January 2012

Your letters

Hit for six

Your picture of a Hebden Bridge terrace reflected in the Rochdale Canal
(A Dalesman’s Diary, Dec) reminds me of my biggest hit in cricket. It was off the bowling of Gordon Helliwell – who became a Yorkshire Colt and played for the RAF – in a lad’s game on Calder Holmes. I still can’t work out how I did it, though Gordon, a fast bowler, always said it was the spin.

At any rate, I somehow lofted his delivery across the width of Calder Holmes, over the railings separating the park from the canal towpath, across the canal to hit the terrace wall (fortunately not a window) about two-thirds the way up. We spent a long time marvelling at the ‘six’ as we tried to entice the ball across the canal to the towpath. Happy days.

Bernard Ingham, by email

Travelling in style

Ian McMillan’s article ‘Our very own great railway journey’ (Sep) is an excellent descriptive piece of writing about a railway line that really has pulled itself up from the very great threat of closure not so long ago, valued by the communities it serves. Live jazz bands and real ale provide an enjoyable variation to community travel, if you choose your train carefully. Added to that, there is a splendid pub on the platform at Huddersfield, with good food. A worthwhile journey.

David Barraclough, West Witton

A great summer job

The letter from C J Gait, Harlow, Middlesex (July) regarding ‘Fun at Summer Camp’ brings back memories.

I attended the Christian Summer Camp at the same school in Ben Rhydding in 1957, but not as a schoolgirl. Aged eighteen years, I was a teacher training student at Ilkley College of Housecraft.

I responded to a notice on our college board asking for an assistant cook for two weeks to be paid £10, which was all they could afford. I was the only applicant and really enjoyed the experience. I worked with the cook, a South African lady who had adult children and who taught me a lot. My life as a farmer’s daughter, helping in a busy farm kitchen with my mother and granny, stood me in good stead.
We provided cooked breakfasts, packed lunches, cooked evening meals and a drink and bite to eat for about thirty-six of us. There were no food mixers or ready prepared foods (except baked beans). One of my jobs was to bake huge cakes every afternoon, ready for the next day’s packed lunches and for bedtime.
I also helped with the bedtime routine so got to know some of the girls. The staff were given names of planets such as Mercury and Saturn etc… I was Uranus.
There was a rota for taking a bath and I was very surprised to find two baths in a large bathroom. The cook and I were paired up and she behaved as if she was used to twin baths, so we just got on with it. I did not admit I had never used a twin bath before. Although not a holiday for me, I enjoyed summer camp very much.

Daphne M Stephenson, York

Next stop, Elslack

My grandfather was born near Skipton and moved to Liverpool with his wife about 1896 to set up as a cow-keeper and dairyman (as many dalesfolk did at that time). His sister and her husband farmed at Elslack and in the school summer holidays my mother (born 1907) and her younger sister would spend a couple of weeks at the farm with their aunt and cousins. Can you imagine the difference between life in the busy city of Liverpool and the open pastures and moors of her aunt’s farm?

In those days the train went directly from Liverpool to Skipton and my mother said that as they reached Elslack the guard used to call out “Elslack – Heaven’s full”. My mother died in 1997 but the tales she used to tell about her holidays in Yorkshire and the pranks her cousins played on them were a joy to hear.

Ann Russell, Liverpool

Naughty but nice

My sister Rosemary and I lived in Knaresborough for twenty-six years – Yorkshire born and bred and proud of it. I wonder if many remember the fish and chip shop that used to be halfway up Briggate Well.

On Sunday my sister and I used to go out on our bikes and ride to the wishing well at Mother Shipton’s Cave, nick a few old pennies out, about six pennies each, then go and get six-pennyworth of chips and scraps in newspaper; they were so very good. I must say sorry to all the people who did not get their wish. This was at the start of the 1960s.

I love Dalesman, it makes me feel at home. I have taught my five-year-old granddaughter how to make Yorkshire puddings and they’re very good.

Mrs F Passingham, Southampton

Calling on clockmakers

May I appeal yet again to readers of Dalesman? Before I wrote my books about the clockmakers of Northallerton, Stokesley and Bedale, readers responded magnificently to my requests for examples of the clockmakers’ handiwork. I am now intent on writing a book about the clockmakers of Ripon and would be most grateful if I could be advised of the whereabouts of clocks, watches, sundials or barometers with ‘Ripon’ on the dial.

