Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 57a:- For my second fell race when I started running, I competed in a race witch ran up the hill you can see in the distance. WITCH hill is it? Cryptic Clue: Some will depend lets say!

Photo no. 57b:- What is the monument in the picture ... take what I say with a pinch of Salt! The hill referred to in 57a is to the right. I used to run across here on my long country runs when I first started running.

Dear Blog,

               Last week as I told you, I went up to Yorkshire but instead of camping for the week, the family hired a POD, which is a rich man’s version of a tent or a poor man’s version of a caravan. It is a garden hut, insulated, with a curved roof, carpeted floor, electricity and a heater. After my first trudge I did appreciate the warmth and space of this Pod thing instead of having to return to a cold damp tent with no room to swing a proverbial cat! Perched high on the Yorkshire moors, you could see for miles and miles. Well, the Pod’s owner said you could see for miles and miles on a clear day when we phoned up to book in for a week’s stay. And was he wrong? He was not wrong! Not at all. The site was about two miles from where I used to live, so I knew it well; also the surrounding countryside was my old stomping ground. Tuesday dawned fine, warm and sunny. For my trudge I decided to replicate a standard session I used to employ years ago when I wanted a speed quality work out. Of course it wouldn’t be a speed session. And it wouldn’t be a quality session. And there is no way any trudge of mine can be called a ‘work out’. And there would be a lack of buses to use. Buses? Yes Blog, Buses with a capital ‘B’. So what did I used to do? It was always a second or third session of the day and the idea was to have a quality blowout. I’d leave home and run quite hard down to the main road about a mile away. The spot where I joined up with the main Halifax Road, was a wide open road junction with an old iron horse trough on the small central island. The space provided a turning circle from the time in the 1930s when Keighley had tracklesses instead of buses for transporting the locals to and from the mills in the town. Before the electric vehicles, horse drawn transport used the turning circle, hence the old horse trough. I knew the timing of the bus service up to Haworth (of ‘Bronte’ fame) and Oxenhope (of the film ‘The Railway Children’ fame). As it was time for all the local mills to finish, buses were frequent. 50 years ago runners were regarded as oddballs and the subject of derision at best and abuse at worst. If the bus was late I did a few reps on the wide pavements around the circle until a bus appeared. This, as you can imagine, went down a treat from the queuing workers waiting for a bus to take them in the opposite direction to the bus I was waiting for. Howls of discouragement every time I speeded up to make another effort; it was always a relief when the bus to Haworth or Oxenhope turned up. Then the session began in earnest. It was two miles of constant steady climb up to Cross Roads where the roads to Haworth and Oxenhope diverged. My task was to race, Yes Blog, RACE, the bus up to the junction. The bus had to stop to drop passengers off of course, but these frequent stops afforded me the opportunity to catch and pass the bus. Our times to the junction were very similar. I had eleven bus stops to race the omnibus, the two miles being a constant game of pass / pass. I am sure the drivers used to enter into the spirit of the session. I know the passengers took an interest and got quite excited about who would be the victor! If the bus turned off to Oxenhope, which was my route, it was an added bonus as the competition was extended for another plus mile; but my task got harder as the road to the terminus was now flat and few passengers were left on the bus necessitating fewer stops. Part of my reason for this session was that it offered me a fast session with a couple of miles of flat running thrown into the steady run up hill to Cross Roads and the screamingly fast run back down from Cross Roads to my start point. Even on the return downhill section, I could give the local bus service a good run for its money! The terminus at Oxenhope village is also the terminus for the Keighley and Worth Valley Preservation Society’s steam railway – well worth a visit especially when a special event like the Santa Special is being promoted at Christmas time. Of course, the railway was still operational when I was a kid, pre Dr Beeching! I went to the local Wesleyan Chapel’s Sunday School next to the Ingrow station. Every year, we had a trip out instead of having a preaching. We used to assemble for morning Sunday School as usual, but, the service was abandoned and we were marched down to the local Ingrow Station, about 50 yards away, to board a train for our trip. Remember this was a desperately deprived area of the north, no toilets inside the back to back terraced houses, gas lighting, a single room up and a single room down etc.. So the days out were a treat to very much look forward to. The fact that we only caught the train four miles up the line to the Oxenhope terminus, never detracted from the excitement of a train journey and a play on the swings next to the Chapel at Oxenhope village when we got there. Incidentally, the next station up the line from Ingrow was Damens, where there was a level crossing; as it was on a muck path to the local mill, there was never much crossing! The next station was Oakworth, where my nephew is now Station Master for the Worth Valley Railway and my sister has just won her third succession Yorkshire in Bloom Gold Medal for the display and gardens at the station ... the only Gold to be won in the area!!! Some achievement! Back to my session. From Oxenhope, it was a small drop down to the railway station, a short steep climb to the back road to take me back to the park at Haworth where I could pick up a return bus service to Keighley. The half mile steady climb out of the Bronte village was always a challenge if a bus was on tap. Lung bursting. The final two miles gently down was always quality; indeed the whole session was always quality. So from the Pod on Tuesday, I wallowed in nostalgia and felt quite elated until a bus passed me and sped off into the distance!!! The driver was totally oblivious to the rules of engagement. I shall phone the Head Office when it opens on Monday and will be quite stern about the said drivers lack of compassion towards my trudge. On Wednesday I did the same trudge backwards, not trudging backwards, Blog, but obviously, trudging in the opposite direction. As the camp site was on the flat moorland top above Haworth/Oxenhope, I had fantastic views for miles around as I trudged downhill, through the village of Leeming to pick up my old course before I started my trudge proper! Thursday, I went out onto the moorland behind the camp site; a large flattish area covered in heather. Or, in a normal year, it would have been covered in heather, but this year all that remained of the annual purple carpeting was the dried shrivelled stalks of twigs. Do you member, back in June Blog, when I was up here, I told you about the moorland fires. Well this is where they actually were. I bet the mobile home residents on the site and the caravaners staying there at the time were wetting themselves. If you have ever been up close to a heather fire Blog, and seen the speed of spread and the intense thick smoke produced, you will understand the powerful destructive force of such a fire. And if it manages to ignite the peat, it can smoulder for weeks. The trampled paths on this area of the moorland afforded excellent loops for interval work or fartlek, with or without spikes. Indeed, the paths are so well trodden that I used to be able to run over the moors in the dark winter nights when there was a full moon on a clear night, they were so well marked. It was equivalent to a run on a musty day, easily runable, surprisingly easy to see where to tread. Quite safe. Although if I’d have had a bad fall, tripe and custard puddings wouldn’t have sustained me. I’d have ended up as another preserved body in a bog, Blog.

And on Friday I came back to the homestead to Race. Yes RACE, I kid you not. Race with a capital ‘R’. As I revealed yesterday, I was allowed to trudge in the Warwick University Cross Country Relays. I feel the students did not take the relays in the spirit in which they were organised. No respect. They kept over taking me. These youngsters, I ask you Blog. If they’d have realised what a famous person it was they were passing, I am sure that they would have given me a helping hand over the rough and/or the muddy parts. I shall announce at the start of next year’s relays that they should all either slow down a little or allow some concession for age by letting me trudge over a shorter distance. It’s only right, isn’t it Blog???

                           Colin

P.S. Did get a couple of cards and the odd present for my birthday Blog, although yours hasn’t arrived yet. I shall wait for the postal gentleman tomorrow, Blog, with an air of anticipation.