The Yorkshire Journal
I had an email from a fellow Yorkshireman about
the Yorkshire Journal website.
It looks good, very good, in fact to quote
an old Yorkshire saying,"It's allright."
Pass the word among your friends and let
the rest of the world enjoy God's Acres too.
Friday, 6 November 2009
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Farmers Market for Ilkley
It appears the majority of Ilkley folk are being told by a few they can't have a Farmers Market. Yet our traders have to put up with an annual intrusion of a so-called Continental Market, in would you belive, the name of theatre. According to one we could well do without.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Welcome to Darwin Gardens
Dear Friends
As it appears some are unaware of the Darwin Gardens Millennium Project, even fewer will know where it all started. One might say the first seeds were sown in the late fifties while living in Kent. A favourite cycle ride would take in Down House, the Darwin abode. Little thinking in years to come I would work (and live and work) at the three buildings Darwin used while staying in Ilkley during 1859. Wells House, White Wells and Wells Terrace - North View House, known today as Hillside Annex.
While trying to have a footpath re-opened, fallen trees cleared and rails on footbridges renewed it struck me how overgrown West View Park was. I got a little carried away (understatement) and ‘Seeds of an Idea’ came into fruition. Later Ilkley Parish Council asked for Millennium Projects for the town and Darwin Gardens was put forward. It soon became clear the Project needed more expert attention and was passed over to Dr Peter Harnett. The rest is history.
Frazer Irwin
August 1995
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by man, no-one can stand in these solitude’s unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath in his body.
Charles Darwin
( 1809 - 1882 )
Darwin Gardens will be a celebration of the Millennium.
They will become a place to educate our children, while remembering one of the world’s greatest botanists. Darwin Gardens will be a living part of the twenty first century.
The concept of Darwin Gardens first came about during 1995, when closure of Ilkley College became more of an issue. Having worked at Wells House, Hillside Annex and lived and worked at White Wells in the past, also done an amount of research into Ilkley’s Hydropathic past, it wasn’t long before Project Darwin saw light.
Initially, my idea was for a University either at home or abroad, to buy Wells House, similar to Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire. Possibly investing in Hillside Annex, too. Thirdly, to find a way of refurbishing West View Park and re-naming it, Darwin Gardens.
Few people, new people, in Ilkley realise the connection between the Town and, Charles Darwin. Nor that he stayed here during the first publication of his book - On the Origin of the Species by Natural Selection, in 1859. He chose Ilkley against Malvern, his normal watering place, even though Wells House Hydro had only opened three years previously. Onreaching Ilkley, he stayed at the Ilkley Wells House Hydropathic Establishment and, took the waters at White Wells. Later, when his family joined him, they all moved to North View House now a part of Hillside Annex. Darwin would have taken one of Donkey Jackson’s steeds to White Wells,to bathe.
Darwin Gardens (West View Park) are in an ideal position for a park/garden to commemorate, Ilkley’s rise from a small hamlet to what became known as ‘The Heather Spa’, the Millennium and Darwin. Being on the edge of Ilkley Moor, it is within sight of White Wells, Wells House and Hillside Annex, all part of Darwin’s stay in this town. It is also in a unique position to receive visitors to one of Yorkshire’s leading tourist areas. Not only from this country, but the world at large.
In PROJECT DARWIN, I proposed the work in West View park, to be done by those out of work.Or, the British Trust for Countryside Volunteers. Perhaps both. At the time, I could not see Bradford Council putting up the money for such a scheme. Thinking perhaps, Parish Councillors would have more of an insight into this aspect of the project. It now appears we must forge ahead and do the work ourselves. So be it!
Note.
Neither Bradford Council or Ilkley Parish Council have put up money for the scheme.
Darwin Gardens will become a Charitable Trust. A clock tower had been put forward as an one idea. This is 2000-2001 AD, not 1897! We already have enough clocks in the town and none appear able to keep correct time, if at all. It would not be long before a clock tower became taken for granted, apart for those checking their watches. One only has to ask people of Otley what their clock tower in Kirkgate was erected for and by whom, to get the idea.
