June 2011

Your letters

The power of Waterfalls

In the February issue you asked about favourite waterfalls and the reasons why. Ours is Stainforth Force where I took a photo of a salmon leaping when we were there on our bikes one September.

The water was in spate and looked like brown ale, and it was a real treat to watch the sheer power of the fish in their battle to reach their spawning place.

Another fall we like is Thornton Force at Ingleton where we took a Belgian friend. It was howling down with rain and Ruth loved to see the mighty force of water. The rain didn’t both her one iota.

Francis and Margaret Forrest, Earby

Links to the castle

I did so enjoy the story of Skipton Corn Mill (April), it brought back memories of when I was a little girl in the 1930s; my grandfather lived in Wood Cottage, High Mills, in Skipton Woods.

I spent many happy times there, my great uncle Joe was gate keeper at the castle. Also, my great uncle Jim had the Castle Inn… but there is no mention of the swans, are they not there any more?

My uncle Joe (my father’s elder brother) was killed in 1917. I wonder if I have any relatives living in Skipton.

Joyce Bush (née Whitham), Weymouth

Hhumour in Osmotherley

Walking with Dalesman (April) brings to mind happy memories of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Living in Northallerton, leaving for the moors via Osmotherley was a frequent trip – even staying in the pub at Hawnby during the immediate post war years.

Two memories stand out: The farming daughter at Greenhills Farm who, during the Easter and summer holidays and weekends, opened and closed the gate across the road for passing traffic of all kinds, for a payment of ½d.

And the Chequers pub sign, free standing by the road, which proclaimed not only the pub name but on the side facing Osmotherley, ‘Good Cheer today’, and on the other side, ‘Free Ale tomorrow’. Some chance!

David Barraclough, Leyburn

Always a bright forecast

As an avid reader of Dalesman I wish
to say how much I enjoyed reading the articles about Holme Moss Television Mast and Ferrybridge Power Station in March and April by Jon Mitchell.

Ordinary folk like me don’t get chance to visit these places and it is interesting to know what happens inside them and how they work. It makes one realise the scale of them when viewed from close quarters.

It is also a joy to see this weatherman when he appears on Calendar with his own brand of humour.

Even when he forecasts the worst weather, he presents it in such a cheerful way. A modest man, he is not only a TV weatherman, but an all round celebrity and I eagerly await his next feature.

Miss J McPhail, Mirfield

Remembering Beverley

Regarding the photograph of Beverley Bar in the March edition of Dalesman, my maternal grandfather J W Chapman, who was county surveyor for the East Riding and later Bridge Master for Yorkshire and retired in 1938, had his office within North Bar.

As a young lad before the war I often stayed with my grandparents at their home called Longcroft and remember walking down through North Bar to, I think, the shop on the right of the photograph with the ‘ices’ sign and being bought chocolate bears or soldiers. I believe it was called Burgess.

On the left hand side, not shown in your photograph, I think there was a cabinet maker who made my grandfather an oak desk, which I still have.

The paternal side of the family all came from the East Riding; my grandparents, all of whom died before I was born, lived on Low Walk and owned the Prescott Corn and Provender Business in Hull.

John Prescott, Saxmundham, Suffolk.

Legacy in song

I so enjoyed reading A Right Royal Rhyme – The Abdication, in April’s issue; it took me back to my childhood when we used to quote the following:

Hark the Herald Angels Sing,
Mrs Simpson’s pinched our King.

I’m not too sure we really understood it.

Mrs M H Lander, Kibworth Beauchamp

What the…?

On reading the March issue, I noted in Language for Locals the contribution by Alan Davies of examples of Sheffield Twang.

During my residence in the Steel City many years ago, I was always intrigued by the following:

‘T’ Wicker weer t’ watter guzoer t’ weir’, which translates as, ‘The Wicker, where the water goes over the weir.’

The Wicker is a street near the city centre, and the water refers to the river. The weir is self-explanatory.

I have always found the expression, to friends outside the city boundaries and many within too, to be totally incomprehensible.

Nicholas Parkin, Stockton on Tees

A real character

Two items in the April issue, namely David Kendall’s letter about nicknames and Ian McMillan’s thoughts on Yorkshiremen’s haircuts, reminded me of a character I knew in the 1950s.

As a boy he had been taken to Leeds by his parents who had business to conclude in Lower Briggate. He was discovered by neighbours standing alone outside Dyson’s, the jewellers.

When asked what he was doing there on his own he replied that he had been told to ‘stand under this ticker til mi mam and dad come back’, referring, of course, to Dyson’s large clock which hung over the pavement outside the shop. For ever after he was always known as ‘Ticker’.

When I knew him he lived in a cottage, one of three built at right angles to the row of three in which my wife and I lived. Our kitchen window gave a view down the back of Ticker’s house and one morning I was intrigued to see him come out and hang a large mirror on their clothes post. Then, using a pair of barber’s clippers, he started to cut his hair.

His technique was simple; he held the clippers, reversed, in his right hand, placed them at the base of his neck and clipped his way up the back of his head until they came into view in the mirror. This was obviously a well honed technique as he made quite a decent job of it.

What followed next was hard to believe – he lit a wax taper and waved it up and down over the newly cut hair to singe the ends. Although this was a practice in barber’s shops in those days I never imagined that I would ever see it self administered.

The lavatory for Ticker’s cottage was outside, about ten yards from his back door. Each morning Ticker would sally forth, wearing an old beret plonked like a saucer on top of his head, carrying in one hand a thick slice of bread spread with jam and in the other a mug of tea.

As an added luxury he had his morning newspaper under his arm. At least his wife knew where he was for the next half hour or so.

David Havenhand, Leeds

Lost village peeps out

I refer to the March issue and the letter by Christopher Harris on West End (The Lost Village).

I enclose a photograph (below) of what I think is the bridge mentioned, taken during the drought of 1995.



My late husband, Chris, and I were frequent visitors to the farm at West End, as were hundreds of cyclists in the 1950s and before they flooded the valley.

I was always intrigued with the two-seater dry toilet at the farm.

Sadly, all we have now are memories of wonderful days gone by.

Mrs Shirley Pell, Wakefield

Can you help?

As a Yorkshire lass, born and bred in Bradford and moving to Hertfordshire in 1947 in the Land Army, I spent many happy hours in Shipley Glen as a child. Could anyone tell me if the little railway still runs that used to take us up the glen?

Mrs E Warwick, Bishops Stortford

Can any of your readers help with more details about this song? In the back of my mind I half remember The Volunteer Organist, which starts “The preacher in the village church, one Sunday morning said, ‘our organist is ill today, will someone play instead?’”

Also, there is a music hall ditty, “I am my own Grandpa…”

R W Perkin, Leeds

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

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