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WEST YORKSHIRE DID YOU KNOW?

The Royal Connection

This was proving a little bit difficult, finding a royal connection to West Yorkshire. My father lived in Leeds for 3 years and once shook hands with Queen Elizabeth II, although not while either of them were in West Yorkshire. When we did live in Leeds I remember going to the bottom of our road and waving at a black car which drove past. I know royalty was in the car but I now can't remember whether it was Queen Elizabeth II or Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Then I had a stroke of luck. Michael Middleton, father to the Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge, was born in Leeds in 1949. That's a connection, I thought. He was born, so my research said, on June 23rd which makes him less than a month older than me. He grew up, it said, in Moortown.

Then I had another thought. How long was he in Leeds for and where did he go to school because I moved to Leeds for 3 years in 1956 and lived less than 3 miles from Moortown. We were the same age. In the same town, maybe I have a royal connection. Sadly my trail ran dry and we may never know unless Mr Middleton reads this and decides to let me know. It's sometimes quite amazing to trace your history and discover who you MIGHT have met.

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West Yorkshire Eats

Here I consider myself a bit of an expert. My paternal grandmother, that means my father's mother, was born in York and brought up in York. Her father was a choir master at York Minster and my grandmother was born in Minster Gate. With that background I am sure she knew how to serve Yorkshire Puddings.

For those of you that don't know, Yorkshire Puddings are made from a batter of eggs, flour and milk or, if you haven't got milk, water. My grandmother's father was an upholsterer and I guess the family were not that wealthy, especially as she was one of ten children. Yes, ten. When she married, her husband was also one of ten. My father had rather a lot of aunts and uncles.

Yorkshire puddings were originally served as a first course, brought out before the main dish, and were a way to fill you up with cheap food so you did not eat so much of the expensive meat. That is exactly how we had them when we used to go to Sunday lunch with my grandmother. I remember it well. 3 or 4 little Yorkshire puddings served on a large dinner plate with a jug of gravy. Once you had eaten them, the plates would be taken to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with the main Sunday lunch. It used to be great fun pouring the gravy into the middle and seeing how long it took to drain through until you got told off for taking too long with the gravy.

When you cooked the puddings you used the juice, fat, from the joint you were roasting and this made the traditional northern Yorkshire puddings quite crispy and was probably why gravy was needed to soften the pudding. Certainly I remember grandmother's Yorkshires being fairly crispy. Nowadays people tend to have their Yorkshire puddings with the main meal.

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West Yorkshire VIPs

Seven random people who were born in West Yorkshire in the last 100 years:-
Harold Wilson (Politician and Prime Minister), Sue Ryder (Charity Worker), Ed Sheeran (Singer/Musician), Nicola Adams (Athlete/Double Olympic Gold Medallist), Chris Moyles (Radio Presenter), Gabby Logan (TV Presenter) and Alan Bennett (Actor/Author/Playright).

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Richard Remembers

Although West Yorkshire has no coastline it does have memories for me as I lived in Leeds for 3 years between 1956 and 1959. It was while there we bought our first television, I saw my first reservoir (it was at the side of the road we lived on), I went to Ilkley Moor wthout a hat and met a TV celebrity. None of you would know him but ask your parents, or more likely your grandparents, who was Eddie Waring? His son and I went to the same school for a year and he came and picked his son up one day and his car was surrounded by boys asking for his autograph. He was, at that stage, far better known in Yorkshire and I had just arrived from London so I really had no idea who he was.

For two years I attended Leeds Grammar school, junior branch, which, if memory serves was in Claredon Road. On my second coastal trip I went back to Leeds to find my school and discovered both it and the senior school which we walked to each day for lunch, had been moved miles away. Bit of a shock.

Weather in that part of England in winter is cold. One afternoon, when we were due to play rugby, there was several feet of snow. We still went to the playing fields and were divided into teams and had a snowball fight having first built a protective snow-wall.

I aslo remember another weather related incident. Despite being only 8 I had to get home on my own each day. This involved a walk of about a mile and then a 3 mile bus ride on a normal bus, not a special school bus. The walk involved going across an open space called Woodhouse Moor, shown in the picture.

One day, I think in November, it was very foggy when we left school. The first part of my walk was along a pavement and I could see a few yards in front of me but when I reached Woodhouse Moor I genuinely could not see more than a foot in front of me. There were no landmarks and I had to pick my direction from memory. I walked very slowly, had several close encounters with trees but eventually, more by luck than skill, came out on Woodhouse Lane where I would catch my bus to Ancaster Road. When the bus arrived the bus conductor, yes we had those, was walking in front of the bus with a lamp as the driver couldn't see anything. The journey, normally about 40 minutes, took me nearly two hours and with no mobile phones I couldn't let my mother know.

Just looked this all up on a map and it turns out I could have continued along Clarendon Road, I got that right, and still reached Woodhouse Lane but I would not have made friends with so many trees. In this modern world, neither the snowball fight nor the foggy walk home would have been allowed. We were brought up to be tough, especially in Yorkshire.

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Owlbut's Birdwatch

The magpie is not only quite a common bird but it is also very distinctive. It is mainly black and white with a little bit of blue and green. You can notice this more if you can see one close-up. Their leg colour is black while the beak is of medium length and powerful and chunky. They are omnivores, which means they will eat almost anything, and scavengers, which means they will look for their food almost anywhere as well.

They are about 45 cms in length, have a wingspan between 52 and 60 cms and weigh between 200 and 250 grams. There are nearly a million birds in England. They can be found in woodland, farmland, grassland and in the country and in towns; in fact almost anywhere. There are a lot of superstitions about magpies. It is said you should always greet a magpie by saying "hello" or something similar. This is to avoid bad luck or to have good luck. My son used to say "aye, aye captain", if he saw a lone magpie. I've no idea why.

There is also a nursery rhymen about magpies depending on how many you see at one time. The rhyme goes, One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy, Five for silver, Six for gold, Seven for a secret never to be told. Eight for a wish, Nine for a kiss, Ten for a bird you must not miss.

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Two extra sections, "It Happened Here" and "Now That's Weird", will appear on 16 June 2025