DARWIN GARDENS on the other hand, will provide a living memorial to all those who contributed towards the scheme, the Town’s past and present for 2000-2001 AD and beyond.
Drawing on experience gained while on the Grounds Staff at Askham Bryan Agricultural College, during a National tree planting scheme, in the late sixties, I feel a similar project would fulfil the wishes for Millennium Ilkley. The Askham Bryan/ National Tree planting involved not just the College but local people and organisations, schools, colleges, Universities and other training bodies.
Churches and religious groups, farmers and Landowners, businesses large and small. Menston Church Association being one. In fact just about every walk of life. I envisaged something of the order of an Arboretum, for Darwin Gardens. To follow the early wishes of Mr Middleton, for Mill Ghyll in the nineteenth Century.
We must not forget ROMBALDS HOTEL, one of the Town’s prestigious hotels, lies just across the road from West View Park/Darwin Gardens. Another reason for re-generating the area and bringing about that ‘good image’ we so often hear talked about in tourism circles. Already, there are residents showing more than passing interest in Darwin Gardens. Perhaps helped by publicity during and after 1995 in Local and National Press of PROJECT DARWIN. One of our local tree suppliers had shown interest earlier, as had other outlets, members of the clergy, teachers, a Landowner, Senior citizens and, school children.
As pointed out earlier, Darwin Gardens will become a living part of Ilkley. A place where families can go and enjoy the Moorland air, while visiting their tree or trees. They will be able to tend them for years to come. those children whose school, family, youth club, even themselves, donated a tree, will bring their own children even grandchildren, to see their FAMILY TREE!
There is another reason for choosing this site. Those who have lived in Ilkley for some time, will be aware of the spa status which the town formerly enjoyed. But how many are aware where the fashion started in Britain? The same may be said for our thousands of visitors. Darwin Gardens are within sight of White Wells.
Ilkley’s ‘Foundation Stone’.
Again a reason for celebrating the Millennium near the Moor, which helped to make the town World famous.
I also proposed something to go hand in hand with the trees. The Moor is widely known for it’s rock carvings. We could place large boulders for artists and sculptors to carve, as did our ancient forebears. Whether this be in the style of times gone by or, something modern, will be upto the carvers. Once again, this too is something which has fired enthusiasm with certain archæological members of the community.
We must not forget other areas of the Town’s history. With careful planning, this too could be a part of Darwin Gardens. One might say the "ORIGIN of ILKLEY" alongside the "ORIGIN of SPECIES". There will be those who say, ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Nothing could be further from the truth, Darwin Gardens are passed by people many times a day, also overlooked by habitation. Against those in the central area of Town, which are devoid of habitation after shops and offices close.
Darwin Gardens will be small enough to be personal to the people of Ilkley, yet large enough for those who visit our Town to appreciate them as being something different from the rest of our Moors and Countryside. They will see our celebration of the Millennium grow into something beautiful, instead of a stone effigy which steadily becomes covered in grime. Only to disappear under some future development.
The collection in Darwin Gardens will be added to over the next hundred or so years, whenever there is something of Local, National or Family importance to celebrate. A little difficult to do with a clock tower. Charles Darwin wrote, what many call the most significant book since the Bible. He started the second phase while staying at North View House (part of Hillside Annex) in 1859, just across the road from Darwin Gardens. I hope residents of Ilkley, Ilkley Parish Council, Bradford Metropolitan District Council and Ilkley Tourist Management Committee plus all who eventually become involved with the PROJECT DARWIN, will realise the potential Darwin Gardens, has to offer the town.
We have a duty to our children, future generations and the world at large, to remember the part Ilkley played in the life of one of our greatest botanists, scientists and writers. Also, his part in the rise of Ilkley, from a small Yorkshire hamlet to a Spa Town of world re-known.
Here Ladies and Gentlemen I give you
A Project for Millennium Ilkley.
Darwin Gardens - A Vision for the Future.
First Ideas 1995
Reviewed 1996/7
Revised 1998/9
Frazer Irwin.
