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December 2015 Issue 10

The Duchy Vixen

.....it's got bite

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A quarterly magazine about life on the Duchy

Contents

Duchy Community Harrogate International Festival....2

Highfield Harvest Festival....2Starting a trust....4

St Wilfrid’s Appeal.....5Growing up on the Duchy....7

Sewing club ....2Keep children safe....10

Carol singing ........16

Welcome to Issue 10. We are absolutely thrilled to have been able to interview Michael Morpurgo when he was in Har-rogate in the autumn. Read the interview inside. And equally thrilling – the Irish poet Ciaran Carson has chosen this is-sue’s poem. We are also very pleased that more of you have been in touch with your stories. Thank you to Alex Le Bek for writing about her extraordinary feats of fitness and to Colin Oliver for the same! We would be pleased to hear from you, whatever your tale. [email protected]. Seasons greetings to you all and thank you all for your continued support.

Sarah, Margaret and Rosemary

Duchy SportsAshville sports plans.....3Age group Triathlon .....6

Bag a Munro.....8,9,10

Duchy ArtsCiaran Carson on Snow.....11

Duchy FoodRestaurant review......12

Duchy HistoryFrom Hattery crash to Zeta Alpha....13

Duchy InterviewMichael Murpurgo........14,15


2 Duchy community

Celebrating half a century of show-casing the finest international musi-cians, Harrogate International Festi-vals has announced its stellar line up for its 2016 Spring Sunday Series.

To mark the festival’s 50th anniversa-ry in 2016, the series headlines with one of the major pianists of our time, John Lill.

Opening the series on 24 January is the internationally renowned pianist Cédric Tiberghien, who won the Pre-mier Prix in 1992, aged just 17. An art-

ist in global demand, his programme features Chopin’s poetic 24 Preludes.

On 7 February, the Navarra String Quartet return to Harrogate. With an international reputation as one of the most dynamic and poetic string quar-tets, their emotive programme fea-tures Ravel, Beethoven and Haydn.

Marc Dunleavy, Music Festivals Man-ager, said: “We’re excited to be wel-coming such incredible talent to York-shire. It’s a unique opportunity to hear in an intimate setting great musicians who play in iconic international ven-ues. We’re incredibly proud to be cel-ebrating half a century of showcasing such global talent here in Harrogate. 2016’s line-up shows that Harrogate is a destination that’s become a land-mark festival in the classical calen-dar.”

All concerts take place at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate at 11am on Sunday mornings.

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Harrogate Festival celebrates 50th anniversary

Pupils from Highfield Prep School, part of Harrogate Ladies’ College, have collected more than 600 tins and packets for Harrogate’s homeless as part of their Harvest Festival celebra-tion. The items collected by the children have been donated to Springboard, a day centre run by the Harrogate Homeless Project that provides food, washing facilities and support to homeless and vulnerable people across the district. Rachel Colbourn, Head Teacher of Highfield Junior Prep School said: “Harvest is a really important lesson for children, particularly in today’s so-

ciety where food is available all year round. It’s easy to forget where our food comes from and that not every-one has access to it in the way we do.” As well as collecting the items, pupils from Highfield also visited Spring-board to find out more about home-lessness and the ways in which the Harrogate Homeless Project is help-ing.

Highfield celebrate Harvest Festival

Request for photos for our website.We would like to add more photos to our web gallery and would be grate-ful if any residents with photographs of the Duchy would send them to us at the Duchy Vixen

Cédric Tiberghien

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Duchy community 3

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£3 million boost to sports at Ashville College

rugby pitch and £20,000 on condition-ing equipment within its weights room.

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Harrogate’s Ashville College has un-veiled ambitious plans to invest £3 million to boost sporting provisions for its pupils.The independent school is aiming to significantly improve – and add to – the existing facilities at its Yew Tree Lane sports centre, parts of which date back more than 50 years.Subject to planning permission being granted, work will begin on the sports centre in Easter 2017, with a view to its being completed in the September of the that year.

Key elements of the investment are:

•New reception, including seating area for parents and visitors •Two new studios•New gymnasium•New rooftop all-weather surface ac-tivity area•New staff offices

Over the last few years, the school has spent more than £750,000 on a state-of-the-art all-weather surface pitch, £100,000 making its swimming pool more energy efficient, £60,000 on improving drainage to its 1st XV

Artist’s impression of the new-look Ashville Sports Centre

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Articleby Carla Marshall, Trust Manager

4 Duchy community

With over two thirds of Brits volun-teering at least once in the last year and the same number giving money to charity in the last 12 months, it’s clear that ‘giving back’ is a vital part of British life. But what if you want to leave a lasting legacy which helps lo-cal people for many years to come?

