Number Seventy News

Bus with folding bike to Tadcaster - Wharfe reasonably full, but not excessively so.  Off along the lane to Bolton Percy - peaceful Autumn countryside, very quiet, few birds along this stretch.  Fine colours in the hedges, particularly birch.  Bolton Percy dank, the beck spread all over the gloomy fields below the village, grey and stagnant.  Leaving the village, a huge flock of birds over towards Colton, too far away to recognise, too small for starlings, I thought, but they might have been. 

From the bridge at Colton Junction a fine view of traffic on the ECML and from Leeds.  A couple of real trains, a 225 and a 125 in full white/grey national express livery, and several of the Cross Country ex Virgin mini trains, even the 5 car version ridiculously short for the distances they cover, taking in commuter traffic for various parts of the journey, as they do.  (I’m not suggesting the 12-coach standard of London commuter lines, but surely replacing the HSTs with reduced sets, even if more frequent, showed little faith in the future railway. Thanks, Branson!)

And so to Colton and through to the Roman road to Copmanthorpe, where I had to mend a puncture, caused by the ever-thoughtful farmers’ habit of flail-mowing hawthorn hedges and spreading thorns across the carriageway.  But successfully mended en-route, and so home. It was good to be out.

Before I forget, I should say that the Black Swan has Skipton Brewery’s Copper Dragon on tap - delicious golden stuff.

Tom McConville is an Iriish Geordie, which takes the more extreme edges off both caricatures and ends up with a really warm humorous presentation.  He plays a wonderful lively fiddle and sings some great songs - a wonderful version of “Beeswing” sticks in the aural memory particularly.  A pity the room wasn’t as packed as it was for Chris Wood last week; to my mind Tom is just as good.  David Newey must be 40 years younger than Tom.  He plays a very unassuming guitar, respectful of what Tom’s up to, and with some accomplished solos.

Last Sunday it was extremely blustery half way up the Sheffield Hills, and by the time I got to the top along Long Lane out of Loxley it was very very extremely blustery, from the SSW, approximately.  But one could make progress, in bottom gear on the flat, with the wind on the port bow.  The views were good - the valley and hills in autumn colours, the galloping clouds in a variety of shades of grey, with the occasional patch of ragged blue.  After a few miles I decided that at my age and with no competitive events other than sailing past Bell Farm boy racers coming up, a morning out on the bike didn’t have to be about suffering so I dropped down into the valley.  High Bradfield first, where a high wall sheltered me from a sharp squall.  The church here is magnificent, and magnificently sited on the hillside. Very classic North of England. Then down to Lower Bradfield on one of the most dangerous roads for cyclists I’ve been on for a long time - not traffic, road surface.  Pottered up the valley a short way, beautiful woods turning through all the reds, orange and yellows. Spent 15 minutes looking at the world from the bus shelter while another shower passed by, then off alongside the Damflask reservoir, more beautiful tree colours and so back in time for lunch, which felt well deserved.

I say “the singing one” because I do know one in a cycling and pub-crawling context. It’s not him, though a pub and drink were involved.  Chris Wood plays guitar and fiddle, used to tour as a duet with Andy Cutting, but turned up at the Black Swan as a solo act.  He’s big, bluff, assertively Southern (Kent) performer, hiding behind a very fine London area accent, complete with the occasional glottal stop.  The slightly rough stage persona is belied by some of his songs, however - the exquisitely sentimental and tender “One in a Million”, and a song for the victim of the Stockwell tube police murder.  He didn’t sing one of my favourites “Hares on the Mountain” which is a lovely little number about the yearnings of boys for the girls who seem so inaccessible.  He also started the evening with an obviously new song about the credit crunch and the bankers.  He’s good, though the length of his introductions and rambling diversions mean that I felt slightly short-changed in terms of number of songs. 

No, not my account of everyday life at number 70, but a reminder that there is a fascinating exibitionat the Queen’s House, next to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.  The exhibition is called “Turmoil and Tranquillity: the sea trhough the eyes of Dutch and Flemish masters, 1550-1700.”  It’s the most wonderful collection of marine paintings from that period, covering everything from shipwrecks real and imagined, illustrating life’s uncertainty and brevity, and usually with some icon to encourage viewers to turn to salvation, to scenes of shipsbecalmed, fishing, or fighting.  There are some interesting themes drawn out about trade and exploration too.  It’s on until January 11th 2009.

And it’s always fun to go to Greenwich, though this time I didn’t have spare time to enjoy the foreshore, the park, or the town itself.  But South Eastern Trains got me there and back expeditiously.  It’s strange to see commuter trains in Yorkshire of 2 or three carriages when the standard in so much of the London commuter network is 12, or 8.  And then there’s Virgin Cross Country (of blessed memory) who thought it was a good idea to replace 8 coach HSTs with 4 or 5 coach Voyagers. Don’t get me started.

