Margaret Heseltine's Shop.

Gunnerside.

Next door to the pub in a harsh grey-stone village in the Yorkshire Dales, a little lad wearing homemade shorts, wellies and a knitted tank-top stood at the top of the steps and sang as loud as he could, both for the sheer joy of it and the benefit of the whole world; “She’ll be cummin round the mountains when she cooms.” 

Earlier that day he had found a rusty bicycle in the the beck. It had wheels but no saddle or chain and it was far too big for him, so he pushed it all round the village to show off his new transport. He leaned the bike against the wall of the King's Head and span the pedals while singing "Yipee-i-aye, Yippee-i-o. Ghost Riders in the sky".  

With his friend Micky, he spent a happy hour scraping chewing gum off the road and chewing it, like a big boy. Micky came from a big family that was mostly composed of girls. One laundry day he had been playing with his sisters and was working the handle of a mangle to squeeze the water out of the freshly washed sheets and found his thumb caught between the two rollers. To young Jimmy, the pink nail-less stump was a fascination to behold.

Village sports on Coronation day.

Jimmy had his own misadventures too. The winter of 1950-51 brought heavy snowfall with drifts that would fill in the entire road to the tops of the drystone walls. Kathleen held her sleeping infant on her lap while the Percival’s bus ploughed it’s way up the Dale from Richmond. Somewhere near Reeth they crashed into something solid and the passengers were thrown out of their seats. Young Jimmy’s head hit the frame of the seat in front resulting in a “bump like an egg” and a cut to his chin that had to be stitched leaving a scar that I still have to this day. When the snow thawed, another bus was found parked against the side of a house. 

Jimmy and a playmate.

Times were hard for everyone so we didn't see each other as poor. All the mums made clothes for themselves and the children and we wore them until they fell apart or passed them on to younger siblings. Knitted clothes could be unravelled and knitted again. As for food, there was milk, farm made cheeses and home reared pork. Everyone kept hens for their eggs and meat.

My Uncle John was an all-round poacher who kept a .22 rifle at our house and a ferret at my Gran's. My Dad and John would hunt rabbits up Gunnerside Ghyll above the house where he was born and brought up with my mother. I was taken along while Gran and mum peeled vegetables and shelled peas. They were absolutely confident that we would come home with rabbits, and so we always did. The hillsides moved with rabbits and we would not take long to get a few that I would carry home in triumph for Gran to "ploat". I remember looking for the bullets in the porcelain sink.

Post-war Gunnerside was a place full of aunties. Those formidable, white haired ladies were the backbone of the chapel and much else that went on in the village. A visit to an auntie's home always lasted for a couple of hours while tea was served from a big china teapot and wonderful home-made biscuits, scones and cakes were laid out in a proper dales "spread".  Swaledale biscuits were a variation on Scottish shortbread while ginger snaps were nothing like the bought product; crisp on the outside but still chewy in the middle. 

At hay-time you could see all of the aunties out in the fields, skilfully tossing hay with pitchforks and wooden rakes. On Mondays, Nancy Calvert would clatter about on the stone flags in her clogs, mopping and scrubbing as water slopped out of wash-day dolly tubs and boiling cauldrons. Washing was hung out all over the village if the weather was kind. 

Gunnerside today.

In those days, the village had a number of businesses including a carpenters, a blacksmith's, a pub, a post office, a grocery store and Margaret Heseltine’s shop.

At the shop, there was a metallic clack as you lifted the iron sneck, then came the friendly clang of a brass bell that was suspended on a spring at the back of the door.  Children opened and shut the door repeatedly just to hear that bell. Adults had to duck under the lintel and step downwards in the gloom to stand on the flagstone floor.  As if by magic, up would pop Margaret herself, like a spector of some sort; thickly bespectacled and haloed in white hair, wearing a wrap-around apron, metal shod clogs, stout stockings and a big smile. 

“Now then young Jimmy. How would you like a toffee today?” 

Every child was offered a sweet. War-time rationing was just ending and there was a national binge on sweets and chocolate. All the same, there was still rationing of a sort and no-one ever dared try for two free sweets in the same day.

In front of the counter was a row of square biscuit tins with lids. There was no plastic back then; a tin was actually made of tin and often had the label printed onto it, rather than onto a paper wrapper. Almost nothing came pre-packed and almost everything was sold by weight using the brass scales on the counter. Every sale was a prolonged ritual, to be savoured over an exchange of news or gossip. Even a nearly empty biscuit tin still had value. A penny-worth of broken biscuits and crumbs was a real treat, presented in a paper cone or a brown bag. Then the empty tins themselves could be sold. 

