Child from Home

by John Wright

  Steaming on past the wooden platforms of the tiny, outlying, substations of Ormesby and Nunthorpe, we caught a glimpse of Ormesby Hall surrounded by its fine parkland. Mam remarked to a lady who had got into our carriage that it was here, on a fine day just over two years back, that Neville Chamberlain had addressed the assembled crowds seven weeks after becoming Prime Minister. The Hall had been the home of the Pennyman family for 400 years and Colonel Pennyman’s grandfather had helped to raise the money to build Holy Trinity Church in the market square in nearby North Ormesby. ‘That’s the church which your Gran got married in,’ Mam said, as she pointed it out in passing.

  As we stopped to pick up a few passengers at Great Ayton, Mam said, ‘The old village is about a mile away and it was here that Captain Cook’s family used to live. It’s only five years since his parents’ cottage was sold, taken apart stone by stone and shipped out to Melbourne in Australia. You’ll no doubt learn all about him when you start school.’ From here the train gradually climbed onto the lower slopes of the Cleveland Hills and we caught a glimpse of a towering, stone obelisk silhouetted starkly against the clear sky. It stood on the crest of a high hill on nearby Easby Moor, and Mam said, ‘It was erected in honour of Captain Cook, the famous explorer.’

  The train halted for a few minutes at Battersby Junction where we could see a row of tiny railway cottages, each one with a pigsty behind it. As we clattered onwards and upwards towards the high moors, we gazed out on a patchwork of pale-gold, stubble-covered fields, thornhedged green meadows and isolated farmsteads.

  As Mam dandled George on her knee, Eric blurted out, ‘I’m not coming to the new nursery school with you, like.’ It seems that arrangements had been made to billet him in a nearby village and, taken aback by the news, I sat thinking about it. I gazed wistfully out of the window as we gradually climbed towards the higher moorlands. Lush shoulderhigh fronds of green bracken, some of it just turning brown, caught my attention as it formed a mosaic on the sheep-cropped, grassy slopes. We then beheld the fawns and browns of sere, bent grasses; the russet of reeds and the yellow of gorse that clad the airy heights of the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors.

  It was a glorious day and sweet, heady scents of sun-warmed heather and gorse wafted in through the partly open window. We, still with our young child’s capacity for wonder, were awe-struck and entranced by the vast openness of it all. Journeys are always exciting to young children and I was loving this one. We climbed steadily up to broad uplands where great clumps of sunlit purple heather stretched away as far as the eye could see. I gazed out on a vista of purple hills and the vivid, green hues of stream and river valleys. I was enthralled and exhilarated by the wide, limitless expanse of these treeless uplands, as this was my first experience of such hazy and gloriously melting distances. It was so different to the urban world we were used to and I had never realised that such wild and lovely countryside existed. Sparkling, crystal-clear streams rushed and tumbled down beneath a wide, unclouded Indian summer sky; it was the start of a lifelong love affair with nature.

  George, nestling up close to Mam’s soft and rounded Mother Earth figure, was lulled to sleep in the warmth and comfort of her lap as she sang a gentle lullaby, the words of which went something like, ‘Golden slumbers kiss your eyes. Smiles awake you when you rise. Sleep my darling one, gently sleep and I will sing a Lullaby.’ One or two of the younger children, who had been woken much earlier than usual that morning, also nodded off, lulled by her quiet singing. The soporific rocking of the carriage, and the rhythmic, clackety-clack sounds of the train as it rolled over the jointed rails, added to the languorous atmosphere, but I sat there wide-eyed with childish wonder. I was not at all apprehensive about leaving home, as I knew that our mother was going to be with us.

  By the hamlet of Kildale, the track ran close to the meandering course of the upper Leven as we rattled along through Commondale Moor. Occasionally the train stopped at tiny rural halts to let the odd passenger off and we saw greyish-white, greasy-fleeced Swaledale wethers scattered far and wide across the moors. At first I thought they were boulders, until they moved. Most of the hardy curly-horned sheep continued their endless chewing, unperturbed by our train as it thundered by on that fine, sunny autumn day. Their continual grazing had given the grassy areas the look of neatly mown lawns and they seemed to be making a better job of it than any lawnmower could.

