Ilkley has been first for many things, when farsighted residents realised there was more to, to quote a 19th Century doctor, “a mucky little hole with a beck running down the middle.” I wonder how many playing the NYMBY remember the Secondary school on Valley Drive? Or thought of residents beside the former Wells House campus and the estate built thereon. Many fought against it but had to put up with it. Also those developments in Ilkley over the past thirty years. Often with families who needed schooling.
When Scalebor Park Hospital (near Burley in Wharfedale) closed, it left an ideal site for a large school. Complete with sports fields, theatre/assembly hall, gymnasium, craft rooms and many things a thriving school required. The present Grammar School is coming, if not already, to bursting point. Leeds built a superb new grammar school in a rural setting which does much to complement the area. Why not Ilkley?
Why not a grammar school to compliment the 21st Century? There is room on the proposed site for playing fields with transport nearby. Hopefully too a school canteen of such proportion students will not fill nearby shops. A less constrained building would go a long way to opening young minds to the world around.
Instead of NIMBY perchance Ilkley Grammar School – The Gateway to Knowledge and The Dales.
Having a 101 year old Carnegie Public Library in Ilkley would have helped the above, were it not for the governing District Council prefering frivolity and not fact.
But as things are going the Library like the school is much too small for modern requisits. There is, on Brook Street, the ideal building for a new library. With plenty of space for books, InterNet, offices, reading rooms and, dare I suggest a small cinema too. The former Woolworths store. Must the people of Ilkley wait till their present Library turns to dust or will their prayers to whatever God be answered?
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Monday, 11 May 2009
TOURISM & TOURIST BROCHURES
Part 3
Darwin Gardens Millennium Green is the name given to re-vamped West View Park. An Edwardian park layed out in approximately 1904. It is not a new landscaped area. The Millennium Green commemorates Darwin’s stay in Ilkley while taking Ilkley's waters in 1859. Whether by good luck or management ‘On Origin of Species by Natural Selection’ not ‘Origin of the Species’ was published during his stay. I will put the pre-history on how West View Park became Project Darwin later to be Darwin Gardens Millennium Green on line at a later date.
For too long the council and residents have seen fit to shorten the name of Riverside War Memorial Gardens to Riverside Gardens. Apart from what is already written there is little else to add. The Fylfot (Swastika) Stone is on a rock outcrop, not a boulder, on the edge of Ilkley Moor slightly to the west of Hebers Ghyll. There is plenty of room on the leaflet to tell visitors where Hebers Ghyll lies. Personally I prefer not to use terms like ‘thought to be’ when dealing with historical artefacts of unknown use.
We are going for melt down again! As with the term ‘thought to be’ there is another which makes me cringe, ‘suggested.’ Often writers of tourist brochures take these terms to be fact and continue the myth without research. If we don’t know for sure what their intended use was, we should not ‘suggest’ one. At least not without clarification of where the ‘suggestion’ came from.
A typical example of these vague remarks which eventually became an Urban Myth is in a volume about Victorian Ilkley. The author states, “...it seems he eventually decided to give the narrow strip of land to the town....” Could the author not use a telephone? A short call to Bradford Council legal department would have told him the strip of land, Mill Ghyll, is on a 999 year lease. To Ilkley Local Board of Health and/or their descendants
The writer cannot definitely state all Cup and Ring Stones on Ilkley Moor are associated with Bronze age burials. Even eminent archæologists haven’t a clue what they were carved for. It’s like the Victorians stating the plunge baths at White Wells were of Roman origin, when in fact they were built somewhere between the late 1600s to mid 1700s. That is the nearest anyone can come to the date as no exact records exist today.
Where is all this leading, you ask? Very simple, to promote something one must be truthful about it’s content. No longer can visitors be fobbed off with ‘romantic’ notions about the town. Those who visit spend money in some cases a great deal of money. Our traders, shopkeepers, restraunt or hotel owners want them to do this regularly. What they don’t want, as with the American visitors, is people coming to find something is buried under tons of soil, ‘romantic’ visions from another era and once again, badly researched information.
