Dance Yorkshire

Whilst this book features Dancing in the East Riding there is a lot more going off in Yorkshire. I am always surprised at nthe number of dance venues still functioning for classes, medals and competitions. Undoubtedly a healthy pastime for a great many people it is good to feel a resurgence for dance.

Dancing as a Sport
The Yorkshire Dance Festival took place in Sheffield earlier in September. There were 28 classes of ballroom and latin and details can be found on Dance Info Sports that boasts ‘Everything you wanted to know about competitive dance world and dancesport.’
The 2012 Olympics created the idea of a 2012 dancers getting fit by dancing in city centres. A more traditional programme of dance events is on Dance Yorkshires web site.

Dancing as a Career
Yorkshire Dance in Leeds is a charity based operation that offers training courses and more dance related activities. It has just received more funding from The Arts Council for a Lift project to develop the work and careers of a selected group of talented dance practitioners. There will be an expert career mentoring programme and support for artists. The Riley Theatre is based at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and runs an edgy programme and various courses.

Dance Humour
The Russians have the kosack, the Spanish the flamenco. If Yorkshire had a dance of its own, it’d involve swilling a pint of Tetley’s to and fro in front of the football while shouting ‘Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!’. Thankfully they don’t teach you the ins and outs of that dazzling composition, but you could learn some more credible forms of groove — street, jazz, tap and ballet are just a few of the jigs that you could be mastering here. Jangle that spangle, girlfriend. according to the Itchy guide.

The Butchers Dance

A guy has spent many years travelling all around the world making a documentary on Native dances. He thinks he has every single native dance of every indigenous culture in the world on film. He winds up in a pub in Sheffield where he hears about the seldom seen and sacred “Butcher Dance.”

The guy’s a bit confused and says, “Butcher Dance? What’s that, I thought I knew all the worlds great dances?” After a great deal of persuasion he gets an invite to the local dance hall. With great excitement because he believes he has uncovered a great new dance format he turns up at the appointed time.

A deathly hush descends over performers and spectators. The guy is becoming caught up in the fervour of the moment himself. This is it. He is about to witness the ultimate performance of rhythm and movement ever conceived by mankind. From somewhere the rhythmic pounding of drums booms out and locals begin to sway to the stirring rhythm.

Then he hears “You butch yer right arm in. You butch yer right arm out. You butch yer right arm in and you shake it all about…..

Get a special calender to record your dancing activity.

Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy

Posted by brian in Our Yorkshire - (3 Comments)

The Guardian are asking web authors for ‘three’ things to ‘enjoy’ about England. Well readers of Gods Own County will know that is an easy question to resolve.

Yorkshire! Yorkshire! Yorkshire!

Whilst my opening may now stop the Guardian from linking to this post due to their Lancashire roots, I will continue developing the theme of three things to Enjoy in England. They will be Ridings, Dales and Pastimes.

Yorkshire Ridings
In truth the use of ‘three’ by the Guardian is obviously aimed at our Ridings. We don’t have much truck with South Yorkshire the sorry excuse for a local government reorganisation of 1974, preferring to keep to The West Riding, East Riding and North Riding and the old county boundaries. Maps published with facsimiles of the Domesday Book show that significant parts of Lancashire were formerly a part of Yorkshire but that is a story for another day.
We support, with tongues in cheeks, the Yorkshire Independence Movement and the busy new Yorkshire search engine www.Goole.com.

Three Dales

Choosing only three Dales is a ‘hard ask’ (what ever that is) when just one Dale from 16 in the Yorkshire Dales National Park could provide a life time of enjoyment. However this is our choice for the Guardians with a phot of Burnsall in Wharfedale.

Wensleydale is full of riches amongst the towns and villages including Hawes, Askrigg, Leyburn and Middleham. From fast flowing falls on the river Ure at Aysgarth and Hardraw to local markets, auctions and racehorse training. That is to say nothing about local beer and cheese.
Wharfedale is the home of the Dalesway from Ilkley to the watershed at Oughtershaw. Wending its way through whirlpools at Bolton Abbey and limestone escarpements it is just the Dale for taking a long walk, having a good pub drink or enjoying a relaxing weekend break.
Swaledale is a land that time forgot since it gave its name to the hardy sheep with the captivating black faces. Swaledale Sheep even have there own website. Not without culture there is the renown Swaledale Music Festival plus the villages, with names like Muker, Gunnerside and Reeth, which cater for walkers on the coast to coast walk.

