (Oct) was very interesting to me for I learnt to drive in a Jowett van when I was seventeen, in 1948. The grocery I worked for had a fleet of Jowetts, all with crash gearboxes. You had to double-de-clutch on every gear change, there was no such luxury as synchronisers in those days. I remember having great difficulty with bottom gear and my instructor, Bill Perry, a great gearbox expert, became really cross with me. He made me change in and out of bottom gear the whole length of Thornton Drag, a long straight stretch of road from Thornton toward Skipton. I was constantly changing up and down, first to second, until I got it right; you couldn’t do it now on that fast stretch of the A56.

Not long after I passed my test, I took a friend along with me in the Jowett van to Ilkley groceries. On our way back he persuaded me to let him have a go at driving (well, he did have a licence). Coming down the road near Draughton, a farmer came out of a side road, chasing a cow. The brakes on the van were a bit savage and I closed my eyes, and luckily we missed the wayside ravine. Straight away, I kicked my pal back into the passenger seat and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have any embarrassing explaining to do.

Francis Forrest, Earby

The good old days

The Dalesman reminds me so much of my junior and teenage years. My cousin married a gamekeeper who lived and worked on Lord Mexborough’s estate near Hawnby, North Yorkshire, and I spent many happy school holidays there. I remember the sparse conditions up there, every day taking a can to get milk from the nearest farm and a bucket to collect water from the nearest running stream, collecting nuts and fruit from nearby bushes and trees.

Those were the days… I loved it.

Mrs J Bailey, Driffield, East Yorkshire

Borderline Yorkshire

I was delighted to read the article on Bawtry (August). I was born there in 1953 and lived there for eighteen years before going to college in Durham and deciding to stay in the North East. My family left Bawtry in 1975 as my father retired and moved with my mother to Wetherby.

My father came to Bawtry from Bradford with my mother and older brother to join an existing General Practice. He wasn’t the local doctor as such, there were two other practices in Bawtry and much of his work centred on neighbouring Harworth and Bircotes – but he bought a plot of land and had a house built which included a surgery beside the Great North Road at its junction with Top Street. He called it Northstead, after the gardens in Scarborough where he and my mother spent their honeymoon. At that time the county boundary ran along the middle of the Great North Road, up Top Street and cut Bawtry Hall in half.

I was born in what later became my bedroom in the house, which was on the Nottinghamshire side of the road. Being a keen Yorkshire cricket supporter, Dad had threatened to move my mother over the road in a tent for the birth in case I turned out to be any good at cricket.

My father’s original partner was Dr Tommy Iredale who lived at No 1 Yorkshire, which was featured in your article. I believe that he was responsible for creating that title. He certainly bought a paddock separated from the house only by a narrow lane and just inside Yorkshire, partly to prevent anyone else buying it and building a house which could then become No 1 Yorkshire.

Before you reached the house, travelling north into the town and on your right, was the eye-catching ‘BBC’ painted white on the roof of a hut – Bawtry Bowls Club. It was next to Bawtry Cricket Club, both situated between the Great North Road and the East Coast railway line. I played cricket for Bawtry where proceedings would be delayed for passing trains, although rumour suggested that was not always the case. There were claims for the longest six runs in history being hit from that ground, as the ball allegedly landed in a passing coal truck which continued on its way towards London.

Thanks for the memories!

E Farrer, West Auckland, Co Durham

A good feed

October’s Last Laugh reminded me of something my father once told me. Dad was the seventh of twelve children, and the family lived in a mill worker’s house in Burley-in-Wharfedale and all eventually worked in Greenholm Wool Mill.

At Christmas they had their all-satisfying meal of the year, and sat down to eat it together. Grandfather, a weaving overlooker, was a lay preacher and said grace before they all started eating. When the meal ended, grandfather loosened his waistcoat, pushed back his chair and said in a ponderous and thoughtful way “and the rich man fares sumptuously every day.”

Mrs D Abbott, Hereford

The real Betty Martin

Regarding Rev Peter Wright’s letter in the October Dalesman, my mother also used the phrase ‘All my eye and Betty Martin’ to mean that a story was complete rubbish. She lived in Nottinghamshire from her birth, in 1908, until 1939 and I had always thought that the phrase came from there, as I don’t remember anyone from York using it. She did, however, visit Sheffield a lot during that period.

