Harold Dennis (Dickie) Bird, was born at Church Lane Barnsley 19 April 1933. (Simon Hughes in the photo wasn’t born in Barnsley)
In the 2012 New Years Honours list Dickie has been awarded the OBE.
The award could so easily have been the OBU or Old Blind Umpire but well done Dickie. Other sporting awards for Yorkshire folk go to Jamie Peacock from Leeds Rhinos and Taekwondo champion Sarah Stevenson from Doncaster

Pre Umpiring

• Dickie has a damaged knee and couldn’t play his first choice sport of football.
  He started cricket in the nets at Barnsley Cricket Club.
  Two team mates at that time were Michael Parkinson and Geoff Boycott.
  In his autobiography Dickie tells of the time when Boycott refused to open the batting with Dickie preferring to bat no3. Dickie and Eddie Legard then proceeded to score 182 to win the game before a frustrated Boycott  could get in to bat.
  Barnsley also fostered other great cricketers including Martyn Moxon, Darren Gough and Arnie Sidebottom.
  Dickie played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club 1958-64 in the same side as Fred Trueman, Bob Appleyard and Johnny Wardle.
  After retiring from county cricket he coached and played league cricket before becoming an umpire.

Umpiring Era

• Dickies first county game was in 1970 and his first Test match was  England v New Zealand at Headingley in 1973.
  One negative memory of his umpiring days was Dickie’s reputation for stopping play for weather.
  After a pitch invasion when the West Indies won the world cup Dickie lost his white hat. A year later as passenger on a London bus he noticed the conductor was wearing a hat similar to the one he lost and asked the conductor where he obtained it from.
  “Man, haven’t you heard of Mr Dickie Bird,” he replied. “This is one of his hats. I took it off his head at the World Cup final… we all ran onto the field and I won the race.” Apocryphal or not it is one of Dickie’s favourite after dinner stories.
  Affectionately remembered for his sense of humour and on field idiosyncrasies Dickie retired from umpiring in 1996 at the age of 63.

Since Umpiring

• Dickie wrote his humerous autobiography simply titled My Autobiography that has sold more than a million copies.(and many of these several times over via charity book shops)
  The Dickie Bird Foundation was set up with “The vision of the Foundation is to assist young people under 18 years of age to participate, to the best of their ability, in the sport of their choice irrespective of their social circumstances, culture or ethnicity and to ensure that, in doing so, they improve their chances both inside and outside sport”
  Dickie has more honorary degrees from Yorkshire Universities than he has A levels.
  Harold Dennis (Dickie) Bird MBE 1986.

Umpiring Career 1970-1998 from Dickie’s own web site

1970 Stood in his first county game

1973 Stood in his first Test Match. England V New Zealand July 5-10 at Headingley

1973 Stood in his first ODI England V New Zealand July 20th Manchester

1995 Stood in his last ODI England V West Indies May 26th The Oval

1996 Stood in his last Test Match England V India May 26th Lords

1998 Stood in his last County Match Yorkshire V Warwichshire

2007 Dickie came out of retirement in January 2007 to umpire the XXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations series involving cricket legends from England, the West Indies, and Australia, which took place at Scarborough beach in Perth, Australia .

Related

The Best of Dickie Bird on audio CD from Amazon

Wisden on Yorkshire
Photo on creative commons license by Badger Swan on flickr
Fiery Fred Trueman Fantastic Raconteur

Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, 11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995
Harold Wilson was born in Huddersfield where this statue is on display. He attended Royds Hall Grammar School, Huddersfield and Jesus College Oxford where his intellect enabled him to become a don at the age of 21. He wrote ‘A New Deal for Coal’ before becoming an MP for Ormskirk.
When Hugh Gaitskell died in 1963, Wilson was one of the main contenders for the party leadership and defeated his more right-wing rivals George Brown and James Callaghan. As leader he won a narrow margin of 4 seats in the 1964 elections.

