March 2011

Your letters

Always Yorkshire

I’m so pleased that you continue to uphold Yorkshire’s integrity where so many are confused by the civic vandalism of 1974.

My particular congratulations to you and the author of Where do our Dales end? (Jan) in which Mr Richardson eruditely explains the present-day Ridings, albeit with their hegemony (pro-tem?) ceded to alien politics. I strongly believe that articles on the very bounds of Yorkshire (Middlesbrough, Spurn Point, Dent, Saddleworth et al) would assist the cause but, meanwhile, well done.

Just a slight word of disappointment on factual matters: Mr Wood – in his Iconic village building stays strong article (Jan) about Marsden – declares it to be “... one of the last bastions of the West Riding before you hit the Lancashire border.” Really? I live not so far from that village and I believe that the nearest bit of Lancashire to it might be Mossley or Ashton-under-Lyne.

Wherever it is, it is beyond the Saddleworth buttress and that, as every schoolboy should know, is most certainly loyal and proud White Rose territory.

The magazine is really blossoming.

Trevor Wilcock, by email

All in the name of fame

Yet another splendid Ian McMillan article (Feb).

His hopes of Yorkshire immortality are surely doomed, however, because he doesn’t have a Yorkshire name. Such unmistakeable Scottishness is an insurmountable obstacle to glory. He could, however, readily adapt it.

Muck, mill and ’un are mainstream Yorkshire words and “He’s a right muckmill ’un” is surely a phrase that would have delighted the late Arnold Kellett.

That first name – Ian – is a bit dodgy as well. He would be much better off to follow the ancient Yorkshire practice of having a surname as a first name. Emmott Robinson, legendary Yorkshire cricketer, or Atkinson Grimshaw, the Leeds-born landscape painter, are the sorts of names to be rolled around the tongue.

To see a painting and say “By ’eck, it’s an Atkinson Grimshaw!” is to glow with right royal Yorkshire pride.

Can I suggest that your inventive contributor changes his name to Barnsley Muckmill? Then I can look forward to opening a newspaper one day and saying: “Ee na’ then, Barnsley Muckmill’s been made Poet Laureate!”

David Turner, Honley

History carved in stone

In December Kathleen Bentley asked about the stone carving in Riffa Wood. According to Frank Wilkinson, who describes a weekly walk in the Yorkshire Evening Post, this is a carving of a Native American’s face, the work of an Italian POW held in a nearby camp.

The track through the wood is part of the ancient main route from Otley to Knaresborough.

Roger Davis, Leeds

Age no barrier

While I enjoyed John Walshaw’s cycling item (Jan) I was disturbed by his implications that geared bikes cannot be used for deep fording – as Graham Lawrance and I used our geared bikes in similar conditions on the A656 (Castleford-Allerton Bywater road) not many years ago.

Also, he says people were ‘superior’ when he was young – rubbish! In the above incident I had just turned fifty and was a new member of Autumn Tints, the over fifties cycling ‘club’, and Graham is a bit more senior both in Tints membership and years. We were just a pair of Yorkshiremen cycling home from a meet. What’s two feet of water?

On that occasion we both had good Yorkshire cycling shorts on. Made by Hebden Cord. Unfortunately, Hebden Cord seem to have given up on making those hard-wearing and comfortable garments, which is a shame as there was/is nothing better.

Perhaps they made them too good, as they last years!

Bill Houlder, Pontefract

A musical connection

I was very interested to read the account of Frederick Delius, composer (Jan). I knew his brother J D Delius who lived at the Square & Compass Inn, North Rigton, in a suite of rooms, my grandmother Mona Elizabeth Dibb, being the licencee.

After D-day J D returned as an officer, and was president and captain of the local cricket club – being in the junior side we used to travel in his Rolls Royce car to all the dales grounds.

He had a family mill in Bradford where he travelled from Weeton station where the train was not scheduled to stop, so a phone call was made to Harrogate, making sure he was picked up.