Three Pastimes

Folk Music can be heard in at least 3 great festival venues Whitby Folk, Otley Folk and in October at Ingleton Folk Fest. There is more Yo-Ho-Ho at the annual Sea Shanty maritime music festival at Hull. Traditional music is played in pubs and clubs throughout Yorkshire particularly up the East coast in Robin Hoods Bay. Lots more info is printed in Tykes News with details of hundreds of folk club events.

Hobbies

At Gods Own County we are still collecting reports about hobbies and pastimes with a national interest but a local flavour. Trig Spotting on Baildon Moor lead to links to great web sites and exploits of those who bag trigs in the same spirit of the Munro climbers. The smaller society with more items to view is the Pylon Appreciation Society and you could also join the Rag Ruggers.

Humour

The Yorkshire reputation for taking the micturition out of our financial prudence was exemplified by the Yorkshire Supermarket special offer ‘Buy One – Get One’.

Shop sign Cakes 66p – Upside down cakes 99p.’ Nothing half baked about Yorkshire. Three cakes, Pontefract cakes, Havercakes and Cake ‘oles.

A Yorkshireman shopping in London was asked ‘What is Sirs pleasure?’ He replied Whippets and Rugby League if it’s owt to do wi’ thee but reight nah I’d like a new shirt.

The last word goes to a Yorkshire woman ‘A man’s a lump of clay- a woman teks ‘im an’ meks ‘im into a mug.’

More humourous slogans

Marie Hartley’s Gayle

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Gayle 2

Gayle and Duerley Beck by Marie Hartley

Marie Hartley MBE would have been 104 this week had she not died in Askrigg at the age of 100. Fortunately there is a significant legacy of 33 books chronicling the Dales, numerous paintings and wood cuts and The Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes. Marie, born in Morley, went to the Leeds College of Art and the Slade School London where she specialised in wood engraving. She worked with two other redoubtable women Ella Pontefract and then Joan Ingilby.

With fellow Dales affectionado Ella Pontefract they published ‘Wensleydale’ in 1936 and many of the insights remain true today. For example they noted that may villages were built like little clumps up both sides of the valleys but ‘often two of them come together like sisters, as Hawes and Gayle, Bainbridge and Askrigg, Redmire and Castle Bolton.’ In 1936 not unlike now milk and cheese were the most important products of the local farms. Via the Milk Train, over 2 million gallons of milk a year were sent to London as part of the Milk marketing board’s sales campaign, using the Wensleydale Railway.

‘The Old Hand-knitters of the Dales’ was a 1951 book with Joan Ingilby that chronicled the development of knitting throughout the dales. Sold at Richmond Market, stockings and knitware were made in the homes of Gayle long after it declined in other parts of Yorkshire. Knitting started in the mid 16th century and it continued to be a successful activity, employing 400 knitters in Hawes homes, until the advent of machinery towards the end of the 19th century.

Gayle Mill started life in 1784 as a cotton-spinning mill, powered by a 22′ diameter overshot waterwheel, and over the next century, as economic conditions in the Dales changed, was also used for spinning flax and then wool for the local knitting cottage industry in the valley. Marie would be pleased to see the story continue into the 21st century as the latest sustainable technologies enable Gayle Mill to be create all its own carbon-neutral energy for heating and power from it’s reopened water powered generation system. Visit Gayle Mill and see how it has benefited from the BBC restoration programme.

The Grand Steve Earl

Posted by brian in Yorkshire Arts & Music - (0 Comments)

Leeds Grand Theater is hosting a Steve Earl concert on Tuesday 3rd November 2009 and it sounds as though it will be a great event. After an outstanding performance at The End of the Road Festival this last weekend Steve is continuing his tour with songs penned by his late friend and song writer Townes Van Zandt. Mixing songs from the album ‘Townes’ with some of Steve’s more raunchy rock numbers worked at the festival and we can expect more of the same when he comes to ‘The Grand’.

Buy ‘Townes’ which ‘is essentially a country album and if you know Steve Earle’s other stuff don’t expect too much rock but do expect some great ballads – there are no duff songs here’ according to Pete Williams, record reviewer. Steve has a reputation for his political views, trouble with the law, drug addiction and his uncompromising viewpoints, so a bit like other Country stars from the old mould then!

If you miss Steve Earl at the Leeds Grand he moves on to the Barbican in London and you could catch him there but I recommend you get your Leeds ticket now. See you at The Grand.

