This is for my sister...

...although I am sure many others will enjoy it too! (turn up the sound)



Flamborough Sword Dancing has been a tradition in the village for over 100 years, although no-one seems to agree on exactly when it began. I believe that traditionally it was danced by fishermen. I doubt that the ones in this video are all fishermen, since fishing is no longer a viable means of livelihood - but they are all wearing a fisherman's 'Gansey.'

A Gansey is a distinctive woollen sweater, originally designed to provide protection for fishermen from wind and water but which is ideal for all outdoor activity. Using a tightly spun 5-ply worsted wool (popularly known as "Seamen's Iron") the intricately patterned Gansey is knitted in one piece on five steel needles.

http://www.manorhouse.clara.net/knitwear/ganseys.htm

These days, the Flamborough Sword Dance team's main tradition is to tour the village on Boxing Day - an event which involves the meeting of dancers, a practice walk through (with inevitable arguments) and collecting money. The tour of the Pubs in the village finishes in Dog and Duck Square, which involves banter and encouragement from villagers and friends. The dance is a part of this happy event but it is only a part. (I am assuming the other part is the consuming of perhaps large amounts of beer -- only to keep warm, of course) http://www.flamboroughuk.net/lev2/swordance.html

This video is taken right in Flamborough and brings back wonderful memories for me -- maybe for my sister, too!

Fish Tales

So there I was, all snuggled up, lovely and warm in my bed at night while the storm was raging all around.

Sometimes 60 - 80 mile per hour gale force winds would roar across the headland from the North Sea.

I remember my father taking me to the edge of the cliff during one of those wind storms. We went RIGHT to the edge, something I'd not normally be allowed to do -- but the wind was so strong there was absolutely no fear of us falling over. In fact, my dad literally leaned out over the cliff with his arms spread-eagled as if he was about to take off like a seagull, and the wind held him up!

So I did the same thing -- it was amazing! The incredible power of those winds left a firm impression in my mind. At age 10, I didn't really know too much about a Creator -- but those winds convinced me of the fact that there was definitely a Higher Power behind them.

The Flamborough fishermen were well acquainted with the gale force winds, and not a few of them were, of necessity, on good speaking terms with the Creator, too. Many a time they would be out beyond the bay in their fishing boats, hoping for a good catch, when a storm would virtually sneak up on them before they could head to shore.

Wives and mothers, shawls wrapped around them to shield them from the cold and rain, waited on shore hoping -- praying -- for the best for their men, but expecting the worst. Many a fisherman lost his life as his fishing boat would ride the mammoth waves, throwing him overboard -- the boat tossing and turning until it was bashed against the rocks.

Here’s an ode to John Thompson, a fisherman who was drowned on January 10, 1814

From home he went with mind most free,
His livelihood to gain at sea;
He ne'er returned, a furious wave,
Cast him into a watery grave;
A grave in motion termed the deep,
Left child and widow for to weep.

To be sure, a fisherman's life was a hard one. Even when the weather was fair and the catch was good, the fish had to be brought ashore.

They would bring their boats in on either the north or south sides of the headland. They are precarious beaches at best with no protection from the storms. The boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep slope with the help of a steam windlass.

"When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions, blues, and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worth seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeyswhose work is to trudge up the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where carts take the fish to the train station four miles away." (yorkshireheritage.org.uk)

And what was their reward for all their labours? Well, depending on the season, and the weather and the number of fishing boats going out at the same time, probably a mere pittance. The fisherman were loyal to each other when any of them were in trouble, but competition between them was fierce, when it came to who had the biggest catch and the greatest financial yield.

But the reward for us?

Mmm...good! A plate of deliciously fresh fish, fried in the crispiest, greasiest batter, with chips and mushy peas -- who could ask for anything more!

And just in case your mouth is watering, and you are wondering how you could ever avail yourself of this Flamborough delicacy -- here is the recipe. You are just a few steps away from gourmet heaven!

* photo of the fisherman with his laden donkey comes from The Right Side of the Dyke; Flamborough in their own Words, by Margaret Smith and Rita Sellars -- A Flamborough Oral History Project.

