Our Christmas cooking and eating habits have put a strain on Yorkshire Water. Blocked sewers are the bane of a sewerman’s life. After Christmas when, all too often, left over fat is poured down our sinks we need the Yorkshire Water slime busters.
6000 fat related blockages have already been removed or busted in 2011 according to Pat Killgallon the pollution manager at Yorkshire Water. At this time of year it will get worse with the detritus of the season being flushed away.

Enter our biological warfare weapons in the form of trillions of bacteria designed to eat away at the grease mountain clogging our slimy pipes. Human gut bacillus bacteria have been cultivated and now released into the sewer network! Say goodbye to turkey fat, goose grease and cooking oil in at least 180 selected greasy drain sites as the bugs are poured (along with our money) down the drain. Turkey fat will be gobbled up by the bacteria.

‘Sewer blockages cost the water industry tens of millions of pounds a year, with many due to hot fat, oil and grease being poured down the drains and then solidifying. The fat also binds with non-biodegradable rubbish flushed down toilets, causing blockages which can make sewage flood back up into homes’. Is the use of this and other experimental bacteria a safe option? Well at least we do not live in Camelford.

Pat Killgallon goes on to say ‘the total amount of fat, oil and grease removed by the company from its sewers so far this year is estimated to be in the region of 2,000 tonnes – equivalent to the weight of 250 empty double decker buses or 400 average sized adult African elephants.’ Well you can’t eat the elephant in one bite as they say – no wonder they need trillions of breeding bacteria to cope.

It seems a long way from the 1950′s and before when Bradford’s sewage treatment plant made a profit from selling the fat it collected from the sewage it treated at Esholt.
Bradford produced large quantities of lanolin from the wool that local industry treated. This was collected at the sewage works and sold to make soap, wax and cosmetics including lipstick. (There is a tasty thought!) This processing of sewage made Bradfords water company the only sewage company in the country to make a profit out of the soild slime.

Yorkshire has been the birthplace of many retail organisations. Where would the high street be without  Asda,  Morrisons and Marks & Spencer just for example.

Asda only became nationally known in 1965 having been Associated Dairies and Farm Stores prior to that. The original dairies grew from the advent of milk pasturisation in the 19th century and by the early 20th  Century West Marton and Grassington dairies combined to become Craven Dairies a subsidiary company of Hindell’s Dairy Farmers.  In 1928 Hindell’s expanded into selling pork products and by the end of the second world war had nine companies, eight dairies, two bakeries and various farms employing over 1200 people.

In the 1960′s a bingo hall in Castleford was converted into a supermarket by the Asquith family with late night opening and ‘Permanent Reductions’. They offered Associated Dairies, formerly Hindell’s,  the fresh food and meat concession but a merger was agreed and a new company Asda Stores Ltd was formed. The move southward was started by the purchase ‘Gem’ supermarket in Nottingham and the opening of a store in Chelmsford. Loaded with debt in the 1980′s Archie Norman was brought in to revitalise Asda until the American outfit Walmart took over.

Marks & Spencer has just finished a sales promotion celebrating 125 years since the business was started in Leeds . Michael Marks an immigrant fro Russia started peddling goods around the Leeds villages before taking a pitch at Leeds open market. Working hard he also took pitches in Castleford and Wakefield until Leeds covered market opened with 6 day trading.   Using sales patter that included ‘don’t ask the price it’s a penny’ and the ‘original penny bazaar’ he probably taught modern day ‘Poundshops’  just how to do it.

Many penny bazaars were opened in the late 1890′s and original lines for sale were supplied under six categories, Haberdashery, Hardware, Toys, Stationery, Earthenware and  Household Goods. In 1894 Thomas Spenser the bookkeeper at Marks’ supplier joined Michael Marks and thus Marks and Spencer was formed.  By the end of 1900 they had 12 shops and 24 market stalls and the headquarters was moved from Leeds to a modern warehouse in Manchester. Thomas Spencer died in his 50′s and Marks was only 48 when he also died but the growth of the company continued so that by the 1914 war there were 140 outlets across the country.  Jumping forward to 2009 and ‘Your M&S’ the latest incarnation it make you wonder how much more could have been achieved if Micheal Marks had lived another 20 years.