Almost 60 years ago, Sir George Mar-tin (pictured) – a prominent Leeds business man and civic figure who became the Lord Mayor of Leeds and High Sheriff of Yorkshire – decided to set up a charitable trust in order to do just that.

Sir George had always been drawn to the world of philanthropy. During World War II he was appointed Chair of the Leeds Musical Festival, in 1943 he became the Founder Chairman of Methodist Homes for the Aged and Sir George later became the President of Leeds YMCA. Setting up a charita-ble trust in his name was the obvious next step for Sir George, which would enable him to have an even greater impact on local people in need.

Sir George formed the Sir George Martin Trust in 1956 by endowing it

Take your philanthropy to another level

with £30,000 worth of shares. He said he would like the Trust to go on for all time and when Sir George died aged 92 in 1976, he left the residue of his estate to the Trust and at the time of his death most of his assets were in the form of land. His nephew, Peter Marshall OBE, then went on to run the Trust for the next 36 years. As well as nurturing the Trust’s investment portfolio – which provides an income and is then administered in the form of grants to charities – Peter helped to raise millions of pounds for projects including Bolton Abbey Priory and the Cancer Centre at St James’s Hospital in Leeds.

Since 1993 the Trust has given more than £5 million of grants to around 2,000 different charities. The major-ity of the Trust’s grants have been bestowed upon small to medium sized local charities located in West and North Yorkshire, which strive to improve the lives of the people they work with. Leeds continues to be the Sir George Martin Trust’s number one priority area, followed by Bradford and other deprived or isolated areas. The Trust supports a wide range of chari-ties who work with the young, elderly, disabled and disadvantaged. It also provides grants to charities working in the arts, music, environment, faith,

sports and social welfare arenas. In general the trustees prefer to provide funds for capital needs.

A long-standing beneficiary of the Trust is OPAL (Older People’s Ac-tion in the Locality), which supports older people in North East Leeds to live happy, healthy and informed lives in their own homes. The Sir George Martin Trust has provided grants to help the charity run exercise classes, lunch clubs and day trips out. This year the Trust has supported OPAL’s project of turning a disused pub into a brand new community centre where all OPAL’s activities and advice work-ers can be based.

David Coates, Chair of Trustees at the Sir George Martin Trust and a retired solicitor, says: “I’m on the board of three Yorkshire charitable trusts and so I get to see first-hand how these private grant making organisations re-ally do help to change lives. I have also set up two charitable trusts and can assure people that they don’t need millions of pounds to start up a trust. £5,000 - £10,000 is the starting point and the first step should be to decide what your charitable purpose will be and discuss this with your so-licitor.”

For further information visit: www.sirgeorgemartintrust.org.uk www.gov.uk/government/organisa-tions/charity-commission

Overheard

Mum: What exciting news, chil-dren! We are going to interview Michael Morpurgo! How fantastic is that!

Daughter: Could you not get us an interview with Taylor Swift?

An OPAL day out

Duchy community 5


We are fortunate to have Harrogate’s only Grade 1 listed building, St Wilfrid’s Church, here at the heart of the Duchy estate. This jewel of Temple Moore’s creations celebrated its centenary last year and, inevitably, reaching such a milestone brings with it the need for some serious tlc. In June 2014 the Heritage Lottery Fund granted lottery funding to the church, and the Development Project is now under way. This is an exciting project which will create a flexible environment offering opportunities for greater community engagement with the site, opening it up to a wide range of educational, musical and cultural activities. Works will include improvements in heating, lighting and sound systems; new flooring including adaptations to fa-cilitate access for all; improvements to the North entrance and the cloisters; new accessible toilet facilities; cleaning and restoration of internal stonework; art work restoration.The total cost of the works is £2.5 million and in order to qualify for the funding we need to raise £500,000 our-selves by June 2016. This is no small task but there are many ways for you to get involved and help. Please come along and support the various fund raising activities which will be taking place over the coming weeks and months and of course donations and legacies would be much appreciated. If you wish to make a donation or have any questions or suggestions please contact Catherine at [email protected] In the meantime browse the events on the right and see which ones you would like to attend:

St Wilfrid’s Development

Project


6 Duchy sports

The beginning of our life in the Duchy is quite recent. We moved to York Road eighteen months ago after 6 months of ‘renovation’ (aka a gutting, the removal of a bomb shelter and the unexpected restoration of five mar-ble fireplaces). Fast forward to a sur-real, inaugural bath in an unfinished bathroom listening to Elsie’s frantic clucking followed by the arrival of six characterful eggs on the doorstep. Our neighbours, who had endured six months of banging, laughed and said ‘What banging?’! But this article isn’t about the proverbial hen – it’s about the Duchy’s triathlon boot camp cre-dentials. At least that’s what I thought until I started writing.Rewind to four years ago and the idea that I would have anything to say about triathlon – ever – would have been laughable. I was forty eight and unfit. My mid-life crisis was cheap; it happened within the space of thirty minutes and involved throwing the dinner on the table and heading out