Other Steve Earl recordings from Amazon

Weather Forecast – Forecasters will get it Wrong

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The weather forecasters have been getting crossed wires this summer but that isn’t news, I guess. The day I took this photograph of these power cables crossing the moor near Bolton Abbey it was supposed to be cloudy and rainy. Well those sort of clouds I can put up with!

If you are interested in Local weather stations there are 3 in Yorkshire at Ribblehead, Upper Wharfedale and Lower Wharfedale under the brand ‘my local weather’. Their interesting little web site complements the data gathering and shows real time wind direction and strength together with barometric pressure and a host of other features. This is the link for Lower Wharefdale

There are other weather monitoring web sites with data from Yorkshire and elsewhere. Try weather monitoring for Melton East Yorkshire, Hatfield South Yorkshire and Sowerby Bridge West Yorkshire amongst others plus sites in the larger cities. Select your locality and compare how you are doing against other areas North Featherstone for example has gone 5 days without rain and the temperature as I write is 15.2°C. (Sorry they don’t do temperature in Fahrenheit and I don’t know how the rest of Featherstone are getting on for weather)

Dales Barns Survival

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Not all the wonderful barns of the Yorkshire Dales have been converted in to holiday lets or cottage homes. These distinctive, rustic almost run-down but utilitarian structures still abound. Originally erected in 18th and 19th centuries many of these barns were built, to store hay near the point of use and were called Laithes, or as Hogg Houses (Hoggs are young sheep) to overwinter the sheep. Tudor Tythe barns still exist at Riddlesden Hall Keighley and Botton Abbey.

The Yorkshire National Park Authority’s Planning Committee have approved the temporary use of a free-standing ‘eco-pod’ inside an isolated barn on the Bolton Abbey estate near Skipton. Yorkshire Forward are supporting this and other conservation measures to protect the 2000 odd barns that are suffering from dereliction.
The National Trust owns Town Head Barn Malham and this 18th century barn has been restored it to its original condition when it would have been used to house overwintering cattle and hay to feed them. It is located on the edge of the village next to its farm and is therefore a rare survival. Most village barns in the Dales have been sold off for house conversions.

Book Cover

Barns of the Yorkshire Dales by Andy Singleton & David Joy is prefaced by Bill Bryson “‘Many of the best of England’s barns are in the Dales. So it is wonderful to see a book celebrating, with wit and affection and penetrating historical insight, the Dales barn in all its undersung glory. This truly is a delightful and valuable book – almost as good, in fact, as the barns themselves.’ ”

Mark Banks Dales Barn series
Main photograph at hardwick House looking towards Nesfield and Beamsley Beacon.

Keep the Vexillologist’s Flag Flying

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Vexillology, meaning the study of flags, is intriguing and challenging, I am told by Associated Content. ‘Whether you focus on flags of nations, states, counties, cities, corporations or service groups, you need to be familiar with the basic vocabulary of vexillology. Staff is the correct term for the flag pole.’ Vexillologists cringe when they hear people say a flag is at “half mast” when honoring the deceased. The correct term is “half staff.” Unless the flag is flying from a ship’s mast. That is the only situation when “half mast” is accurate’. Banners & pennants are distinguished from flags because they hang straight down from a horizontal mount.

There are flags for Pirates and for businesses if that is any different. Lancahire & Yorkshire Railway Company had 2 flags before it was bought by LNER. The main flag is red and blue quarters with a white Maltese cross in the center and initial letters in each quadrant. See examples There is a checkered flag for Bernie Ecclestone and a stone flag for our street.

Flagging up Weak Jokes
Our National flag symbolizes our taxes,” “We get red when we talk about them, white when we get our tax bill, and blue after we pay them. It is the same for Americans except they see stars too.
The Italian flag has two pieces of velcro on it so that the red and green parts can be detached when any fighting starts.
What did one flag say to the other flag? Nothing. It just waved!
A man of a certain nationality was given the job of painting a flagpole but he didn’t know how much paint he would need. “Lay it down and measure it,” suggested a mate. “That’s no good,” he said . “I need to know the height, not the length.”

