Sunshine and Showers

Hazel Close was a wonderful place for three small boys to live and play, a place where every tree, every meadow, every rocky outcrop stirred that vivid imagination which makes the years of childhood so precious. In nineteen thirty nine, aged two, with my eight year old brother Geoff, two year old cousin Mike, together with mothers and grandparents, we began four and a half truly memorable years living in this beautiful part of Yorkshire.

Sixty-two years later I look back on the sunshine and showers of a life filled with periods of great happiness and times of deep sadness. Many incidents required a sense of humour, often as defence against the wrath of others, I was an early convert to the theory that if you can make people laugh they don’t get quite so cross.

Our two families lived in adjoining semidetached bungalows on the outskirts of Hull, Dad who had fought in the first world war, worked for seed merchants in Hull, Mikes father Uncle Tom was a fireman in the Hull City fire service.

When nightly reports on the news announced that “an east coast town” had been hit in an overnight bombing raid they knew exactly which town that was, consequently they were both very concerned for our safety. During these raids we were initially advised to take shelter either in the bathroom or under our very stout dinning table. Eventually a concrete air-raid shelter was built in a neighbour’s garden, this proved a welcome improvement when following one raid, the garden was littered with bomb and shell splinters.

Although they would have to remain at home in Hull for work, Dad and uncle Tom were determined that we should move somewhere safer, so an advertisement seeking property to rent was placed in the Yorkshire Post, out of thirty replies Auntie Marjorie and my Mother each independently selected Hazel Close.
A quick visit by Mum and Dad gained their approval and arrangements were made for the move. War time restrictions created transport problems so the furniture was taken eighty miles to Middlesmoor on a friends builders lorry, while the four adults and three children followed in a taxi. The move from Hull proved very timely, as the nearby oil refinery was heavily bombed the following night.

Nestling in the hillside below the village of Middlesmoor in upper Nidderdale, only the roof and chimneys of Hazel Close were visible from the narrow road winding up from the market town of Pateley Bridge. The house overlooked hay meadows sloping down to How Stean Gorge, where the waters of How Stean Beck have over thousands of years carved an eighty-foot deep rocky canyon on their spectacular way to join the river Nidd.

The excitement of our arrival inevitably led to weeks of exploration, beginning with the house and buildings. There was no electricity or mains water but oil lamps and water from a spring added to the air of adventure. The large black iron range in the living room provided warmth, ample hot water and cooking facilities, bath nights now involved the use of a tin bath placed on the multicoloured rag-rug in front of the fire.
Down three steps a stone paved pantry with stone shelves and walls was set into the hillside at the back of the house, it was always cool even in mid summer. Off this room another storeroom served as the dairy and the cowshed. Therefore the dairy was accessible to the farm manager Neil's sheep-dogs, the door between the two was prone to sticking and the tendency was to leave it “off the hook”, much to grandpa’s annoyance as he warned that one day the dogs would get in to the pantry.

On the pantry floor a large earthenware jar was eventually filled with eggs preserved in isinglass, the stone shelves providing ideal cold conditions for the very rare in war time but much prized joint of beef, large hooks in the ceiling were provided for hanging the slightly more frequent salted sides of bacon, ready to be freshly sliced “straight off the hook and into the pan” for mouth watering bacon and egg breakfasts truly fit for a king.

The preservation of food stored in the pantry was an essential skill in those days and there always seemed to be supplies sufficient to feed us through a siege, or more likely the probability of being cut off by snowdrifts for several weeks in winter.

Inevitably one day the dairy door was even less secure than usual, and this coincided with the arrival of a particularly succulent joint of meat, the unfortunate result was an empty meat plate and two very well fed sheep dogs. Mum and auntie Marge's resourcefulness was tested to the full and grandpa who never learned the truth, was fooled into thinking that he was eating the joint, when it had been substituted by a cunningly disguised concoction made from tined corned beef covered with thick gravy. It was one time when the weak light from oil lamps was a boon.

Up narrow wooden stairs, the bedrooms had bare polished wood floors and were furnished by iron bedsteads with shining brass bed knobs, large wardrobes and dressing tables with marble tops completed the furnishings. These had belonged to grandma and were brought up from home in Hull on the lorry. Thick blankets and feather filled eiderdowns were essential to keep out the cold. Night time lighting was by candles, and it just didn’t do to be afraid of the dark.

A major disadvantage was the location of the toilet, which was strategically, but unfortunately, especially at night, situated twenty yards from the house, through the garden gate in the corner of a wood, a two-seater model, it was built of whitewashed stone. The wooden door featured a traditional diamond shaped hole for ventilation and early warning of the approach of other would be occupants, giving time for a somewhat strained shout of “I’m in here, I wont’ be long”. Security was simultaneously effected by use of ones extended foot, not possible until about the age of five when leg length made this possible without at the same time slipping off the seat.

Alternative night time toilet facilities for us were of the florally decorated porcelain variety, conveniently available adjacent to the bed, although on one very dark night my sleepy use of this facility when I showed a distinct lack of accuracy, caused the flow intended for the receptacle to be directed through a knot hole in the floor falling as a steady stream onto the middle of the green baize covered kitchen table below. It took the adults sitting there a few stunned seconds to appreciate the nature of the deluge but no time at all to rush upstairs to identify and apprehend the semi comatose culprit.

Various outbuildings adjoined the house, the nearest was a cow byre with hayloft above, followed by cart sheds and stables. The cows were hand milked by Neil, who came down from the village every day, providing us with our fresh milk, taking the remainder back up to the road in a churn in summer this was kept cool by simply being immersed in a stone trough, through which ice cold spring water flowed in a seemingly never ending stream. Visits to the byre at milking time were frequently met by a well-aimed jet of warm milk squirted by Neil from the udder of the cow currently being milked. His nickname for me of “T’owd fat man” was an indication of how well fed we were despite wartime rationing, his cows nutritious unadulterated fresh milk also played a significant part in my obvious well being.