Morrisons

William Murdock Morrison was born in Chickenley Wakefield, adopted at seven and apprenticed to a Bradford grocer. In 1899 he set up his own business based on a market stall with closeable curtains. This was similar in format to other grocery retailers like Redmans, Maypole and Drivers. The depression was a time of problems for the business but in 1931 Kenneth Morrison was born (Ken also had two sisters.)  The main shop in Rawson Market Bradford was bombed during the war. In 1950 Ken Morrison was doing National Service when his father died. Ken’s mother a strong lady with great sales skills wanted to know if she should keep the business going for Ken’s return and we know the answer. In 1958 keen to exploit the new self-service concept they were looking for suitable premises. In 1961 they opened in the former Victoria Cinema at Girlington and then Bolton Junction on the other side of the Bradford. Morrisons also innovated with the first supermarket  petrol station on their Morley site. Ken Morrison was knighted in the millennium honours list and the takeover of Safeways was digested by the enlarged group before Ken recently took a well earned retirement.

M&S logos from Designer Blogspot

One of the animals at this charity shop must be a Dragon.Theo Paphitis by name and now dragon by nature.

Theo Paphitis is one of the Dragon’s Den personalities that entrepreneurs would like to capture. Good luck to any aspiring business in Hebden Bridge who is looking for new investors. Remember dragons are so named for a reason. They are not business angels and they are not angelic when it comes to money.

Enter the Dragon

Theo’s life story is published by Orion Books in paperback. It gives an insight into the thoughts and aspirations of one of the UK’s most popular entrepreneurs.

In this revealing and controversial memoir, Theo not only takes the reader behind the scenes on Dragons’ Den, he explains how he made his fortune. He also provides a master class in business methods that will enable anyone who reads this book to learn so much about how they too can improve their business acumen.

From Amazon with other Dragon books

A new Dragons Den season starts soon with a new dragon on board. Hilary Devey started Pall-Ex in 1995 and back then it was a one truck, one woman, pallet exchange business. She initially signed up 35 haulier members, enabling Hilary to cover the length and breadth of the UK. Now her multi-million pound empire distributes up to 9000 pallets a day from its central hub in Leicestershire. Today she has set her sights on even bigger goals, and as CEO is currently overseeing Pall-Ex’s pan-European expansion.

Egg was an internet and phone bank launched in 1998 by life assurance company Prudential. It was floated on the stock market as an independent company but recently sold its credit card business to Barclays. The Egg was ‘good in parts’ and Yorkshire think they got the right assets with the yolk on others.

Egg’s 550,000  customers will become members of the Yorkshire where they will be coddled and looked after just like their savings. Let us hope there is no scramble to exit from the new members but this is one mutual society that declined to shell out privatisation lumps to customers.

Other Deals Done and Pending

• Barnsley building society was merged with Yorkshire earlier this year. I like to think the chelsea building society was taken over at about the same time.

• A deal is currently awaiting approval for a merger with similar-sized Norwich & Peterborough.

• These ventures will see Yorkshire more than double to around £60 billion of assets

• The Bradford based mutual society has 2.6 million members and 178 branches. They have been mentioned as a possible buyers of some or all of Northern Rock.

Comment

• Yorkshire Building Society will now become  ‘cock of the mutual walk’.
  Hen parties can save up for the time of their lives with a Yorkshire Egg account.
  Hard boiled Yorkshiremen will not be scrambling for the new internet accounts but will retain their free range saving approach.
  This has been an easy over type of acquisition and now everything is sunnyside up said Rhode Island Red the scared spokesman from  Omelet Factory PR.

Yorkshire folk have always been canny with their brass, so it is no surprise we have started some of the greatest building societies in the country.
Building societies can be traced back to the industrial revolution, when they were set up as small local organisations whose members pooled funds to allow them to purchase land and build houses.

Some are no longer with us but this is a few of the financial institutions we have created; Skipton, Leeds Permanent, Halifax, Huddersfield & Bradford, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Leeds & Holbeck, Bradford Equitable, Bingley Permanent, Bradford & Bingley, Scarborough, National Provincial.

Skipton formed its own society originally called The Skipton and District Permanent Benefit Building Society in 1853. It was founded by George Kendall and the Craven Herald reported “This Society differs from the old building societies, in this, that it is not established for the express purpose of building a certain street or row of houses, but what is much superior, it enables a man to build what he likes, where he likes, and as he likes; or, if a member prefers to buy a house, he can do so, and the Society, if they think the purchase a good one, will advance the money.”