I won’t embarrass those who put the tourist brochure together by naming them. Let this be a warning to any who decide to write another. It is the solemn duty of all who write Tourist Information to tell your prospective visitors the truth. Anything less and you are doing a great dis-service to the area you are writing about. Also to future generations who are stuck with Urban Myths brought about by poor research.
Darwin Gardens Millennium Green is the name given to re-vamped West View Park. An Edwardian park layed out in approximately 1904. It is not a new landscaped area. The Millennium Green commemorates Darwin’s stay in Ilkley while taking Ilkley's waters in 1859. Whether by good luck or management ‘On Origin of Species by Natural Selection’ not ‘Origin of the Species’ was published during his stay. I will put the pre-history on how West View Park became Project Darwin later to be Darwin Gardens Millennium Green on line at a later date.
For too long the council and residents have seen fit to shorten the name of Riverside War Memorial Gardens to Riverside Gardens. Apart from what is already written there is little else to add. The Fylfot (Swastika) Stone is on a rock outcrop, not a boulder, on the edge of Ilkley Moor slightly to the west of Hebers Ghyll. There is plenty of room on the leaflet to tell visitors where Hebers Ghyll lies. Personally I prefer not to use terms like ‘thought to be’ when dealing with historical artefacts of unknown use.
We are going for melt down again! As with the term ‘thought to be’ there is another which makes me cringe, ‘suggested.’ Often writers of tourist brochures take these terms to be fact and continue the myth without research. If we don’t know for sure what their intended use was, we should not ‘suggest’ one. At least not without clarification of where the ‘suggestion’ came from.
A typical example of these vague remarks which eventually became an Urban Myth is in a volume about Victorian Ilkley. The author states, “...it seems he eventually decided to give the narrow strip of land to the town....” Could the author not use a telephone? A short call to Bradford Council legal department would have told him the strip of land, Mill Ghyll, is on a 999 year lease. To Ilkley Local Board of Health and/or their descendants
The writer cannot definitely state all Cup and Ring Stones on Ilkley Moor are associated with Bronze age burials. Even eminent archæologists haven’t a clue what they were carved for. It’s like the Victorians stating the plunge baths at White Wells were of Roman origin, when in fact they were built somewhere between the late 1600s to mid 1700s. That is the nearest anyone can come to the date as no exact records exist today.
Where is all this leading, you ask? Very simple, to promote something one must be truthful about it’s content. No longer can visitors be fobbed off with ‘romantic’ notions about the town. Those who visit spend money in some cases a great deal of money. Our traders, shopkeepers, restraunt or hotel owners want them to do this regularly. What they don’t want, as with the American visitors, is people coming to find something is buried under tons of soil, ‘romantic’ visions from another era and once again, badly researched information.
I won’t embarrass those who put the tourist brochure together by naming them. Let this be a warning to any who decide to write another. It is the solemn duty of all who write Tourist Information to tell your prospective visitors the truth. Anything less and you are doing a great dis-service to the area you are writing about. Also to future generations who are stuck with Urban Myths brought about by poor research.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Pick up Thy Scythe and Walk to the Hills
How many feeling the Moor to be the property of Ilkley, realise it is covered with National Monuments, the property of all. Are we looking in the wrong direction for bracken control? Certain Parish Councillors may remember my suggestion to hold scything competitions or festivals on the Moor. Much like ploughing matches on lowland areas. Marie Hartley and Joan Ingleby in their book Life and Traditions in the Yorkshire Dales show bracken being cut and harvested with scythe and fell pony.
In 1940 bracken was used for bedding and manuring. Bradford are forever telling us to compost so what’s stopping us composting bracken today? The end product to be used on Ilkley’s parks and gardens. This be could a way of controlling the weed while saving the dying rural art of upland or hill scything? Also bringing revenue from competitors, visitors and the media. Last time it was brought up various excuses against were given. Insurance or Health & Safety for instance. I do believe there is something called a disclaimer. Cost was another. How many quibbled at the cost of Parties in the Park, various festivals and the like. Lets have some lateral thinking for a change.