Click here: http://www.flamborough.org.uk/purchase.htm to read the story behind this amazing book, and also for contact and purchase information.

There's no place I'd rather be!

On January 3, I talked about our family's move to the little fishing village of Flamborough. My father was working as a photographer at Butlin's Holiday Camp in Filey and life was good.

I began to attend the local school, and, to my parent's horror, gained a Yorkshire accent. The kids in my school loved to make fun of my 'posh' London accent, so I quickly learned how to drop h's and pick up the local slang.... "Aye ad a guid diy -- went on't beach wi me friends." (Translation: I had a good day -- went on the beach with my friends).

But when financial disaster struck Billy Butlin in the Bahamas, what had seemed to be a certainty of a job for my father for the next five years quickly came to an end.

This led to him taking over the management of a derelict Golf Club, and in mid-1952 we moved a mile and a half down the road from Flamborough Village, all the way to the end of that promontory sticking out into the North Sea -- Flamborough Head. You'll see, 2/3 of the way up the middle of the photo, a black arrow pointing to a tiny building with a black roof -- that was our new home. Perpendicular to that there is another slightly larger building, also with a black roof -- that's the Flamborough Head Golf Club, and you can see the golf course ranging back across from the cliffs.

Way off to the left of our house you can see the 'new' white lighthouse, and up and slightly to the right of that you can see the 'old' lighthouse, which was actually a beacon.

At the end of the path leading from the lighthouse down to the cliffs is the foghorn station.

Flamborough Head was always a nightmare for mariners, and its cliffs and rocks turned the sea onto a graveyard for many a ship caught in the horrific storms that batter the Headland. There are hundreds of wrecks at the bottom of the North Sea, up and down the east coast of Yorkshire..This is the Rosa, which wrecked on the rocks at Flamborough Head in the early 1900's. But Flamborough's claim to fame (well, there are so many, but this is a famous one) is the Battle of Flamborough Head, which took place on September 23, 1779. John Paul Jones lost his ship, the Bon Homme Richard, in that fierce battle. It sank to the bottom of the North Sea, just off the Headland and, in spite of even Clive Cussler's efforts to find it, its whereabouts still remain a mystery.

When we first moved there, we had no idea of Flamborough Head's (FH from now on) attractions and history. It turned out to be the most amazing place to live! For my sister and me, at least, it was a little bit of heaven on earth! I am not sure I have the stamina to record all we learned and all we experienced, but I'll do my best. First here is a close-up of our house and the Golf Club:The cars are lined up in front of the old golf club, and our new little home, the "Dormy House" is the one with the chimney. Apparently, the Dormy House was where travelling golfers would stay when they came for tournaments at one time. (I can't believe I am old enough to have been living in the era of these 'old fashioned' cars -- one of them there is ours!)This is me, sitting on top of the big water tank outside our front door. My sister's bedroom virtually overlooked the bay.

Here's a black and white photo with a great picture of the Dormy House on top of the cliff, with the club house beside it. And here is a more recent photo. You can just see the footpath leading up the cliff in the distance (under the 'm' in Flamborough). The Dormy House and Club house were at the top of the footpath, although they are no longer there in this photo. Quite some time after we had moved away from the Headland, the two old buildings were torn down because of the eroding cliffs -- you can see the new club house just a little further up the hill.

Both of these old buildings had been used, we think, by the military during the war. FH was a strategic military location, and, even when we were living there, spread out at intervals over the cliffs, were round, concrete 'pill boxes" with just an open doorway and tiny slits for lookout windows. Soldiers would be stationed at the windows with binoculars, watching for the enemy's approach by air or sea. There was one on the cliff just below our house -- it made a great hideout for us as kids -- we played many a game in and on top of it!

Our Dormy House was an awesome place to live, especially in a storm. It was reinforced all around with corrugated iron to protect it from the elements. The gale force winds would whip up the waves, and our little house would vibrate with the ferocity with which they were pounding the cliffs - 400 hundred feet below us! Even the windows were coated with the salty spray.

