November 2011
Your letters
Great greetings indeed
Ian McMillan’s article on the railway journey (September) highlighted the contradiction in terms of the Yorkshire greeting ‘Now then’. I have often thought how good this greeting is especially when receiving a greeting in other localities which have an implied question such as ‘Yoroit’ or ‘Howyerdoin’ to which in my ignorance I responded with “Very well thank you. How are you?”.
The most memorable Yorkshire greeting I received was when I worked in the holidays on a farm in the East Riding. I was not the best at early rising and had a short bike ride to the farm. On one occasion, spinning into the yard at a minute or two after 7.30am in front of the assembled workmates receiving their instructions, the farmer looked at me and said, “Noo then. It’s bin a grand day.”
John Butler (by e-mail)
Preserve our heritage
I am emailing in response to the item entitled What’s Your Riding? (September). First of all I have to say that it is incorrect to suggest that we bring the Ridings back… they never went away! And we here in this region are proud to say that we are in the largest of the counties.
The West Riding of Yorkshire embraces Sheffield, Doncaster and Rotherham to the south, Todmorden and Barnoldswick to the west, Sedbergh, Garsdale and Dent to the north and Harrogate, Ripon, Knaresborough and Goole to the east.
Regarding the editor not having the authority to enter the correct county name in the Dalesman address… surely you’d be okay to make the change… after all, we’re all for publishing the facts rather than fiction purporting to be fact. Go for it, Paul, and do the right thing!
We hear much talk about the preservation of our heritage, and yet whenever we fail to use the correct county name in our address, we are chipping away at one of the oldest parts of the heritage we strive to protect, namely the true names of our beloved counties.
If readers are concerned about which county they are in, they can check out the Association of British Counties website www.abcounties.co.uk and their gazetteer www.gazetteer.co.uk which will tell you the correct county for virtually all the cities, towns and villages in England, Scotland and Wales.
It’s up to all of us who treasure our counties and their heritage to protect them and bring them back to the prominence they deserve and, in time, will surely have again.
Anne Towriss, Shipley
Artist’s identity
I was interested in Bill Mitchell’s article on Edmund Cooper (July). I see he married a Mireille Burnand. I have on my ‘Swaledale wall’ an oil painting which I bought in the late 1950s, I believe from a studio in Muker. It is of the entrance/ approach to Muker meadows signed by Mireille Cooper. I should be interested to know who this artist is. If Edmund Cooper only married in 1923 the daughter of a French-Swiss artist, and as I know that ‘my’ Mireille Cooper is Swiss, could this be the same person?
I love Swaledale and for fifteen years I took school parties up to Keld and Grinton so I know the wardens there quite well. Now I stay in relative comfort at the Kearton at Thwaite – at eighty-two my walking days are over I’m afraid, but
I still love Swaledale.
Mrs Marie Caltieri, Keighley
You can’t beat the best
I would have thought that compared to the holidays my children enjoyed (usually Scarborough, Filey and camping in Dorset and Wales) my nine year old grandson is a very lucky boy. He has travelled to the Isle of Wight, Italy, Filey, Wales, cruises to Norway and the Canaries, where he had a ride on a camel and a submarine trip amongst other interesting excursions.
However, when asked which holiday he enjoyed the most, he replied “Filey. It is the best place in the whole world”.
Thank you Filey for the happy memories our family have as we visited every Spring Bank Holiday week from 1969 until 1986, on occasions camping at Seamer and at other times renting a flat, but always booking a chalet near the Corner Café.
Filey, please don’t change as we hope to visit you again next year, bringing our grandson of course.
Mrs A Dugdale, Northampton
Can you help?
Some friends and I recently had a wonderful day out by car via Pateley Bridge, Lofthouse and Masham. On the hill top overlooking Leighton Reservoir, there is a monument – could anyone tell me what this is or what its use is? A man I spoke to in the village called it the lighting tower but didn’t give me any more information.
I would be so interested to hear more.
Mrs C Kirkbright, Helmsley
That Was The Month That Was
In the April issue showed a photograph of the old Spout House in Bilsdale. I have enclosed a copy of a postcard of the same which includes some hens and three figures. My grandmother’s family lived for a while in Hawnby and I found the postcard in among their photos. I wonder if anyone knows who the man and two children are? The girls look very small in the photograph.
I notice that the roof is slightly different in shape too, so was this taken before or after restoration? If anybody can tell me I’d be happy to know.