I can think of a few other harebrained ideas which changed the Dales landscape and not often for the better. velocipede, horseless carriages, heavier than air machines, to name three. Which would you prefer? The drumming of helicopter blades & weedkiller, or the gentle swish of scythe blades preserving a rural art, tradition and ideal. I believe it was Voltaire who quoted, “Men argue, Nature acts.” A member of the Countryside Team commented that it would take 28 years to eradicate bracken by this method. That’s 28 years of scything festivals and all the revenue, visitors etc., which goes with it. If Devon and Lancashire can do it then why can’t Yorkshire?
In 1940 bracken was used for bedding and manuring. Bradford are forever telling us to compost so what’s stopping us composting bracken today? The end product to be used on Ilkley’s parks and gardens. This be could a way of controlling the weed while saving the dying rural art of upland or hill scything? Also bringing revenue from competitors, visitors and the media. Last time it was brought up various excuses against were given. Insurance or Health & Safety for instance. I do believe there is something called a disclaimer. Cost was another. How many quibbled at the cost of Parties in the Park, various festivals and the like. Lets have some lateral thinking for a change.
I can think of a few other harebrained ideas which changed the Dales landscape and not often for the better. velocipede, horseless carriages, heavier than air machines, to name three. Which would you prefer? The drumming of helicopter blades & weedkiller, or the gentle swish of scythe blades preserving a rural art, tradition and ideal. I believe it was Voltaire who quoted, “Men argue, Nature acts.” A member of the Countryside Team commented that it would take 28 years to eradicate bracken by this method. That’s 28 years of scything festivals and all the revenue, visitors etc., which goes with it. If Devon and Lancashire can do it then why can’t Yorkshire?
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Memories of Latter Days
WHAT'S BECOME OF ILKLEY
The other day I walked a street,
Mid leafy boughs and soft hoof beat,
Where moorland breezes cooled the air,
And parasols, hid maidens, fair.
There in the distance
Fading from sight,
A man led his donkeys
Home for the night.
Those sun dappled pavements
Are silent no more.
No donkeys, horse carriages,
Just a motorised roar!
The parasols gone
Fair maids, one by one,
Their children and grandchildren
Don't care anymore.
No longer the village
I knew as a child,
Just a place where the architect
And planner goes wild.
Imor
The other day I walked a street,
Mid leafy boughs and soft hoof beat,
Where moorland breezes cooled the air,
And parasols, hid maidens, fair.
There in the distance
Fading from sight,
A man led his donkeys
Home for the night.
Those sun dappled pavements
Are silent no more.
No donkeys, horse carriages,
Just a motorised roar!
The parasols gone
Fair maids, one by one,
Their children and grandchildren
Don't care anymore.
No longer the village
I knew as a child,
Just a place where the architect
And planner goes wild.
Imor
Friday, 20 February 2009
Chicken or Beef Kurma
1 packet of "LAZAT ADABI" kurma powder.
600g (2 pounds) chicken or beef.
2 medium-sized red onions.
1 or 2 bulbs of garlic.
Some ginger (maybe about a thumblength).
1 can coconut milk
I added this since it should be listed here as an ingredient.
3 potatoes; quartered.
Oil for sauteeing.
Salt to taste.
Directions: 1. Slice onions, garlic and ginger. Heat a little oil and then sauteuntil fragrant (or until the ingredients are a bit wilted from the heat).
2. Mix kurma powder with water until it reaches batter consistency. Pourinto the pan with the sauteed ingredients.
3. Occasionally stir the mixture until fragrant, or until you see the oilrise to the top of the gravy (around 8-10 minutes).
4. Add chicken or beef, and a little water if needed. The base should bea little soupy.
5. Cover and let it cook on medium heat until chicken or beef is halfdone.
6. Add the coconut milk, potatoes and cover until the meat and potatoesare done.
7. Salt according to taste.
8. Serve. The last part is the list of spices in the mix:Coriander, cumin & anise seed (the two types of "jintan" hence the doubleusage of the word), star anise, white pepper, clove, rice flour andcardamoms.
