1. Feb, 2020

Yorkshire Talk

1.  In Whitby, where fanciful gothic merchandise is plentiful, two middle aged men, burly, ordinary and stolid, are windowshopping in front of a display of Wiccan related artifacts.  They are studying an ornate athame, a ceremonial dagger or sword used in rituals.  One remarks, after a while:

"I've got that dagger".

"Does it work?" asks the other.

"I've had no trouble with it"  he replies.

2.  In the big Tesco in Halifax, I'm in the queue with my trolley.  The woman behind me leans in and says, meaningfully,

" Ready Meals"?

"They're not for me," I find myself replying, successfully placed on the back foot.  "They're for my mother."

"Ah" she says, appraising the situation instantly.  "  I got somebody in to make fresh meals for mine.  It doesn't cost a lot.  Saves you wasting time in the supermarket when you can do things with them while they're there.  I used to take mother out for afternoon tea."

She says no more, satisfied with her triumph and I go to pay, summed up in a few words as a far inferior breed of daughter, who will have things to regret. 

3.  My mother and I are staying in York for a short autumn break.  It's a beautiful Georgian building on St Mary Street and there are other guests.  Our neighbours at dinner for the three days of our stay, two elderly sisters, are on their last night and are celebrating with a second glass of wine.  They're Janeites and tell us they come every year to hear talks and are part of a club, which they now think we might care to join.  My mother smiles distantly.  The older sister, a little enlivened by now, asks me confidingly if she thinks my mother would mind if she prayed for her at church tomorrow.  Fortunately my mother doesn't hear, so the continued smile on her face is taken for assent and the lady smiles back at her, kindly.

 4.  I'm posting a book to Ireland and having packaged it and consulted about the best way to send it, I ask the lady in King Cross Post Office how long it will take to arrive. 

"About three and half days, " she suggests,  adding in downright tones after checking the destination (Kerry),  " Well, it'll be all right our end.  You know what they're like over there." 

5.  In the matter of varmints and vermin, we hear a lot about the fox, be it as predator or victim, vixenish killer or cute cub, with all the pros and cons from the hunt or the saboteur, or indeed, the farmer.  It's a complicated question and at first glance, this outlandish figure we meet  in the middle of town, striking eccentric attitudes in full 19th century dress as master of the hunt, is clearly on one side of the debate.  But with him, and the reason for his presence, is a small black stuffed animal on a plinth.

" No " he announces, scenting interest as we pause , "it's not a dog, it's a fox!".

He was far from being the killer of this creature, it turns out, being in fact the champion and preserver of its unique existence.  It was the last survivor of a family of local foxes, all with a genetic mutation which gave them black fur.  But in the way of the careless modern world, mowing its way along indifferently, this last little fox had been run over.  He had watched over and cared for them, however, in their singularity, particularly this one, so he took it home to be stuffed for posterity and brought it into town (only on a good day) to show it off, along with his knowledge, which he was happy to share at considerable length.

" I thought", he said, "I might tell folk about it," adding pragmatically after this tender hearted story,," pity it were roadkill in the end."

 6.  I've known The Rocks on Albert Promonade since early childhood, when my friend Helen and I climbed up and down them without a thought (where climbers now bring ropes to practise a difficult ascent).  We called the more dangerous scrambles 'The Devil's Chimney' and 'The Devil's Cave.'  Like most children, we were of a bloodthirsty turn of mind and Wainhouse Tower, it's lower entrance then bricked up, was rumoured amongst us to be full of dead bodies, Bluebeard style. 

But consistently then and decades later, I've wondered who the three people were who carved their names in full, as beautifully chiselled as on a monument, on a flat plateau at the top of The Rocks. The grasses have climbed over one name but you can still see, I think it is, J. Henderson and C.W.Raynor, Hol 1896. Were they picnicking there on a rare and memorable outing?  Perhaps when Saturdays off were a first possible weekly holiday, for it was around that time that this came in?  I pictured them as a group of stonemasons on a day out.

I think now, though, I may have hit on it.  There was at that time a new fashion for cycling clubs and healthy outdoor activity due to the invention of a more useable bicycle.  There was also the National Clarion Cycling Club, founded in 1895, called after Robert Blatchford's Socialist Newspaper "The Clarion".  It's aim was for clubs to be set up in all towns to promote "Fellowship Through Cycling".   The movement was to encourage working class people to create clubs to cycle in the countryside away from the polluted towns they toiled in and to meet for discussions about a better future. 

