14. Richmond

CC Site
7th-9^th April

A 60-mile trip, the first few miles over the North York Moors. Even in spring it's really wild, hard country, with little growing beyond heather and gorse. After Guisborough you're into Teesside, with cooling towers, refineries, lime-green smoke coming from one chimney and orange from another (I lied about that; it was thirty-five years ago when I saw smoke like that here). I skirted Middles-brough and Stockton and made for Darlington. I lived near Darlington in the 'Seventies and early 'Eighties and it was our local town, a mixture off heavy engineering and farming. I remember being surprised at the time how industrial areas merge and fade almost imperceptibly into the countryside in the North-East. Perhaps this explains why miners were always interested in leeks and pigeons. And horses. Racehorses, that is, not pit-ponies.

     So, it's farewell then, Mickey Rooney, ninety-three year old former child star. I had a drink with him at Knock Airport about six years ago (well, I was standing at the bar with a pint of Guinness and he was standing next to me with a glass of lager). He was very small and rather frail, but there was a sharp intelligence shining from his twinkling eyes. Apart from that there was no mistaking the family resemblance with his son, Wayne. He was once married to Ava Gardner. Imagine that!

The site here is actually at Gilling West, just off the A66 near Scotch Corner. I have a strong feeling that Ian Botham used to live very close. The bus to Richmond or Darlington calls every two hours, so I'll take it into town tomorrow and then to Darlington on Wednesday. As soon as I arrived the skies opened and torrential rain soon flooded my pitch. I wrestled for some time with my TV but finally managed to get full reception after discovering the aerial connection had been dodgy. I must admit I did miss TV during my stay at Whitby, because, in particular, I missed the Grand National and 'Endeavour'. The final of 'University Challenge' tonight.

     While driving this morning, I had a road to Tarsus moment about fat people and giant 4 x 4's, both of which are to be seen in abundance in our green and pleasant land. Did SUV's become so popular because fat people couldn't fit into normal cars any more or did people just expand to fill the extra space available in SUV's? Which is the chicken, which the egg?

     By the way, again I wasn't driving at midday to-day, so nothing was playing on the MP3.

I    I passed another entry in “The Meaning of Liff” on the way:

     SADBERGE (n.) A violent green shrub which is ground up, mixed with twigs and gelatine and served with clonmult (q.v.) and buldoo (q.v.) in a container referred to for no known reason as a 'relish tray'.

    I didn't pass Clonmult or Buldoo (one is in County Cork and the other near Thurso in the far north of Scotland), but I'll include them here for completeness:

CLONMULT (n.)
A yellow ooze usually found near secretions of buldoo (q.v.) and sadberge (q.v.).

     BULDOO (n.)
A virulent red-coloured pus which generally accompanies clonmult (q.v.) and sadberge (q.v.)

    I must say I like a touch of relish with my poppadoms. 

 

    About two miles west up the A66 is the hamlet of West Layton. My boss used to live there, nearly forty years ago, and I used to drive over there from where I lived and get a lift from him to work near Newcastle. One day just nearby I saw Crisp in a field. Crisp was an Australian horse who came second to Red Rum in the Grand National of 1973. Nicknamed “The Black Kangaroo”, he was the outstanding horse in the race and was cruelly handicapped, giving joint-favourite Red Rum twenty-four pounds. After running a faultless race he was overhauled exhausted at the Elbow when he was 'treading water'. He was a most beautiful animal and looked just great in his retirement. He was a big horse and Red Rum was a plucky little horse and Red Rum became the hero. Before you ask, no, I didn't put my shirt on Crisp. I just have the normal British feeling for the gallant loser. 

 

    The wild rabbits on the site here are very tame.

 Richmond was rather disappointing. It's quaint and, being on the edge of the Swaledale, has a sort of frontier atmosphere, but it's just a small market town and, frankly, there's not much to see. It has a strong connection with the Army, because of Catterick Garrison just down the road and there is a Green Howards Museum, which was closed for redevelopment.