At night the lighthouse would go into action, its revolving light reflecting through our windows. And the foghorn would sound, warning the ships to steer clear of the rocks, with its mournful, loud moaning. I loved it! I would curl up snug and warm in bed, under my thick comforter, and think that there was no place I would rather be!

Next time: Smugglers, birds, donkeys and fish and chips!

Where's Elmo?

For those who don't know, Elmo is a Sesame Street muppet who apparently has a habit of hiding himself. Kids can have great fun trying to find him hidden in the pages of his books. Well, since most of my readers are a little too old for Elmo mysteries, I thought I would present you with one of my own:

Where's Doth's (Daughter Of The House) and my cars?

Give up?

Doth's is on the middle left, and mine is middle right, hiding behind the five-foot high snow banks.

Where's the candy-cane Christmas decoration?

Yep, that's it, in the middle of the three objects. It's 3.5 feet high, by the way . The object to its right is (was?) a pretty Christmas basket (sitting on a rock) with sprigs of fir, pine cones, Pointsettias, and other pretty Christmas decorations. We've not been able to get them out and put away, since Christmas. The snow just doesn't stop!

Where's the bird-bath? You're right! That's it, bottom left, with at least a foot and a half of snow on it. The object top right is the composter!

What's this?It's actually the view from our second-floor bathroom window. That mound of snow on the left? It's on top of the canopy that hangs over the back-yard patio -- virtually impossible to get the snow off it, and it's beginning to buckle under the weight.

What's this?

Believe it or not, it's the backyard bird feeder.

Who's this?

This is our good neighbour, Mr 'L', whom we've hired to bring his trusty snowblower by after a heavy snow storm and dig us out.

And this...

...is Mr 'L' clearing our driveway at the same time as Mr ? in his BIG snow-plow truck is clearing our neighbour's driveway. We are not able to "keep up with the Joneses" so we use the 'little man'-- he's cheaper and just as efficient, although a little slower!

And anyway, the 'big guy' can't drive his truck down the sidewalk, so he has to still pull out his little snowblower (BIG penalties for not clearing your sidewalks, in this city).

This is the view from our living room window, looking down the street -- do you wonder why I was unable to get to church today??

'kay -- so I'm not complaining (I promised not to, remember, at the end of summer?), but just wanted you readers of my blog, who are living right now in 70-80 degree weather, to be very grateful.

Journeying Towards a Little Bit of Heaven

The festivities are over. Winter is in full swing. It's a great time to get off the detour and back to blogging about my childhood.

It's hard to believe my last post was on October 7th, at which time I talked about my father's new job with Butlin's Holiday Camp in Filey, Yorkshire, as a photographer.

A steady job meant that we could buy a house, and my father found the perfect location within driving distance of Filey.

On the north-east coast of Yorkshire, there is a promontory shaped like an arrow-head, reaching far out into the North Sea:

If you follow the coastline along the promontory towards the point, you will see Bridlington, Sewerby, Flamborough, and then Flamborough Head.

My dad found a lovely home for us in Flamborough (spelled Flamboro for short) and in 1947 we moved into 15 Woodcock Road. Ours is the semi-detached, two-storey home marked with the x above the window.

Last year, my sister, her husband and I visited the UK and found our old home. This is what it looks like today: I'm amazed that it still looks the same!

Behind the house were miles and miles of fields. This is me, hanging over the fence at the bottom of our garden: It was an ideal location for my brother and sister and I, with no shortage of playmates and fun things to do. And even though we arrived with our 'posh' London accents, we settled in remarkably well.

My brother went to Bridlington Grammar School, my sister attended the last year of the local public school and I, for some reason I never discovered, travelled to a Catholic Convent in Filey, for my kindergarten year. Then I, too, eventually went to the Flamboro School. When we weren't in school, we were playing outdoors, coming home only for meal-times it seems.

Flamboro was a tiny fishing village where weather-beaten, weather-wise fishermen and their families lived. I say 'was' because sadly the North Sea can no longer provide the amount of fish needed to support them. But for decades Flamboro's small population lived off the lucrative provisions of its environment. I'll be posting more about that later.