Owners can rest assured that as a former senior police officer I am very conscious of crime prevention and I never reveal the whereabouts of clocks and other items.

I would also like to hear from descendants of Ripon clockmakers.

I can be contacted at 59, Trinity Gardens, Northallerton, DL6 1GA or on Tel: 01609 771867.

Dr David Severs, Northallerton

Old boundaries live on

My daughter and I visited the Globe Theatre in London a few years ago and on leaving, a young man asked where we lived.

“Redcar, Cleveland,” I replied. “Ohio?” he asked. “No!”. I tried “Teesside” but again, he hadn’t heard of it. He put Redcar into his computer, “Ah!” he exclaimed, “North Yorkshire!”.

Of course, despite the different addresses I’ve been given in the last forty years, I have never left God’s Own Country and I’m so pleased that, as far
as cyberspace is concerned, I’m still a Yorkshire lass.

Janet Inglis, Redcar

A very hands-on job

Since I moved to Cornwall, the Dalesman triggers memories of our life in the West and East Ridings. November’s issue was no exception and this time was the reference to a galloping pig in the Diary of a Yorkshire Farmer’s Wife.

I worked in the summer holidays as a casual farm labourer and, with three full-time farm hands, we were moving pigs from sty to trailer en route to market.
Our journey was through a yard overdue for cleaning and ankle deep in that wonderful slurry created from pig muck and rain water. An unwanted sow which joined the party was skilfully removed by a regular hand who put a bucket over the sow’s face and steered it in pretty fast reverse gear out of the way.

We were not winning, with pigs running in all directions and us treading carefully so as not to slip in the mess.

The regular pig man took command with furious arm-waving and vocalising ‘Goo-orn’ and ‘Hup-hup’, when a too energetic shout ejected his false teeth which fell at his feet. Hardly pausing, they were picked up, received a cursory wipe on the bib of his overall before being placed back in his mouth. We all stared in amazement but collapsed with laughter when one farm hand remarked dryly, “That’ll od ’em in, Ted”.

John Butler, by email

Yorkshire dance spread far

Some years ago we took my elderly aunt to a folk dance event in which we were involved and she watched a performance by Redcar Sword Dancers, then said, “That’s what we used to do.”

Further questioning made it clear that ‘what we used to do’ was probably the Flamborough sword dance. What was a Girl Guide captain, a Scots doctor,
doing teaching Flamborough to her Guides in a small village in Huntingdonshire in the 1920s?

G M Wootten, by email

Worldwide Yorkshire tea

So Yorkshire tea isn’t grown in Yorkshire! No wonder I have never seen hillsides covered with tea bushes in my travels. Being an expat, I occasionally hire a car and travel all over England. One year a friend had me visit overnight, and she gave me Yorkshire tea. I promptly fell in love, and have been chasing Yorkshire tea ever since. It was hard to find. Finally I found it in a catalogue of the Vermont Country Store, so now I can get it in bulk. There may be others like myself who would like to get it, so the phone number of the Vermont Country Store is 802 776 5731.

Lesley Purewal, Fresno CA

What came first?

Instead of the mindbogglingly boring National Curriculum syllabus, I was surreptitiously teaching a little local geography to my class in suburban Bradford.
We were naming the dales in order, but when I got to Airedale an amazed little voice piped up “My dog’s an Airedale!” Fair enough, but in the ensuing conversation it turned out that most of the children thought that the local firm, whose vans often passed our windows, Airedale Construction Ltd, had been named in honour of the owner’s pet.

Angela Conyers, by email

Can you help?

I was born in Tadcaster in the late 1940s and most Sundays we would go for a family walk. One of the walks was down Mill Lane past Page’s Mill, under the railway bridge, up across a field on to Wighill Lane and back home. The field was always known as the Dee Dee’s. Many people I have asked in Tadcaster know the name Dee Dee’s but no one can tell me where the name comes from. I have traced it back to the eighteenth century to find that Wighill Lane was, in fact, known as Dee Dee’s Lane.

If anyone could please help me to find out where the name originates from I would be most obliged.

Geoff Eason, Wetherby