Triathlon in a Bitesize World

to army style fitness training on Har-rogate Stray. I didn’t have any fitness goals, I didn’t want to think, and I liked being told exactly what to do every second for a whole hour. Impressive. Three times a week - and a whole year later, the emergency work was done. Since then I have trained with Military 1st Fitness – and through Per-sonal Training with one of the instruc-tors, Jimmy Profitt, I have become a triathlete.This year, by some miracle, I qualified for the GB Age Group Triathlon Team (Female 50-54) Standard Distance Triathlon (1.5k swim, 40km bike, 10km run) and raced in the Euro-pean Championships in Geneva and the World Championship in Chicago. Age-group? Did she say age-group? I had never heard of it either until I read a Facebook post about Edwina Brock-lesby, a 70 year old female GB triath-lete. Her story inspired me to try and make the team myself and overcome my own prejudices about achievement related to age. ‘No way’, I thought, ‘am I going to be pigeon-holed by my age!

What kind of achievement would that feel like?’ Well, now I can tell you – it feels incredible. It’s not elite, it’s not on TV and it’s not always pretty but I have discovered, to my surprise, that doing well in a bitesize world can feel very nice.With this year’s races over I am into winter training spread across three clubs: Military 1st Fitness (everything hangs off this!), Performax Fitness Gym and The Hydro. Bike sessions are generally turbo trainer sessions in the cellar, sometimes as part of a ‘brick’ (a run straight off the bike). Running in any direction from the door is a run to a special place. Valley Gar-dens, the Stray, Harlow Carr and the countryside immediately beyond all offer different challenges. The prox-imity of The Hydro has helped me (a weak swimmer), turn up whatever the weather. A hard training ethic is al-ways in force down there with regular elite and Ironman swim sets on the go which help me focus and keep try-ing. Triathlon is more than swimming, biking and running. It includes transi-tion – a place where you can make up time without getting fitter! It includes strength and conditioning. It requires packing a car for a race without inter-ference. There are many mental com-ponents to pulling off a race success-fully which is why those around you

Articleby Alex le Bek


Duchy history 7

will get fed up.Anyone, at any age, can take up tri-athlon and feel welcome. There are some excellent local events to try. The Duchy, and Harrogate in gen-eral, is a great place to find all kinds of fitness training; a fact that is hardly mentioned as a reason why this is a brilliant place to live.I am always happy to chat about how to get started in triathlon and how to find the wherewithal to start fitness at all. If you’d like to try Military 1st Fit-ness and want some company over there, email me ([email protected]) and we can go together.Online information:Military 1st Fitness: http://www.militar-y1stfitness.com/Performax Fitness: http://performaxfit-ness.co.uk/GB Team Age-Group Triathlon: http://www.britishtriathlon.org/great-britain-teams/age-groupEdwina Brocklesby: https://www.face-book.com/EdwinaBrocklesbyLocal triathlons: http://www.function-alfitnessevents.co.uk/

still a regular worshipper there. It was the church where I was baptised and confirmed. I was a member of choir for the best part of seven years, only leaving when I, and another other who shall remain nameless, were told if we did not leave, then all the men mem-bers of the choir would! Even though we were stunned at the ruling we were past our best in terms of singing ability. Yes, I was mischievous and being a twin, it was always double trouble. One of the “low lights” of our choir career was letting off stink bombs in the church hall following the annual Carols by Candlelight Service. Not our finest hour, and, as punishment, the days before Christmas were spent delivering the Parish Christmas Card over a large geographical area.Following my summary dismissal, I had a short career as a bell ringer. And it was incredibly short. On my second time in the belfry I was lifted off the ground whilst still holding on to the rope for dear life. It was my last visit as the experience frightened me half to death. Living so close to Harrogate Ladies’ College was certainly not without its disadvantages, particularly as we reached our teens. We always tried to look trendy, but usually failed mis-erably! However, after leaving school that changed. Many of the upper sixth boarders of the Class of 1984 were regular visitors to our house and we are still friends with a number of them to this day.Every time I drive along Duchy Road, or park on it when I attend St Wilf’s, I always sneak a glance at what had been my home for the first 21 years of my life. I don’t need rose-tinted glass-es to look favourably on those years. I was truly blessed to have grown up on the Duchy, in such a fabulous home, with such loving parents.