But first, here are some photos of the village, taken from old post-cards -- but really very little has changed over the years:

This is Croft's Hill -- the road into the village

This is the centre of the village: the post office on the left, and the news-agents (we would call it a convenience store today) on the right
This is the old High Street, which has always had at least one Fish and Chips shop on it. We would buy fresh fish straight from the sea, deep fried in a crisp batter (lovely and greasy!) along with fat chips (french fries) all wrapped in newspaper.

On the other side of the street, just a little further back from this photo, was Mrs. Sunley's sweet shop -- which was always a favourite stop, on our way to or from school. Dolly Mixtures, Pontefract Cakes, Gobstoppers and Sherbert Fountains were the best!

Now -- since I have actually posted this three times so far (every time I save it, it seems to disappear) I am going to stop while the going is good.

More to come!

Santa and Other Christmas Traditions

My parents were not people of faith, so when we were growing up, Christmas was not at all a religious celebration. I don't remember a creche (nativity scene) in our home in England. We never read the story of Jesus' birth and we didn't go to church at Christmas. It was very much a happy, family time, though -- and it was always a magical time for me.

Most magical of all was the hanging of the Christmas stocking at the bottom of my bed. And this was no ordinary stocking; it was huge! As I think about it now, I guess it was my father's -- it was a knitted stocking that fishermen wear inside those huge, thigh-high waders.

It was so exciting to go to bed on Christmas eve and see it hanging limply there, waiting for Santa to come and fill it!

I don't remember a lot of fuss about Santa. Of course, he hadn't become an institution in the malls yet -- there were no malls! He was simply a mythical figure on Christmas cards and in children's stories. He did fly by night with his reindeer and his sack of toys, and he did land on the rooftop and descend down the chimney -- yes, we had lovely, sooty chimneys! But he only filled our stockings. We always knew the gifts under the tree were from our parents.

I would wake up long before dawn and look down to the bottom of the bed, and -- wonder of wonders! -- there would always be something so mysterious sticking up out of the now fat and very lumpy stocking! After having a good feel at the lumps to try and figure out what they were, it was very hard to go back to sleep. But now I knew that Father Christmas (as we called him in the UK) had come, I would lie contentedly until it was time to get up. A few hours later I would be bundled in a warm dressing gown by my mother (no central heating in those days -- it was co-o-ld) and then I got to dig into the stocking.

If you asked me what gifts were under the tree this Christmas in 1948, I would not be able to tell you. But I remember the gifts I found in my stocking. I was four years old - you can see the stocking off to the right of the photo (better picture coming up), and I distinctly remember the story book in the shape of a basket leaning up against the headboard. The balloon in front of it was in the shape of a penguin, with cardboard feet. I don't remember the name of the book in my hands, but that love of reading has become a life-long passion!

The handle sticking up, towards the bottom middle of the photo, was a brass bell; to the right of it a tiny pack of playing cards. I had learned how to play 'clock patience' or solitaire as it's now called, and played it for hours on end.

The book of Transfers was sort-of like today's 'tattoos' -- not real ones, but you would wet the back of your hand and then hold the transfer face down on it for a while until the picture transferred to your hand -- messy, but fun and carried around proudly till it got washed off.

Always in the toe of the stocking was an orange, some nuts. and sweets (candy).

This is 1952, I'm eight years old and Father Christmas had out-done himself. I had been begging my parents for a projector. This was a new phenomenon and it certainly wasn't moving pictures -- really just an apparatus in a box with a light bulb at the back, and a slit in the front through which you pulled the film strips. You could project the film strips -- cartoons -- onto a white wall and focus with a telescopic lens. No idea how Father Christmas knew I wanted one - but I sure was happy.

The books scattered across the bed were probably Enid Blyton (the 'Five' adventure series), or Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons) -- my favourites.

