11:10am Friday 2nd January 2009
AT THE beginning of each New Year, I look back upon those topics aired in this column that have prompted a response from our readers.
It has long been a feature of this weekly budget that its readers play an active part in keeping the subject-matter alive and interesting with their queries and comments.
Without that kind of input, it would be difficult to compile such a diverse article every week and, as I begin my 33rd year in the driving seat, I thank all who have contacted me in person, or by telephone, post and email.
Always of interest in the countryside of this spectacular region of England are the features that adorn our landscape. During the past year, we have discussed the network of ancient footpaths that criss-cross our quieter areas. Many have disappeared through lack of use, but remnants do survive in the form of trods or causeys, whose sandstone paviours are worn thin by the passage of feet through many centuries.
It was a Northallerton correspondent who raised the subject when it was announced in this paper that the Yorkshire Dales National Park was to restore those trods within its area of responsibility. My correspondent suggested it was odd to find a word like trod appearing as a newspaper headline because it is a dialect word meaning a footway or foothpath.
One of my Yorkshire dialect dictionaries adds that the word trod means a beaten track, a road, a footpath, a course or a path, possibly without paviours. It seems that the overall meaning is that the path in question was used by foot passengers rather than horses.
When used by both horses and foot passengers, the term is a causey and this suggests that stone paviours generally form the solid base of the track although not in every case.
While trods might appear in the more remote areas, it seems causeys are often found at both sides of a road. Many were used by panniermen and their teams of ponies long before the road was formally surfaced.
Causeys in the Whitby area were destroyed by roadmen in 1927, while several in the Guisborough area were obliterated as long ago as the 1860s. It seems the terms trod and causey are to some extent interchangeable because several named trods exist within the North York Moors and many have distinctive names, eg Bridle Trod, Foot Trod, Pannierman’s Trod and so forth. I thank my original correspondent for raising this interesting topic.
Other features of the landscape that were featured included the White Horse of Kilburn, the Angel of the North, Freeborough Hill and the 750th anniversary events surrounding the Grey Friar’s Tower and priory in Richmond.
As we might expect, the behaviour and various aspects of our wildlife have made interesting reading.
Two readers told me about curiously coloured moles, one being a lovely light golden colour and the other a creamy white. In both cases, each of the finders were countrymen with a long experience of catching moles and neither had encountered moles with such pale fur.
Rather oddly, both were found on high ground above Ampleforth in Ryedale. They were on neighbouring farms, although discovered some nine months apart.
Although moles other than velvety black are not common, they do occur with colours varying between apricot, creamy-white, pale grey and even pie-bald. It is said that, because they do not encounter predators underground, some specimens might develop these rather startling coats. I have put the two finders in touch with one another.
There was a flurry of interest in the presence of cuckoos, especially as one or more were heard in and around the Hawnby-Osmotherley area. In recent years, cuckoos appear to have dwindled alarmingly in numbers throughout the country with some readers not hearing a single call in the springtime, even in areas where these birds were once plentiful.
For several readers of this paper to hear this distinctive call at around the same time within the same area of our moorland was therefore worthy of record. Although cuckoos are not among the most welcome of visitors because they destroy the eggs and nestlings of other birds, it would be a sad to record their total disappearance.
They are wonderful heralds of springtime in England.
More readers contacted me about grey squirrels making strange squawking sounds that could be mistaken for birds fighting. We never produced a positive explanation for that behaviour.
Another reader provided a firsthand account of a male great spotted woodpecker feeding his three chicks from a bird table while a wonderful art exhibition relating to birds was held in Hawes. It featured the work of many artists working in different media – everything from poetry to sculpture via painting, but all had been inspired by a bird’s nest that had appeared in a besom. Sadly, I was unable to attend.
There was an enjoyable interchange of correspondence about the meaning of the words mussey bield although we did not produce the origins of the name Sugar Hill that is used by several high points in the region. And it was lovely to record that Margaret Cave came out of retirement after years of sharing this page with me – following a reader’s request, she was able to provide the starter recipe for the famous Herman, otherwise known as the Friendship Cake.
IT is inevitable that on this second day of the New Year we wonder what lies in ahead during the coming months and this is especially relevant due to the world’s current financial climate.
None of us, not even the so-called experts, really knows what lies ahead either in the world of finance or in other matters and I would doubt whether any of our traditional New Year good luck rituals would help to improve anything.
One piece of advice is simply to wait and see what happens, and then to cope with whatever arises.
New Year’s Day is especially rich with customs designed to bring us good fortune throughout the coming months, but that day has come and gone.
It is no good looking back because it is now the responsibility of each of us to deal with our own daily needs as and when they arise.
Undue worry will not help and might even complicate matters.
So if we cannot forecast our own futures, can we forecast our long term weather? Certainly January attracts a lot of weather lore, most of it suggesting that “a summerish January brings a winterish spring.”
There is ample lore to suggest that a warm January is bad news, eg, “If you see grass in January lock your grain in your granary” or “If January calends be summerly gay, it will be wintery weather till the calends of May.”
Similar sayings can be found across Europe and so these traditional beliefs are not restricted to Britain.
One simple belief is that a warm January means a cold May, and lots of country people believe that the first three days of January dictate the weather during the next three months. So far as January 2 is concerned, the lore tells that whatever the weather on this day, the same will apply throughout September.
Looking slightly ahead, the Swedes believe that the weather on the ninth day of Christmas heralds that which will appear throughout the coming September, while on the 12th day of Christmas (January 6) the days begin to lengthen by a cock’s stride (whatever length that is!). In other words, the weather a long time ahead is about as certain as the long term future of the financial climate.
Not surprisingly, there is a saying that sums up both – January commits the fault and May bears the blame.
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