"We want a Clarion Cycling Club in every town," the paper declared stoutly, announcing with a flourish, " Let every Clarionettist who is a cyclist read the Scout!" 

The names carved on the rocks are typical Lancashire or Yorkshire names and The North Lancashire Union branch was founded in 1895:

"To combine the pleasures of cycling with the propoganda of socialism",

" Socialism, the hope of the world", its leaflets proclaimed.

There was indeed, I discovered, also a Halifax branch.  Perhaps in keeping with the radical thinking which was always to the fore here, it was a meeting of this new group for people of all ages, men and women alike, that took place on The Rocks, only a year after the founding movement began.  Maybe while listening to some orator and eating their sandwiches in this beauty spot, the three friends carved their names as a permanent record of a then momentous occasion, gazing out at Norland and the Calder valley and probably remarking of it, laconic local style:

" It's all reet 'ere in't it?"

The Clarion Cycling Clubs were a great success and by 1899, one woman member went as far as to say:

"The bicycle is in truth a woman's emancipator."

7.   There's been a mention of Goth Week in Whitby in the papers lately, now a twice a year occasion.  It puts me in mind of one Whitby holiday when I decided my daughter (age about nine at the time and generally intrepid where scary telly was involved) was old enough to take on the challenge of the Dracula Experience on the harbour front.  It had upped the ante somewhat from what I recalled of a visit some years previously where things popped up here and there, and ghost train like ghoulish noises accompanied a sonorously hollow voiceover narrating the famous arrival of Demeter on the sands, bringing Dracula with it in the form of a huge black dog leaping ashore.  Live action now meant real people leapt out at you as well as Dracula shooting up in his coffin, fangs akimbo, ready to startle the living daylights out of you.  It did to such an extent that she panicked, ran to the side, knocked an urn off a plinth and we vanished into the depths as the lights went out and sound was turned off.  We had to be led, sheepishly back into daylight, by one of the performers, while they rebuilt the set. I decided that she hadn't, perhaps, been quite old enough after all.  

8.  Back in Halifax for Spring Bank, we watch the wonders of the Chelsea Flower Show, full of conceptual beauty and creative imagination.  But none of the presenters' enthusiasm for clematis filled pergolas, for example, will ever match, for me, the ebulliance of Geoffrey Smith, late of Gardener's World, and his joyous northern tones declaiming loudly:

" Just look at those onions!  You could live in them!"

9.  In Halifax Tesco, where I often run into people unexpectedly, this time it's the plumber who came to the rescue with the bathroom last summer when my mother had broken her hip and needed a walk in shower to replace the bath.  A brilliant job was done.  Recognising one another when apologising after reaching for the same packet of biscuits, we exchange pleasantries and he asks after my mother, who I am happy to assure him is doing well.  I ask him how business is.

"Oh," he says, "You know."

This could mean anything, good, bad or indifferent, as you can't tempt fate in either direction, caution being the Halifax watchword.  Still, he looked cheerful enough about it.

10.  The Halifax Piece Hall, a beautiful Georgian courtyard and collonaded square, cobbled and with two levels, has undergone another revamp and in the modern fashion, has to have a lengthy international style festival over a month or so to launch it.  There will be moonlight and roses, music and laughter and dance, but not from the local talent, who are fuming because the organisers are brought in from outside and have not booked any of their many skills for the occasion.  I think there may be trouble at t'mill and a very unmusical raspberry headed at the whole bangshoot, or at the very least, a clog or two hurled in their general direction.   

11. I have now visited the Piece Hall in its new incarnation, on Bank Holiday Monday.  There is some kind of art installation for kids filling the middle of the modern style piazza on stepped levels with waterfall fountains for paddlers and it's both familiar, in the two floor original building with shops and not so, with this new interior.  The most surprising thing was that this morning, quite out of the blue, and not for any particular reason, I thought of a very young colleague I'd worked with for a few months when she was 17 and I was about 22 at most, at the Bradford and Pennine Motor Insurance company in Halifax.  Bizarrely, there she was in a shop in the Piece Hall, working,  and she called out, recognising me instantly some 37 years on.  Coincidences are very odd at times!