Small undulating grass fields between the house and How Stean Gorge, retained their natural contours left by the ice age, only slightly softened by hundreds of years of toil by men and horses. These fields provided grazing and sweet smelling hay, full of natural herbs for the long hard winters. Tractors had not yet entered the scene so the less attractive uniformity of the lowlands had thus far been avoided.

One of the fields contained a small fenced area where a spring came to the surface, feeding a pond and a patch of watercress, which became grandpa’s pride and joy. Almost inevitably the day came when Mike and I, knowing how the grownups enjoyed their cress, piled our toy wheelbarrows full with the succulent plant, roots and all, and proudly delivered them to the door. Needless to say, hurried re-planting and an early night in bed were the reward for our efforts.

The abundant availability of running water was an irresistible magnet, this coupled with several lengths of rusty iron pipe, which nobody seemed to want provided us with a less destructive form of play, although to us it was work, not play. Thus was born our intricate water diversion scheme, the pipes were butted together end to end using mud to make a fairly water tight joint, mud and small boys tend to be a bit messy but this made it all the more fun, so we spent many happy days on the project, marvelling at our ability to direct water almost anywhere at will. I do not remember getting into trouble over this, so assume we did not flood anywhere too important. In fact grandpa who had been a well-respected engineer at Reckitt and Coleman’s Canister Works in Hull, was I think quite proud of us. At least it kept us away from his beloved watercress beds.

Other less savoury schemes included our “sawmill” which involved turning my three-wheel bike upside down to expose the rear sprocket and chain. Turning the pedals at speed provided a rudimentary saw, which though rather ineffective at cutting wood, could slice through a dried cowpat in no time at all. We soon had a small factory producing the worlds finest cow pat slices, unfortunately we were unable to find a market for our product but there was no shortage of the raw material with the cows making fresh deliveries to the fields every day. I am convinced that this and other schemes provided us with an early exposure to a low level of “natural” infection, providing resistance to many diseases in later life, unfortunately I was too young to be aware of this theory and so was unable to convince my mother of its value at the time.

On week days Geoff who was of school age attended the small village school in Middlesmoor, so summer holidays were the main time for family picnics in the hay fields or family walks down to the gorge, along footpaths lined with dry brittle bracken which crunched under foot, whilst eighty feet below us we could hear the roar of water cascading over the rocks. Climbing over styles in the stone walls we descended through woods filled with bluebells or foxgloves and huge buttercups, depending on the time of year. Our favourite spot to picnic was a grassy bank under the trees, where a large flat rock sloped gently down into a pool in which we could paddle, another pool upstream was fed by a waterfall and was deep enough for Geoff to swim in.

Although small in area, in our imagination this became our very own private beach, better than the seaside, as it was little more than stones throw from our back door. Further down the stream, high up the rock wall of the gorge was a cave, which led back to emerge in the middle of one of the fields. This was known as Tom Taylor’s cave which so the story goes, was many years ago the hideout of a notorious thief on the run from the law. It was blocked at both ends by locked iron grills but to us it was so scary that we always kept well away.

Hay making in summertime would begin with the horse drawn reaper cutting the meadow grass, full of flowers and herbs which as it dried in the sun gave off the most memorable aroma combining to carry the smell of summer right through to the freezing days of winter when it was fed to the cows in the byre. The psychological effect of this seemed to lift the temperature several degrees on cold and frosty winter mornings. All the smells of the countryside seemed pleasant in those days, even the oil liberally applied to the cutters, hay turners, and horse drawn rakes smelled sweet.

Once the hay was dried in the sun it was raked into rows before being piled into heaps using horse drawn “sweeps”, wooden frames with long pointed wooden tines which scooped up the hay and dragged it to the barns to be forked up through a door above the byre. As this was effectively the harvest in the dales all hands were welcome to help and we would happily join in the task of hand turning the hay with large wooden tined rakes, shaking out any thick patches to allow the warm wind to speed the drying process.

The reward for our efforts came with the arrival of “allowance” delivered in a wicker basket covered with a brightly coloured tea cloth and containing a huge metal pot of sweet milky tea to be drunk from equally large mugs. To complete the feast huge doorstep sized sandwiches of cheese and onion or delicious cold fried bacon and egg were provided. This was consumed while we reclined in the armchair like comfort of a heap of newly gathered hay. If the field was too far away from the house the pot of tea would be replaced by lemonade bottles filled with cold tea, which was sometimes even more refreshing.

The advantage of storing hay above the animals was that it insulated their winter quarters where feeding was a simple matter of lifting a trapdoor in the floor and dropping the feed down to the cattle below, many of the barns and byres were also conveniently situated in the corners of the fields, avoiding the need to transport hay to the farmstead and the inevitable manure back to the field. Thus the practicalities of farming in the dales created their unique beauty

Preparing for our first winter at Hazel Close involved stocking up the pantry with as much tinned food as rationing permitted, this turned out to be a wise move as we were virtually cut off by deep snow drifts for about six weeks. Even then hours of pleasure and adventure were possible due to the skill of Mr Holmes the village joiner and wheelwright, who made us wooden sledges shod with iron runners, which were so well made that they survived back in Ganstead for many years beyond the end of the war. Almost everywhere there was a suitable place for sledging, but the favourite place was a field down the side of Middlesmoor hill, however in this case stopping before hitting the dry stone wall at the bottom was frequently a problem.

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