Searching for My Yorkshire Roots 2017 & 2018

I had a ticket for the Ted Hughes birthday dinner to be held at Stubbings Wharf. Sarah and I had been to a meeting of the Ted Hughes society so I thought I’d go along. I’d bought my ticket weeks ago so for once I put on a dress,and even wore a little makeup. I didn’t mind if I was overdressed. ‘I’wanted to dress up. That was something that I’d become increasingly aware of – few people dress up for evenings out. Yes, the girls on the club circuits are dressed in stilettos and bum hugging skirts, but at a classical music concert, for instance, people will be in ordinary work clothes. I like dressing up. It makes the event seem special. As I was walking along the canal to the event Colin called to discuss the alimony. We seemed to get something worked out – a compromise. I was in better spirits as I entered the large room above the pub where about 40 people were gathered at two long tables. Then Colin called again – to say he’d changed his mind. This was about 20 minutes after the first call. Hmmm. I found a place at the table close to the guest speaker who had been a close friend of Hughes. I found two excellent dinner companions to my right and had a lovely evening. OK, it was a bit dark and scary walking back but I took the opportunity to return to Cheetham house to see how adequate the light was in the passageway to the building and also on Cheetham Street. I was very comfortable with the outcome.

Friday

Furniture shopping in Sellit in Halifax. I went by bus and just occasionally there are double decker buses on the route. I was lucky and sat upstairs at the front. I guess there’s still a little kid in me at times. I was chomping on a banana and decided that it would be fun to capture the moment. There was only one other person upstairs, a guy in his early twenties, so I asked him to take my photo. He laughed saying it was the most unexpected thing he’d been asked to do in years! Glad I made his day. I also went to Heart Foundation furniture store. It was fun, just picking out stuff and pointing, “I’ll have that, and that, and oo, that too!” Back at the Piece hall there was no sign of last night’s Sax Massive. Today’s entertainment was Indian dancing and stilt walking. There should be a reference to yesterday’s Curry and a Concert but I can’t think of one right now. It was all very, very colourful. I had a lovely Middle Eastern dinner in the Square Chapel and took a look into the Copper Auditorium, a new space in the building, and their smallest theatre.

Sunday

Nicola made a lovely meal for me as a farewell gift. Wow – that lady can cook!

I spent all day at the hairdressers. Yes, all day. I went to Ria in Todmorden and she coloured my hair. The appointment was for 10 a.m. but she had advised me to bring a packed lunch. I ended p leaving at 6:30. The shop was officially closed so it was just me and Ria all day and we chatted all day long. When she’d finished I was totally shocked. I’d got tired of colouring my roots every 2-3 weeks so I had asked for highlights. My entire hair was now a yellowish blonde. OMG. I didn’t recognize myself. I had to do a double take every time I caught my reflection in a mirror or shop window. It’s going to take a lot of getting used to.

Tuesday

Judith spent the day with me, coming by train from Harrogate because the parking can be tricky in Hebden. We went up to Heptonstall for lunch and met David from Lily Hall in The Cross. Later in the day I bumped into Trizia ont eh canal bridge and we watched a cormorant, a rare visitor to these parts. I had spent two weeks in Trizia’s home last summer as an AirB&B guest.

I spent a lovely day with Ann and David. We went out on what they called ‘an adventure’ and I’d no idea where we were going. What a wonderful day! This is just what I’ve been missing for so many years. We pottered around the Pendle hill area which is always this enticing combination of beautiful but foreboding. We stopped for coffee and ice-cream at The Lamppost. They never barked as long as the car was in motion. Immediately David turned off the engine they knew it was ‘walkies’ time and they couldn’t wait to get out. Woof, Woof. We stopped for a ‘posh’ meal at the Assheton Arms in Downham.the entire village is still owned by the lord of the manor and no satellite dishes, aerials or telephone post are allowed to spoil the old world quaintness of the village. It looks rather like the Cotswolds. There was an amazing menu for our lunch choices. We sat outside and I tucked into cod with curried potatoes and battered broccoli, then ice cream. As we left I saw a signpost to Slaidburn, 6 miles. “Can we go? I stayed at the youth Hostel there a couple of times with my parents when I was a child.” No sooner said than done. The Youth Hostel was closed when I went to check it out but it opened on the dot of 5, just like it used to do 50 years ago. The current warden is a volunteer and she offered to give me a tor of the inside. What memories I had of that building, the village and Stocks reservoir nearby where I found my first fossils, coral, they were, proving that this had once been under the ocean. Little did I suspect as a child, or that day with David and Ann that I’d discover that one of my ancestral relatives actually has a fossil that he discovered in Todmorden named after him and is available to see at the museum in Manchester – which just happens to occupy the site of what is now Owens College where Anne spent a year as an exchange student. See what I mean about these crazy connections!!! I shed tears of remembrance for my mum and my dad in this place, something I haven’t done in a while. We passed the strangely named village pub, Hark to Bounty, which I also remembered before heading home via Widdop Moor and the reservoir. Ann pointed out the old line of railway and site of the trestle which were used in the building of the reservoir. A whole shenty town was built here for the navies. Dawson City, it’s called, and there are some wonderful photos of it in the bar of the White Lion in Heptonstall. (It’s hard to believe as I copy this that only yesterday I discovered, through Facebook that the little café in front of my building, ‘Ont’front’was a building brought into Hebden when Dawson city was obliterated from the map).

Thursday

I had an appointment at Turner’s estate agent at 8:45 to sign my tenancy agreement for 6 months. I took a photo of the key exchange and then hurried the 20 yards to my new home. It was then that I realized there was no water in my apartment, no toilet paper and nothing to sit on, just the floor, so I went back to Dominic to borrow a chair and he explained how to turn the water on. At 10 a.m. my first visitor arrived, Ann, armed with a camping chair, quickly followed by Jean and John with kitchen items, cutlery and crockery from them and their friend Janet who is downsizing. At 11 a.m. my bed arrived, and exhausted from all this activity I went to sit outside at Sauce and celebrated with a scone and tea. It started to rain so I moved to the upstairs room – didn’t know that had one – and finished my journal. What a coincidence. It’s my last day of a 3 month trip and I’m on the last page of my notebook.