Apart from Clare Teal’s irritating habit of addressing the audience as “Leeds” which, after Tom Russell’s record number of mentions of Pocklington in a single set, was particularly annoying, I enjoyed most of the concert at the Venue.  Nobody would ever call Clare Teal “small-voiced” (see Stacey Kent) but the full-on approach doesn’t always work.  She has a fine voice and did some great versions of standards and less well-known material. Up-tempo numbers and ballads were equally effective.  I particularly liked her versions of “Love Hurts” and “Breaking up is hard to do” which were hits for Roy Orbison and Neil Sedaka respectively back in the 60s.  Part of her encore was a stomping version of “My Way” which justified the volume. Other numbers were a bit too shouty for my taste. The audience was mixed, but probably with a majority over 50. As always at the Venue, a good sprinkling of students too, since it’s part of Leeds College of Music.  Backing musicians were good (though drummer showing off, as drummers do). Pity that the musicians aren’t given a credit on her website.  

Oh, and Kendall’s Bistro (may not have spelled that exactly right) opposite does first class French-style cooking and has a set price menu for early evening.

Ah, the West Riding !  All that Pennine weather. Actually pleasant enough for autumn as we wound into Wharfedale, stopping at the Wharfedale Inn at Arthington for Black Sheep and Fish and Chips (and mushy peas, of course).  But heading up from Keighley pst Haworth and Oxenhope - a glimpse of smoke down in the valley from the K&WVR - on the roads which gradually climb the contours along the side of the valley, fringed by millstone grit walls, we found deteriorating weather.  We entered the clouds and lost the scenery, except for 100yards of bleak and treeless moor on either side, and the occasional totally isolated row of cottages about which the only possible question is “why?”  But as we came over the top into Calderdale through the mist ahead appeared Heptonstall church tower, grey against a grey landscape and cloudscape.  Fortunately, once we got up to Heptonstall the rain was intermittent, although the grey clouds racing across the top of the valleys gave no hope of sunshine.  Noticed that the Methodist Chapel had numerous umbrella racks.  Also that Sylvia Plath’s grave in the overflow churchyard is sadly neglected, though a few wilted sunflowers and collection of plastic Venus of Willendorf nestled amongst the grass and weeds.  Out beyond the village onto the ridge and then dropped down to find Lumb Bank.  Hughes and Plath had a splendid view from there, in whatever weather, and even on such a grey day the turning leaves were a splendid sight.  Up an old stone trackand further along the ridge then via the hamlet of Slack to the other side where a wood-edge path above a precipitous drop led us back to Heptonstall.  

After tea and cake at Milly’s cafe in Mytholmroyd to the Ted Hughes Theatre at Mytholmroyd school, where Ian Duhig and Anthony Thwaite were reading.  Hadn’t expected to like Ian Duhig’s work much, and didn’t, though he reads much better than he used to, and had deliberately chosen poems which were fairly accessible on first hearing. But any poem which needs a longer introduction than poem is not really trying to be accessible.

And Anthony Thwaite was a disappointment.  He’d chosen to read only personal autobiographical poems but none of them seemed to rise beyond the specific to the universal, nor did they attempt to.  Rather a thin offering, like the day’s Pennine rain.  At least Ted Hughes had some guts to his poems.

Young’s Hotel, which used to provide a mean lunchtime curry back in the 70s, served by two ancient women, possibly twins, who stomped about the place from kitchen to table complaining loudly about customers and their own poor feet, has transformed itself into the Guy Fawkes Hotel.  It has long claimed to be on the site of GF’s birth, though this has been disputed, but only by a hundred yards or so.  It now has some cosy drinking rooms, a real fire or two, and a good selection of real ales.  Rudgates Viking was good on our visit.  The lunchtime menu had some variety also - I had faggots for the first time, which in this instance clearly included liver. As I had never had faggots before, I can’t tell you where they were on a scale of 1-10, as faggots go, but they were very acceptable, especially with mushy peas.  I can’t remember if GF was burned or hung, but I hope faggots weren’t involved.

Have just finished this massive volume, 633 pages excluding the notes. And I was fascinated by every page. It’s an immensely readable, incredibly wide ranging, social history of Britain immediately after the Second World War. The period in which I was conceived and born and so many features of which I remember from my early childhood - I was 4 by the end of 1951.  Kynaston draws on lots of diaries of individuals plus a lot of the vox pop records of Mass Observation.  Accounts of the era of the first post war Labour government are interspersed with the people’s view of their earnest socialist leaders.  I suppose the book could be characterised as a populist skate across the period, but the breadth doesn’t get in the way of the understanding and analysis of what was going on.  Quite brilliant.

So, the pedallers 2008 season came to an end a few weeks ago with a very gentle ride first to the Fox and Roman, which does good food judging by the well-filled and swiftly emptied plates of two of our number, but where the choice of drinkable beers was not great. (Better, however, than the Black Bull on Hull Road which has an impressive array of shiny pumps selling nothing one would want to buy, or drink). But off into the dark of the night and through the utter blackness of Knavesmire Wood, faith and the trusty dynamo showing but a short way ahead, and into Bishopthorpe, where I have already forgotten the name of the pub (could it have been the Woodman?) but which did have drinkable beer and a pleasing not too crowded ambiance. (I seem to remember the decor was striking in some way - but not necessarily a positive one).  And so via the Millenium Bridge to the safe haven of the Welly, where we were joined by those for whom even such a modest excursion is too much to contemplate, and where the Sam Smiths went down very nicely and cheaply.  Watch this space for reports of the pedestrian season, starting after the clocks go back.