I would also be interested to know if there are any descendants of Hannah Burrows and Sarah Jones still living in the area of Hawnby. My grandmother’s name was Esther Hannah Bell, daughter of William and Sarah; they moved to Manfield near Darlington.
Mrs G Mountain, Middlesbrough
A visit from cherry
In the August issue Cherry Kearton is mentioned in ‘That was the Month’. He came to Ormrod Hardcastle’s mill in Bolton in the late 1930s as part of a BBC team. They wanted to record the clatter of the clogs in the mill yard. Only one lady wore clogs, a winder named Ellen Doherty. She only wore them at work. The microphone was set up on the cobbles and Cherry Kearton got her to walk round it. He was a friendly and very enthusiastic man.
Beth Pickup, Chorley
A most fantastic bookshop
About thirty years ago I lived for a time in Harrogate. While there I often went on coach trips around the Yorkshire Dales and moors, and enjoyed them very much. On one of these excursions we had a coffee stop in a little village, and there I discovered the most fantastic bookshop I have ever seen.
It consisted of a row of small terrace cottages and the only alterations made to them was to make it possible to walk from one to another without going outside. Inside, each cottage still had the old kitchen range and old fashioned furniture, and every room was crammed full of books. There seemed to be very little… just books on shelves, filed on tables, stacked up on the floors – it was amazing. For a book lover it was paradise, I could have happily spent months searching through all the old books. I am sure there must have been some great treasures there.
Unfortunately we only had an hour coffee stop, but I did manage to buy two books and since then I’ve told many people who live in or visit Yorkshire and they seem to think I’ve imagined the whole thing. I know I haven’t, I have two books to prove it. I cannot remember the name of the village, and am now too incapacitated to go looking so please can any of your readers remember this wonderful quaint bookshop?
Winifred Rafter, St Albans
Timeless holiday hotspots
My wife and I have always enjoyed visiting the Yorkshire Dales, and have spent many happy hours exploring there through the years. When we bought our first old banger in the 1960s, Filey was our preferred destination because of our two sons. However, cash was tight in those days, and not always having the petrol money to reach the coast and back, we frequently finished up in the Dales.
Because children are naturally attracted to water, we were under orders to take the two lads somewhere that they could paddle and use their fishing nets, so Appletreewick, Burnsall, Bolton Abbey and Linton were high on the list. Linton was the favourite because of the stepping stones just past the little church, and because it wasn’t as busy as the Bolton Abbey stepping stones.
Our two lads are now in their fifties but their children have also experienced the delights that their fathers used to enjoy; three of the children having travelled up from south of Birmingham for the experience.
Cliffe Lambert, Leeds
Enjoying dales from afar
I emigrated to New Zealand in 1951. Mary, later my wife, came to New Zealand in 1954 as a teacher. We have had numerous trips to the UK. At the start the highlight was being introduced to the Dales, which I have come to love and enjoy. Travelling in summer I saw the Dales for the first time and still marvel at the soft colours and unsurpassing beauty of the countryside.
Mary died last year but on one of our earlier trips we took out a subscription to Dalesman. Housebound, I have once more started to read again through the months and the more I read the more enjoyment I get, reading and savouring the articles by various contributors. I must say I can’t thank you enough for this magazine which gives me so much pleasure and joy. As a ‘mental traveller’, I can once more tread one of the most beautiful counties in the UK. Thank you again.
Michael Thomas, New Zealand
One stormy night
The articles by Jon Mitchell have been really interesting. The English weather is always a popular topic of conversation with so many people. Can any Dalesman reader remember a really vicious thunderstorm which happened at the beginning of 1953?
As a teen, living at Woodhouse Mill on the Worksop side of Sheffield, one evening for about two hours we had a real cracker due to the intense humidity of the day. It ended about 9pm; however, around 9.15pm to my amazement a huge pitch-black cloud moved in from the west, converging with others from the north, along with others from the south-east; they all seemed to be converging into one colossal gathering.
Never in all my life have I seen so much continuous incessant lightning along with deafening claps of thunder. This raged on for over three hours and at well after midnight was still going on.
Many parts of South Yorkshire, particularly country villages, were flooded, with damage to property; it really was a phenomenal storm.
My question is to any weather buffs – can three storms actually merge into one? This is what seemed to have happened on that particular night.
Bernard Wilkinson, Sheffield
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