A lovely tale of days gone by

One thing about English weather, it's never boring - you never really know what's coming next.

Happily, the election chaos is over, and like it or lump it, we've got what we've got for another stint. I never did get round to reading all the bumph which came through my letter-box, but I admit to collecting it all together with an idea that I'd sit down sometime and see what it was all about. Meanwhile, one of the canvassers who rang my door-bell and chatted to me like a long-lost friend, passed me in the street today, almost shoulder to shoulder, never even said 'hello'. That's politics for you!

York Road, Malton, is ever-changing - in fact more so than any other road radiating from the town. The industrial development seems to be never-ending and the green belt, which was always something to separate domestic housing from industry, seems to get narrower. It looks to me as though it could be as narrow as 200 yards, which is quite horrific, when to have a reasonable chance of living in relative peace, it aught never to have got less than a quarter of a mile. One reads of individuals being made to demolish dwellings because they don't comply exactly with planning regulations, but industry here seems to creep nearer and nearer to houses. I hope someone, somewhere, in a position to say 'stop' before the town gets over-run.

Further down the road, work goes ahead, close to the bypass, on what I assume to be a new 'traveller's site'. I am all for the reason for this, which I understand will give a local firm an opportunity to expand, and somehow I missed hearing about the final decision on the matter and how it is going to be possible to provide a new slip road here if the land is taken for this site. I suppose someone has it all organised - at least I hope so.

As for the existing slip road on to the A64, this, by a general consensus, has been made more difficult and something of a hazard. A step backwards in my opinion. Originally one had a fairly lengthy entrance on to the A64, now the hatched areas have reduced this to a more acute angle. In the past when one could filter in, on the left hand side of the road, faster traffic along the A64 could move over to the right-hand lane to assist the manoeuvre. Now they can't as it has become artificially a single lane junction. Not a good move I venture to suggest.

I was talking with a gentleman on the phone today, a man about my own age who lives near Wolverhampton, a solicitor no less. Mostly we talked about aircraft. He'd flown most aircraft in the USAF, it came out in our conversation, including one of their most potent night fighters, the P61 Northrop Black Widow. Now that was some aircraft, and I never cease to be amazed at what people have done in their youth, for it is often hard to associate some elderly, quiet-spoken gentleman, with the vibrant young pilot who threw these formidable war machines about the skies. A repetition of my meeting with another ex-pilot at Wombleton the other week, and with whom I spent chatting during the afternoon. He was the father of the Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel, who came to represent the Canadian High Commissioner, and who told me he originated from Spilsby, in Lincolnshire. Interesting, because I'd been on a small ack-ack site in a field at Irby, a nearby village, so we had something in common to talk about. A badge in his lapel told a similar story to the earlier one, for this was a tiny replica of the Lockhead F104 Starfighter, a revolutionary aircraft in its day, capable of flying at 1,400 mph in level flight, one of which raised the world speed record to 1,590 mph in 1977. "I used to fly those" he told me in a sort of matter-of-fact way. I am always intrigued at the things that people have done, and which you only find out about in a casual - in passing - sort of way.

A lovely tale of days gone by in the Gazette last week, local people and happenings I either remember or have heard about. I don't remember Doctor Bostock with his Gladstone bag, but I do remember his tiny car outside The Elms at Norton. Square, black, and a bit like a handsome cab, it was, and I should think barely room for two. I've never found out what make it was, and haven't so far come across a picture of the type. Sadly, not a Trojan van in sight in the picture of Rington's Tea transport, but the mere mention of that name reminded me that most mornings one used to come up Mill Street, Norton and past the school, at about the time that Russell's immaculate steam wagon whispered its way along Commercial Street. I expect, as young school boys, we used to believe the old tale that if the Trojan got all four wheels, with its solid tyres, in the tram tracks, it meant going right to the tram depot to get out again. Even rubber hammers were a joke then. Not any longer though!

You may agree: "What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? Sydney Smith. English clergyman. 1771-1845.

Updated: 09:54 Thursday, June 21, 2001