  The train steamed on by sleepy moorland farmsteads and narrow winding lanes before we passed close to the relatively large village of Castleton and on to Danby station. On the hilltop we could see a number of tall, steel-framed towers, unaware that they were top-secret radio transmitting stations. From the train I could see the steep earthen banks of the meandering upper reaches of the River Esk, as it wended its way down to Whitby. From here the track ran on embankments and passed over small stone road bridges on its way to the tiny, quaintly named hamlet of Howlsike. High above to the south, we could see the beautiful purple heights of Danby Moor.

  Descending slightly, we passed the patchwork fields of Fryup Dale before halting briefly at the little station at Lealholm Bridge. A network of dry-stone walls dipped and arched following the contours of the land. In the damp, boggy areas the grass was tussocky with clumps of brown rushes and the stones were moss-covered. Black-faced, white-muzzled Swaledale ewes scattered, running stiffly on grey-mottled legs as our train clattered by before it crossed a five-arched stone viaduct. Close by stood humpbacked Beggars Bridge with its old weatherworn stones and Mam told us that we were close to the picturesque moorland village of Glaisdale. Smugglers and wandering traders had used these old moorland tracks for hundreds of years, carrying their wares in pannier bags slung over the backs of their patiently plodding packhorses. The tracks are paved with sandstone slabs in parts, and are called trods or pannier ways, and these ancient tracks cross many miles of high wild moorland that lead to and from the old bridge. The low parapets were designed to lean outwards so as to allow for their wide bulky packs.

  At Grosmont station, which was to feature in the television series Heartbeat many years later, Mam lifted us out onto the platform with our luggage. A black-clad porter, after shouting, ‘All change for Pickering’, brought George’s pushchair to us from the guard’s van. As we waited, an elderly lady said, ‘I’m goin’ to Pickering an’ all. D’yer mind if I travel with yer?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Mam replied. Boarding the train, we slowly huffed and puffed over the level crossing, passing the old Station Tavern and, as we passed St Matthew’s Church, the lady said, ‘That were built by the local ironmasters and mine owners, and this railway were once a lifeline to all the little villages along it.’ The line now ran close to the course of the Murk Esk and beside it we saw abandoned sidings, ventilation shafts and cottages.

  We climbed up through a lovely wooded area towards Beck Hole, and below us, through the canopies of the alders that clung to its steep banks, I caught sight of a pretty, stone-walled, humpback bridge and a shady beck with tumbling waterfalls that glinted in the sunlight. The lady told us that in the early days of the line, there had been a steep incline near here. There was a fatal accident on it in 1864 when the rope snapped and the coaches raced back down the incline killing two people and injuring many others. Plans were drawn up to prevent it happening again, and the four-mile stretch of line to Goathland that we were now on was laid in 1865. The old incline was on the other side of Eller Beck.

  I was discovering so many new and exciting things; it seemed to me like a magical journey through an enchanted land. Passing on again by the pretty village of Goathland, the steam train headed south into Goathland Dale and the wild and narrow gorge of the Eller Beck. Many years later, Goathland was to become known as Aidensfield in the popular TV series Heartbeat and it was called Hogsmeade in the Harry Potter film, The Philosopher’s Stone. On the open moors we saw several hurdles before the line began the long drag up from the Raindale area to Fen Bog, where I was spellbound by the stunning views and refreshe
d by the purity of the moorland air.

  Beside the single-track line the sun glinted off the clear purling waters of the lovely Pickering Beck. The word beck comes from the Norse ‘bekk’, meaning a stream, and in these parts a small waterfall is called a ‘foss’. A little further on, to the east, lay the huge natural amphitheatre called the Hole of Horcum. The line skirted this strange but natural phenomenon that was a quarter of a mile across and 400 feet deep. Mam told us about the legend of the Hole. Some call it ‘The Devil’s Punchbowl’ and local legend has it that Wade, an angry Anglo-Saxon giant, was having a row with his wife Bell. He scooped out a handful of earth to throw at her and left this deep depression. Having missed her, the resulting heap of soil formed the high hill called Blakey Topping a mile or so further east. Some say it was the devil himself who dug out the great hollow. The deep grooves near the bottom looked to me like gigantic fingermarks. Round here nature was wild and untamed, and perched high up on the eastern flank of the marshy hollow Mam pointed out the old Saltergate Inn, saying, ‘The Devil was once trapped in its kitchen and a peat fire was lit to keep him in and it has been kept alight ever since.’