Still inside the stocking -- and now you can see its size! -- is a book of easily-removable plastic 'stickers' and some scenery on which to stick them. I remember a forest scene and you could make it daytime or night time, with stickers of a sun, birds and clouds, or stars and moon and an owl or two.

I believe this was the year in which there were also some indoor fireworks in the stocking. I thought Santa Claus was pretty clever to think of the kind you can use indoors -- I had only ever seen outdoor fireworks, like Catherine Wheels and rockets, which we set off on Guy Fawkes Day, every November 5th.

(click here for indoor fireworks today - this one's called The Cobra)

http://www.fireworksarcade.com/fireworks-video-clips/indoor-fireworks-2008.htm

Later that Christmas Day, I brought out the fireworks and asked my dad if we could play with them. He set the first little firework 0n a saucer on the dining table and lit the end. It had just a little flame, and it twirled around and sent up spirals of pretty blue smoke. We had company that day -- funny the conversations one remembers. Someone said, "Those are really different, Fred!" To which my dad replied, "Yes, I found them in the corner shop down the road." I remember immediately thinking, "What? Father Christmas brought those!" And then I saw my mother shaking her head furiously at dad, and the penny dropped. It wasn't at all devastating to realize that FC wasn't real, and I expect it was a relief for the family not to have to keep up the charade.

Interesting, though, that I don't remember ever opening another stocking. I wonder if, because he was found out, Santa just stopped coming! Another interesting memory is of Christmas candles. We had tiny, metallic receptacles clipped to our Christmas tree with real candles in them. ( I don't think we ever lit them, but I know people did.) I can't think of anything more dangerous!

Then, of course, there were the Christmas crackers. Here's a photo of my grandmother, aunt and cousins wearing those silly paper hats that come out of them. To this day, in Canada, my family and I still have Christmas crackers. Nobody likes wearing the hats, but we do it and I think it's lots of fun!

One more memory. I couldn't stand not knowing what I was getting for Christmas. So whenever there was no-one else at home and I had opportunity, I would hunt down the gifts my mom had wrapped -- usually they were high up on a shelf in their bedroom cupboard. I would take them down one at a time until I found the ones labelled for me, then I would carefully open one end and peek in. I don't know WHY I did this -- it was always such a let-down on Christmas Day, and such a struggle to pretend to be so excited and happy about what I got.

You know, the gifts were always simple, and at the end of the day it wasn't the gifts that made the difference, it was the happy time together as a family. I don't ever remember an unhappy Christmas.

And now, years later, Christmas is still magical and but also very meaningful. Now I know the real meaning of Christmas and it makes all the difference in the world. I can celebrate the day simply or elaborately, with lots of people or just a few, as long as Jesus is the centre of the celebrations in my heart.

It's a Record!

We had our Christmas decorations up well before the end of November, this year -- first time ever!

DOTH (daughter of the house) and I had only one free weekend before Christmas to get it done, so we took advantage of it. And I must say, it's rather wonderful to think that we don't have to take it all down for at least another four weeks!

The display on the bay window is DOTH'S favourite -- especially the little village and skating pond (the snow is slightly overdone!). When it's turned on, the skaters waltz around the rink to Christmas carols.

The grandchildren are growing up quickly, so we may not have too many more years where we all enjoy the candy-cane snowmen. The miniature Christmas tree lights up and twirls around. (I'm dreaming of a white Christmas -- but not too white!)

The creche, the most important of all our decorations (the reason for the season), is over 30 years old, and I treasure it. One of the camels has his leg taped up, but still proudly holds his head up high. Every year when I take him out of the box, I think, "I must write a children's story about the camel with the broken leg, who faithfully watches over baby Jesus every year." Then in January, I put him away again, apologizing to him for not getting it done! The "Let there be Light" Christmas card was sent to us by my sister back in 1985 and has a place of honour every year beside the creche, announcing the arrival of the Light of the world.

The Christmas cactus is beginning to open up and should be in full bloom by Christmas Day!
Finally, although it really has nothing to do with Christmas, I did find this lovely bargain while Christmas shopping -- a cast-iron miniature bird-bath which cost me all of $4.00!