When I look back at my childhood growing up on “The Duchy” I feel in-credibly blessed. My father bought 56 Duchy Road – The Bungalow – in the mid 1950s, selling it in 1988 when my twin brother, Andrew, and I had flown the nest.The Bungalow was a wonderful fam-ily home, and even though the original property had been turned into a semi-detached, it still boasted large rooms and a big garden where we happily played war, football, cricket and hide and seek.Our other playgrounds were the grounds of St Wilfrid’s Church, or the church yard as we called it, Oak Beck, the Pine Woods and Birk Crag. Like most kids growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, we only played indoors when it was raining – the rest of the time we were out and about, trying not to get into trouble, but not always suc-ceeding!St Wilfrid’s Church played a big part in my early life and my mother, Irene, is

Growing up on the Duchy by David Simister

Scooby is a Sloughi, a North African sight hound. He was rescued from Spain by Jeanne Thompson of Miss Mollies Rescue http://www.missmolliesrescue.org.uk in 2012 as an 11 month old. He has been with Miss Mollies ever since. When originally rescued, Miss Mollies was told that he was a Jack Russell!For four months in 2014 he was fostered by Duchy residents, Tom and Marge, who tried to find him a permanent home. When that did not happen and he was still available in 2015, they decided to adopt him.He went to his new home in Seven Lakes, North Carolina, USA in November.

Miss Mollies Rescue

8


Back in March of this year, I decided that I needed to undertake some sort of physical challenge. Something that would improve my fitness levels, give me a little in-spiration and maybe raise some money for charity. After mulling over a few ideas (motorcycle trip around South America, sailing the Atlantic) all of which were vetoed by family and friends, I decided to stay nearer to home. Scot-land’s mountains have always fascinated me, and I was interested in tackling the Munros. A Munro is a mountain

in Scotland that is over 3000 feet (914m) in height. I’ve climbed a couple in the past, and decided to set myself a challenge – how many Munros could I climb in five days?After a bit of research, I decided that 20 peaks was enough of a challenge for someone completely unfit, and I signed up to a pretty daunting training programme at Primal Gym in Leeds. They trained me three times a week, and while initially I thought I might not make it through the training let alone the actual challenge, I saw my fitness levels improve

Articleby Colin Oliver

Bag a Munro – 20 in five days


9

dramatically. I set a date for Septem-ber, and roped in two old friends to help on the trip. Back in the 1980s I cy-cled around South America with John Rowlands, who has lost none of his spirit of adventure and he volunteered to walk with me. Seb Morgan-Clare is a qualified outdoor pursuits teacher and climber, so he came along to be in charge of base camp, maps and generally make sure we didn’t get into trouble.It wasn’t hard to decide on a char-ity – as I am a father of three it had to be something relating to children, and my business has raised money for Martin House Children’s Hospice before, so I contacted the fundraising team there to explain what I wanted to do, and see how they could use the money raised. We discussed music

therapy – how important it is both to the children living with illness and to their siblings. As someone in the mu-sic industry, this was a cause that was close to my heart, so we decided that any money raised would go towards the development of music therapy at Martin House.I have to admit that my training went slightly awry in August; exercise whilst on holiday just seemed wrong, but mentally I was prepared to get stuck in when John, Seb and I arrived in Scotland for Day One of our trip. Our original plan of camping out during the course of the five days went by the wayside when I saw the weather forecast for the week. Predictably, it was raining and windy in Scotland. Luckily for us the people at Seekers Motorhomes in Richmond came to

our rescue, and we got a great deal on Lucy, their six-berth van which was to be our home for the next week. Our route would take us through some of the most stunning scenery in Eu-rope; from Crianlarich north of Loch Lomond on day one, to Glen Shiel and the South Cluanie Ridge on days two and three in the North West High-lands, then on to Glen Coe and the classic Ring of Steall in the Mamores, ending with the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis on day five.Day One dawned mistily upon us, and John and I headed from Rob Roy’s house at Inverlochlarig up the glen then west to Beinn Tulaichean, our first Munro at 946m. We then fol-lowed the saddle to Cruach Ardrain, Beinn a Chroin, Beinn Chabhair and ended up on An Caisteal. We cov-ered nearly 23km on day one, with a total ascent of 2228m. Something of a baptism of fire, and I managed to pull a muscle in my thigh on the sec-ond Munro which stayed with me for the rest of the week. On Day Two we walked another 24km, climbing Creag a Mhaim, Druim Shionnach, Aonach air Chrith, Maol Chin-Dearg, Sgurr an Doire Leathain, Sgurr an Lochain and Creag nan Damh, bagging seven Munros in one day! Physically it was hard going, but mentally there was never any question of stopping, espe-cially on the rare occasions when you got to the peak and it was clear, with some of Britain’s most spectacular views. We dropped the pace on day three, climbing Aonach Meadhoin, Sgurr a Bhealaich Dheirg and Saileag in a trek of just over 10km and a to-tal ascent of 1212m. Day Four was probably the toughest day’s climbing, with weather conditions deteriorating badly, and tackling the Ring of Steall peaks of An Gearanach, Stob Choire a Chairn, Am Bodach and Sgurr a Mhaim was not much fun in 60mph winds. We did it though, and with a distance of 13.8km and an ascent of 1220m climbed that day, felt a great sense of achievement, having bagged 19 Munros in four days. Day Five meant Ben Nevis. Leaving the UK’s highest mountain until last may sound odd to anyone who isn’t familiar with the Munros, but the well-worn paths


