May 2010

Your letters

Old Press Days

I read with great interest the feature on Paul Berriff in your March edition. The piece brought back many happy memories of two years of my life spent as a young reporter in Leeds when the Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post occupied that rabbit warren of an office in Albion Street.

Dusty and Dickensian it may have been but it was superbly located for Yates’s Wine Lodge and Whitelocks in Turks Head yard. But I digress.
What really caught my eye in the article was Paul’s portrait and his strong likeness to his dad (no surprise there I guess), Doug Berriff.

Doug was one of the team of staff photographers based in Albion Street for the two papers. Other photographer colleagues I recall from that era were Jack Tordoff and Laurie Mercer. Happy days.

Peter Hill, Woking

Not such a warm welcome

Reading the March Dalesman, I was most pleased to read about the ‘Walkers Welcome’ process.

Over my years both as a walker and as a cyclist I have been welcomed often by café proprietors. Sometimes I admit to not being a particularly attractive-looking prospect!

On one occasion I was welcomed into a café in Kettlewell in the middle of a horrendous cloudburst. Although I was soaked through I was led into the dining room. The fire stoked into a roaring blaze and my first request, a pot of tea and the menu, instantly provided. The food was delicious, well made and filling.

Sadly, balancing all the great experiences there was one early one that could put walkers off cafés forever. I was in the walking group of the Yorkshire Subterranean Society. We’d abandoned a walk over Ingleborough due to high winds and sleet. Walking along Ingleton’s high street we found a new, empty, café.

Like all considerate walkers we left our muddy boots and weatherproofs at the door. Well on through the meal a large bossy woman came in. She had words with the young woman in charge and then came over to us. “If I’d been here I would never have allowed you scum in, this is a respectable business for respectable customers only!”, she said haughtily.

I’ve been to Ingleton many times since and know that within a year that café had gone and is now someone’s home.

Bill Houlder, Pontefract

The great boundary debate

I have just discovered your website
and enjoyed reading the articles on it, especially the letters about the Yorkshire boundaries, and would like to add my own bit of mustard.

It is my own personal belief that the boundaries of Yorkshire were changed in order to help the Conservative party to gain seats where they would not normally. When Yorkshire was just the three Ridings, it was impossible for the Conservatives to gain control of the Ridings as each had major industries that were all Labour orientated. By carving the county into four they were able to gain the new county of North Yorkshire by excluding the heavy industry and putting it into the new county of Cleveland.

Out of nothing they suddenly gained a council. This was repeated throughout the country in various Shires, totally against the wishes of the people.

As you can probably gather I am a big supporter of the old Shires and think that more should be done to preserve them.

I was dismayed to find that my children have not been taught anything about Yorkshire history, its heroes and the people who made it great.

Nobby Clark, by email

Wartime spirit in Alne

I was pleased to read the article in February by John Cogan about Alne village.

I was conscripted into NAAFI in 1941 and later became a manageress of gun site canteens in the Newcastle area. Being badly in need of some fresh air, I took advantage of a wartime scheme, ‘Lend a hand on the land’, and was sent to Alne to work on a farm picking flax.

I spent my week’s leave doing the most tedious job, uprooting by hand the long flax stalks then throwing them into heaps to be collected by land girls on farm carts.

Along with about twenty more volunteers, I was billeted in Alne Hall, which was in a run down state (maybe requisitioned by the Land Army) sparsely furnished with wooden trestle tables and chairs and basic beds, all on bare floors.

The highlight of the week was an invitation to a dance at a distant aerodrome with transport provided by Canadian Air Force personnel.

I’m now in my ninety-first year and have never heard of Alne village mentioned since my week’s stay there, and often wonder if Flax is still grown in the York area.

Mrs Mary E Seyers, Middlesbrough

Surviving the cold

Recent adverse weather took me back to the winter of 1947 when it was very similar, if not worse, for the snow was still hanging around in April.

I was still in the army, awaiting my demob number to come up, which did not happen until February 1948. I was stationed at the Transportation Training Centre, Royal Engineers at Longmoor in Hampshire, the home of the Longmoor Military Railway.

We were in modern barrack blocks, brick built, two storey with a barrack room on each floor with a stairway in the centre. The only heating came from a cast iron stove in the middle of the room, for which we were allowed one small tin batch of coal per week, which did not go very far.

I was orderly room corporal in the Centre HQ orderly room. One of the officers I worked for, Major Williams, asked me how we were managing for fuel. When I told him about our meagre ration, he said, “Go to the stores, draw whatever tools you need, then go to the rear of the camp where you will find any amount of old railway sleepers, and take what you want.”

We did not need a second telling. As soon as we had finished work we set to work cutting the sleepers to manageable sizes. That night our barrack room resembled a wood yard, with sawing and chopping taking place everywhere. The sleepers had been soaked in creosote and burnt brilliantly, giving out plenty of heat which we enjoyed for the rest of the cold spell.

Ours was the warmest barrack room on the whole camp.

Eric Elliott, 14872073 Ex Sgt Royal Engineers, Dewsbury

Good times in the Sal

The article on the Salutation Inn in Doncaster (Feb) brought back wonderful memories.

In 1965 as a young woman newly married to an airman stationed at nearby RAF Finningley, my husband and I spent many enjoyable evenings in the Salutation in the company of colleagues and locals.

Jenifer Janz, Switzerland

Dreams of safe cycling

There has been much cover in the local press about reinstating the rail link between Colne and Skipton. A great idea, but in these financially tough times unlikely to happen in the current decade.

However, Government policy is supposed to support the idea of making cycling safer. All we have seen so far in this area are a few lines on the road which don’t do a lot to prevent being clobbered by a wagon.

My wife and I had a walk around Settle recently and discovered the beautifully constructed cycle path there. It is wide enough for both cyclists and walkers and also has focal points describing the history of the area.

It’s a pipe dream, but it would indeed be wonderful to ride two wheels into the Dales without the fumes and hassle of busy traffic.

Francis A Forrest, Earby

Editor’s note: In the acrostic ‘Burnsall’ in last month’s issue we printed the author’s name as C F Oakes, Guiseley – this should have been C F Oates. Our apologies.

Can you help

I am trying to trace a lady who lived in Hull in the Edwardian period. I recently acquired a very battered exercise book containing handwritten patterns for knitted lace.

I am a writer and researcher on the history of knitting and am hoping to publish a book based on these fascinating patterns. Fortunately, the knitter has written her name, address and the date (presumably when she began the book), so I am hoping to trace her and make her and the area in which she lived part of the book.

She is M Moon, 444 Holderness Road, Hull – and the date (written in French) is Decembre, 1907.
Although the patterns are written in English, her spelling and the date point to her being French and married to a local man called Moon.

There are quite a few Moons in the Hull area, but I cannot trace her in the 1901 Census, nor does 444 Holderness Road appear at that date.

Victorian numbering extends to the 300s, so I believe the road was extended in the Edwardian era.

I am hoping that Mrs Moon might be someone’s granny or great aunt and that one of your readers may recognise her. Can you help?

Sheila Williams, by email

Family Quest

I am trying to trace my cousin, Jean Newall, who will be around seventy years old.

In the 1940s and ’50s, she lived at Baildon Green, Shipley, and as a child attended dancing and piano classes, appearing in concerts in the immediate area.

Her father was Charlie who also played the piano and piano accordion, sometimes at the Cricketers Arms near his home.

Jean’s mother was either Emma or Polly. If anyone knows where she went or where she is living now, please get in touch with me.

Mrs Frances Smith, 25 Lily Croft, Off Heaton Road, Bradford BD8 8QY

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.