Lost Dales Song

The Song of Wharfedale

Foremost and first of High Greenfield I'll tell,

Where you'll find Jeffery and Ninian as well;

Jeff is renowned for the pigeons he's shot,

Ninian is known for the photo's he's got,

Low Greenfield I'll sing with its grand shooting box,

Its weathercock swinging - I think it's a fox.

Albert is coachman and butler as well,

While Ned rears the stock for John Gill to sell,

Beckermonds comes next in the valley so low,

There you'll find Foster and Beresford also.

Foster's a man with a heart for the grouse,

Beresford sings a good song in Lodge House.

Let's call at George Beresford's up at Cowside,

He holds the New House, but he doesn't there stay,

Nothing lives there but a ghost as folks say.

Deepdale comes next at the foot of Sty Gill,

With Peacock and Rowland and Ottie and Will.

Peacock has fame for the lambs he could raise,

Ottie's a horse judge that all men can praise.

Turnbull is next and he keeps a good shop,

Nothing he's short of from needles to pop.

Granny is cosy just in the next street,

A nicer old lady no one can meet.

Look how Willie Thwaite can live at his ease

With winning such prizes for butter and cheese.

Margaret knits on in her neat little cot,

Chapman and Wylie make up a good lot.

Netherghyll comes next, but no one lives there,

So Frank minds the stock with very great care.

Swarthghyll is bonny, and cannot be dull,

They caught the big fish, and tried to dill t'bull

Cam Houses are yonder; up the hillside,

Sander and Alick and Bob there reside.

Beautiful Wharfedale, so sweet and so fair,

Nowhere in England can with thee compare!

At Yockenthwaite dwelling, with pick and with spade,

Old George for a long time our good roads has made.

Beresford John with his gun he goes out,

While Lodge, Tom and Anty are somewhere about.

Raisgill's the next spot just over the green,

Captain's good bottle can often be seen.

Ottiwell's gone over there to reside and brought his

fair wife to live by his side.

Grace Pawson's the next, she keeps the George Inn,

Many a good Dalesman ken's th' taste of her gin.

Hard by lives the parson, he's very good,

While old Edmund Dixon's snug under the wood.

Ben Lofthouse loves Cray and his White Lion Inn,

While his grand trotting horse the prizes does win.

Robinson's out on his land near and far,

It's there you'll find Dick Hill, Lambert and Sahr.

Now back we return to Oughtershaw Hall,

Its fir trees, flowers, and grand waterfall.

Look in at the school and you'll see Mr Simms

Teaching bairns songs, recitations and hymns.

No-one sings the song nowadays at The George Inn, Hubberholme, but they have heard of it. So has Violet Robinson of Hazlewood, though she cannot remember the words or the tune. The Skipton Folk Club are looking into the enigma of its origins and music.

In case you are travelling between venues we feel this is appropriate for those not of the country districts.

CAUTION

Following a number of near fatal road accidents authorities have issued the following statement. All motorists visiting the Yorkshire Dales are warned to be on the look out for Erinaceus europaeus ‘giganteum’.

The animal lurks on the edges of secluded woodland, beside roads and has been observed in farm gateways and the occasional lay-by in narrow lanes. It is difficult to distinguish from heaps of garden rubbish left by locals and visitors.

Erinaceus sits in wait then rushes out to squash innocent, unsuspecting motor cars.

DO NOT APPROACH THIS ANIMAL

Signs of Love at Oxford

She’s

as light

as the

Greyhound

and as fair

as the Angel;

Her looks than the Mitre

more sanctified are;

But she flies like the Roebuck

and leaves me to range ill,

Still looking to her as my true polar Star.

New Inn-ventions I try, with new art to adore,

But my fate is, alas! To be voted a Boar;

My Goats I forsook to contemplate her charms,

And must own she is fit for our noble King’s Arms.

Now Cross’d and now Jockey’d, now sad, now elate,

The Chequers appear but a map of my fate;

I blushed like a Blue-cur to send her a Pheasant,

But she call’d me a Turk, and rejected my present.

So I moped to the Barley-mow, griev’d in my mind,

That the Ark from the flood ever rescu’d mankind!