  My imagination ran riot and I prayed that the fire would never go out. In reality, the ‘Hole’ had been formed by the power of glacial melt-waters and collapsed springs following the last ice age. Above it masses of blooming heather turned the rolling moorland purple with tall sere grasses and reed clumps standing out in fawn and umber. I glimpsed isolated stone cottages and farmhouses and the beauty and serenity of it all took my breath away.

  After skirting the high bluff of Pickering Moor the train began a long gradual descent. In places the steep sides of beautiful Newtondale rose up to about 450 feet; in the old days the trains had rolled down here under their own gravitational pull. The slopes of the deep and lonely gorge were clothed in lovely trees and shrubs, and Mam said, ‘I’ve never seen such glorious autumn tints.’ The beauty of this remote eleven-mile-long stretch made a powerful impression on my young mind. I was seeing Mother Nature in her natural state, and her clean vibrant colours and leafy grandeur contrasted so sharply with the grime of our mucky old town.

  Steaming onwards we passed close to a flat area on the eastern side of the line where a derelict, partly overgrown track bed led off to mounds of fallen stone. The area was gradually being colonised by grass and weeds. An old dried-up reservoir overlooked the former mine workings and ruined stone buildings. There was an air of neglect and melancholy about the place and bits of rotten wood swung back and forth on creaking, rusty hinges. The ugly scars were sad reminders showing where the bowels of the earth had been ripped open and turned out in the frantic search for iron ore; the ore on which my hometown’s very existence had once depended. Close by, an old fifty-foot stone chimney that had once been an air shaft for the underground workings still dominated the skyline. It was to be demolished for safety reasons some twenty-one years later and the stones and rubble were used to fill in the 300-foot-deep pit shaft.

  High above on the cliffs stood a dark, derelict, square tower, which seemed to teeter on the very brink of the precipice. The elderly lady said, ‘Yon ruin is Skelton Tower. It’s all that’s left of an old shooting lodge that once ’ad stables on its ground floor.’ It had been built for an allegedly dissolute reverend gentleman of that name.

  The train began to slow by a tall white signal post at the point where the single line became a double track, and we passed over a narrow level crossing by a wooden coal storage hut. We rumbled over a wide wooden-gated level crossing that stood close to a tall, brick-built signal box with blast-taped windows. Just past the ticket office, we pulled in alongside the neat and tidy stone platform of a little station called Levisham Halt. On the platform were a couple of paraffin lamps mounted on cast-iron posts that had been freshly painted in cream and maroon.

  A few people got off and, as the red-and-white arm of the signal went up, we continued on our journey. Crossing over the points, the double line became single track again for the next six miles and the train rattled southwards on a flat, straight stretch bordered by the tree-covered slopes of Blansby Park. Here the valley widened out and the track had several bends. We could lean out of the window and see the steam and smoke-shrouded engine and, in the other direction, the guard’s van. High above stood the curtain walls of Pickering Castle.

  Pickering Beck was always in sight and we finally rumbled over it and into Pickering station where a wooden newspaper and magazine kiosk stood at the end of a long platform. The walls and doorways were piled high with sandbags that almost reached the glass roof. The great black engine gave out a long echoing hoot as, with an agonised squeal of brakes – amid billowing clouds of steam – it slowly clinked and clanked to a halt. To a staccato clattering of carriage doors, we climbed down onto the platform to be met at the W.H. Smith bookstall by Miss Florence Thorne, the auburn-haired, middle-aged matron of the new nursery school, who had travelled down from Middlesbrough a week or so before to get things organised.

  We followed her slim figure out of the station, through a wrought-iron gate to a single-decked motor coach where the driver loaded our cases and we set off. My friend Eric was on the seat behind me as we travelled through a couple of villages and turned north up to Cropton. After passing the New Inn, the road forked to either side of a large chestnut tree with a low wooden seat encircling the wide girth of its gnarled trunk. Miss Thorne said to Mam, ‘The local gentry and landowners used to assemble here for the Sinnington foxhunt, a regular event before the war.’

