It was about an hour after lunch, and I was sitting on a bench in the middle of Blackpool reading the book that I had brought, knowing from long experience that I would need it to pass the time while Mrs Red scoured the contents of the charity shop that she would inevitably find, when the most extraordinary thing happened. A figure from my distant past sat down on the bench beside me. He didn’t recognise me, but the sight of him instantly transported me back to my childhood, to half forgotten memories of myself as a grubby urchin running around the woods behind the golf course at High Hazels Park in Sheffield. The area is off limits to small boys today, having been converted into an airport, but in the late 60s, it was a wild and beautiful place.
Some people on this forum have described Derbyshire as 'God’s own country'. Well I can’t really disagree with that, it is something special, and the scenery can be stunning, but if Derbyshire is where God lives, Yorkshire is where he takes his holidays. When God made Derbyshire he was just performing his usual, workaday miracles of creation, when he made Yorkshire, he was showing off.
This being the case, it’s only fitting that Yorkshire should be inhabited by a breed of people like no other anywhere on earth. Tough, dour, plain speaking, no nonsense people, they are hard to intimidate, and even harder to impress. They remain doggedly resistant to the ever changing lifestyles of the rest of the country’s populace, but they are quick to accept outsiders, provided they mind their manners, and despite an apparently gruff demeanour, they are always ready to laugh, their dry, scathing humour is never absent for long, and when you’re the butt of the joke, you know you are among friends.
I first met Siddy when I was about 10 years old. Siddy isn’t his real name by the way, I christened him that because of his habit of constantly starting conversations with the Yorkshire man’s version of the words “Look here” which are “See thee” or in his case, “Si di.”
It was the early autumn of 1968. I was walking in the woods with my dog, an Alsatian cross called Kim. I remember that the weather was still mild, and although the leaves had turned more shades of brown, red, yellow and gold than you can imagine or I can describe, they were, for the most part, still on the trees. I don’t know if I appreciated the breathtaking beauty back then, but in my mind's eye, the colours remain vivid.
One of the joys of walking with a dog, if you are tuned in to them, is the fact that you can make use of their heightened senses. Dogs give out a great deal of information via facial expressions and body language, but most of these signs are so subtle and fleeting that they are easily missed unless you are really looking. I always train my dogs to walk to heel slightly further forward of me than is considered ideal, but this means I can observe them all the time.
As I came upon a point where two woodland paths crossed, I noticed a slight change in Kim’s demeanour, his expression went from tongue-lolling indifference to ears forward attentiveness, he made no sound, but glanced up at me to check that I had seen his 'Someone’s coming' signal. I stepped off the path and into the undergrowth, and with Kim beside me I peeped out at the crossroads through the withered leaves of a beech sapling. To my utter astonishment, a giant walked past right in front of me. A huge, blonde haired man with a Bedlington x Whippet at his heels. Over one enormous shoulder was a strap fashioned from a car seat belt and attached to a wooden box, over the other shoulder a short spade. I knew immediately what the box contained, this particular giant was going ferreting.
I was mesmerised, driven by my little boy’s fascination and curiosity for all things strange and new. I wanted to approach this monster of a man, to see up close what a giant looked like, to find out how someone so huge could move so quietly, to engage him in conversation. Perhaps I could even get a peek inside that ferret box, and a have a chance to examine the terrier, but my little boy’s imagination held me back, I knew all about bean-stalks and how giant’s made their bread.
I resolved to follow him without revealing my presence. I was quite good at this sort of thing, having spent countless hours creeping up on unsuspecting wildlife with my catapult. When the giant was 100 or so yards in front of me, I started to move. Dogs read our body language much better than we read theirs, and Kim fell unbidden into stalking mode beside me. Making sure there was always some cover to shield me should the giant glance in my direction, and staying downwind of the Whippet, I trailed him to his destination, a sandy embankment at the far edge of the wood.
I congratulated myself on my stalking skills, and settled down below the rim of a cone-shaped hollow that I now know to be an old bomb crater, one of the many that were peppered around the woods, and I reached into my pocket for my 'binoculars'. These were in fact old-fashioned opera glasses, the kind that fold flat into a little case. They really belonged to my granny, she called them her 'Oppin glasses' and I had them on permanent loan. As I peered through the cloudy lens that did more to hinder my view than enhance it, I saw the giant toss the spade to one side, he then set the ferret box down and sat on it. Suddenly, and still with his back to me, he shouted, “Si di! Are da gonna lay in yon ole all day, or are da gonna gi me a hand?"