NEWS that Yorkshire has been named as one of Europe’s finest tourist destinations will come as no surprise to Yorkshire folk. Instinctively we know we’ve got the finest countryside and folk who live here consider their home patch to be more of a nation than a mere county. Not for nothing is it known as God’s Own Country.

As I hail from the North York Moors, I consider that region, with its magnificent coast, to be head and shoulders above the others, with the Dales and Wolds equal second. It’s not only the landscape that appeals, it’s the history too and only this week I read that Yorkshire has more ruined abbeys than any other comparable region. It’s a pity they are ruined.

As I compile these notes in early September, the moors and fells are at their best with their regal coating of splendid purple ling. The North York Moors boasts the largest area of open heather in England. I’m sure Dalesfolk and those who live on the Wolds echo similar praises of their own bit of Yorkshire.

We can add wildlife, charming villages, attractive towns, a wonderful coastline, magnificent country houses and some splendid village inns. Another bonus from high points, especially the North York Moors, are the boundless views due to a distinct lack of trees. Those views can be appreciated from umpteen vantage points in all the key upland areas.

There’s an almost 360-degrees panorama from Young Ralph’s Cross above Castleton, with breathtaking scenes of Whitby and the North Sea from the top of Blue Bank near Sleights.

Views from the fells of upper Swaledale and Wensleydale are magnificent whilst some of the minor roads of the Wolds offer stunning vistas, not forgetting the sea views along the entire Yorkshire coastline. You can even see into Lancashire in places.

I was brought up in Glaisdale, described by Arthur Mee as cut off from the rest of the world, and it is not surprising that some Yorkshire townspeople refer to us as moorjocks. It’s true – once we seldom left those moors. Moorjocks is a nickname for black-faced sheep and I suppose we settled into our moorland life just as those sheep were hefted (or heeafed – pronounced hee-afted) on the same moors. Heeafed or hefted means they don’t permanently leave their patch of moorland even if it has no fences, although they might sample delights in your unprotected garden – but they will return to their heft.

Leaving those moors to work or even take a holiday was something I never experienced as a child. I remember one fellow from our village going off to Canada to seek a new life. Wondering whether he had gone by aircraft or ship, I asked a neighbour, “How did Stan go?” His answer was “Over that hill” as he pointed to the lofty moors. That’s when I discovered other worlds over that hill.

Apropos those other worlds, another hill-farmer whose wife died was persuaded to take a holiday in Switzerland.

His family made all the arrangements and off he went, his very first holiday apart from going to Stokesley Show and having a day at Northallerton cattle mart. After a couple of days, his daughter rang him at his hotel.

“Are the meals all right, dad?”

“Aye,” he grunted. “Except they don’t give you a spoon to eat your gravy.”

“So what are the views like from your room?”

“They’d be all right if it wasn’t for all these mountains,”

he replied.

In another instance, a typical moorjock farmer who lived by himself and who had never slept away from home, was persuaded by his sister to spend a couple of weeks with her. The snag was she lived in the south of England. He agreed and, as he lived some distance from the station, a friend offered to drive him to Grosmont where the trains connected with York and beyond.

When the pal arrived to collect him, our hero was waiting without a suitcase.

“Where’s your suitcase?”

asked the friend.

“I don’t need one, I’m only going for couple of weeks,”

was his reply.

Our view of life was necessarily coloured by the remoteness of the moors so it is not surprising that outsiders regarded us as rustic.

When I was a young policeman in Whitby, I was chatting to the 16-year old daughter of a fishing boat owner. She asked where I came from, and I answered, “Glaisdale.”

“That’s where they jump on you from behind hedges,”

she shuddered.

I had great difficulty explaining that such tales were not true but discovered that none of her family, all fisher-folk from Whitby, had ever been out of that town, except by boat. With Yorkshire’s new status in Europe, those ideas might change.

Or they might not!

DRIVING along a rural lane near the edge of the North York Moors, I noticed a pair of small birds on the carriageway just ahead.

I expected them to fly off and one did so and settled on a dry-stone wall but the other remained. I halted and went to look at it. Sadly, it was dead, having apparently been struck by a vehicle.

The carcase was rigid, indicating it had been dead for some time.

Doing my best to be practical, I lifted the tiny carcase off the road and placed it on the neat grass verge where nature would eventually deal with the remains. But as I drove off, the other bird returned and stood guard near what I guessed had been its mate.

These were yellowhammers and it is not easy to distinguish the male from the female, but these members of the bunting family are regular sights in rural areas where their famous song “alittle- bit-of-bread-and-nocheese”

is familiar. They are fairly gregarious and in winter can be noticed among flocks of other buntings and finches.

As I prepared to leave the scene of that little tragedy, with one bird standing guard over its dead companion, I wondered whether wild creatures can experience emotions of the kind usually associated with humans.

Was that small bird mourning the loss of a dear one? As it resumed its vigil I saw its head was tilted to one side. It appeared to be willing its friend to respond, but it didn’t. I drove away unaware of the end of this rustic drama.

This is not the only time I witnessed such behaviour.

Another occasion was upon the same stretch of road near Byland Abbey. A hen pheasant had been killed and was lying in the road.

She was guarded by a splendid and handsome cock pheasant which did not want to move away. As with the yellowhammers, I halted the car and the pheasant then took off with a clatter of wings and a cackle, landing in a nearby field.

Sadly, the remains of the hen were too damaged to remove from the road surface and so I left them and prepared to drive on. As I was moving away the cock pheasant returned to stand beside his dead companion in the middle of the road.