NB: Kurma is usualy served with rice, and it's not spicy (as in chillihot) and it is one of the dishes that Malay children are able to eat,before they are introduced to spicier dishes. Anyway, this is a prettybasic but solid recipe for kurma. Usually every Malay family has theirown take on the recipe, som handed down for generations.
P/S: Translation of wsome of the words: Garam is salt, while biji is the_________; "lada putih" is white pepper. *lol* you are right, it hasnothing to do with the automobile... I hope you get to enjoy the kurma recipe, and please let me know how it turns out.
600g (2 pounds) chicken or beef.
2 medium-sized red onions.
1 or 2 bulbs of garlic.
Some ginger (maybe about a thumblength).
1 can coconut milk
I added this since it should be listed here as an ingredient.
3 potatoes; quartered.
Oil for sauteeing.
Salt to taste.
Directions: 1. Slice onions, garlic and ginger. Heat a little oil and then sauteuntil fragrant (or until the ingredients are a bit wilted from the heat).
2. Mix kurma powder with water until it reaches batter consistency. Pourinto the pan with the sauteed ingredients.
3. Occasionally stir the mixture until fragrant, or until you see the oilrise to the top of the gravy (around 8-10 minutes).
4. Add chicken or beef, and a little water if needed. The base should bea little soupy.
5. Cover and let it cook on medium heat until chicken or beef is halfdone.
6. Add the coconut milk, potatoes and cover until the meat and potatoesare done.
7. Salt according to taste.
8. Serve. The last part is the list of spices in the mix:Coriander, cumin & anise seed (the two types of "jintan" hence the doubleusage of the word), star anise, white pepper, clove, rice flour andcardamoms.
NB: Kurma is usualy served with rice, and it's not spicy (as in chillihot) and it is one of the dishes that Malay children are able to eat,before they are introduced to spicier dishes. Anyway, this is a prettybasic but solid recipe for kurma. Usually every Malay family has theirown take on the recipe, som handed down for generations.
P/S: Translation of wsome of the words: Garam is salt, while biji is the_________; "lada putih" is white pepper. *lol* you are right, it hasnothing to do with the automobile... I hope you get to enjoy the kurma recipe, and please let me know how it turns out.
The Ten Demandments
How to deal with awkward officials!
First written by a retired
Whitehall Civil Servant to help those in dire need.
1. Write two letters saying precisely the opposite things and post them on the same day.
2. Ask for an official complaints form and, a copy of the complaints procedure. Write on your envelope, ‘sent by recorded delivery’.
3. Add an extra letter or figure to the reference you are asked to quote on your replies.
4. Send ‘one’ page of an obviously ‘two’ page letter, or ‘two’ of a ‘three’!
5. Enclose a P.O/cheque for a small amount -5p or 10p, when no one has asked for it, or enclose an invoice for £467,943 or similar with your letter and write ‘must be paid in seven days’ on it.
6. Make reference to a letter you never wrote.
7. Make reference to a letter they never wrote.
8. Add a postscript to your letter saying you have sent a copy to Mr Algenon Stutter-Harvey, in Brussels or Strasbourg. There doesn’t have to be a Mr Algenon Stutter-Harvey, or similar high sounding name. A close study of the initials will show how the writer feels! Used carefully, a secret message can be passed on without the recipient realising. M.A.S.H!
9. Ask the Administrator for his name, age and official description. Then ask for the name of his superior. In seconds, you can turn the most obnoxious, ‘just doing my job’ git, into shivering jelly!
10. If all the above fails, take a one way ticket to your MP’s office in Westminster, state your case, then ask for a sub to buy a ticket home.
The above must only be used either as a last resort, or after the writer has corresponded with the Department for a minimum of three letters. If writing to a Government Minister, make sure you send ‘identical’ letters to the other Parties, on the same day. If your intended ‘target’ fails to reply before an opposition member, write again and point this out, asking for a reply by return post. Keep all letters on paper neatly filed for quick reference.