Duchy interview 910 Duchy sports

Keep your children safeIt can be all too easy to feel that an area such as The Duchy is immune form crime, especially the dangers of child abduction. However, all schools take Stranger Danger very seriously. Brackenfield School recently invited their local police liaison officer, PC John Jakes, to visit the school to make the children more aware of Stranger Danger. PC Jakes gave the children very im-portant advice about how to deal with strangers and what to do if they ever became lost. He talked about safer strangers and was very impressed with the level of knowledge and ma-ture answers from the children. After assembly the pupils enjoyed an op-portunity to sit in the police car and to learn about all of the different roles that the police play in keeping our so-ciety safe.So, based on his advice, how should children keep themselves safe?1)If lost, only approach a person in uniform or someone such as a shop assistant.2)If approached by a stranger who won’t leave you alone shout “Leave Me Alone!” as loud as possible.

PC Jakes with some of the Brackenfield pupils.

of Ben Nevis were easy compared to other climbs that week. During the last four days we had seen only one other walker, and to be faced with a parade of people tackling Ben Nevis felt a lit-tle odd! The crowds motivated us to get Ben Nevis out of the way, so we walked quickly, reaching the peak at 1343m, covering a total distance for that day of 16km, and getting back to Lucy for a celebratory fish and chip supper before we knew it.The sense of relief at completing the challenge was immense – relief, ex-hilaration and exhaustion were the main emotions I felt at the top of Ben Nevis. I felt gratitude for all the sup-port of everyone who had sponsored me, happy that I could help Martin House with their amazing work, and blessed that we have such inspiring wildernesses still to explore right here on our doorstep in the UK. I’m also re-lieved we were able to complete the task safely and with nothing worse than blisters and a sore leg to show for it. People have been asking me if I ever want to climb another mountain – well there are 282 Munros, and I’ve only done 20, so I can’t possibly stop now!Colin has a JustGiving page at www.justgiving.com/20munros5days/ where you can make a donation to Martin House and their music therapy programme.

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By Abby Johnston-JonesEvery other Saturday morning at 10:00 I go to my sewing club (Nee-dle Point). The first time I went I didn’t know how to use a sewing machine but the lady showed me how. In the past I have made a messenger bag, a cosmetics bag, a cushion and lots more. The picture you can see is of a stocking I made because we are starting to get into the Christmas spir-it. I am hoping to get a sewing ma-chine for Christmas.www.needlepointsewingcafe.co.uk

My sewing club

Son: What are you going to have for dinner, dad?

Dad: Toast again, sadly.

Son: Well, it is a hot meal!


Duchy arts 11

SnowThe room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window wasSpawning snow and pink roses against itSoundlessly collateral and incompatible:World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portionA tangerine and spit the pips and feelThe drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for worldIs more spiteful and gay than one supposes – On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands – There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses. Louis MacNeice

In October, Rosemary, our Poetry Editor, attended a Poetry Reading in Belfast given by the Irish poets Ciaran Carson and Michael Longley. After, she asked Ciaran if he would like to choose a poem and write about it for us and he has been kind enough to oblige. We are thrilled!

Slowly, year after year since I first read it I don’t know how many years ago, this poem has eased itself into my con-sciousness. It is now a firm favourite. I teach Creative Writing and often use ‘Snow’ as an example of the kind of thing poetry can do. When I read it aloud – and I have read it aloud countless times – I always see new things in it. Poems should be ever renewable and open to interpretation, ‘incorrigibly plural’. Poems deal in ambiguity, and this is a poem about ambiguity, whatever lies between things whether said or unsaid. It also has one of the great line-breaks: ‘The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was’…here the bay-window declares its existence, before being swamped by the snow in the next line. ‘Snow’ is many things, comforting and disturbing, simple and complex, a domestic interior made strange and eerie. Unheimlich. It means a lot to me, and I am confident it will mean a lot more to me as I read it again and again in whatever years are left to me.