As it appears some are unaware of the Darwin Gardens Millennium Project, even fewer will know where it all started. One might say the first seeds were sown in the late fifties while living in Kent. A favourite cycle ride would take in Down House, the Darwin abode. Little thinking in years to come I would work (and live and work) at the three buildings Darwin used while staying in Ilkley during 1859. Wells House, White Wells and Wells Terrace - North View House, known today as Hillside Annex.
While trying to have a footpath re-opened, fallen trees cleared and rails on footbridges renewed it struck me how overgrown West View Park was. I got a little carried away (understatement) and ‘Seeds of an Idea’ came into fruition. Later Ilkley Parish Council asked for Millennium Projects for the town and Darwin Gardens was put forward. It soon became clear the Project needed more expert attention and was passed over to Dr Peter Harnett. The rest is history.
Frazer Irwin
August 1995
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by man, no-one can stand in these solitude’s unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath in his body.
Charles Darwin
( 1809 - 1882 )
Darwin Gardens will be a celebration of the Millennium.
They will become a place to educate our children, while remembering one of the world’s greatest botanists. Darwin Gardens will be a living part of the twenty first century.
The concept of Darwin Gardens first came about during 1995, when closure of Ilkley College became more of an issue. Having worked at Wells House, Hillside Annex and lived and worked at White Wells in the past, also done an amount of research into Ilkley’s Hydropathic past, it wasn’t long before Project Darwin saw light.
Initially, my idea was for a University either at home or abroad, to buy Wells House, similar to Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire. Possibly investing in Hillside Annex, too. Thirdly, to find a way of refurbishing West View Park and re-naming it, Darwin Gardens.
Few people, new people, in Ilkley realise the connection between the Town and, Charles Darwin. Nor that he stayed here during the first publication of his book - On the Origin of the Species by Natural Selection, in 1859. He chose Ilkley against Malvern, his normal watering place, even though Wells House Hydro had only opened three years previously. Onreaching Ilkley, he stayed at the Ilkley Wells House Hydropathic Establishment and, took the waters at White Wells. Later, when his family joined him, they all moved to North View House now a part of Hillside Annex. Darwin would have taken one of Donkey Jackson’s steeds to White Wells,to bathe.
Darwin Gardens (West View Park) are in an ideal position for a park/garden to commemorate, Ilkley’s rise from a small hamlet to what became known as ‘The Heather Spa’, the Millennium and Darwin. Being on the edge of Ilkley Moor, it is within sight of White Wells, Wells House and Hillside Annex, all part of Darwin’s stay in this town. It is also in a unique position to receive visitors to one of Yorkshire’s leading tourist areas. Not only from this country, but the world at large.
In PROJECT DARWIN, I proposed the work in West View park, to be done by those out of work.Or, the British Trust for Countryside Volunteers. Perhaps both. At the time, I could not see Bradford Council putting up the money for such a scheme. Thinking perhaps, Parish Councillors would have more of an insight into this aspect of the project. It now appears we must forge ahead and do the work ourselves. So be it!
Note.
Neither Bradford Council or Ilkley Parish Council have put up money for the scheme.
Darwin Gardens will become a Charitable Trust. A clock tower had been put forward as an one idea. This is 2000-2001 AD, not 1897! We already have enough clocks in the town and none appear able to keep correct time, if at all. It would not be long before a clock tower became taken for granted, apart for those checking their watches. One only has to ask people of Otley what their clock tower in Kirkgate was erected for and by whom, to get the idea.
DARWIN GARDENS on the other hand, will provide a living memorial to all those who contributed towards the scheme, the Town’s past and present for 2000-2001 AD and beyond.
Drawing on experience gained while on the Grounds Staff at Askham Bryan Agricultural College, during a National tree planting scheme, in the late sixties, I feel a similar project would fulfil the wishes for Millennium Ilkley. The Askham Bryan/ National Tree planting involved not just the College but local people and organisations, schools, colleges, Universities and other training bodies.
Churches and religious groups, farmers and Landowners, businesses large and small. Menston Church Association being one. In fact just about every walk of life. I envisaged something of the order of an Arboretum, for Darwin Gardens. To follow the early wishes of Mr Middleton, for Mill Ghyll in the nineteenth Century.