The Flag Institute
North American Vexillology Association

Passing By Burneston

Posted by brian in Villages, Towns and Cities - (1 Comments)

How often have you driven through a village without pausing to look at what is happening or consider its history? I was tempted to stop at the church in Burneston by the archway over the gate. I am glad I did stop and look around this village of about 250 people which serves a wider area in many different ways.
The Woodman Inn at Burneston dates back to the late 1600′s and is a traditional country inn with cask beers and excellent food which is locally sourced. Every Wednesday night Burneston Folk Club meet here at 8.30pm. It’s a lively club with a mix of traditional, acoustic and contemporary music. Everyone is welcome, whether it is to play, sing or just listen. they do not book guests, charge an entrance fee or hold a raffle they just enjoy the music.

The church of ST. Lambert consists of a chancel with a north vestry and a square west tower. The nave probably contains the stones of the 13th century or earlier but much of the internal masonry is of early 14th-15th century. In 1086 Burneston belonged to Count Alan. At the Dissolution in 1591 Queen Elizabeth granted this manor to Sir Richard Theakston. Theakston village is less than one mile away (although the family breweries are in Masham 5 miles or so distant).

To the north-west of the church are the Robinson Almshouses, founded in 1680 by Matthew Robinson, vicar of Burneston. They form a picturesque block two stories in height, and are built of red brick. The windows are stone mullioned and of two lights

The last Yorkshireman to win the men’s singles at Wimbledon may have been John Hartley from Burneston, near Bedale in 1879. Did he live here?

Sources

History and far more detail at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=64767

A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 1 Author William Page

Parish Church home page http://kirklington.2day.ws/

Burneston Folk Club http://www.myspace.com/burnestonfolkclub

The Northern Echo library.

Swanning About Addingham

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The Ilkley-Addingham stretch of the Dalesway returning over Addingham Moorside is a fine walk of about 8 miles. Even better is to start or break your walk at a hostelry renown for it’s real ales and welcoming atmosphere. The Swan in Addingham caters for drinkers, walkers and eaters with good appetites.

Passing Addingham’s Saxon church on a bright morning I looked up and saw it was already afternoon by a smidgin and thus lunch time.

I headed for the Swan at a leisurely pace. ”’Olicana’ was my first beer of choice followed by a sampler of a southern beer (when will I learn).

Then it was Yorkshire Pud and Stew, rather than the Lishman’s sausage, which turned out to be an inspired choice. Carol had a meaty Shepherd’s Pie and failed to finish due to the size. We discussed with the landlord groups who were performing here and in Otley including the Ale Mary’s and Last Orders both publicans favourites, Rory Motion and Stanley Accrington amusing performers plus the local Guiseley Brothers.

No time for the staple Spotted Dick, but with a vow to return, we hobbled off on our walk onto Rombald’s Moor looking for the missing dog with the reward.

Bah Humbugs Sweetie Shop

Posted by brian in Food and Drink | Our Yorkshire | Yorkshire Business and Money - (2 Comments)

Masham is really for beer not sweets but in the corner of the market square is a shop to treasure. Not only because they offer Licourice sweets from New Zealand, Holland and Pontefract but because they seem to be going the extra mile in the provision of treats for the sweet-toothed amongst us. ‘Yorkshire Mixture’ is another favourite a Northern Classic of boiled sweets in an assortment of different shapes and flavours including Pear Drops, Fruit Rock & Fishes and mint rock.

I do not want to drive you away from this web site by if you want to look inside the digital sweetshop of Bah Humbug then click here.

With winter and flu nearly upon us why not stock up with some winter warmers like Coltsfoot Rock, Paynes Original Army & Navy Tablets or real Cough Candy. Too say nothing of Aniseed Balls and the retro range including ABC Candy Letters, Dip Dabs, Double Dips, Shrimps, Anglo Bubbly, Black Jacks, Refreshers and Lover Hearts .

Maxons Humbug Suppliers to the World

Maxons of Sheffield is one of the few remaining traditional sweet manufacturers in England specialising in boiled sugar and flavoured sherbet. Maxons continues as a privately owned, independent, manufacturing company under the direction the original Pitchfork family. Henry Dixon Ltd. had existed since the late nineteenth century and had acquired a significant reputation and history in the area. Following the end of sweet rationing in 1953, both the wholesale and manufacturing began to expand and, in 1958, they all merged.
The traditional brands, as supplied to Bah Humbug, of Maxons, Dixons, and Jesmona account for the majority of production. Traditional products like Pineapple chunks, Pear Drops and Yorkshire Mixture are made along side Black Bullets, Sherbert Fruits and Humbugs. However new ideas are launched like the Sherpots below.