The phrase must have been more widely used and a web search revealed that it is found in British English from the eighteenth century. It is first recorded in a letter of 1781 that was collected in W H Hutton’s Burford Papers. We also know that ‘all my eye’, with the same sense, is at least half a century older.

By the 1780s, the phrase was clearly well established. Jon Bee suggested in 1823 in his Slang, a Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, that it came from a Latin prayer, ‘Ora pro mihi, beate Martine’ (‘Pray for me, blessed Martin’), presumably St Martin of Tours, the patron saint of innkeepers and reformed drunkards. Most scholars reject this, since no trace of this prayer has been found anywhere in the Latin liturgy, and it’s ungrammatical anyway.

In 1914 Dr L A Waddell suggested in his book The Phoenician Origins of Britons, Scots, and Anglo-Saxons that the phrase came from ‘O mihi, Brito Martis’, or ‘Oh (bring help) to me, Brito Martis’. She was a goddess associated with Crete, whom Dr Waddell linked to Britain via the Phoenicians who traded for Cornish tin. I don’t believe a word of it.

The truth is, nobody really knows anything much about where the saying came from, except that Betty Martin was pretty obviously tacked on to the end of the existing ‘all my eye’.

Charles Lee suggested in his memoirs in 1805 that there had once been an abandoned woman named Grace who married a Mr Martin, but became known as Betty Martin, and who was known for using ‘all my eye’ a lot. It’s even possible that there really was a Latin prayer in which ‘Beate Martine’ would have been the phrase used in calling on St Martin.

I hope that this will be of interest to Mr Wright.

Stephen Beckett, Wigginton, York

A famous pupil

It was interesting reading about Lewis Carroll’s Yorkshire connection (Oct). Many readers may not be aware that he was a pupil at Richmond Grammar School, presumably when his father was vicar at nearby Croft-on-Tees. When I attended the school in the late 1940s, there was an oil painting of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in the school assembly hall.

Kenneth Prudom, Poole, Dorset

Mutty cofe

Regarding Can You Help? (June) on the expression ‘Mutty Cofe’. The English Dialect Dictionary, published in 1898/1905 by the English Dialect Society and edited by Yorkshire man Joseph Wright, states: “Mutty-Calf, also written mutti-cofe, mutty cauf and mutty cawf, was a West Riding term for a Young Calf. It also became popular for describing anyone who was childish or a ‘cry baby’, even a ‘simpleton’.” It was first recorded as being used in the Huddersfield and Sheffield areas.

Incidentally, I purchased my copy of the six-volume dictionary at an antiquarian bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. My dictionary had previously belonged to the English Department at Sheffield University. At least I have brought it back to Yorkshire.

C A Binns, Bingley

Lyke Walks

Do any readers know if Lyke Wake walk ties are still available. I would be grateful for information.

J S Hill, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire

King of rough diamonds

Could anyone supply me with the words, music or a recording of an old song. I can remember hearing this song way back during the last war, but all I can remember are the following words: “I am only an old rough diamond, yet the king of the road am I.”
I would be most grateful if any of your readers could help.

Irvine Wilcock, 3 Micklethwaite Road, Hall Green, Wakefield WF4 3JX

Sporting History

In the August edition, there is a picture of children on a beach playing a game which may be merrills. This game is a variation of Nine Men's Morris. Details and some history are in The Oxford Dictionary of Sports and Games. In Ben Schott's book Schott's Sporting, gaming and idling Miscellany there is a description and a diagram.

Tony H H Richardson, Teddington, Middlesex

Do stones point the way?

I read with interest Colin Allan’s 'Bridestones revisited' (July), and although born and bred in Derybshire, when I saw the heading it took my mind back over twenty-four years when I lived in Todmorden, as I thought I knew where this was. Above Todmorden is Bridestones Manor on which there are very similar stones to those shown in the photographs with the article, but when I started to read it I found it was another Bridestones.

There is also mention of Brimham Rocks, also known to me as a member of the National Trust. These coincidences set me looking at maps of the area and what I discovered was that if you draw a line between the three, there is a possibility that they could be interconnected. Are they some kind of way-markers similar to the stone crosses found on our hillsides?