Later in life he moved to a house opposite the Methodist church and married.

Keith Dibb by email

The lost village

Hello from Norway. I have seen various pictures and features in the Dalesman about West End, and I have fond memories of the village from the early 1960s.

Recently I have been sorting out my old, and not very good, slides that I took in the mid-1960s and I came across two pictures from West End which I think I took in 1965 before it was flooded (one is pictured above).

My father and I were visiting his auntie who lived on Low Lane in Darley, and we would drive over Blubberhouses from Bradford.

There do not seem to be many photos of the bridge which appears from time to time during droughts.

Christopher Harris, by email

Days on the stage

Reading Angela Fuller’s Best Day Out (Dec) brought back bittersweet memories for me.

She told of the performance of Carousel at the Open Air Theatre. I was in the cast of that production and had to read from a sampler while singing ‘When you walk through a storm’ and walking from the stage along a walkway that stretched out into the lake towards the audience.

That year John Hanson took the lead part, Billy Bigelow, and at one of our dress rehearsals, as an eighteen-year-old eager to make an impression on the famous actor and singer, I was dressed in a crinoline gown, and in order to gauge the distance to safely walk along the walkway without actually falling in we had to count our steps.

Well, I made an impression alright, I miscounted my steps or took larger ones maybe, but whatever, I ended up walking off the edge of the platform right into the lake and had to be hauled out, soaking wet, covered in green slime from the lake bottom, my crinoline dress up around my shoulders, absolutely ruined.

Happily, that didn’t happen on the performance nights, as all went according to plan. However, it is strange to read so many years later that a young girl watched our performance and has a lasting memory of it.

Thank you, Angela, for bringing back the memory, however cringe-making it is; we actors always want to connect with our audience and in this case I really did, however remotely.

Jo Sutton, Western Australia

An inspiration

Does anyone remember Don Robins, vicar of St George’s, Leeds, and part-time resident of Appletreewick?

Surely one of the most memorable men of his age. A World War One flier, holder of the Air Force Cross award (AFC), he returned to a life of pacifism and intense love for his fellow men which led to his creation of St George’s Crypt, a refuge for thousands of unemployed itinerants between the wars.

My personal recollections of PD, as we called him, are focussed through the Boy Scout troop, 8th North West Leeds. From the start of World War Two, under his guidance, we made frequent visits to Wharfedale, camping in a small field close to Appletreewick and rambling far and wide.

We witnessed aeroplane crash landings on fells overlooking Burnsall and on Simon’s Seat, for the war was not very far away.

These were halcyon days for me, when I was inoculated with a deep and lasting love for the Dales and the wide, sweeping vistas of this delightful valley.

I presently live in Southwestern Ontario, on the shores of Lake Huron, one of the most unspoiled stretches of water in today’s world, but I regularly return to my spiritual home, Yorkshire, and note with delight that, although England has changed, almost beyond recognition, Wharefedale remains unsullied.

Bob Byrne, Ontario

Can you help?

In December’s issue there was an article which mentioned the Wensleydale Carol.

Could anyone tell me where a copy of the words and music for this can be obtained?

James Thackray, by email

Does anyone recognise the beginning of this poem that my dad used to recite about fifty years ago?

Es the any awd osses young fella frev Hull
(have you any old horses young Hull man)
Ars willin ti buy yan – pay value I’ full
(I am willing to pay you what they are worth)
It went on a bit more and I think it finished with ‘come Dobbin, come Dobbin, come Dobbin aud mare’.

Marian Cox, Beverley

From the Editor –

Our thanks to those who pointed out the mystery church in January’s Can You Help? was that of St Michael’s at Brimfield, in north Herefordshire.

Thanks too for those who wrote to say that the photograph taken by Carol Chowns (Feb) shows an Ordnance Survey Bench Mark, used in calculating height above sea-level.

Family Quest

The Dalesman website contains a comprehensive alphabetical section on people searching for their Yorkshire roots. Please click here.

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.