Tag Archives: yorkshire

A morning at the Rhubarb Festival – better late than never !

Sorry for the delay this post, but as they say ‘better late than never’.

The small ‘foody’ market was in the centre of Wakefield, just outside the Cathedral and was packed with visitors and most importantly for the sellers, the visitors were carrying lots of bags.  But, not only were there stalls packed with all kinds of gastronomical delights there were cookery demonstrations in a brilliant marquee.  They included rhubarb scones with Dean Rogers of The Devere Oulton Hall, Ashley McCarthy of Ye Old Sun Inn, Heather Copley of Farmer Copley’s, students of Wakefield College and many more.

My first stall at the busy market was Sean Wilson of the Saddleworth Cheese Co.  We had bought Sean’s cheese before from Blacker Hall,  a local farm shop.  My son and daughter visited there one January morning with my daughter boyfriend and two cheeses stood out above the rest,  ‘How’s your father’ and ‘Mouth Almighty’, both cheese names having a link to recent events in our family and if I told you, I think you may be shocked, stunned or just laugh, well, maybe one day I will. But needless to say we laughed and cried over one of the names and came up with some amusing answers to ‘How was your father’?

So Sean’s cheeses were the first of my purchases and yes, again I bought those two particular types.  I was asked if I wanted a sample but said, ‘no thanks, know them well’.

Thanks Sean, ‘How’s your father’ is a winner in this household.

My main aim of the day was now over and I could see what was on offer.  A compulsive purchase, but one that I have not regretted buying was a small book, well, booklet entitled ‘Walks in the Rhubarb Triangle’ by Richard Bell.  Well, I have not been on the walks yet but have certainly made some of the recipes on more than one occasion – I even bought out the local supermarket of Golden Syrup and oats.  I did keep the rhubarb very local though – East Ardsley!  So, the book, it is packed with easy to follow short walks backed up with snippets of history and easy follow maps.  As I said I bought one, then thought better of it and made that 2 – one being for the local family history group.

Oldroyd & Sons had a big stall selling fresh produce including rhubarb goodies including plants for you to grow on in your own gardens.

Two other stall I visited and bought goodies from were Mr Huda’s where I bought a universal curry paste and Raman’s, buying a beetroot relish.  Both stalls had very helpful staff and were only too pleased to speak to their visitors.  The relish, I was told,  goes well with turkey, pepper dusted steak, mashed spuds and venison  – yummy!

Venison sausages were next on the agenda, very rich and very nice, but my apologies to the stall holder – I cooked the sausages, ate them and forgot to make a  note of his stalls name , but do remember where the farm is – sorry but the sausage were beautiful.

My last purchase was 2 pork pies, but not ordinary ‘growlers’ these were pork, mango and rhubarb, well I think they had rhubarb in, but even so, warmed up and served with a hot cup of ‘builders tea’ they went down a real treat.

My last stall was Farmer Copley’s, a farm shop near Pontefract, I didn’t buy anything, I was very good but was given a discount voucher to use when I paid the farm shop a visit – which I did later and may I hasten to add will be doing so again and again even if its just for the frozen croissants and pain au chocolat.

You can see from my purchases I didn’t stop at the cake stalls, as they say ‘why have a dog and bark yourself’ – I bake, so why buy it!  But there were cake stalls providing the visitors with an array of tempting delights.  I also noticed a couple of stalls selling rape seed oil and one stall full of blue and white Polish pottery.

So, where can you find out about these stalls and what else they sell and do ?

Sean Wilson’s Saddleworth Cheese Co., and his wonderfully named cheeses

Walks in the Rhubarb Triangle and other publications by Richard Bell

Round Green Farm for venison sausages and much more

Raman’s  relishes – winners of Hairy Bikers best cooking family

Mr Huda’s pastes and a selection of recipies and I am pleased to say the only place in Wakefield that this can be bought is in my village  – well done R N Binks and Sons,  butchers and very nice people.

Chantry Chapel, Wakefield – new events

Apart from the Chantry Chapel being one of the venues for the Wakefield Art Walk, which is held on the last Wednesday of alternate months from 5am – 9pm, the Chantry Chapel is a very busy ‘little treasure’.

In March, Kate Taylor, historian, writer and font of knowledge on  subjects including Wakefield and the Chantry Chapel, will be giving a series of FREE talks in the Chantry.

14 March The origins and growth of the Diocese
21 March Reorganisation, reordering and redundant Churches
28 March The changing role and status of women
Tea and Coffee are available and Donations to the Friends fund for maintaining the Chantry Chapel are always welcomed.