DON’T FORGET
Always complement when matters are redressed.
Remember, writing good letters is not an art, but a science.
First written by a retired
Whitehall Civil Servant to help those in dire need.
1. Write two letters saying precisely the opposite things and post them on the same day.
2. Ask for an official complaints form and, a copy of the complaints procedure. Write on your envelope, ‘sent by recorded delivery’.
3. Add an extra letter or figure to the reference you are asked to quote on your replies.
4. Send ‘one’ page of an obviously ‘two’ page letter, or ‘two’ of a ‘three’!
5. Enclose a P.O/cheque for a small amount -5p or 10p, when no one has asked for it, or enclose an invoice for £467,943 or similar with your letter and write ‘must be paid in seven days’ on it.
6. Make reference to a letter you never wrote.
7. Make reference to a letter they never wrote.
8. Add a postscript to your letter saying you have sent a copy to Mr Algenon Stutter-Harvey, in Brussels or Strasbourg. There doesn’t have to be a Mr Algenon Stutter-Harvey, or similar high sounding name. A close study of the initials will show how the writer feels! Used carefully, a secret message can be passed on without the recipient realising. M.A.S.H!
9. Ask the Administrator for his name, age and official description. Then ask for the name of his superior. In seconds, you can turn the most obnoxious, ‘just doing my job’ git, into shivering jelly!
10. If all the above fails, take a one way ticket to your MP’s office in Westminster, state your case, then ask for a sub to buy a ticket home.
The above must only be used either as a last resort, or after the writer has corresponded with the Department for a minimum of three letters. If writing to a Government Minister, make sure you send ‘identical’ letters to the other Parties, on the same day. If your intended ‘target’ fails to reply before an opposition member, write again and point this out, asking for a reply by return post. Keep all letters on paper neatly filed for quick reference.
DON’T FORGET
Always complement when matters are redressed.
Remember, writing good letters is not an art, but a science.
Friday, 13 February 2009
How Green was Your Valley
Perhaps Concerned of Ilkley and those who see the felling of trees on Ilkley Moor as scandalous should think about conditions in Australia. There is strong opinion bush fires would not have been as bad if environmentalists had allowed clearance of dead wood, bracken, etc.
Phil Cheney, a bushfire researcher, said he was ‘totally frustrated’ by his Government’s failure to reduce forest density. A resident of Strathewen, ravaged by bush fires, said the Greenies issued a statement that nought had to be touched. That is none removal of dead wood because a little mouse might be living under it. Now both people and the mouse are dead.
Travelling the Yorkshire Dales and other rural areas it soon becomes evident our Countryside is being ruined by mis-informed factions who can’t see the wood for trees. Hedges were planted in the main to keep stock in and/or people out. A well-laid hedge also provides much needed cover for nesting birds, insects and smaller animals. Leaving a hedge to grow open and as book environmentalists are apt to say, natural, defeats the object of a hedge.
It is also open to pest, disease and rampaging peasants. There are many examples close at hand where the book environmentalists have held sway. The woods over by Middleton are arboreal scrap yards. I warned Ilkley Parish Council and Bradford Metropolitan District Council what would happen if they didn’t clear felled timber. Fifteen years ago I warned them.
However they took the book environmentalists attitude and what have we now. Erosion like you’ve never seen before in the bluebell beds. Erosion which should never have happened, if those supposedly in power had listened to people trained in woodcraft and the like. Sometimes folk interpret what they see as a hedge, when in fact it is not, which leads to all kinds of mis-information.
The same goes for the Victorian Landscape Garden some are apt to call the lower reaches of Ilkley Moor. When Man disturbs Nature all hell breaks loose unless a degree of careful management takes place. Look at The Tarn for instance. Look closely. Look at it’s banks, look at the carriageways, look at the footpaths which lead to it. What are natural about those? One could say what indeed is natural.
