A Monkey's Revenge - My Blog

Aug 2, 2014

Yorkshire Tales

Facebook is a wonderful tool for keeping in touch and getting back in touch with old friends. I just discovered Jo Knowsley who used to be one of the writers for The Sunday Telegraph back in the days when it was seperate from The Daily Tel.

A kiwi by birth, Jo shares that peculiar New Zealander trait of being more british than the british. I remember her ticking me off once when I said something she considered disparaging to the royal family ;-)

I also remembered our trip to report on an old hill farmer way up in north Yorkshire who was struggling to make ends meet. We got up at silly o'clock to arrive in time before milking at 5.30 am. I casually remarked that it was "a bit bloody early to be taking pictures" and this time it was the farmer who ticked me off. "We'll have none of that profanity here, young man" he said as he invited us inside his cosy farmhouse. He then proceeded to read the bible and finish his breakfast off while we were waiting to join him to get the cows in and start milking them. Now I know there is a myth about Yorkshiremen and miserliness, but on subsequent occasions I can prove that to be untrue. On this particular day it proved to be the case though-not so much as a cup of tea was offered!

We duly fetched the few cows in to the milking parlour and then went back to look through the diaries the old chap had kept over the years. It had been a hard life-long hours and little financial reward despite people's popular opinion that all farmers are loaded!
Farmer Giles,(I've forgotten his real name), next rounded up the sheep as it was market day and he was taking them to be sold. Fastest way for him to make enough money to keep going. Unfortunately they didn't sell and he brought them all home again- a loss by the time he forked out for the diesel to take them to market and the extra feed he would need to get in for the coming winter.

Eventually we saw on TV that Farmer Giles had gone out of business,(Channel Four did a TV documentary on him after our visit). Sadly hill farming on a small scale simply wasn't viable at the time and I imagine he was one of many who had to give up the job and their way of life.

UPDATE!!

Farmer Giles turned out to be Paul Dunn- and he has written a book and also done voice recordings for the BBC as well as the C4 documentary. It was in Helmsley, N. Yorkshire.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dunn-Dusted-Diaries-Memories-Yorkshire/dp/0955102200
The Channel Four documentary is here.