An Englishman's Tales of a Small Yorkshire Village
by
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In 1066 A.D. a great battle was fought, which doesn’t always register upon the minds of English school children as it does very strongly, upon the minds of Scandinavian school children. As the year when the battle of
He force-marched well over two hundred miles to
The King of Norway was killed in the battle while Tostig Harold Godwin’s younger brother, who had ambitions to his brother’s throne, was also taken and put to death. This was just one of many battles fought over the years by this strong; and willfully belligerent people who differed from those in the south by the genetic pull of their mainly Viking ancestry. True there was a high proportion of Saxon influence from those who stayed when Alfred made the truce. Moving the Vikings north of the
But this, strong minded, valliant in battle, sea fairing people were a force to be reckoned with. Many a king or leader through the years that followed made the mistake of ignoring this active rebellious force within the country.
Only days after the Battle of Stamford Bridge, which he won so handily Harold Godwin had to face yet another foe in a battle which is emblazoned upon the memories of English school children everywhere. The
Harold, having soundly beaten the foe from across the sea buried his dead, and gathered up his men to march back the way he had come.
William the Bastard of Normandy, a relative of Harold’s landed his men on the south coast of
William sent foraging parties out into the countryside to find the whereabouts of Harold’s army. Harold in turn knew that he had to beat him or loose his crown for his father Edward the Confessor had sent Harold himself to
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About the Book
Most of the details of village life
came from my own personal
experiences. When, at the beginning of the war, my
parents moved
to a suburb of Leeds, called Lower Wortley it had just
been incorporated
into the boundaries of the city but still retained a lot
of the air of a village
about it.
We, my family and I, lived in a small leaky sandstone
cottage, one of
seven, halfway up a hill. Right behind us there was a
smallholding, where
the farmer raised chickens, ducks and pigs. On the
opposite side of the
road we lived on, there was a row of rather grand four
story houses, at the
head of rather long equally grand gardens. The owners
of which looked
with distain upon their neighbors across the way.
At the top of the hill was another group of houses set in
a circle with a
Methodist Chapel in their midst and the whole area was
referred to as
the Bull Ring.
At the bottom of the hill was the main road into Leeds.
Here was the
Tram terminus, (Public Transport) with a switch over
line to facilitate
change over to the inbound line. It was a seriously bleak
time, when
Britain was on the defensive, and looked as though it
was about to be
invaded by the Germans at any time.
So we sang songs to cheer ourselves up. “There’ll be
blue birds over
the white cliffs of Dover.” “There’ll always be an
England, and England
shall be free.” And silly songs like “I’m going to hang out
the washing on
the Siegfried Line. (A line of fortifications on the
German border)
So when I wrote “Little Miracles,” and compiled “An
Englishman’s tales
of a small Yorkshire village,” to go with it and I
incorporated many of my
experiences from this time.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.