12.  The gremlins have returned to the Halifax central heating system, which, the pump having failed and been replaced by one clearly more effective in shifting whatever sludge was blocking up radiator wear and tear pinholes, has generated a tsunami of leakage from the one in the hall all down into the cellar and soaking the carpet.  A chain gang of buckets later, the central heating engineer returned and isolated the radiator.  He explained to we hapless females (and to his credit kept a straight face) that due to the gravity feed system, we were not waiting for the system to empty out as we had gamely thought, but would in fact have had it go on forever, refilling from the top and pouring out at the bottom.  What we should have done, is turn the water off.  We could only be thankful that we had not, as planned, gone into town after he came the first time and that we were alerted to disaster by the arrival of the meter reader, who spotted the water flow where we hadn't.  By that time it had had a good hour to get going.   Today, thinking all was now all right, making a mid morning cuppa, I heard a sinister sound, a dripping sound and lo, the kitchen radiator had joined in the fun.  Fortunately a draught excluder kept underneath it had absorbed the worst.  Currently waiting for the central heating engineer to return again and isolate this one.  If I had such a thing as a spanner, maybe I could attempt it, but.....all such items have long since been passed on since my mother's do it herself days are over. 

13.  And in further news....the new efficient pump has revealed more dastardly failings in aged central heating pipes, the cellar being discovered knee deep in water as a joint had given way, luckily this time, not where a carpet was, and equally luckily, not having hit the electrics.  I'm considering suggesting the ever patient central heating engineer has a bed made up, the poor man's having to be there so often... 

14.  It being a momentous occasion, my mother's ninetieth birthday (15th December), celebrated with friends of the family so close  and for so long as to be family, all was going with a swing and a bit of reminiscence, when it popped into my head, (my mother having been a teacher), that one day, aged twelve or so, returning from my own school after classes, two boys from the one she taught at, about the same age, or a year or so older than me, conferred in passing me, and one said loudly:

"'Ere, are you Mrs. Enright's daughter?"

Me.   "Yes."

Him, with feeling. "Bluddy 'Ell!"

I remain unclear  as to whether he was: 

a) aghast generally speaking 

b) aghast at the general idea of his teacher not just existing chalk and reprimand in hand

c) aghast by the sight of me in general

I've preferred not to dwell on it, but somehow I remembered it just then amidst cake, drinks, music and celebrations....

 15.  In a further visit to Halifax, plans for some Spring weather favoured outings are scuppered by ongoing Winter , but we do enjoy a lovely lunch out in Ricci's (a very good Italian restaurant).  Come dessert decisions, I decide not to go for the Tiramisu favoured by my mother and our friend and propose to try the 'Olive cake with salted honey and raspberries'.

"I don't think you should!" objects my mother authoritatively, as if I'm being ridiculous and am about ten rather than coming up sixty.  

"Why not?" I enquire.

She kindly explains that it won't be made with butter like the cakes I am used to. I point out that I know this and we discuss that in Italy they probably don't use dairy products everywhere in baking.  However, she is still quite decided in her opposition to my choice, so I plump for something else, but it seems this takes ages to make in the individual portion, so I return triumphantly to my first preference, which turns out to be light and fluffily delicious, although I find that I have been swayed enough to check with the waitress that it doesn't actually taste of olive oil (which amused her).  A powerful influence, maternal disapproval, even now.  I am reminded of the other recent occasion in W.H.Smiths, where I was very firmly told to put my coat on, as it was cold outside. It wasn't, to me, but it was easier to do as instructed than to object. 

16.  The Guardian (once the Manchester Guardian) recently published an article about Halifax, which, it says, due to possibly unexpected hipster related credentials, has a claim to be the Shoreditch of the north, what with the Piece Hall, micro breweries, trendy bands, a flourishing cultural life and burgeoning trendiness and all.  The Telegraph has now countered that this is all very well but perhaps a little previous.  There's an 'orrible northern 'ill behind the, admittedly, historic Piece Hall, which makes them shudder and they see no sign of culture in the uncouth and, according to them, suitably downtrodden highstreet and its denizens.  Besides it's in Yorkshire, where our aspirant hipsters probably daub on woad instead of having arty sleeve tattoos, they clearly think.  Reports of Halifax coming to life have, according to the Telegraph, been greatly exaggerated.  North/South divide, anyone?  Oh, sorry, you wanted a flat white with your whippet........

17.  Nature versus technology has mostly proved that nature wins out.  Two years on from the BT tree and telephone debacle, the sycamores have sprung into action by growing back round the wires and started knocking out the line and the internet every time there's even a balmy breeze, so once more they'll have to be tackled.  Meanwhile, a fabulous new gadget from Social Services dispenses the right tablets with a buzzer alert at the required time, to be tipped into the tray.  The idea, to prevent any mix ups with medication for people with sight problems and so on.  This would be great had something not gone wrong beween prescription, chemist and human error, as now my mother receives so many daily doses of quinine that she could tackle a malerial crisis on the sub continent as easily as calf cramps by night.  One huge step for mankind and two back as nature retailiates.

