Chapter XX: Harrogate
A summer, a winter, and another summer have gone adrift since writing the last paragraph. I have had a time lapse before, but for a period of eight months only. Even then I bemoaned the fact that old age was taking its toll, especially on my memory. Now that I am approaching my eighty second birthday I have to make a still greater effort to recall the events of the last fifteen years or so. Why have I allowed this fairly long period to pass by without putting pen to paper?
I can think of several excuses and of seemingly justifiable reasons. It seems to be the experience of many professional writers that the most difficult step to take is to urge oneself to sit down before a blank piece of paper, not knowing what to write. I have found that such an urge has steadily become more difficult to arouse. One reason, I suppose is that I have continued to be plagued with periods of very trying skin irritation. It’s well nigh impossible, for me at any rate, to settle down to committing thoughts to writing. And yet you often read of people, faced with the knowledge that the disease from which they are suffering, cancer for instance, will soon bring an end to their lives deciding that they must put on record their sufferings so that others may face life with less fear.
I justify my attitude by thinking that the trauma of a fatal disease gives a stronger urge than a niggling discomfort which militates against a comfortable approach to writing memoirs. However, I have decided to make the attempt to restart writing as I am faced with a winter of inactivity and boredom. In the previous winter I managed to pass away the time fairly pleasantly by reading a lot of light literature in English and in Welsh. But the light literature has not always been very satisfying. I have been reading far too many rubbishy thrillers. So I must try to combine writing with reading more serious literary works.
Paradoxically, I have had less urge to write because I have been fitter in the last eighteen months. The paradox lies in the fact that although the skin irritation has been a debilitating effect on my general well-being, I have been free of the back trouble that prevented my doing bending jobs in the garden, and so I have been able to pass away the time by digging the garden, by cutting the lawns, and indeed carrying out all sorts of trifling jobs around the premises.
I have now given my excuses and reasons. So now to restart the memoirs, probably not in chronological order, but following the mind as it wanders from one memory to another.
When living in Rhuddlan we had many pleasant experiences. We were fortunate in having daughters who lived in homes situated in areas of natural beauty and which were tourist attractions. Bethan and Richard, after they got married, were naturally unable to buy a home, but had to make do with rented accommodation. Their first rented flat was in Harrogate on the edge of the vast and beautifully green open space called the Stray. The flat was very convenient for the centre of the town with its fine shops, imposing hotels, beds of beautiful flowers, such as tulips, daffodils and primulas in the spring, all changed to a mass of seasonal summer flowers.
Near the centre was the luxurious Royal Hall, where concerts of popular and classical music were held. It was here that the Harrogate Choral Society had most of its concerts, some of which we attended as we had a personal interest – Bethan was a member of the Choral Society.
Nearby was another attraction – the Pump Room which entitled Harrogate to be called a Spa. How at the end of the last century and the beginning of this people flocked to take the sulphurous waters I cannot fathom! A single sip of the foul water was enough to turn one’s stomach.
However, Harrogate has changed. It’s now a popular conference centre and holiday resort instead of a famous spa to which people used to come from far and wide ‘to take the waters’ in order to cure diseases such as those of the bladder and kidneys, epilepsy and other common diseases. People bathed in the baths in order to cure skin diseases. If I were now living in the beginning of this century I too might have followed this custom so that I could get rid of my plaguey skin irritation. People also used to wander in the Valley gardens and listen to the band.
Harrogate nowadays has ceased to be a spa town and it’s the green spaces and beautiful gardens which seem to be the main attraction. The Valley Gardens still preserve a Victorian atmosphere, beautifully kept beds of all kinds of flowers with their large variety of hues and colours, a conservatory from which there are glorious views of the whole gardens and where a Victorian type band plays sweet light music.
There are plenty of genteel-looking cafes where a leisurely meal can be taken among well dressed people looking prim and proper in spite of having completed a laborious shopping round. The most popular of these cafes in Betty’s Café, a café which the Yorkshire vet James Herriot and his wife Helen liked to frequent.
Bethan seemed to be happy teaching in Notre Dame School in Leeds. (She denied this when reading the notes.) She coped well with the teaching of Biology to the girls of the Catholic School, although she had not followed a Teacher’s Training Course after her graduation. Nevertheless she gave up her appointment at the end of two years, and took a job in Harrogate Public Library as an untrained assistant at, of course, a much lower scale of pay. However, she had the advantage of not having to travel quite a long distance to Leeds. Richard was settling down happily in his Soil Survey work and found his colleagues to be pleasant and friendly workmates. After moving from their first flat near the Stray to a larger flat nearby, their next move was to buy a house in Knaresborough.
This house, at 4, York road, Knaresborough, was quite adequate as a first-buy house, having features which were satisfactory for a couple. It was a semi-detached house which had a very small garden in the front with a sizeable back garden. In the front they were a little elevated from the main road to York; in the back there was a lane leading to the Public Cemetery, about two hundred yards further down the slope. The back lane was wide enough for cars to be parked without blocking the way to the lower houses and to the cemetery. The house, too, although situated on the outskirts of the town, was quite convenient for the town centre.
Knaresborough itself is a small market town with a castle dominating the high ground above the river. Below the castle the River Nidd runs though its gorge between the High Bridge and the Low Bridge. Next to the Low Bridge is the famous petrifying well identified as the cave of Mother Shipton, famous for her prophecies. It is also a very convenient base from which to explore the beautiful scenery of the Yorkshire dales and moors, as well as the city of York.
Much more can be written about Yorkshire, but I must move on to other subjects about which I must write. When in Knaresborough somehow or other I got in touch with my school pal, my co-digger in College and fellow Honours Latin student, namely Bill Elias.
[Memoirs end here.]