Quotations and Sayings of Harold Wilson

• This Wont Affect the Pound in Your Pocket
• Wilson coined the name of the charity ‘War on Want’
• Thirteen years of Tory mis-rule…..
• A week is a long time in Politics
• The white heat of the technological revolution.
• Robert Maxwell the original Bouncing Czech
• Given a fair wind, we will negotiate our way into the Common Market, head held high, not crawling in. Negotiations? Yes. Unconditional acceptance of whatever terms are offered us? No.
• The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
• I’m an optimist, but an optimist who carries a raincoat.
• And like many Yorkshire folk ‘If I had the choice between smoked salmon and tinned salmon, I’d have it tinned, with vinegar.’
• I’ve buried all the hatchets. But I know where I’ve buried them and I can dig them up again if necessary.

Books by or about Harold Wilson from Amazon

Other Wilson Facts

• Harold Wilson was the youngest minister since Pitt and Prime Minister at 48.
• Harold Wilson was created the first Chancellor of the University of Bradford in 1966 a position he held for 20 years.
• In Wilson’s resignation honours list he caused some consternation with what was called the Lavender list and honours included Lord Kagan, the inventor of Gannex, who was eventually imprisoned for fraud.
• In his period as prime minister Harold Wilson saw reform of the divorce laws, the legalisation of abortion and homosexuality the advent of the Open University and the abolition of capital punishment. Wilson kept Britain out of the Vietnam War despite American pressure to join them.

In Scarborough last week I saw this familiar face signing his book of poetry on the pavement on Bar Street. (His hand and pen were doing the signing not the face).

Ken Kitson was born in Bradford in 1946 and has had a varied career on British television since the 1970s.
He has been in The Sweeney, Minder, Danger UXB, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and four times played different parts in Coronation Street.

As a droll policeman in Last of the Summer Wine, he will be a familiar face to many. I for one could not put him in context as I walked past.

Ken is trying to raise £2 million to release a movie based on his screenplay “Fistful of Dreams”. ‘The film will be set in Yorkshire, telling the story of Will Case, an unemployed Bradford divorcee disillusioned with society who decides to start living by the romanticised code of the West; dressing as a cowboy and taking part in quick draw competitions.’ For more see Tabard

Sources
IMID
Amazon
Tony Capstick
Gods Own Summer Wine

Margaret McMillan born New York USA 1860 died London 1931.

Born in USA of Scottish ancestry, in October 1889, Rachel and Margaret McMillan were helping the workers during the London Dock Strike as part of their work  spreading the word of Christian Socialism. In 1892 it was suggested that their efforts would be appreciated in Bradford.
Possibly Margaret was inspired by Richard Oastler’s work for the poor and William Edward Forster another Bradford figure who was committed to change and was largely responsible for the 1870 Elementary Education Act which was the first National Education Act.

Margaret McMillan and her sister Rachel worked in deprived 19th century Bradford and this convinced them they should concentrate on trying to improve the physical and intellectual welfare of the slum child. ‘In 1892 Margaret joined Dr. James Kerr, Bradford’s school medical officer, to carry out the first medical inspection of elementary school children in Britain. Kerr and McMillan published a report on the medical problems that they found and began a campaign to improve the health of children by arguing that local authorities should install bathrooms, improve ventilation and supply free school meals.

Margaret toured the industrial regions speaking at meetings and visiting the homes of the poor. With her sisters joined the Fabian Society, the Labour Church, the Social Democratic Federation and the newly formed Independent Labour Party (ILP).The sisters remained active in politics and Margaret McMillan became the Independent Labour Party candidate for the Bradford School Board. Elected in 1894 and working closely with Fred Jowett, leader of the ILP on the local council, Margaret now began to influence what went on in Bradford schools. Fred Jowett is credited with starting the first free school meals in the UK. Margaret McMillan wrote several books and pamphlets on the subject including Child Labour and the Half Time System (1896) and Early Childhood (1900). ‘ (1)

‘In her later years Margaret McMillan became interested in the subject of nursing. With the financial help of Lloyds of London, she established a new college to train nurses and teachers.’ (2)
She is still remembered by virtue of the McMillan School of Teaching, Health and Care at Bradford University, Primary schools, Childrens day care centres and a Street named in her honour.

Sources

Spartacus Schools net

electric scotland

The Story of School Meals in Bradford

Known for his bald head and refereeing the World Cup final, Howard was born and brought up in Rotherham. His middle name is Melton and you don’t get many of those to the pound.