Ciaran Carson has published some two dozen books of poetry, prose and translation, most recently From Elsewhere, translations from the work of the French poet Jean Follain, paired with poems inspired by the translations (Gallery Press 2014). His work has won many prizes including the T. S. Eliot Award and the Forward Prize. He is a member of Aos-dána, the affiliation of Irish artists, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Ciaran Carson writes


12 Duchy restaurants

Wild is a new restaurant on Swan Road in Harrogate, where French restaurant Mirabelle used to be. The brainchild of renowned Yorkshire-based chef Jim Key, Wild promises to “redefine the fine dining experience, creating a genuine, honest and free-flowing dining experience” featuring locally sourced and unusual ingre-dients. My heart sank initially when I saw that the menu on the website included “scorched cucumber”, “car-rot emulsion” and “lacto-fermented ramsons”, but, determined to keep an open mind, my other half and I booked a table for a Friday evening.On arrival we were greeted by a troop of young waiting staff, who showed us to the table and took a drinks or-der. The room is relatively small and intimate, but there is enough space around each table to ensure you don’t feel squashed in by neighbour-ing diners. There are some interest-ing touches in the décor that give the room some character – dark greens and browns predominate with curious “living wall” greenery and dark wood tables. Ominously, our glasses of bubbly hadn’t arrived ten minutes after we had sat down, and the troop of wait-resses had mysteriously vanished.

Reviewby Rebecca Oliver

Will you take a walk on the Wild side?

We skipped pudding as there wasn’t anything on the menu that really ap-pealed. The choice was between pistachio with goat’s curd and black cherry, carrot and orange with can-died carrot and buckthorn, blackber-ries with elderflower and roasted pear, or a cheese selection. We finished up with coffee, which arrived with a couple of sugary macaroons. The bill came to £76. So would I go again? The food is defi-nitely worth a try. When the kitchen and the service get into the swing of things it will help enormously to im-prove the pace of the food. This is one of the rare occasions in a restau-rant where I would have welcomed an explanation of the dish I had ordered from the waiter – half the time I had no idea what I was eating. I’m still none the wiser about “lacto-fermented ram-sons”. The evident passion and in-ventiveness of the chef at Wild would benefit from being conveyed in the dining room by the rest of the staff, something that will involve training and time.

When eventually the champagne ar-rived it was given to us as a freebie to make up for its late appearance.We ordered a starter and a main each rather than embarking upon the 6 course taster menu. By this point I was slightly anxious that we wouldn’t get back in time for the babysitter as it was. My husband chose the beet-root salad followed by the Nidderd-ale lamb, while I decided to try the artichoke and the beef. There was a long wait for the starters; this time it seemed to be the kitchen that was disorganised. My artichoke turned out to be a soup which was a surprise. The soup was good, creamy and with a hint of lemon, and what I thought was a crouton in the middle turned out to be a chicken wing. My husband’s beetroot salad was also good. Our main courses were served faster than the starters. The beef was pink and tender, beautifully presented with oddly delicious cabbage. The carrots (“sand grown” ) were bland. My hus-band pronounced the lamb to be fan-tastic, perfectly cooked. The flavours were all good together, the unusual ingredients complementing the meat very well. Our meal was accompa-nied by a couple of excellent glasses of Rioja.

Lessons learnt…..or not

Mother to teenage son, at the end of the holiday .“So, what did you learn about doing your own laundry all summer?”

Son, after some thought “That if I don’t do any, nothing terrible happens”

Duchy history 13


The revelation of the financial fraud of Charles Hattery in 1929, coupled with the collapse of the Wall Street finan-cial world, disturbed Britain’s economy and led to a great recession.Harrogate was affected by this and perhaps particularly those whose businesses were in Leeds/Bradford, where many of the residents of the Duchy Area worked and from whence they derived their income. After their working day they would return home to their houses in Clarence Drive, York Road, Duchy Road etc.According to ‘British Townscapes’ by Ewart Johns in 1965, these houses ‘may be thought of as either large and very individual versions of picturesque cottages or small sam-ples of Romantic Villas’.They ‘are built in a fine gritstone, the sombre grey of which is relieved by the liberal use of decorative window frames, doorways and porches’.In the 1920s there had been a considerable revival of building activity. Many of the new properties had been built with brick and pebble-dash in contrast to the pre-war stone. There are three splendid inter-war houses in par-ticular. The western end of Kent Road has a lovely exam-ple and two highly individual houses were built in Oakdale itself, which remained largely undeveloped until after the Second War.Another treasure from the period is St Wilfrid’s, which was conceived to be ‘exceeding magnific’ and was greatly en-hanced in 1935 with the Lady Chapel. This is an elongat-ed octagon, demarcated by slender shafts, by the architect Temple Moore’s son-in-law, Leslie Moor.About the same time Frances Darlington created the Twelve Stations of the Cross plaques, which reflect the artistry of the period.The recession affected many people in various ways. The practice of early morning water drinking at the Pump Room ceased to be ‘fashionable’ and the chains erected to keep road traffic away from the drinking area were removed. Wesley Chapel in Oxford Street, which had 20 applicants for the post of Chapel Caretaker in 1929, had 439 appli-cants when they required a replacement in 1936.The Council sought to keep abreast with the then current developments for spa treatments and they purchased land at the rear of the Royal Baths with plans to construct a massive new treatment centre with a replacement for the Winter Gardens, known as the Lounge Hall. This was opened in 1938 only to be blighted by the outbreak of war