18.  The Moscow State Circus was in Halifax for Spring Bank Holiday weekend, which, while I have seen them there before, never ceases to amaze me as an unlikely venue for them. This exotic, balletically exhilerating troupe of trapeze expertise arrive with their huge big tent, razzamatazz of carnival lorries and caravans and set up on Saville Park, usually home to a bit of five a side soccer at its liveliest (apart from the Gala and the Agricultural show once a year, that is).  The weather was superb, and Minnie the Moocher blasted out to accompany the first act of Gostinitsa (Hotel of Curiosities), tumbling bell boys flying about the stage acrobatically, music belted out high speed, high volume.  Outside, the usual users of the Moor walked their dogs with habitual phlegm, as if nothing out of the ordinary were going on at all, as a matter of Yorkshire form.  We went to the afternoon matinee (2 till 4) a whirlwind of remarkable feats performed by graceful young gymnasts surely in the peak of health, or perhaps not, as we observed one of the most daredevil high wire ones puffing happily on a fag on the caravan steps prior to performance. Still, they are Russian, aren't they, so bound to be subversive, if only on the health police front?    

19.  Once more dealing with the elements (water again, this time through a ceiling into a downstairs living room) I've entered the labyrinthine contortions of insurance claim repairs. In the modern way, you start with a call centre central contact and then things are farmed out to their respective contracted operatives, one for contents, one for buildings and then onwards to their locally contracted businesses for action.  For a while, I sit back thinking all will be in hand, then their surveyer requires first one, then two estimates for the ceiling, which it transpires I have to organise, not,as I was first assured it would be, to be done by the insurance company.  This sorted and a trusty decorator coming on board, we get on to contents.  A carpet (which might as well be magic, given how illusory it seems to be having been assessed for and chosen), a T.V. (again down to one's good self to organise), a telephone (don't even go there, the engineers have yet again assured us for the fourth time in two years there is no fault on the line, so that's all right then, as it continues to cut out on a regular basis) and some very efficient laundering of chair upholstery and curtains, which has been done but all is still piled up in the one room pending the laying of the carpet ceremony.  This too, according to the very nice people I speak to at every turn, had been ordered to be sent to the local firm who would put it down.  Not so, as mysteriously, it never got sent to them and according to the email they got from supplies, had still to be chosen.  Back to square one then, as another call centre operative attempts to sort that out and find someone who can fit it before Christmas.  Doubtful, it appears, now time has gone on again.   I'm left wondering quite why the pre Christmas run up should be prime carpet fitting time?  I haven't come up with an answer.  Perhaps there isn't one, it being part of the modern day complexities of remote handling of all things via call centre and contracted operatives, with a good pinch of human error mixed in.  Just life, then!

20.  Time has moved on considerably and with it, circumstances, so that I am now visiting a residential care home in Halifax which sits opposite, appropriately, a house whose kindly owner has taken in, or feeds, a population of aged cats which sun themselves on windowsills, bins, or an old leather sofa put outside for their convenience and give people looking out at them a bit of entertainment.  I still call in often to the big supermarket for commissions and while there yesterday, was also checking out their wider variety of herbal teas.  Well, you do in that post Christmas, live healthier month or two, don't you?  It's amazing how controversial something as innocuous as herbal tea can turn out to be, though, as a conversation starter.  An elderly lady in front of me was studying through them too, both of us as intent as if browsing through library books to choose from.

"I don't know what I want" she said.  "Do you?"

"I think it's this refreshing one and this mint one," I answered.

"I've got this lemon and ginger thingy.  What are antioxidants, do you know, are they in it or is that what they clear up?"

I did my best to explain them as another old lady bowled forthrightly up to put us right as health kick parvenus, saying :

"You can't cleanse the body with what you put in it.  It does it's own work. Rubbish all that. Any road, those Pukka ones are too pricey, you want to buy them ones, or own brand.  I get blueberry and raspberry.  You might as well have one that tastes nice," she advised, clearly inferring  that if we were determined to waste our money, foolishly influenced by rogue 'medical' advice, we might at least spend less on something that, if it did nothing, was at least pleasant to drink.  

Thanking her, we of course ignored this and picked what we wanted anyway, although, when I changed my mind and came back for one that didn't involve nettles, the first lady was still puzzling through the titles for that elusive description that promised exactly what she might benefit from. I hope that she found it.