The month of May sees another series of FREE talks given by Kate

Mondays 14, 21 and 28 May 10.30am

A course of three talks on the History of the Diocese of Wakefield

In between all this there are a series of Open Days  – 25 April, 30 May, 29 August, 11 September from 11am – 3pm.  Interspersed with a Flower Festival and Cake Stall on July 9th from 10am – 4pm.

Local slang

A little ditty about ‘Bob’

If y’ur Bob dosn’t gi’ our Bob th’t Bob th’t your Bob owes our Bob, our Bob is gunna gi’ y’ur Bob a bob on’t  nose !!!!

Now you know perfectly well what that means, don’t you ?

If your Robert does not give our Robert that shilling that he owes him, our Robert will hit your Robert on the nose !!!       –        simple isn’t it!

No matter where you live  or what your social standing there are words that are associated used and only those from the locale or social circle will know.  But you will find the exception to the rule, as you always do as many of the words and sayings are known nationwide.  For example :- Gaffer or Gaffa, Boss ;  Gear, clothes ; Doff, take your cap off ; Poor Show, went badly and so on.

The Slang page of Wakefield Family History Sharing can be found here



Blue Plaques

How many of us walk from A to B in the shortest route and in the quickest time. Iin every day life, probably nearly all of us. We only tend to mooch, look around and take our time when we are on holiday or a day out.

Next time you are in your village, town or city look around and look up, you will be surprised what you will notice that went totally undiscovered before.

How many bars, restaurant and shops do we only know from street level – look up, you may learn what the building was orignally used for.  Wakefield for example, has a street known as Westgate.  In modern times most popular for its ‘Westgate Run’.  Westgate, a long street, one of the main entries and exits of the town had a very large number of public houses, the ‘run’ was to have a drink in each of the pubs.  The ‘run’ has now changed slightly as the pubs have now been superseded by bars.

If you looked up while walking down Westgate you would see that the majority of the buildings, grand buildings, were at one time banks.  These banks were needed in previous centuries due to the amount of money that was changing hands in the area, either from the great cattle market held only a couple of minutes walk away or the number of merchants that were in the area who did their business in the old cloth hall.

Look around, you never know what you might find – images of Wakefield’s Blue Plaques can be found here

A list of the Blue Plaques with a short description of where the plaque can be found – click here

Lots of other towns have their Blue Plaques on the internet for example :-

English Heritage Blue Plaques – mainly London and the surrounding areas
Oxfordshire Blue Plaques
Tameside Blue Plaques
Canterbury Blue Plaques
Windsor Blue Plaques
Birmingham Blue Plaques

Why not look around the place where you live ?

Who Are You ?

Who are You ? How many times have you looked at a photograph and asked that question ? From my experience I can say 100’s if not 1,000’s.

I’m not a betting person but I will guarantee that you will have gathered, inherited or bought photographs of people, not always related but you have wondered…. Who Are You?

Donald Curtis, probably taken in Africa – the Curtis family new the Riach people from Urquhart and Lhanbryde, Moray.

My mum for instance, she served in the ATS during WW2, being posted to Nottingham and Burntisland just across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh.  During her time in the ATS she collected lots of photographs of young men and women all serving their King & Country.  These wonderful pictures showing happy times during an unhappy period in our history are not only part of my family history but are important socially aswell.

These photographs, all in wonderful black and white, either have no information or simply ‘love Willie’ or ‘regards Joan’. But, who is Willie and who is Joan – mum knew who they were, where the photo was taken and when, so why would she bother to write names, places and dates on her ‘memory’ photograph?

So, what to do with all these photographs of her time in the ATS, her youth in the Urquhart area of Morayshire and her work as a housekeeper to Miss Kynoch in Fochabers, plus photographs of a friends son who was now married, had a son and lived somewhere in Africa, possibly South Africa.

A Gallery, a big gallery, that was the idea, with images scanned and questions posed on each picture.  Then I was given access to a local historians collection of photographs –  two very large shoe boxes to be precise, full of thick cards and some of the backs, beautifully decorated, were more interesting that the actual photograph on the front.  Some of these photographs had names and dates on the reverse.  The photographers studios were worldwide.

How to gather all these photographs in one place that seemed to make sense and make it easy for visitors to search and peruse.  I decided to divide in to areas i.e. Bradford, Leeds, Canada, Morayshire etc.

To view this collection of Who Are You’s visit WhoAreYou and enjoy !