     The curiously-named Green Howards, or to give them their proper name, The Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment, made Richmond their home in 1873. The regiment was raised as the 19^th Regiment of Foot at Dunster in Somerset in 1688 to serve under William of Orange and fought at the Battle of the Boyne. In 1744 its Colonel was named Howard and the regiment started to be known as 'Howard's Regiment'. Because there was another regiment with a colonel named Howard they became known as the 'Green Howards' because of the green facings on their uniforms. In 2006 they were merged with others to form the Yorkshire Regiment.

     I came home early, had a sleep and looked forward to visiting Darlington tomorrow.

    Wednesday started badly. My gas ran out and I couldn't have my heart-starter, my morning cup of tea. It got immediately better when I learned that Maria Miller had resigned. I know her husband is a solicitor, but I wonder how she will manage now to pay the mortgage on her new £1 million house she bought with the proceeds of fiddling her expenses. I guess, given all the money she has made from the taxpayer, that she has a very small mortgage on it.

     On the subject of government ministers, it seems have become the norm to make every back-bencher a minister of something-or-other in order to guarantee they will toe the party line. Every time a minister comes on the radio or TV it seems to be a new name. How, for example, can we have a Minister of Prisons without having a Minister for Public Toilets? I'm sure the Home Secretary did both these jobs in the old days. Like most of the bad features of politics, it was an approach invented by Blair and is called, I think, clientilism. Or something.

     Well, Wednesday morning, bitterly cold, and it's off to Darlo. Number 29 Dales and District bus via Melsonby, Aldbrough St. John, Fawcett, Eppleby, Manfield and Stapleton, all tiny picturesque villages of stone houses with red pantile roofs in a cluster around Scotch Corner and Darlington. I couldn't see if it was still there, but there used to be a lovely plant nursery in Melsonby which was run by quite an eccentric local. The plants were in the ground, not in containers, and if you went to buy a plant at the wrong time you were sent away with a flea in your ear. Most of the villages have a stone-built church with a square tower and they all looked very similar. One could imagine they had been built by the same mason. Possibly he built one, then went round to the other villages asking them if they wanted one the same or possibly he offered to build them all a church at a knock-down price. Just kidding.

 

 

 

     We were travelling from Swaledale to Teesdale, over the top, and the height gave us a good view of Teesside's chimneys and cooling towers smoking away on the horizon. The bus was five minutes late when I caught it and it became later after a lady got on at the wrong place in Eppleby and was given a good dressing-down. The driver, though, was a regular Jehu and had made up the time when he got to Darlington. It was a very rough ride as he floored it down winding lanes not much wider than the bus and flanked by hedges giving him little view of the road ahead. I have to say I felt very queasy when we arrived and had to settle my stomach with a Gregg's sausage roll.

     The last bit of the ride was through the posh Darlington suburb of Blackwell with Blackwell Grange, now a hotel, at its centre. There is actually a street called 'Blackwell' here, too, so I could move here and have letters addressed to me as “Mr Blackwell, Blackwell, Blackwell, Darlington, Co. Durham” (I don't know the postcode). The only letters, though, would be from the bank or from solicitors as it's a very expensive neighbourhood and well out of my range.

     I got off the bus in Houndgate (great name). I noticed that the Falchion pub had disappeared, possibly absorbed by Binns' department store. It was awful, but it was one of only two Darlington pubs which sold real ale when I lived up here. Happily the magnificent covered market in High Row is still going strong, with every kind of stall, but notably a wet fish stall, two splendid butchers and two greengrocers. Neither had fennel.

 

 

    When I brought my Dad here many years ago he still remembered the pubs in the market place from his time at Catterick Camp during the war. The Boot and Shoe, the Hole in the Wall, The Bluebell (oh dear, no Bluebell any more). As you can see, the working men's club scene is still alive and well in this part of the country. The federation used to have its own brewery, but I think that's gone now.

 

     And tonight I watched 'Forrest Gump'. I'm sorry, but I make no apologies; I love 'Forrest Gump'.

Some people like me were born stupid

Others get more stupid as they go along

      And that's all I have to say about that.