Westerdale memories (From Gazette & Herald)

Westerdale memories

CAN'T quite remember if March came in like a lion, but it certainly went out like the proverbial, for March 31 was mild and sunny and brought many visitors to the southern slopes of the moors, Lowna, Hutton-le-Hole and Gillamoor's Surprise View.

Some miles north and upward, it's good to park at Rosedale Head, walk over to Ralph's Cross and down the Westerdale road, there to enjoy the panorama on a clear spring day or to follow the contours of Westerdaleside which, together with the huge brown hump of Stony Rook, forms Castleton Rigg, and to watch for short-eared owls hunting by day and listen with pleasure to the call of the curlew.

Out of this dale came the writings of Major 'Jack' Fairfax-Blakeborough. Here, he wrote his weekly column of country chat for the Whitby Gazette, in part containing hilarious verbal brickbat in local dialect between his invented village characters, Lizzie Leckonby and her close neighbour Mary Thompson. The major also produced a large number of books relating to his beloved district and was still busy writing shortly before he died, aged 92, on January 1, 1976. His grave is in the Roman Catholic churchyard at Lealholm (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart) and marked with a small stone cross.

Time to drive on down the narrow high road and think about a gentleman who travelled this way in folk-tale days, who "bowt a wife and called her Jill". She, in gratitude, "bowed to 40 new-milked kine - then tried ti tonn their milk into wine."

She then "boiled a hen beeath feathers and feeat - head and neck and guts compleeat!".

"Whyaa, nivver worry," muttered her nail-biting husband to himself, eventually breaking into the well-known chorus of acceptance. "Sing-a-lairo," he sang, with gusto, "Tak her amang ye!"

Following Willie as he went to Westerdale, it's into the village and over a ford at the bottom siding Hunter's Sty, an ancient packhorse bridge. Climbing a once-gated road from the cricket field there, it's over Westerdale moor to dip down the near-vertical flank of Little Hograh, across Baysdale beck's pretty watersplash and park up at Hob Hole.

April 2 was a fine clear evening, after a morning of rain, and a grey old afternoon. On the smooth lawns of Hob Hole - a picnic site of great charm - was the not-unusual sight of a large and handsome people-carrier. Also, dumped in the centre of the green, was the increasingly familiar image of a burnt-out car.

James Albert would have raged at the felony, and such desecration, for he was seriously proud of the wonderful countryside within easy reach of his home town. Any fine summer Sunday during the late 1940s might have seen three gleaming black cars brake into Hob Hole shortly before noon. Coming via Great Ayton, Dundale Beck corner (where we once saw a stoat kill a rabbit), Kildale and West House, once parked up, it was dam construction and paddles for a while, followed by comfy rugs laid out for a picnic lunch. Crockery and utensils were contained in cleverly-designed cases, and endless cups of tea kettled on a small stove fuelled by methylated spirits.

Some time afterwards, my paternal grandfather and his lifelong friends would remove jackets to use as stumps (but not waistcoats and ties), hoist up their sleeves and for half an hour or so turn Hob Hole into Headingley - but using a soft ball for safety - while the ladies washed up. Come late afternoon, the cars whined slowly off-site in bottom gear, all passengers walking to the bank top. Then it was back to the Boro for tea, grandfather switching off the engine here and there and free-wheeling downhill in order to save petrol.

Such memories came to mind as I left the torched vehicle on its patch of blackened turf that evening to turn sharp right halfway up Hob Hole bank. High above Baysdale beck, and on through Sloethorn Park, meadow pipits pattered about the roadside verges. Lively little birds, they are often to be seen perched upon standing stones, or fluttering atop stone walls in pairs at this time of year. At the end of Sloethorn, there's a bankside wood of writhing trees. Above the wood, on a dark moor called Kempwithen, stands a remote farmstead which, in my mother's childhood, was known as Huckaback.

I have a treasured book by Middlesbrough-born Nancy Thompson, who wrote about Huckaback, it being her first volume of autobiography, entitled At Their Departing. In 1986, she told of cousin Liz, who lived alone at the farmstead circa 1921. A gaunt figure clad in Edwardian garb, I have a photograph of Lizzie Huckaback (her real name was Watson) standing in front of her fire, which was said to have burned unquenched for over 100 years. Taken by gifted lensman J T Ross, of Whitby, it is a picture postcard dated at the back end of 1913. Not one of his best, however, for Lizzie had moved a fraction and her image is blurred, the rest of the period interior being in perfect focus.

Beyond Huckaback, the narrow moor road junctions another coming over from Commondale to Dibble bridge. Straight ahead from this point is a superb view of Castleton - a very different place last year, draped as it was with strong visual support for popular singer Alistair Griffin, of the BBC's Fame Academy. Being a Castleton lad, the immediate area was temporarily labelled 'Alistair Country'.

It is also a village where labours Graham Lowe, perceptive photographer of the district's dramatic landscape and coast. He runs the Montage Gallery, in Church Street, with warm and friendly expertise. Besides his own fine series of original black and white cards and framed limited editions, there is much by numerous artists in a variety of media on display window-wise and within to enthral.

Motoring out of Castleton some time later, one mid-May morning, after a goodly charge of unleaded from Champion's, it was up onto the Rigg with nose set for home. Opposite the white-topped stoup of Gallow Howe, a freshly-killed stoat lay unmarked in the road. Half a mile on, beside a stone-walled garth, two rooks rose like wind-blown rags at my approach, leaving a messy feast of pheasant carrion.

A mile or so further, a long stretch of road borders a wide plateau or moorland used for many years by model aircraft enthusiasts. That morning, shadowed by the blunt head of Stony Rook, two curlews played rise and fall; a lapwing also, guarding two tiny chicks as they explored the roadside edge.

To the east lies a fine spread - Danby Dale, plus its angular plot of St Hilda's church; gravestones a distinctive patterning of the foreground surrounding an unused space of green. Large and grey, the church glows in the sunlight, creating sharp contrast against a background of yew trees.

Study Danby Dale on the map and there are haunting names that linger in the mind: St Helena, for instance, and Stormy Hall. Legend has it that Henry VIII stayed at the latter for bed and breakfast one night in terrible weather while on his way to court the widowed Lady Latimer, of Danby Castle, better known as Catherine Parr. History records the legend as false. But sadly so. The tale makes for one of romance and pageantry. Passed down as one of my maternal grandmother's favourite stories, it has stirred my imagination from an early age.

All change now from reverie to rev counter as the car cruises effortlessly up the moor towards Ralph's Cross. And if it's clear, ever worth a final stop to look back at the sparkling sea, forested nab of Guisborough's Highcliff and Roseberry's mountainous crag.

With two more treats on the homeward run - passing between Elgee's memorial and Loose Howe, site of his final archaeological triumph, far below lies the deep green bowl of Rosedale rimmed with industrial scars. And, beginning just about where the ghost of a Cistercian nun (The White Lady) is said to cross the road at Blakey Junction, are the pastoral delights of Farndale for a while before the car gradually drifts down to Hutton.

Updated: 12:46 Wednesday, June 30, 2004