We must not forget ROMBALDS HOTEL, one of the Town’s prestigious hotels, lies just across the road from West View Park/Darwin Gardens. Another reason for re-generating the area and bringing about that ‘good image’ we so often hear talked about in tourism circles. Already, there are residents showing more than passing interest in Darwin Gardens. Perhaps helped by publicity during and after 1995 in Local and National Press of PROJECT DARWIN. One of our local tree suppliers had shown interest earlier, as had other outlets, members of the clergy, teachers, a Landowner, Senior citizens and, school children.
As pointed out earlier, Darwin Gardens will become a living part of Ilkley. A place where families can go and enjoy the Moorland air, while visiting their tree or trees. They will be able to tend them for years to come. those children whose school, family, youth club, even themselves, donated a tree, will bring their own children even grandchildren, to see their FAMILY TREE!
There is another reason for choosing this site. Those who have lived in Ilkley for some time, will be aware of the spa status which the town formerly enjoyed. But how many are aware where the fashion started in Britain? The same may be said for our thousands of visitors. Darwin Gardens are within sight of White Wells.
Ilkley’s ‘Foundation Stone’.
Again a reason for celebrating the Millennium near the Moor, which helped to make the town World famous.
I also proposed something to go hand in hand with the trees. The Moor is widely known for it’s rock carvings. We could place large boulders for artists and sculptors to carve, as did our ancient forebears. Whether this be in the style of times gone by or, something modern, will be upto the carvers. Once again, this too is something which has fired enthusiasm with certain archæological members of the community.
We must not forget other areas of the Town’s history. With careful planning, this too could be a part of Darwin Gardens. One might say the "ORIGIN of ILKLEY" alongside the "ORIGIN of SPECIES". There will be those who say, ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Nothing could be further from the truth, Darwin Gardens are passed by people many times a day, also overlooked by habitation. Against those in the central area of Town, which are devoid of habitation after shops and offices close.
Darwin Gardens will be small enough to be personal to the people of Ilkley, yet large enough for those who visit our Town to appreciate them as being something different from the rest of our Moors and Countryside. They will see our celebration of the Millennium grow into something beautiful, instead of a stone effigy which steadily becomes covered in grime. Only to disappear under some future development.
The collection in Darwin Gardens will be added to over the next hundred or so years, whenever there is something of Local, National or Family importance to celebrate. A little difficult to do with a clock tower. Charles Darwin wrote, what many call the most significant book since the Bible. He started the second phase while staying at North View House (part of Hillside Annex) in 1859, just across the road from Darwin Gardens. I hope residents of Ilkley, Ilkley Parish Council, Bradford Metropolitan District Council and Ilkley Tourist Management Committee plus all who eventually become involved with the PROJECT DARWIN, will realise the potential Darwin Gardens, has to offer the town.
We have a duty to our children, future generations and the world at large, to remember the part Ilkley played in the life of one of our greatest botanists, scientists and writers. Also, his part in the rise of Ilkley, from a small Yorkshire hamlet to a Spa Town of world re-known.
Here Ladies and Gentlemen I give you
A Project for Millennium Ilkley.
Darwin Gardens - A Vision for the Future.
First Ideas 1995
Reviewed 1996/7
Revised 1998/9
Frazer Irwin.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
ILKLEY’S ROYAL CHARTERS
Ilkley -
4116 4476.
334 Subsidy £11.25
MARKET CHARTER
(Charter)
Wed; gr 1 Feb 1253, by K Hen III to Peter de Percy.
To be held at the manor (CChR, 1226-57, p. 418).
In 1293, Robert de Percy, son of the grantee, claimed the market (QW, p. 225).
FAIR CHARTER
(Charter)
vfm+5, Luke (18 Oct); gr 1 Feb 1253, by K Hen III to Peter de Percy.
To be held at the manor (CChR, 1226-57, p. 418).
In 1293, Robert de Percy, son of the grantee, claimed the fair (QW, p. 225).
Should you require further information please contact the Bradford Metropolitan District Council law library.
4116 4476.
334 Subsidy £11.25
MARKET CHARTER
(Charter)
Wed; gr 1 Feb 1253, by K Hen III to Peter de Percy.
To be held at the manor (CChR, 1226-57, p. 418).