So what of the other Skipton Society? Well in fact it has its headquarters a few miles down the road at Steeton. The Ecological Building Society had a vision to set up a building society that specialised in properties that conveyed an ecological benefit in terms of construction, use of land or lifestyle. The idea was sparked at a Green Party Conference, following the experience of a Yorkshire solicitor, David Pedley. He had great difficulty in finding anyone willing to give him a mortgage on a property needing extensive renovation.

Someone asked the question “Why don’t we start a building society?” In those days it was possible to start one with just £5,000. Ten people clubbed together, put in £500 each and the Society was registered in December 1980, commencing trading in March 1981 from a tiny upstairs office in Cross Hills, West Yorkshire.
Read more

Product Portfolio
* PRIVATE HEALTHCARE
* PERSONAL ACCIDENT
* DENTAL
* INCOME PROTECTION
* TERM LIFE
* HOSPITAL CASH ( Help for the NHS? I don’t think so)
* TRAVEL INSURANCE
* BREAKDOWN RECOVERY CLUB (a medical complaint or a vehicle problem?)

The direct mail I received that stimulated this post offered a £50 M&S voucher for 12 month membership.
The web site trumpeting the business I found most annoying – hear what I mean

Markets in the Dales

Monday
Boroughbridge, Kirkby Stephen, Pickering, Selby, Scarborough, Skipton, Thirsk

Tuesday
Bedale, Hawes, Kirkby Lonsdale, Richmond (indoor), Scarborough, Settle, Whitby

Wednesday
Knaresborough, Kirkbymoorside, Masham, Northallerton, Scarborough, Sedbergh, Skipton, Barnard Castle

Thursday
Guisborough, Kirkby Lonsdale, Richmond (indoor), Ripon, Scarborough, Tadcaster, Wetherby

Friday
Appleby, Easingwold, Helmsley, Leyburn, Reeth, Richmond, Scarborough, Skipton, Stokesley

Saturday
Appleby, Guisborough, Malton, Masham, Northallerton, Richmond, Selby, Scarborough, Thirsk, Whitby

Skipton Market Days are from 9am – 5pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday including Bank Holiday Mondays and Easter Friday.

North Yorkshire Moors Area

PICKERING – Monday
KIRKBYMOORSIDE – Wednesday
SCARBOROUGH – Thursday
EASINGWOLD, HELMSLEY, STOKESLEY – Friday
MALTON – Saturday
NORTHALLERTON – Wednesday, Saturday
GUISBOROUGH – Thursday, Saturday
THIRSK – Monday and Saturday
WHITBY – Tuesday and Saturday
YORK – Daily

A selection of other market days in Yorkshire can be found on places of interest

The market clock at the indoor market in Halifax is very ornate. Halifax had a golden era of clock making and marketing from 1750-1812 for more on clocks see Tempus Fugiting

Several ‘pound shops’ competed for trade from the people dodging the showers and despite being friendly they must have been finding it hard to make a living.
Decorating and iron mongers were well represented and things were looking up as we walked down Commercial Street but the optimism was short lived as there seemed to be a poor variety of viable retailers.
After asking passers by for the location of the market we discovered that it was not functioning. It may be closed on a Saturday in favour of the near-by Dewsbury market or be a ‘market of the past’. One local said ‘there are no greengrocers in the town and I bet you don’t wan’t the Tesco stuff’ and he was right.
With nowhere else we stopped in the dreaded Tesco Extra store. What a monster, full of shoppers spendthriftly ring the tills for Tesco and the death knell of local traders. I think we were the only people to leave with an empty basket, (they has no Seville oranges.)

My wife was happy to find The Mill Outlet which made up for the lack of clothing shops elsewhere. I sat in the car hoping to escape a trip to Red Brick Mill as I knew my marmalade hunt would go unfulfilled.

Dewsbury Market.

Part History of Batley

• There has been a church in Batley since the 11th century. The present Batley Parish Church was built in the reign of Henry VI (1422-1461), and parts of the original remain. Despite Batley being mentioned in the doomsday book, the church is all that remains of any great antiquity.

• Howley Hall at Soothill was built during the 1580s. The house was besieged during the English Civil War in 1643 before the Battle of Adwalton Moor In the 17th century it fell into disrepair.

• The first records of coal mining in Batley date back to the 16th century at White Lee. The last pit in the town closed in 1973.

• Batley Grammar School was founded in 1612 by the Rev. William Lee and is still in existence.