There’s been talk of late about putting fences on common land. No-one opposed the fence Bradford Metropolitan District Council put up near Henshaw’s Pond. They nearly fenced the whole off. Crazy when one thinks what it was built for in the first. Nor did anyone oppose the fence Leeds Diocese put up on common land, in front of the four hundred year old way marker at the junction of Langbar Road, Slates Lane and Hardings Lane, beside Bridlepath 1. Why did those in the know fail to squawk about that one too? Were they more afraid of mammon than God? Pedants like principals only work if everyone understands them.
The countryside section fenced areas on the moor to stop sheep amongst other things from chewing newly planted trees. I do remember the same section planting an area of land near Cowper Cross with heathers. Heathers I may add which were not native to The Moor. Then there’s those trees planted along the edge of the moor by the former Darwin Gardens Trust.
They are as much out of place as those spreading across The Moor and will, eventually, block any view of White Wells from below, or the Millennium Green from White Wells. In the year celebrating Charles Darwin’s birth and publishing of his monumental book one does wonder what he, a botanist and scientist, would think of Ilkley Moor and neighbouring countryside today. Equally the attitude to the environment by those so-called experts, the book environmentalists.
Phil Cheney, a bushfire researcher, said he was ‘totally frustrated’ by his Government’s failure to reduce forest density. A resident of Strathewen, ravaged by bush fires, said the Greenies issued a statement that nought had to be touched. That is none removal of dead wood because a little mouse might be living under it. Now both people and the mouse are dead.
Travelling the Yorkshire Dales and other rural areas it soon becomes evident our Countryside is being ruined by mis-informed factions who can’t see the wood for trees. Hedges were planted in the main to keep stock in and/or people out. A well-laid hedge also provides much needed cover for nesting birds, insects and smaller animals. Leaving a hedge to grow open and as book environmentalists are apt to say, natural, defeats the object of a hedge.
It is also open to pest, disease and rampaging peasants. There are many examples close at hand where the book environmentalists have held sway. The woods over by Middleton are arboreal scrap yards. I warned Ilkley Parish Council and Bradford Metropolitan District Council what would happen if they didn’t clear felled timber. Fifteen years ago I warned them.
However they took the book environmentalists attitude and what have we now. Erosion like you’ve never seen before in the bluebell beds. Erosion which should never have happened, if those supposedly in power had listened to people trained in woodcraft and the like. Sometimes folk interpret what they see as a hedge, when in fact it is not, which leads to all kinds of mis-information.
The same goes for the Victorian Landscape Garden some are apt to call the lower reaches of Ilkley Moor. When Man disturbs Nature all hell breaks loose unless a degree of careful management takes place. Look at The Tarn for instance. Look closely. Look at it’s banks, look at the carriageways, look at the footpaths which lead to it. What are natural about those? One could say what indeed is natural.
There’s been talk of late about putting fences on common land. No-one opposed the fence Bradford Metropolitan District Council put up near Henshaw’s Pond. They nearly fenced the whole off. Crazy when one thinks what it was built for in the first. Nor did anyone oppose the fence Leeds Diocese put up on common land, in front of the four hundred year old way marker at the junction of Langbar Road, Slates Lane and Hardings Lane, beside Bridlepath 1. Why did those in the know fail to squawk about that one too? Were they more afraid of mammon than God? Pedants like principals only work if everyone understands them.
The countryside section fenced areas on the moor to stop sheep amongst other things from chewing newly planted trees. I do remember the same section planting an area of land near Cowper Cross with heathers. Heathers I may add which were not native to The Moor. Then there’s those trees planted along the edge of the moor by the former Darwin Gardens Trust.
They are as much out of place as those spreading across The Moor and will, eventually, block any view of White Wells from below, or the Millennium Green from White Wells. In the year celebrating Charles Darwin’s birth and publishing of his monumental book one does wonder what he, a botanist and scientist, would think of Ilkley Moor and neighbouring countryside today. Equally the attitude to the environment by those so-called experts, the book environmentalists.
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