  Bearing left onto the Rosedale road, we travelled down Cropton Bank, with a grassy mound on our right that was once the site of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle. Heading north, we passed through a pleasant river valley lined with sunlit meadows and hedges; we drove up the narrow country road for another four miles, passing the inn at Hartoft End on our right. Beautiful spruce and pine-clad slopes rose up on our right-hand side before we pulled in at the large inn on the square in the village of Rosedale Abbey. Small groups of people were waiting as Miss Thorne, the other mothers and a few of the children got off. I was quite upset to see that my pal Eric was one of them. However, young children adapt quite quickly and I soon got over it.

  We went back the way we had come before turning left at a wooden gate; this led onto a narrow stony road and passed between the tall sentry-like conifers whose tangy aroma scented the air. At the side of the tree-shaded track – that led up to a large stone farmstead called Spiers House – small brightly coloured birds darted about. We climbed ever upwards through the hushed beauty and solitude of the forest until the coach turned right by the big farmhouse that stood in an open area of wide grassy meadows.

  Climbing up from a gurgling runnel the track passed between hundreds of densely packed green giants. Tiny black and brown birds flitted in and out and Miss Thorne said, ‘Those shy little birds that you see there are coal tits.’

  Halfway down, a short track led eastwards to the rear of Sutherland Lodge, which was owned by the Stancliffes. A short gravelled drive, big enough for a car to turn round on, ran along the back of the house that had no formal gardens as such. There was just the odd grassy area to the south and east, otherwise it was hemmed in on all sides by the vastness of the forest.

  On our arrival, the driver carried our luggage through an old nail-studded oaken door and left it in the passageway. From here a narrow servant’s staircase led straight upwards and a door on the left opened into a large kitchen. We were warmly welcomed and shown round by the deputy matron Miss Rosemary Waters, a tall young woman with short, fair wavy hair that was parted in the middle. Mam was shown around the huge old-fashioned kitchen at the eastern end of the house where there was a large well-scrubbed wooden table in the middle of its stone floor. A Welsh dresser stood against the back wall and a wide stone fireplace and chimneybreast occupied most of the gable end. In front of it was a range of fire irons and an old wooden rocking chair stood to one side.

  ‘’Ere, I�
�ll ’elp thee with thy baggage,’ said an elderly, bow-legged man and Mam left to go off with him. He was wearing a soft, checked flat cap; a waistcoat; riding breeches and leather gaiters, and we learned that he was called Spaven. He carried Mam’s luggage along an earthen path to her lodgings and she told us later that the trees had a tangy smell similar to carbolic soap. Between them she caught glimpses of lovely wooded hills stretching away into the distance. She was to lodge in an old stone farmworker’s cottage, called Keldy Cottage, which stood in a forest clearing about a mile away. Her cosy bedroom lay directly beneath the red pantiles of its steeply sloping roof and she said the view from her dormer window was magnificent. Spaven, who took care of Mrs Stancliffe’s horses, lived with his daughter and her husband in a large stone house at the far side of the meadow to the east of Sutherland Lodge. It had been the estate gamekeeper’s house at the turn of the century. In time, we learned that Spaven was a little too fond of visiting the local hostelries, and he sometimes arrived back a bit tipsy after sampling the potent ale available at the New Inn at Cropton. We would see him reeling around like the top of a spruce tree in a gale. He was a smallish man of medium build and it was said that he thought more of his beloved horses than he did of people. He was convinced that they were plagued by witches saying, ‘T’osses ’ave bin found first thing in t’morning agitated and lathered in sweat after bein’ ’ag-ridden durin’ t’neet.’ As a preventative measure he hung small stones that had a natural hole through them above each of the stalls. These were known locally as hagstones.

  Mam was kept very busy in the kitchen, but on most days she would stay with us for a while when her work was done. We were taken to her cottage on her off-duty days, and this helped us to adapt more readily to the sudden changes in our life, but in the early days we cried a lot when she was obliged to leave us.