William Wordsworth’s little-known marriage venue Published as The perfect village? October 2017 Republished here by kind permission of Dalesman magazine ‘I could stand it no longer and threw myself on the bed, neither hearing nor seeing anything…’ On Monday October 4th, two hundred and fifteen years ago, this emotional drama was played out at a…
Category: Yorkshire
Memories of Wartime
Memories of Wartime When I was a kid during WW2 we didn’t have sell-by dates and elf and safety, we just had the war to contend with. It became so much a part of our daily existence that after it was over a friend said ‘I didn’t know wars could end’. Our family had a…
Not Working
Not Working A ficticious story inspired by the hidden St Peter’s, Dalby-cum-Skewsby, North Yorkshire by Maggie B Dickinson For Judy the best part of not working was her redundancy from setting the alarm clock five nights a week. Bliss. In future the irksome clock would only be programmed for important occasions and she would revel in…
A paddle up the Pennines 1977
A paddle up the Pennines 1977 Published June 2012 in Down Your Way as “Jubilee bunting spurs us on for big walk” To celebrate my fortieth birthday in 1977 I walked the Pennine Way with my late husband David and 12-year old daughter Vanessa. Sodden sheep lurking without intent behind dry stone walls, life-threatening peat…
Road to Freedom for Girl on a Golden Rudge
Road to Freedom for Girl on a Golden Rudge Re-published by kind permission of Down Your Way from their issue of June 2012 One extremity-numbing Saturday morning in November 1953 a friend and I set off on our bicycles for a weekend at Aysgarth Youth Hostel, a YHA buzzword on the strength of the warden’s…
Billy Blacksmith of Barrowford
Billy Blacksmith of Barrowford Published in Countryman magazine August 2011 Whenever I think of William Henry Whitaker, aka Billy Blacksmith, one of my strongest memories of this burly jocular man is of him reading our newspaper, but we took his evening visits in our stride because, as a staunch Yorkshire man, he derived great pleasure…
Paparazzo For a Day – My brush with fame
Down Your Way magazine – Published December 2013 In the summer of 1991 I took a flexi day off work, stuffed my passport and camera into the rucksack, and set off for Yorkshire. The intention was to climb Simon’s Seat high above the River Wharfe near Bolton Abbey but as I approached the Priory’s Church I…
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