Thursday 10 December 2020

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







1 comment:

  1. I was born in Airmyn in January 1942 and have distinct wartime memories of my childhood there. My father was the village bobby. One morning, when I must have been about two or three years old I came down to breakfast and found several men in flying suits in our kitchen at 5, Wood View. They were the crew of a crashed Halifax bomber waiting to be collected by the RAF. They were drinking cups of tea and they were very happy, no doubt pleased to be alive. One of them put his flying helmet on my head. I can still remember the smell of the soft leather.
    I would be very interested to know if you can source any information about this crash and the crew members. They were probably trying to return to base after a night-time operation. I've looked for information myself but without any success.
    One of my father's stories from that time was of when he was on duty, making a point, on Boothferry Bridge. He was talking to the bridge man in the engine house when he noticed a German fighter circling. It flew over the bridge so they lay on the floor expecting to be shot at but in the event the plane flew off.
    From Airmyn we moved to Jackson Street in Goole. when I was about seven or eight. Now I'm going to read through all your posts with interest!
    Peter Murphy.

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