• Areas of the town, such as Mount Pleasant, were noted for their absence of public houses due to the Methodist beliefs of their populations.

• The Industrial Revolution reached Batley in 1796 with the arrival of its first water powered mills for carding spinning. The population grew rapidly, from around 2,500 at the start of the 19th century to 9,308 at the 1851 census.

• 1853 also saw the establishment of a small confectionery shop by Michael Spedding. His business would expand, moving to larger premises in 1927 and later becoming Fox’s Biscuits.

• During the late 19th century, Batley was the centre of the “shoddy trade” in which wool rags and clothes were recycled by reweaving them into blankets, carpets, uniforms. In 1861 there were at least 30 shoddy mills in Batley. The owners of the recycling businesses were known as the “shoddy barons” . There was a “shoddy king” and a “shoddy temple”, properly known as the Zion Chapel.

• From the end of the 1950s onwards, the need for cheap labour in the town’s textile industries drew in migrant labourers from Gujarat, Punjab and other parts of modern day Pakistan and India. The South Asian population of Batley is now around 30%.

• The Union Rooms were bank premises, club rooms, dwelling house and stables for the West Riding Union Bank, built in 1876. That may account for the pub toilets being two floors up. The banks name changed to Lancashire & Yorkshire Bank which became Martins Bank, and ultimately Barclays.

A plug for Batley Town Talk who provided some of the history notes below. You can also find more information on their website

Beware there may be a Tesco Extra being planned in an area near you. Just think what it can do to retail in the surrounding area. Big isn’t always beautiful.

The Millenium Trust itself supports many projects in the Dales – like outreach work for disabled and disadvantaged groups, habitat restoration, new woodland planting, providing apprenticeships for young people, and much more besides.

The Heritage Lottery Fund is supporting a major project to restore glass and stonework at York Minster’s East Front. They have awarded a £9.7m boost s in addition to the £10m given to the minster fund in 2007. It will help  improve access for disabled visitors but focuses primarily on the restoration of the Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. The project will last 15 years.

Screen Yorkshire distributes RIFE Lottery Funding and Digital Film Archive Fund (DFAF) awards on behalf of the UK Film Council. Or it did until November 2010 when the latest batch of applications were considered. These grants support and extend the provision, promotion and interpretation of specialised and mainstream film in the region.

Screen Yorkshire are also the regional partner for Mediabox in Yorkshire and Humber, the fund that offers disadvantaged 13 – 19 year olds the opportunity to create their own media projects.

Sport England funds projects that help people get involved in sport and physical activity. This includes refurbishing existing facilities or building new ones and developing programmes and initiatives that use sport and activity to support community cohesion, improve health and raise education levels. Minimum grants are £10,000.

Other sources of funding for projects

• First Light – www.firstlightonline.co.uk
• Arts Council funding – www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/index.php
• The Princes Trust – www.princes-trust.org.uk
• Big Lottery – www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
• Heritage Lottery – www.hlf.org.uk

Links

• Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust
• Peoples Post Code Lottery is a privately owned company. They run lotteries in several countries.
• Screen Yorkshire
• Sport England

If you don’t ask you don’t get. Below is a list of recognised Olympic athletes who did ask and did get lottery support

* Ben Ainslie – Sailing
* Sir Chris Hoy – Cycling
* Christine Ohuruogu – Athletics
* Dave Roberts – Swimming
* Anna Blyth – Cyclist from Leeds
* Nicole Cooke – Cycling
* Lisa Dobriskey – Athletics
* Jessica Ennis – Athletics
* Hannah Miley – Swimming
* Josie Pearson – Paralympics
* Rebecca Adlington – Swimming

Another beef, but a minor one, is the super mug I got for Christmas said God’s Own Country which Yorkshire obviously is although I like God’s Own County for personal reasons. (What can they be? ed.)

The biggest beef is that the Pottery is in the Potteries or Burslem Stock on Trent to be exact and that aint in Yorkshire. Further exploration shows how naff some of their ‘Yorkshire sayings are: Yorkshire Born And Bred, Yorkshire Lad, Yorkshire Lass I’m a Yorkshire Yummie, Eeby Gum, The Lass Out Of Yorkshire, The Lad Out Of Yorkshire, Trouble At Mill ,On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘ At, Grandad can fix Out?’ (surely ‘Owt’)

Still I am not vindictive and will help promote branded businesses. So check out the You tube below

If you have a Yorkshire business where you want a weblink or have an interesting brand story let us know