The Hattery Crash to Zeta Alpha

in the following year.The Valley Gardens were enhanced by the Sun Pavilion and Colonnade in 1933, opened by the distinguished med-ical man, Lord Horder.Land purchases also included the Harlow Moor estate from the Earl of Harewood, which produced Harlow Moor Road and opened the Duchy Area. Hitherto the Duchy was virtually an island bounded by open land on the West, Oak Beck on the North and the Water Company/Royal Baths on the South. There had been no through road to the Otley Road area.The Harewood Estate have gradually diminished their land ownership as they sold Oakdale Farm in 1926 and, perhaps about the same time, the Cornwall Road fields to the Duchy of Lancaster. This area is now under threat of development by that Duchy. The boundary between the Duchy and the Harewood estate had been Cornwall Road itself as determined by the 1770 Enclosure of the Forest.The Duchy Residents’ Association have applied for those Cornwall Road fields to be designated ‘Green Space’. If this is not accepted then its previous description as a Spe-cial Landscape Area needs to be stoutly defended. To be able to view Beamsley Beacon and the distant moorland is a wonderful advantage to the area.Amongst the spa towns which were visited by the Council representatives to gather ideas to improve our spa indus-try was Vichy in central France. Both Harrogate and Vichy were utilised for rather similar purposes during the Second World War, which commenced with such devastating ef-fect in 1939. Practically all the great hotels and many other properties were requisitioned, to startling effect. I recall the large house at the junction of Rutland Drive/Duchy Road being in Army occupation with an old tank in its then adjacent field. Harrogate Ladies’ College was vacated and the school moved to Swinton Castle for the duration of the war. The school building became the Ministry of Muni-tions. The Old Swan was part of the Air Ministry, the Grand the Empire Pilots’ Receiving School. The Cairn Hotel was taken by the Post Office, along with the St George and Southlands, also on Ripon Road.

Articleby Richard Thomas

14 Duchy interview

Articleby Rosemary Johnston

The stories that dream themselves up an interview with Michael Murpurgo

Photograph by Charlotte Graham

Following on from Margaret’s success in interviewing Ar-naldur Indridason, one of the biggest names in Nordic Noir, when I saw that Michael Morpurgo was coming to the Harrogate History Festival to receive the Outstand-ing Contribution to Historical Fiction Award, I decided that securing an interview with the greatest living children’s author would be my autumn challenge. So I set about ha-ranguing Ann from Cause UK, and I put my children for-ward as the bait which would snare our prey.Eventually we got the go ahead in an email from Ann and if you saw me skipping along Rutland Road one afternoon a few weeks ago, that is why. I rushed in to school to tell the children the amazing news. They were decidedly non plussed, as if it was a daily occurrence for their mother to arrange for them to interview world famous authors.Elation turned quickly to panic: why oh why had I decided to pursue an interview with Michael Morpurgo because now we were going to have to interview Michael Morpur-go, the author of more than one hundred books, of which I have read only a handful.The next day the children had a discussion with their classmates at Brackenfield School and came up with a list of questions and on a Thursday evening in late October we followed in that unlikely trail blazed by Margaret, up the stairs to the Green Room in the Swan Hotel.Michael came into the room with his wife, Clare, and his publicist who waited in the corner. I introduced myself and said that we wanted to conduct the interview on behalf of The Vixen, our community magazine, but that the children had brought some general questions on behalf of their school and as my daughter’s class are reading War Horse some questions about that book, too.A hush descended on the room as we began our work.

Abby asked Michael Morpurgo where his love of writing comes from. He said that for this he needed to consider his earliest influences: his mother. She was an actress and she enjoyed reading poetry to him, as they lay to-gether on the bed.“She taught us what fun stories are,” said Michael “and they made us thoughtful. We came to appreciate the mu-

sic in words.”

Abby then asked how long it takes him to write a book. He said that it can take anything from one month to twenty five years but on average about three months but this did not include research time and the time that the stories need to dream themselves up.

Conversely, Rory wanted to know if Morpurgo takes a break between writing books. He replied that he does, that he needs to take a deep breath and recharge his batteries. I think my son was imagining an appealing working pattern: three months of productivity followed by nine months off!