In 1293, Robert de Percy, son of the grantee, claimed the market (QW, p. 225).
FAIR CHARTER
(Charter)
vfm+5, Luke (18 Oct); gr 1 Feb 1253, by K Hen III to Peter de Percy.
To be held at the manor (CChR, 1226-57, p. 418).
In 1293, Robert de Percy, son of the grantee, claimed the fair (QW, p. 225).
Should you require further information please contact the Bradford Metropolitan District Council law library.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Galileo or Bust
Relax folks the Westminster bullyboys have done it again. Overlooking what should have been logically obvious. What are their researchers researching? Green cheese on the moon. According to a letter in Friday 16th February 2007 Daily Telegraph COMMENTS page, GPS cannot be used to enforce anything in this country, or any other country apart from the USA. Look it up. The system is all American and they, for very obvious reasons, have refused foreign interference. Which means if this doesn’t change, and I hardly think it will, any thoughts of making laws round it in Britain, are impossible. According to the writer, inability to use the American system led to the European Galileo system. However as this system may not come until after 2020 or later, if at all, road charging using sat-nav is out. Back to the drawing boards lads! Has anyone seen the abacus?
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Do You Remember When?
Rationing Days
The young of today are lucky they don’t have to go through their early life as did my generation. We just missed the War (WW 2) but still had to contend with the aftermath. Rationing and Identity Cards. My ID card was issued on 3rd September 1947 and valid (should the hostilities have continued) until 23rd August 1963.
Make do and mend was the word! Clothes rationing did not end until 1949. Though looking at some of today’s fashions one could be forgiven for thinking you're in a time warp.
Other things we take for granted were, in some places, luxuries. Electric light for one! A BATH! I remember visiting pit villages, where the nearest they came to en-suite, was a tin bath in front of the kitchen range.There were others even worse off. No bath at all. As for toilets, you had to be a good runner and eat plenty of carrots! Things were somewhat better in the new estates and houses of the better off. But for a large part of the population little had changed since before the hostilities started. In some cases become worse. Prefab houses; these are listed buildings now.
No television! at least not until the mid fifties for greater part of the population north of Sutton Coldfield. Then only one channel in black and white. Colour in this country was unheard of. It was the in thing in America. Workers Playtime, Mrs Dale’s Diary, Listen With Mother, Uncle Mac. I wonder how many could sit comfortably these days? Large classes at school. We averaged about forty kids per class. the nearest it came to central heating, was a large coal fire in the middle of the school.
We did have BBC Educational Broadcasts. once a year a chap came round with a 16mm projector and films for the whole school. We practised our writing on slates (with scribers), later there were obnoxious pens with ink, which seemed to go everywhere but on the paper. Going to a country school made a great deal of difference in those days. Though free school milk would, I believe, smell the same town or country and of course waxed paper straws. You never forget the smell!
I will not go into what happened in the privy’s, except to say, winter was quite an education in many ways.music lessons were a combination of what was left in the head teacher’s own collection of records. One of the local farm lads being on the handle to wind the gramophone. Our teacher would stuff old socks down the trumpets as a form of volume control. Sometimes using thorns from the hedgerow instead of gramophone needles.We had Music and Movement. The fore-runner of aerobics, or whatever you call it these days, broadcast from a huge wireless in the Head’s office. Everyone had to do it because extension speakers were non-existent.
Being in the country meant Country Dancing. Good practice for Morris Men. Dancing round the May Pole and trying to tie teacher up in the ribbons.In celebration of the Queen’s Coronation, saw hundreds of Leeds school children dancing around similar May Poles in Roundhay Park. Years go by and a different sound of music (?) is often heard in the same field.Nature Walks. Out in the fresh air, not watching it on some television screen.
We were doubly lucky in some respects, because our walks took us through the grounds of Temple newsham estate. You kept off the grass otherwise Parky would clip your ear! Shire horses were used for all the hauling. Thirty odd years later found myself taking lessons on a horse of the same breed.There was always the sound of agriculture not very far away. Like the day a bullock ran loose in the play ground. Milk churns being collected from the farm across the road.
