SHORTLY before compiling this week’s notes, I was chatting to a visitor from Northamptonshire. He had never been to the North York Moors but had spent some time in the higher Dales near Hawes and Skipton. As we chatted I realised he thought the North York Moors were part of the Yorkshire Dales and he was quite surprised to find they were miles away with a splendid coastline and lots of historic interest. I tried to persuade him to venture into the Moors and across to the coast but do not know whether he took my advice.

I explained that the moors are at their best in the autumn with their regal coating of splendid purple ling but there is much to enjoy at other times of the year. I told him that the Moors are the largest area of open heather in England, truly wonderful even in the minds of the folk who live and work there.

To that claim, we can add the Moors’ history, wild life and small but charming dales, while another bonus consists of boundless views from higher ground, usually due to a lack of trees. Those views can be appreciated from several vantage points.

For example, there is an almost 360-degree 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. A similar wide view is obtained from Ampleforth Beacon, where it is possible to see Fylingdales Early Warning Station to the east, and by turning to face the other way, one can see the domes of Menwith Hill above Harrogate. It is a combined view of some 70 miles. And, of course, the finest view in all England can be enjoyed from Sutton Bank Top, near Thirsk.

I was brought up in Glaisdale, described in Arthur Mee’s King’s England series as a village cut off from the rest of the world by the moors and it is not surprising that townspeople referred to us as moorjocks. In my childhood, people seldom left those moors, remaining there to earn their living and rear their families in gorgeous but lonely surroundings.

I think moorjocks was used as a derogative term but it is a nickname for black-faced sheep. It could be said we were 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 where they were born even if it has no fences; they always return, although in the meantime, they might sample the delights of your unprotected flower gardens or lawns.

Leaving those moors to work elsewhere, even to take a holiday, was something few of us experienced in our youthful years.

But adventurous youngsters did leave for pastures new. I remember a lad from our village going 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. Maybe that’s when I discovered there were other worlds over that hill.

Apropos those other worlds, another hill-farmer whose wife had died was persuaded by his family to take a holiday in Switzerland. They 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. But he agreed and, as he lived some distance from the station, a friend offered to drive him to Grosmont where the trains then connected with York and beyond.

When the pal arrived to collect him, our hero was waiting but he had no 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 within those moors was necessarily coloured by their remoteness so it is not surprising that outsiders regarded us as rustic or even retarded. 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 I did discover that none of her family, all fisher-folk from Whitby, had ever been out of that town, except by boat.

Nature's carpenters

During those sunny warm days around Easter, my wife and I became enchanted by our garden birds as they went about the annual chore of finding a partner, then building nests. From our conservatory we have a panoramic view and it seems many species have become quite accustomed to our domestic routine and will take food very close to our kitchen windows.

Blue tits have been very busy, for example, and have been making good use of our feeders. Some years ago I placed a couple of blue tit-sized nest boxes on the north wall of our garage (that site is to prevent the chicks getting baked in sunshine from the south and west) but only one box has ever been colonised.

Every year, a pair of blue tits have made their home in that particular one, clearing out the debris from the previous year and rattling their beaks upon the woodwork to dislodge any unwanted mites that may be lingering. There are times I have cleaned out the boxes, but the tits prefer to do the job themselves and, of course, I have no means of locating tiny mites that might be living there.

As I compile these notes, blue tits are again examining that box as a potential home but ignoring the other one nearby. The entrance to the latter has now been widened by some unknown woodworker which has chewed the edges of the hole to enlarge it. I thought of all kinds of visitors ranging from grey squirrels to rats via woodpeckers and nuthatches but concluded the carpenters may have been the wasps who nested there last year. They built a wonderful paper nest which extended inside and outside the nest box and, of course, they collect and chew wood to make a paste from which they build their masterpiece – and they were good neighbours. They never troubled us even as the fruit ripened.