Last post of 2020

It's the day after Boxing Day - ie Sunday - and it is bright and sunny. A contrast to last night when the wind howled and the rain beat against the window and I sat inside and fed logs onto the woodburner. I needed to get warm as I had spent the afternoon eating sausage rolls and mince pies in Airmyn churchyard.  It was a friend's birthday and in these strange new times we live in we thought that it would be within the rules for four of us to sit socially distanced on a bench and folding chairs. I really hope that by her next birthday we might be inside!!!

It has not been a good year - too many I know have died and Covid has restricted visiting when it was most wanted and needed. So I am looking forward to  vaccination and a return to some sort of normality. Zoom and Facetime meetings are not the same.

I am still keeping busy with local history and buying the odd postcard of local scenes from e bay but I cannot see that there will be any postcard fairs anytime soon where people huddle together around stalls to rifle through bundles of cards in the hope of finding something local.

It has been a hard year too for the musicians in my family. Concerts have been cancelled and plans abandoned. But on the positive side the Howdenshire Music Project has continued to  provide music for those not able to attend concerts in person, initially requests recorded here in the front room and later concerts from inside Howden Minster. In fact they did so well that they were able to purchase a new grand piano for the community and for future concerts.

Looking forward to seeing an audience in the Minster next year

https://www.facebook.com/howdenshiremusicproject

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXoS78Q7uo119NylM0h3rqA

 I too have been brushing up on my technology and here is a slideshow/ video of some winter scenes from around the area. Thanks to Arthur Henrickson for the pictures of the snowy Ashes

https://youtu.be/9v24TgVcRX4

Best wishes to all friends and readers of my blog.

Ow do?

 It's a cold raw day and I have just come inside from picking up fallen twigs which, when dry, will be good firesticks to light the woodburner. And just in case we have a cold Christmas I have ordered some heating oil to top up the tank.  Belt and braces you might say.

Looking forward to more normal times now the vaccine is being delivered. I drank mulled wine with a  friend out of a thermos this week while standing outside near a layby. We hope to be able to meet inside next year and laugh about it!!! 

We are all probably buying more presents online this year and I  have been busy posting my history books about Goole, Howden and Eastrington to different parts of the country as well as to Canada and US. I have also been selling them in a socially distanced way from the front porch here - buy a book and a jar of honey at the same time!! Contact me through my website howdenshirehistory.co.uk

But Howden shops can provide many of our needs and although these pictures show that the town is changing I think it has kept its Yorkshire pride and character. 

I recently met a local farmer who greeted me with the familiar Ow do? to which I replied  Not so bad.  Few words needed.

 
Built in the 1890s as the Half Moon the 'Co-op' shop  shown here has recently changed hands

 No yellow lines and the Midland Bank where I was taken to open a bank account when I was 16. No identity checks necessary - the manager then was part of the local community and knew everyone.

I have been researching family history for several people over the last week or two and it's surprising how many contacts come from descendants of families who emigrated in the nineteenth century. These include  Robert Marshall, whose family were from South Cave, and his wife the former Annie Grasby, who married at Eastrington and moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1853. 

Other emigrant families are members of the Hall family of Hive  and my own ancestors the Nurse family of Eastrington. My Nurse family correspondent had found a report of an Isaac Nurse who had been prosecuted for a drunken assault in the 1870s.  

He asked me about it  as, in the report, it mentioned that the magistrates had been unwilling to grant a licence for Eastrington Show that year due to the several cases of drunkenness they had dealt with from the village.  He asked me about the village today as he wrote 'From what I understand Eastrington was/is a blue collar town filled with hard working people'.

I reassured him that times had changed since the 1870s and that the show was very decorous these days. I look forward to attending the next show, whenever it may be!

Some familiar faces on this picture of an Eastrington Show dinner