Cows brought in from the field and the sound of milking machines. Huge steam traction engines and belt driven threshing machines. Hay stacked in the round, not in bales.Romanies lived not far away and sometimes their kids would come to school. The old school was sold by one of our local Estate Agents and fields we used to play in are a huge estate of little red brick boxes. Just like the sixty’s song. All ticky and tacky!
We had two hundred and forty pence in the pound . Twelve pennies in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound. Ten bob notes, half crowns, florins, thre’penny bits and tanners. Even one called a farthing, the same size as a penny piece today. There were strange (to you) measurements, yards, feet and inches. To say nothing of rods, poles, perchs, chains and furlongs. Left over from Britain’s agricultural age. Ice cream delivered by pony and trap, dustbins carried by the dustbin man, not used a receptacle for poly-bags and the like.
People walked in those days. They walked nearly everywhere. Our family often walked to Otley for a days shopping from Adel. Not only was owning a motor car rare in this country so was the stuff to power it with. Only those who needed one most (to begin with) Doctors, police and business people. All fuel was hard to come by in those days.There were pea-soupers (fog and smog) that thick you really couldn’t see the end of your arm. A bus conductor (the chap who took your money and gave you a ticket), stepped off to give a lady a hand then lost sight of the bus in the smog.
They found him five hours later walking in the opposite direction.On the occasions we travelled into the countryside, we saw field upon field of hundreds and hundreds of military vehicles, aircraft and equipment. As far as the eye could see in all directions. A rare trip to the seaside being much the same, with ‘pill boxes’, another name for gun emplacements, dotted along the cliffs and near the harbour.
Some of us found un-exploded bombs and were lucky enough to see the bomb disposal team blow them up. Others were not so lucky and the explosive blew without warning.Trippers were ferried to pleasure craft in DUKW’s. Amphibious lorries used by the troops during beach landings. Farmers, councils, haulage firms all made use of ex-WD equipment for years to come. now much of what is left have become prized collector’s items. Ahh, those were the days when life was young and care a passing fancy.
The young of today are lucky they don’t have to go through their early life as did my generation. We just missed the War (WW 2) but still had to contend with the aftermath. Rationing and Identity Cards. My ID card was issued on 3rd September 1947 and valid (should the hostilities have continued) until 23rd August 1963.
Make do and mend was the word! Clothes rationing did not end until 1949. Though looking at some of today’s fashions one could be forgiven for thinking you're in a time warp.
Other things we take for granted were, in some places, luxuries. Electric light for one! A BATH! I remember visiting pit villages, where the nearest they came to en-suite, was a tin bath in front of the kitchen range.There were others even worse off. No bath at all. As for toilets, you had to be a good runner and eat plenty of carrots! Things were somewhat better in the new estates and houses of the better off. But for a large part of the population little had changed since before the hostilities started. In some cases become worse. Prefab houses; these are listed buildings now.
No television! at least not until the mid fifties for greater part of the population north of Sutton Coldfield. Then only one channel in black and white. Colour in this country was unheard of. It was the in thing in America. Workers Playtime, Mrs Dale’s Diary, Listen With Mother, Uncle Mac. I wonder how many could sit comfortably these days? Large classes at school. We averaged about forty kids per class. the nearest it came to central heating, was a large coal fire in the middle of the school.
We did have BBC Educational Broadcasts. once a year a chap came round with a 16mm projector and films for the whole school. We practised our writing on slates (with scribers), later there were obnoxious pens with ink, which seemed to go everywhere but on the paper. Going to a country school made a great deal of difference in those days. Though free school milk would, I believe, smell the same town or country and of course waxed paper straws. You never forget the smell!
I will not go into what happened in the privy’s, except to say, winter was quite an education in many ways.music lessons were a combination of what was left in the head teacher’s own collection of records. One of the local farm lads being on the handle to wind the gramophone. Our teacher would stuff old socks down the trumpets as a form of volume control. Sometimes using thorns from the hedgerow instead of gramophone needles.We had Music and Movement. The fore-runner of aerobics, or whatever you call it these days, broadcast from a huge wireless in the Head’s office. Everyone had to do it because extension speakers were non-existent.
