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The Yorkshire Rose |
It Teks a Tyke Susan Sugden was born and bred in East Leeds. She was passionate about writing, mostly poetry and short stories. Sadly Susan passed away in 1994. Her family have lovingly pieced together seven of her short stories which we will be very proud publish. Set around Swarcliffe in the early seventies, not only are they clever and witty, with great characters but they’re a testament to our not too distant past. These stories are dedicated to Susan’s memory and to Rod, Chris, Jane, Fiona, David, Daniel, Emily and Maisie. Where is Tykeland? That’s easy. Tykeland is where Tykes live. I will try to explain. Tykeland has got everything. Looking up and down that land of many faces you will see the towering heights of the Pennines and the coal black depth of the pits. If, on the other hand, you choose to look down and up instead, you are quite likely to see just as much, from the murky bottom of the mill ponds to the heady tops of the factory chimneys. If you chose to look down and up, in that order, and you recognised quite well the mill ponds and the chimneys which you spied, you are not a Tyke, you are too awkward but at least you are probably a Northerner. If you did nothing because you knew the Pennines, pits, ponds and chimneys were there and always have been (so why bother to look?) Then...You are a right Tyke. An absolutely infallible way of detecting a Tyke is to give him (or her) the following test. Begin by asking this question: You have left your place of work at 12 noon and rushed about for an hour doing your shopping. You have not had time to eat, so you call for some fish and chips and hurry back into work, eating them, 10 minutes late. You finish eating your dinner as you enter the factory and you throw the paper down onto the shop floor. The boss asks you angrily, “Where’s the bin?” Select an answer: The answer is not at the back of the book, for, if you are a right Tyke, you know. Tykes are different, for instance, you may buy your wine by the litre but in Tykeland you would use a litre to light a cigarette. If a Tyke asks you “What’s the barn for?” and you answer “cows,” he will think that you are on your way to the Isle of Wight. Poetry is easier to write in Tykeland, there is far more flexibility with words. A Tyke poet can allow the word hate to rhyme with right and the word pout can rhyme with anything or nothing (owt or nowt) and make sense to Tyke poetry fanciers. People who cannot understand Tykish are often heard to say that Tykes are lazy speakers who are too idle to learn the language properly. On the contrary, they can speak, understand, read and write in two languages and not many people outside Tykeland can claim to do this. When he tunes into his radio, a Tyke can listen to, and fully comprehend, what the BBC newscaster is saying, but, if the tables were turned and a true dyed in the wool Tyke were to read the news, would the ever so well educated news caster understand it? I think not, thus proving my point that Tykes are fluent in two languages. Tykeland is the land of plenty. There are plenty of Tykes for a start, there are also plenty of mills, pits, hills, dales, chimneys (tall and short), sheep, moorland, terrace houses (back to back and through), power stations, chapels, sidings (canal and railway), bottles of dandelion and burdock, brands (mainly brass but some elastic) and of course, Yorkshire Puddings made with freshly fallen snow, not milk. Leeds is the capital of Tykeland. There are a great number of Tykes in Leeds, there are also other people who, even though they are born and bred in Leeds, are not Tykes and never will be. This area was named Leodis by the Romans, ravaged by the Vikings and it’s town hall was opened by Queen Victoria, so it must be as good as anywhere! Although Leeds can certainly be called it’s capital, Tykeland has no specific boundaries, the only certainty is that there are places which are definitely Tykelandish, a good example of this is Ilkley, upon whose moors, it will be recalled, the Tyke anthem is based. Although the look of Tykeland, like a lot of other places, has altered during the course of the 20th Century, the Tykes have not. The ten and twenty storey blocks of flats have gone up while most of the soot which clung to the older buildings has come down. And yet Tykeland’s image remains unaltered and thank goodness for that. Not only are it’s mountains the back-bone of England but it’s folk are the salt of the Earth and do not hesitate to call a spade a shovel.They are as open as the Pennines, as Earthy as the moorland, as straight as the M1 (which starts or ends in Leeds) and they have about as as many frills as a mill chimney. If you are flattered by a Tyke, this must be considered an honour. Whereas, if you are insulted by one, you must realise you have been told the outright truth about yourself and the Tyke has put into words what others have been thinking about you but didn’t like to say. Not been able to specify absolutely the whereabouts of Tykeland, I hope, nevertheless that you have now got a picture in your mind about the general area, it’s people, it’s buildings and it's open spaces. Now that you have got the idea, I would like to tell you about West Green Lane in the very heart of Tykeland. Most folks who live in West Green Lane are right Tykes and as I mentioned earlier, Tykes have not changed much in a century or more. It doesn’t matter therefore, in what year the following tale takes place. ---------- Susan Sugdens stories will continue in future issues. If you have a passion for writing, be it reporting, poetry, prose or short stories and would like to see your work in print, please let us know, our aim is to support local arts in anyway possible and we would love to be able to publish and promote local writing on a regular basis. Share |
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