Our favourite sweets were black bullets, which were brittle boiled sweets that looked uncannily like sheep's' eyeballs. Like all the other sweets, they were displayed in big glass jars and were weighed out on Margaret's brass scales into brown paper bags that they soon stuck to. "A quarter" of black bullets was 4 ounces; (a pound was 16 ounces, but we were more likely to buy two ounces at a time). Other favourites were "5 Boys" chocolate bars and "Palm" toffee bars that came with different flavours sandwiched in them. We liked the banana ones. 

Coronation Day. Jimmy is wearing the cowboy suit.

Winter snow was always to be expected and sledging was a popular activity. Dads would build the sledges and then take them to the smithy to have metal runners put on. There is no shortage of steep slopes to sled on in the dales. Opposite the village institute, between the smithy and the back of Margaret Heseltine's shop there was a long run down to the road from the pasture that led up to the moor above. An essential accompaniment to sledging was a Catherine wheel of liquorice which could be unrolled so that it trailed for a yard or so in the snow. We called in "Spanish" rather than liquorice.   

Jimmy and Alex 1954

1953 brought some memorable days. My baby brother Alex arrived that year and the “little house up t’steps” became cluttered with dozens of white and blue tins that were labeled National Dried Milk, an endless line of terry-cloth nappies and a huge pram. Dad (who's name was also Jimmy but he prefered Steve) brought home a euphonium which he stood bell-down on the carpet. He told me to try and get a noise out of it by blowing into the mouthpiece. and then, over the din of farts and squeaks, announced that there would be a Coronation Day parade in the village to celebrate the new Queen. There would be dressing up, running races and other events for the children and the band would be playing.

The aunties all got involved in the children's events and the men got involved in the band. Margaret Heseltine, Mrs. Metcalf, Mrs. Guy and Nancy Calvert were joined by some of the young mums including Lucy Rutter and Mrs. Shepherd who was married to the policeman and lived in the new police house near the cattle grid at the end of the village.

Gunnerside did not have its own show like Muker and Reeth, probably because there was not much flat land to hold it on. The year was broken up with weddings, christenings and funerals and there was a calendar of events that included a sports day that was held next to the river, downstream near Low Row.

Martin Rutter and Jimmy Stevenson with a girl each.

For youngsters there was always the beck to play in, picnics to be had and day trips to Richmond or Hawes on the bus with Mum and the Aunties. There was even an annual outing by bus to Redcar, Keswick or Scarborough.

Apart from road accidents, the Dale was generally a safe place to be. We could even play in the road as there was almost no traffic and we could wander the fields or play in the beck. But danger can pop up and bite you when you least expect it.

At the back of our house was a little field called the Croft that we could overlook from the bedrooms. It was where we hung out our laundry. One day I heard my mum cry out as though something dreadful had happened. When I rushed to her side I could see that the farmer had put some heifers into the croft and that they had pulled down our washing and trampled it in the mud; and it wasn't just mud. I was sent to get the laundry back and my little brother came along.

Judging the fancy dress competition.
Jimmy in the cowboy suit with Mrs Shepherd
behind Red Riding Hood and perhaps
Margaret Heseltine behind her.

The path alongside the house was narrow and lined with dense nettles that hid Alex from view. I heard him screaming and thought he must have got stung, but it was much worse than that. A large cream-and-black cockerel was standing on his head while Alex screamed and frantically waved his arms. Amazingly he stayed on his feet while the cockerel scratched away with those vicious spurs that they have. Our shouts brought the adults running and our mum was first on the scene, followed by Annie Cleeman and Tommy Brown the postman from over the road. The cockerel was quickly beaten off and my bloody-headed little brother was carried indoors. The scratches to his head turned out to be pretty superficial but the worry, when you consider the scratching habits of chickens, was infection. Alex wandered around like a wounded soldier with a bandaged head for several days. When the dressings came off there was a fine set of parallel scabs on his shaved head which was  stained yellow with antiseptic cream. He was very lucky not to have been blinded which would have been a real possibility if he had fallen over.

That night Tommy Brown came by with the gift of a large cockerel for dinner. It was too tough to eat.