Refereeing Career

In 1996, he was appointed as a Football League and two years later the Premier League as an assistant referee
In 1998 he was promoted to the Football Conference as a referee.
2003 saw him as a Premier League referee and was appointed as a FIFA official in 2005.
An FA Cup Final, a UEFA Champions League Final and a FIFA World Cup Final have all been refereed by Howard Webb

Controversy

Referees face unfair and biased criticism all the time. Howard gets less than most by dint of his integrity and skill (not because there are currently no Premiership teams from Yorkshire).

‘Webb bore a one-week demotion from officiating in the Premier League down to the Football League Championship in April 2009, a punishment sporadically imposed on referees who make high-profile contentious errors. Webb had been earlier been appointed to referee the year’s FA Cup Final, arguably the highest domestic honour for an official, when he awarded Manchester United a debatable penalty kick while they trailed 2-0 to Tottenham Hotspur. The penalty was converted and United went on to win the match 5-2. Webb later admitted he had made “a mistake” but had made the decision “honestly”.’*

This year Howard was pilloried by some media for awarding a penalty to Manchester United in the FA cup against Liverpool when Dimitar Berbatov gulled him. Later in the same match he sent off Steven Gerrard for a dangerous challenge on Michael Carrick further inflaming Liverpool supporters.

What footballer doesn’t make numerous mistakes. It is time referees were treated with far more respect.

This year Howard Webb received the MBE for service to sport. Howard Webb has been a serving police officer through most of his refereeing career.

.

Sources photo creative commons Crop of [http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetelf/2114896330/in/datetaken/ Howard Webb] |Date=December 16, 2007 |Author=[http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetelf/ thet)
*wikipedia

Fred Trueman’s last recording talks about cricket and life in the Dales in his own unique style on this Fathers Day CD.

For the first time in a longtime Yorkshire cricket club seem to be ‘framin’ and it would have been interesting to know what Fred would have made of our current exploits.
20 Twenty cricket was played in the local evening leagues for decades, long before it became a money raising venture, and I think FST’s comments about this subject would have been slightly on the caustic side.

My favourite Fred story was, as you may expect, dragged out as a long tale but I will edit it drastically and hope he isn’t able to breath fire down on me.
The scene was an Ashes test with England fielding .. ‘and I went back to my mark and hurtled into the wicket, a rap on the pads, Howzat? One for none. I went back to my mark and hurtled into the wicket and the bails were off, two for none. Then in came the great Sir Don Bradman. I went back to my mark and hurtled into the wicket, the ball was in the air, a fantastic catch on the long on boundary, three for three hundred and seventy six.
Told by a bowler with a stammer you were amused long before the punchline.

Photo CC by Thor Thorson 1

George Russell 1857 – 1951

George Russell developed a passion for Lupins, gathered seed from North America and around world and then grew them on two allotments in his home city of York. He never carried out vegetative propagation or hand pollination, preferring to let natural pollination by bumble bees do the hybridisation for him. At the end of each season he collected seed from the very best plants and sowed it. Any inferior plants were rigorously removed. George Russell, like most Yorkshiremen, only wanted the very best, and was ruthless in his selection.
For 23 years George had bred his Lupins and resolutely refused to sell them commercially. But in 1936 a deal was done for his seeds to be grown at Bakers nursery Boningdale as long as George had the right to ‘Rough’ or deselect any that did not meet his standards. Once the seedlings were in flower George was sent for so he could inspect the crop. Jimmy Baker must have been flabbergasted when George insisted on destroying 4,200 of the 5,000 seedlings (some quality control eh! modern growers take note).

The Lupins on his York allotments were improved through breeding. The top varieties had flowers all around the stem in a wide range of colours. Eventually George Russell allowed his seeds to be sold and in 1937 they were selling at 12 seeds for one shilling equal to 1d each.

Lupins were introduced into Britain from North America in 1826. The blue flowered spikes we occasionally saw on railway embankments were the predominant colour. Fast forward a hundred years to 1937 and the Royal Horticultural Society awarded its highest honour to a ‘ jobbing Yorkshire gardener’ George Russell for developing a strain of Lupins that were causing a sensation.