My dreams Lion’s roar, and the Green Dragon grins

And fiends rise in shape of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Then I ogle the Bells, should I see her approach,

Skip like a Nag and jump into the Coach.

She is crimson and white like a Shoulder of Mutton,

Not the red of the Ox was so bright, when first put on,

Like the Hollybush prickles, she scratches my liver,

While I moan and I die like the Swan by the river.

Can anyone tell me how many of the above

Oxford hostelries are still in existence

and are they on the InterNet.

(The Table Book 182?)

Signs of Love at Oxford

By an Inn-consolable Lover

The Other Yukon

The Water Way

The sage’s way, Tao, is the way of water.

There must be water for life to be,

and it can flow wherever, and water,

being true to being water, is true to Tao.

Those in the way of Tao, like water,

need to accept where they find themselves,

and that may often be where water goes

to the lowest places, and that is right.

Like a lake the heart must be calm and quiet

With great depth beneath it.

The sage rules with compassion

and his words are trusted.

The sage needs to know how to flow around

blocks and how to know a way round like water

and how to find a way through like water.

Like water the sage must wait

for the moment to rise and be right.

Water never fights;

it flows around without harm.

Tao Te Ching

Another little snippet from the old country to cheer you up in these supposedly tense times. Chris’s mum may remember the riverside walk at Otley, the next town down river from Ilkley. However the row of houses have another little known name - Yukon. When the land came up for sale there were more people than plots. So the landowner had a brilliant idea no doubt taken from gold rush days. Those wishing to purchase were amassed on the opposite side of Otley Bridge and at the drop of a flag surged across to stake their claim.

I may have mentioned this before to Chris. You will be aquainted with the name Thomas Chippendale, Cabinet Maker. The chap whose company made a few odds and ends now in the Yellow Oval Room in your White House. When a lad he would have played in the fields where ‘Yukon’ now stands. During our Civil War it is said Cromwell’s troops watered their horses nearby. The Archbishop of York formerly had a Manor House of great proportion on the opposite side of the river. The artist Turner would have used the riverside path on his rambles from Farnley Hall, just down river. As too, no doubt, would Ruskin.

Standing with your back to the houses one can see the Chevin, a large expanse of high ground above the town. On the lower edge of the Chevin are Caley Crag’s. Or as some would have you believe The Alps in Turner’s painting of Hannibal crossing them. Back to the riverside and directly opposite the houses stands a small park. In the mid twenties it was the haunt of local nannies and child minders bringing their charges for fresh air. They nick-named it Titty Bottle Park much to the amusement of folk thereabouts. A couple of years ago the new owner of a nearby cafe wanted to rename his establishment Titty Bottle Bistro. The local politically correct brigade went ballistic. It even made National TV. A PR agent couldn’t have wished for such publicity if they had tried.

Coming back to the present, one or the other of you mentioned the fast disappearance of Alaska’s glaciers. I was wondering what the condition of trees over there is like. Because Ilkley is a new town, new as in it developed from 1840 onwards, the majority of ‘mature’ trees date from that era forward. Yew (Taxus baccata) is either dying off or growing at speed. One individual has put on near six feet in two years. I’ve been taking particular note of our broad-leaved species and there is a definite change overall. Many are showing signs of distress, especially those around a hundred years old. More than usual die back of large limbs, dropping bark, to put it bluntly, a right mess.

A friend in Northern Greece has noticed something similar, as too another contact on the Indian sub-continent. So while our respective Government’s are knocking seven bells out of distant climes Mother Nature is quietly having a ball. Are we to let our trees go the same way as the Carrier Pigeon? Oops sorry about that, got a little carried away. Perhaps I could interest you in a couple of books. The Healing Energies of Trees by Patrice Bouchardon. ISBN 1-85675-100-7. The Healing Energies of Water by Charlie Ryrie. ISBN 1-8675-105-8. Both are from Gaia Books www.Gaiabooks.co.uk and if it’s possible to find them over there I thoroughly recommend them. The former frequently speaks of Native American customs and there’s a fantastic double page spread of a Redwood Grove in winter.

Webfooted Travellers follow the Arts

Fed up with mountains and old relics WT decided to follow the sounds they most enjoy. Those coupled with art of many hues. We hope you enjoy the new Travels.