Morpurgo went on then to talk about his experience of school. He said he had been very lazy and had no confi-dence. In addition to this his teachers had made him fright-ened and there had been punishments involving rulers and standing in corners, so he worried a lot about getting things wrong.

Abby asked him to tell us about a favourite childhood mem-ory. He spoke of his closeness to his mum and dad and the lovely beach holidays they had in Normandy. He recol-lected the loveliness of French soup and also chocolate eclairs. “This was just after World War Two. You children have no idea about the things we had to do without and so those chocolate eclairs, well, they were heaven.”He explained that he often writes about animals because they had been the centre of his and his wife’s lives. He said when he was a child he had dogs but his experience of pets could often be tragic because the dogs kept running off. And he spoke of his sadness at the death of his beloved

15


goldfish “Swimsy”. The name made us smile.

As we talked, I began to feel as if the table we sat at was not a table, but a loom which I and the children were work-ing and that Morpurgo’s words were the tale we were weaving together, and this interview a story that we had dreamed up.

Rory asked if he plans his story of if he just makes it up as he goes along. “A bit of both,” he replied. He said that to write a story you first need a landscape and then you put some people in it. “You can let your story tell itself. If you stick to the plan your story can become predictable.” He stopped then and asked Rory “Do you know what predict-able means?” “No,” said Rory.“Well, your story would become like an arrow pointing in a direction. If the ending is a surprise to you, it can also be a surprise to your reader.”

We then spoke about the sad parts of his books. Some-times I cannot read parts of them because I am in tears and I have increasingly come to rely on Abby, in a strange role reversal, to finish reading his books to me. It can be confusing for children to read books which we teach them are a thing of joy, to then present them with some incredi-bly sad stories. Rory wanted to know if The Butterfly Lion is a sad story or a happy story. Morpurgo replied that it is a bit of both. He said that some people dwell on the sad parts of stories but you can bring your own imagination to it.

That brought us to War Horse which has been made into a film and a West End play. Abby asked why Topthorn dies in the middle of the story. He replied “As a writer you don’t make things happen.” He explained that the horse, Joey, needed a friend, which was Topthorn. He wanted the book to have a happy ending as even in war there are happy endings but at the same time it was important to know that many horses died in World War One and that many of them died of exhaustion.

Abby then asked where Michael Morpurgo was when he first saw the picture of the war horse mentioned at the start of the book.Morpurgo replied “You think that’s true, do you? You think there is a picture of a horse there in the village hall in Id-dlesleigh?” He went onto explain that there had been no picture but after fifty Canadians descended on the village looking for the picture, the villagers decided they should put one up.

The room then began to fill up with authors who were about to attend the awards ceremony and at some point Mark Lawson entered the room but they stood to one side in deference to us. That did make us feel important!There was just time for me to ask one of my own ques-

tions. Are there any conflicts that Morpurgo would not feel able to write about? “There is safety in the distance of his-tory,“ he replied. “If you write about current conflicts, you run the risk of political controversy.”

The next morning I attended his talk at the Swan Hotel. He started by saying that everything he writes has some his-torical truth to it. He wanted to pass on what he has come to love and what he is angry about. He said some people like to do that by talking and others by writing. “The stories tell how we feel much better than writing the truth,” he said. His talk bounded between one story and the next, from Henry Tandy, the most decorated soldier of WW1, to the sinking of the Lusitania and back to War Horse. He said that stories can help you work things out, that you can take history and make something of it. He finished up by telling us that when he was a teacher he was instructed to read to the class on Friday afternoons. The children were always bored. So he decided to write a story of his own and read that to them. He said he was delighted to discover that he had the children in the palm of his hands. As he did with us, the audience, at the Swan hotel. And what a wonder-ful privilege it had been for me and the children to spend some time in discussion with this extraordinary man. Long may his stories continue to dream themselves up for our enjoyment.

Many thanks to Harrogate International Festivals and their PR support, Cause UK, and in particular Ann, for helping to arrange the interview.

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16


DeadlineThe deadline for the March issue is 5th February

Join us carol

singing on the Duchy

A group of enthusiastic amateurs will go carol singing around the Duchy. We invite you all to join us. You don’t need to be religious and you don’t have to be a good singer. This is another com-munity event being organised by The Vixen.We will meet at the corner of Duchy Road and Hereford Road on

Sunday 13th December 6pm

And we expect to be out singing for around one hour. Words will be pro-vided.Please bring a torch and good cheer.If anyone does give us any money, we will donate it to the St Wilfrid’s church restoration fund.

If you’d like to join us, do come along on the night or get in touch with us [email protected]

Artwork by Penny Rowe, self taught artist whose journey can be followed at http://peneloperowe.blogspot.co.uk

cardale the duchy vixentheduchyvixen.com/duchyvixen10web.pdf · december 2015 issue 10 the duchy...

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