My late husband’s interest in ley lines makes me wonder at the possibility of these stone outcrops and their alignment.

Mrs M Pearce, Chesterfield, Derbyshire

Family loyalty

With reference to the letter from Julian Ramsden in the June issue, I was born in Holmfirth but didn’t live there for long. My late mother and all her family were born and bred there – she was a Hebblethwaite. She told me the locals were called ‘coves’ (calves).

The origin of the term seems to be that a man was crossing a field and was chased and almost savaged by a bull. Later on, whilst crossing another field he saw a calf and gave it a good kick, shouting “go tell thi father I’ve poised thee!” I couldn’t possibly doubt my dear mother.

John H Bloor, Folkestone, Kent

Wharton's bibles

I was interested in the letter by Eric Marsh (July) regarding Phillip Lord Wharton Bibles. As a young girl I attended St Mary's Church in Luddendenfoot and I also learned a psalm to earn my bible. Unfortunately I got measles and was unable to attend to recite my psalm so I didn’t get my bible. On seeing me so upset, my father said I could have his Lord Wharton Bible, which I still have. It is dated 1903, Parish of Pontefract. I also have a prayer book given by Lord Wharton to my father, dated 1902. I am very proud to have them.

Mrs J Whittaker, Barnoldswick, Lancashire

A vet's tale

In 1997, after a serious skiing accident, I was in a French hospital, in a two-bed ward.  The man in the other bed was from the Czech Republic.  I could offer to speak to him in English, French, or German but he knew none of these.  By the end of the week we shared a five-word vocabulary:  George (his name), Roderic (my name), Mrs Roderic (my wife), yes, and no.

In the middle of one very quiet afternoon, I heard a chuckle from the other bed.  Then came another chuckle, and another, a louder one, and another.  I looked across, intrigued.  George held up the book he was reading to show me. “Jims Irriot,” he said.

It was the plainest book I’d ever seen:  no photos, no illustrations, just page after page of black print. What a tribute, I thought, to Alf Wight (July), that his writing could so delight and amuse someone who’d never come within a thousand miles of the Yorkshire Dales.

Roderic Walkington, Solihull

Not stuck in a hole

The most beautiful countryside in England is the Hole of Horcum in North Yorkshire. My family and I were lucky to spend many weeks every summer in the countryside on a farm, staying in an old Railway coach where we had to fetch water from a well. It was a very happy time and there was always something happening there.
One day the bee man came wearing a mask on his head and placed the hives around the field. Another time people came with hounds, laying trails around the moors and waiting for them to return to a huge bowl of feed.

My son came in one day and said, “Granddad, I know where there is a six-berth caravan for sale which was once owned by a bank manager.” So eventually, we changed from a railway coach to a lovely caravan which only needed a coat of paint, a stove for cooking and indoor toilet.

My memories of the Yorkshire countryside will stay with me forever.

Mrs Jean Vijease, Oaks, Huddersfield

Bronte brogue

While sorting through back issues of Dalesman for recycling to our Church Day Centre for the elderly, I came across a letter in last October’s issue, from Isobel Stirk of Silsden, wondering what accent the Brontë sisters might have spoken with, having an Irish father, a Cornish mother, and a local Yorkshire housekeeper.

It is said that during his time at St John’s College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1802, Patrick Brontë worked assiduously to get rid of his County Down brogue, having discovered the opinion of the time that no regional accent was compatible with a professional position in life.

Achievement does not seem to have matched intention, however, judging from Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë, in which she quotes from a letter written by a former fellow-pupil of Charlotte’s at Roe Head School, which described her, when newly arrived at the school, as speaking with a strong Irish accent.

If, by the age of about twelve she still spoke with a strong Irish accent, it is unlikely she would have lost it altogether, and it is equally likely that her sisters would also have spoken the same way, having all been exposed to the same source, a dominant father.

Ted Wilson, Gloucester

We welcome readers' letters, which should be sent to:
Dalesman, The Water Mill, Broughton Hall, Skipton, North Yorkshire BD23 3AG
Or email: paul@dalesman.co.uk

The editor reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity.