WEA celebration day at The Lowther

Yesterday I joined students and tutors at The Lowther Hotel in Goole for a celebration get- together and tour of the famous murals. There were around 50 of us from classes held in Goole, Snaith, Howden and Eastrington.

 I have been teaching local history classes for the WEA for over 30 years and many of my students have become good friends.  We all enjoyed a buffet, had our pictures taken and were then taken on a tour  by owner Howard Duckworth who, with his wife Julie, has restored new Goole's first ever building from near dereliction into a prestigious hotel.

Today was Pentecost and we went to church. The day is often also known as Whit Sunday and the following day, Whit Monday was traditionally a holiday. Villages and towns had processions and everyone wore new clothes.

 It was a lovely hot sunny day and I spent the afternoon gardening. My broad beans are not doing well but the greenhouse tomatoes are romping away.

All the time I was outside I heard the incessant call of a cuckoo in nearby woods. It seemed a timeless sound.

Newport (Yorkshire) new bridge

I have recently been looking at some fascinating pictures of the bridge at Newport showing it with several steam rollers parked on top of it. I was not sure of the date and looked it up using the newly available newspaper search site where you can look up articles in the Hull Mail.

As soon as I realised that the Hul Mail newspaper was available I took out a subscription as there is so much information to be found about East Yorkshire, including Goole [of course Goole used to be part of the West Riding of Yorkshire].

Anyway, I found the reference which told me all I needed to know. Have a look at the extract which appeared on September 17th, 1930.

There is not much to say about gardening at the moment. It remains cold and I have taken a risk by planting out my broad beans. They were growing leggy in the greenhouse but I hope the move to the cold wet soil will not be too traumatic and that they will get going!

There is a rumour that it might be warmer next week. I do hope so.

Family history day

I spent yesterday at the family history day at Goole Waterways Museum. Sadly we did not have many visitors. Some people, who had come for a boat ride round the docks, wandered around the stalls but, along with the Boothferry History group, the Isle of Axholme family history group and the Marshland history group, I was in a room down a short corridor and so few general visitors  found us.

This, we all felt, was a pity as there was a lot of information on display and we were all there keen to help family historians but there had not been much publicity for the event and I do not think local people knew it was taking place.

Those of us manning the stalls in the main already knew each other and so we had some pleasant conversation but looking out at the sunshine I felt I might have been more profitably been doing some gardening!!

I had my new DVDs on display - 5 compilations of Goole pictures [ about 30 on each disc] covering the shipyard and launches, ships visiting Goole, the docks, the railways and the town. I shall be putting more information about them on my website.

Below is  one of the more 'modern' pictures from the ship disc showing the paddle steamer Lincoln Castle visiting Goole in, I think, 1976. I remember going on the trip and looking at the engines as they thudded their way along the Ouse.

Lincoln Castle visiting Goole

Country notes

I have just been looking in my greenhouse where my seed potatoes are looking very wizened and sickly.  It just never seems to stop raining at the moment. The plot where the potatoes are going is rotovated and ready for them but we never seem to get a dry spell which coincides with my having a bit of spare time.

At least we now have plenty of logs to keep us warm in this miserable weather. Robert came last weekend and sawed down  two dead elms and some elder bushes. Locally they are always referred to as 'bottery' bushes or 'blummin ole bottery' and grow like weeds. They take their dialect name from the phrase 'bore tree' as when they are dried out the centre becomes hollow and in country areas the smaller trunks were sometimes used as simple water pipes.

As I was outside looking at the trees I heard the cuckoo - once so common but now quite rare. My mother always quoted the rhyme,

 'The cuckoo comes in April and sings its song in May.
 In the middle of June it changes its tune and in July it flies away'.

This is a very old rhyme but possibly less popular today as fewer people hear this evocative sound and thus have no opportunity to quote the verse.

In the meantime I am working on making DVDs of some of my old photographs so that even those without computers can look at old pictures of Goole, Howden and the surrounding areas. They will be for sale at £5 each, initially at the family history day at the Goole Waterways museum on Sunday [13th May].

Goole boxing pictures

I was contacted by a friend who had read my previous post about the Smithson family of Goole. She was particularly interested in the fact that at least two of the family were well-known boxers and has sent two pictures of Sam Smithson.

She has also sent me some  other pictures of local boxers which were taken by Goole photographers but as yet we do not know who they all are. The only other Goole boxer I have any knowledge of was called Joe Carroll  but I would not know whether he is pictured here.

Tommy Gilchrist on the right and officials

Goole boxer

Another Goole boxer

Sam Smithson

Lance Corporal Eric Lawton KOYLI

Sam Smithson and man in suit

 If you can help identify any of these men do please get in touch.

The Smithson family of Richard Cooper Street, Goole

I was recently contacted by a descendant of John B Smithson of Goole and his wife Edith Mary [nee Binnington].  The couple lived at first in Estcourt Street, where John had a rag and bone yard, and then for many years in Richard Cooper Street, at number 52 where they were well known and respected. John was a chimney sweep.

Their great grand-daughter is happy for me to share this information about them here:

 "John and Edith reared a pig in their backyard and the residents of Richard Cooper Street would take their scraps of food to feed the pig until it was ready to be harvested. My Great Grandfather would then distribute the meat to the residents who had helped to feed it and a feast was had by all!

 My Great Grandmother was a very stern, stiff upper lipped lady who had her own wooden chair, pride of place, adjacent to the wood burner in the Queen Victoria public house on Hook Road, Goole. There she would sit smoking an old Warden pipe. Not one of the locals would ever dare to sit in this chair for fear of the wrath of Edith Mary, my great gran.