Photo cc by Magnio

The Chelsea Flower Show 2008 displayed the Lupins below. As Lupins are not very long lived plants many of George Russels varieties have been lost but this display shows some of the great flowers that George showed it was possible to grow. Why not try in your garden this year. Lupins are available as plants or seeds from Thompson Morgan

Photo cc by steve 2.0

See Old Lupin photos on Gardeners Tips.

Who could get 2 allotments now with the current fashion for growing your own? Who would have the patience to wait so many years before they tried to make any money out of the flowers they had bred?

Leeds born and educated, up to a point, Barry Cryer’s book now called The Chronicles of Hernia is a newly packaged comedy classic, first published in 1998 under the title ‘You Won’t Believe This But….’ Purchase from Amazon here
‘Still Alive’ is the name of his current touring show and it is worth making special effort to see Barry perform although he excels on valve radio where he is ‘the cats whiskers’.
Barry will be 75 this month and so I have picked out one or two lines with an ageist theme

“Stannah have got a new, faster stairlift. It gets you up the stairs before you’ve forgotten why you went.”

“Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.”

From the new Uxbridge dictioery of alternative meanings for English words Platypus – to give your cat pigtails, Flemish – rather like snot, or Celtic -a prison for fleas.

If I go under a bus I don’t want any displays of loyalty.”

Barry the smoker gave an interview posted on Forces international:
‘There were two guys in the pub and one says, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And the other one says, “No you won’t. I’ll see you a fortnight tomorrow, I’m going on holiday.” So the first one says, “Oh God, would you bring me back some cigarettes?” The other one says, “Course I will.” So they meet a fortnight later, and the guy’s got a big carton. So the man says, “Thank you very much. How much do I owe you?” And the other guy says, “Seventy-six quid.” The first man says, “Seventy-six quid! Where did you go?” And other guy says, “Bournemouth.” ‘

Jessica Ennis the Sheffield lass was outstanding this weekend. World champion as a heptathlete, she was up against one of the best specialist hurdlers in the world, Lolo Jones. Winning the 60 metres hurdles and beating the world indoor champion in that event is extraordinary. A great performance by a great all-rounder.
“Letting a heptathlete, who practises every event, beat me when I’m only working on one thing…that’s kind of crazy but no excuses Ennis had a great race” said Lolo Jones.
Already there have been eight personal best’s from the South Yorkshirewoman in 2010 including this weekends hurdles and 1.94 meters in the highjump.
Jessica captained the British team at the Aviva International Match in Glasgow on 30 January 2010 but is to miss the Commonwealth games in Dehli this backend. Keep up to date with her career by clicking on her name.

Heptathlon
Heptathlons replaced the pentathlon as the primary women’s combined event when the javelin and 800 m were added for the 1984 Olympics. The women’s outdoor heptathlon consists of the following seven events, with the first four contested on the first day, and the remaining three on day two,
100 m hurdles
high jump
shot put
200 m
long jump
javelin throw
800 m

Other multiple event contests are now becoming progressively more popular particularly involving water sports. The established and key competitive events are:

• Biathlon, cross country skiing and shooting
• Duathlon, Triathlon running and Cycling with swimming for a triathlon, Quadrathlon with Kayaking
• Pentathlon, the old Greek competition of long jump, javelin throw, and discus throw, followed by (the stadion) a short foot race and wrestling.
• Modern pentathlon, a late 19th century soldier Pierre Coubertain established this event with shooting, swimming, fencing, equestrian, and cross country running.
• Octathlon, primarily a youth or junior event

After waiting for Godo-nly knows how many decades (well 6.9 actually) the Mirfield lad made good with an OBE in 2001 and now a Knighthood (KBE) in 2009.

He is the Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield. ‘Sir Pat’ is also a Patron of Refuge, the national charity supporting women and children who are victims of domestic violence and has sponsored a scholarship for a three-year full-time doctoral study in the area of children and domestic violence at Huddersfield. Patrick Stewart has also been a committed human rights activist. He tells the story of how he got involved in human rights advocacy when he heard of an Eastern European theater troupe that got jailed for trying to perform a Shakespeare play. ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ may be an apposite quote from Hamlet.

Of his role in Star Trek he is reported to have said ‘you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise.’

As CNN said the ‘Queen says make it so‘ and we want to add our congratulations to Sir Patrick.