Being in the country meant Country Dancing. Good practice for Morris Men. Dancing round the May Pole and trying to tie teacher up in the ribbons.In celebration of the Queen’s Coronation, saw hundreds of Leeds school children dancing around similar May Poles in Roundhay Park. Years go by and a different sound of music (?) is often heard in the same field.Nature Walks. Out in the fresh air, not watching it on some television screen.
We were doubly lucky in some respects, because our walks took us through the grounds of Temple newsham estate. You kept off the grass otherwise Parky would clip your ear! Shire horses were used for all the hauling. Thirty odd years later found myself taking lessons on a horse of the same breed.There was always the sound of agriculture not very far away. Like the day a bullock ran loose in the play ground. Milk churns being collected from the farm across the road.
Cows brought in from the field and the sound of milking machines. Huge steam traction engines and belt driven threshing machines. Hay stacked in the round, not in bales.Romanies lived not far away and sometimes their kids would come to school. The old school was sold by one of our local Estate Agents and fields we used to play in are a huge estate of little red brick boxes. Just like the sixty’s song. All ticky and tacky!
We had two hundred and forty pence in the pound . Twelve pennies in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound. Ten bob notes, half crowns, florins, thre’penny bits and tanners. Even one called a farthing, the same size as a penny piece today. There were strange (to you) measurements, yards, feet and inches. To say nothing of rods, poles, perchs, chains and furlongs. Left over from Britain’s agricultural age. Ice cream delivered by pony and trap, dustbins carried by the dustbin man, not used a receptacle for poly-bags and the like.
People walked in those days. They walked nearly everywhere. Our family often walked to Otley for a days shopping from Adel. Not only was owning a motor car rare in this country so was the stuff to power it with. Only those who needed one most (to begin with) Doctors, police and business people. All fuel was hard to come by in those days.There were pea-soupers (fog and smog) that thick you really couldn’t see the end of your arm. A bus conductor (the chap who took your money and gave you a ticket), stepped off to give a lady a hand then lost sight of the bus in the smog.
They found him five hours later walking in the opposite direction.On the occasions we travelled into the countryside, we saw field upon field of hundreds and hundreds of military vehicles, aircraft and equipment. As far as the eye could see in all directions. A rare trip to the seaside being much the same, with ‘pill boxes’, another name for gun emplacements, dotted along the cliffs and near the harbour.
Some of us found un-exploded bombs and were lucky enough to see the bomb disposal team blow them up. Others were not so lucky and the explosive blew without warning.Trippers were ferried to pleasure craft in DUKW’s. Amphibious lorries used by the troops during beach landings. Farmers, councils, haulage firms all made use of ex-WD equipment for years to come. now much of what is left have become prized collector’s items. Ahh, those were the days when life was young and care a passing fancy.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Automatic Grass Cutters
Environment Friendly
Turf Management System
The modern scientific age often neglects ancient methods. The Environment Friendly Turf Management System is practically noiseless, running costs negligible, complements the surroundings and most importantly, has a relatively long working life. Provides a near constant supply of liquid and semi-soluble fertilizer which no keen gardener or council department can overlook.
Unfortunately some find this source of fertilization disagreeable and go to great lengths to rid it from the countryside. Traffic islands, waste ground and grass verges in town and city are ideal situations for use of the EFTM System. Equally areas in rural districts similar to the above would also benefit. Costs can be kept to a minimum as the system is self propelled, while operators have mobile living accommodation. For more information contact your local Gypsy Liaison Officer.
Turf Management System
The modern scientific age often neglects ancient methods. The Environment Friendly Turf Management System is practically noiseless, running costs negligible, complements the surroundings and most importantly, has a relatively long working life. Provides a near constant supply of liquid and semi-soluble fertilizer which no keen gardener or council department can overlook.
Unfortunately some find this source of fertilization disagreeable and go to great lengths to rid it from the countryside. Traffic islands, waste ground and grass verges in town and city are ideal situations for use of the EFTM System. Equally areas in rural districts similar to the above would also benefit. Costs can be kept to a minimum as the system is self propelled, while operators have mobile living accommodation. For more information contact your local Gypsy Liaison Officer.
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