John and Edith had six children; John, Billy, Owen, Sam, George Henry and Mary. Sam and my Grandad were both boxers known as  Sam 'Boy' Smithson and 'Sonny Boy' Smithson."

Trip on the Sobriety

Last Friday I went on a trip on the Sobriety with 12 members of my Goole WEA class from the Waterways museum at Goole. Sobriety is a Humber keel, built in 1910 and now fitted out for day and residential trips either along the canal system or on the river.

The trip was organised by Eileen Sherburn who, with her husband Goff, is  a member of   the class. Goff has spent his working life on such vessels and, as their son Chris, along with Waterways manager Rachel Walker, were our crew, we were in safe hands.

Although it was cold and sometimes wet it was fascinating to see Goole and the local villages  of Swinefleet, Saltmarshe, Blacktoft and Whitgift from the river. We journeyed past Hull up to Paull as we were travelling with the tide which was flowing quickly. The trip took us all day and we returned to Goole around half past six in the evening, passing through Ocean Lock on our way back to the museum.

Below are some pictures of our trip taken by Gilbert Tawn, our resident photographer!

Sobriety at the Waterways museum

Leaving Goole

Passing Saltmarshe

Whitgift church

Yokefleet windmill

Gilbert

Passing under the Humber Bridge

Hull

Almost home

St John's church, Goole

Old postcards

This weekend I visited a postcard fair at York racecourse. There must have been thousands of old postcards to look through and it was sometimes quite difficult to find which boxes to search. Goole, for example, is now in the East Riding of Yorkshire but for most of its existence it was in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Some stallholders put all Yorkshire postcards together and I now feel an expert on pictures of obscure North and West Yorkshire villages.

But I managed to find and buy some nice pictures of Howden, Bubwith, Blacktoft and Snaith. I was particularly pleased with an advertising card from Joshua Barrett who moved to Snaith in the 1890s. He sold embrocations and tonics under the name of Mandrake and his house is still known as Mandrake House. His trade mark was a strange amalgam of man and drake, the man supposedly being Joshua himself.

Of course, Mandrake root has long had associations with fertility and witchcraft and JK Rowling in her Harry Potter books makes use of the belief that the root screams as it is dug up.

Joshua was a farmer's son from Bluntisham near St Ives who had formerly lived in London. One wonders why he settled at Snaith.

[The motto beneath the Mandrake logo is a Latin phrase which translates as "Life is more than merely staying alive".]

Goole Grammar school 1909-1959

I have been reading my copy of  the Goole Grammar school booklet which was produced in 1959 to celebrate the fifty years of the school's life from 1909.

It is a fascinating read with recollections from both old pupils and staff. Some of the  old pupil contributors were Beatrice Hopley [pupil from1909-1913], Eric Arnold [1909- 13], Frank Schofield [1909-14] Annie Maud [1909-14], T H Hewson [1912-17], J E Jenkinson [1921-27], George Fish[ 1920-4] and Arnold Dufton[1943-47].

The former headmasters and staff also write and without exception they have fond memories of the school. I suppose the school memories page on www.goole-on-the-web.org.uk/ now provides a similar function.

The booklet includes pictures of early hockey and rugby teams wearing, particularly in the case of the girls, some very cumbersome outfits. And I thought the square-necked blouse with my name embroidered across it in large blue [for Norman house] letters was bad enough.

I gave a talk on Tuesday to the Selby Family History society about how to present your family tree. It was, I thought, a well-planned Powerpoint presentation with various shapes of tree and ways of writing up one's family history.

Unfortunately the cable which should have linked my laptop to the society's projector was faulty and I had to give the talk without any slides at all. Perhaps we rely too much on computers these days. But I think the question and answer session on family research which I resorted to [have you ever tried to give a slide show without slides?] went quite well.

J L Latimer, headmaster of GGS when I began as a new pupil.

George Tutill, flag maker

It has been a few days since I wrote anything here on my blog. Blame the lovely weather as I have been out in the garden tidying up and cleaning out my pond.

Maybe three years ago we saw some bulrush roots [variously bullrush or reed mace] which had been cleaned out from a local dyke. Thinking a few bulrushes would look nice in our pond we planted them. At first nothing happened but last year they grew and produced magnificent 6 foot spikes - although not where we had put them. The rhizomes had obviously floated across the pond and rooted near the outlet from the drain from the house roof.

This year small green shoots are coming up everywhere and I have been digging them out whilst standing in the water. Molly, the Labrador puppy thinks this is great and runs around playing with the snake-like roots. At least though we do have water in the pond unlike many areas. I hope we get some frogspawn.

The local history class which I teach in Howden on Monday afternoons has now 'broken up' for summer. We shall resume in September and would welcome new members. We spent a recent Monday afternoon in the church where Rev Little kindly gave of his time and knowledge to point out some of the interesting features of the building. He drew our attention in particular to the lovely west windows by the Brussels glass artist J B Capronnier.

Afterwards I went home and researched a little more about them.  Two, including the magnificent centre window were in memory of the Scholfield family of Sandhall.

But the third window, I found, was  erected in memory of George Tutill, a native of Howden who died in 1887 in Acton. Who was this man who could afford such a magnificent window?

Further research led me to George Tutill, flag makers who are still very much in business and gearing up to a very busy time for the Queen's jubilee. And yes - it was the same man who founded his business in 1837. He has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography and although he left Howden as a boy he was buried  in 1887 in the churchyard here.

He made magnificent silk trade union and friendly society banners  in the nineteenth century and was himself prominent in the Foresters. I shall look at the window with even more interest in future.