City of Culture &Donkeys on the green..

Donkeys on the green and Dogs in Filey Churchyard , have the same effect on Betsey Trotwood and the writer. 

Some things incense me . I always find people with their unleashed dogs in the Churchyard every early morning when I arrive before 9.30am to attend to the flowers. Carefully worded requests are cheerfully and blatantly ignored by parishioners. 

Barmston Drain Clough Road

Recalling a recent trip to the soon to shine City Of Culture I found myself being narked by things that are so avoidable and solvable .
I'll post  positive pictures first .

• The Joy of Barmy Drain OKA Barmston Drain. Walking to the huge Household Warehouse in Clough Road to meet Sutton sister I walked from Newland , leaving the bus at the tantalising Lidl.  Barmston Drain is still a bit of the country in the City. There were no shopping trollies and bicycles in this bit, and it promised riverside plants , waterlitles and ducks , or seagulls pretending to be ducks. That was on a very gray January morning , and it brightened my mood.

Look whats still selling just Breadcakes in Hessle road

• Breadcakes are known as Baps in Filey, but they'll always be Breadcakes to me. Aunty Alice in the (Sutton)village used to send me to Mackmans on the corner of Church Street and College St , after it was Lassies, to get a couple of breadcakes. She had a neat way of slicing each one across about 3 times and filling (after buttering with the butter warming by the coal fire) with ham in one layer and Philadelphia in the next ,then cutting each breadcake into 4 for our tea. It was her version of the Club sandwich which she had eaten when she lived in New Jersey with Aunty Kathleen Bruce in the winter of 60/61. We were to benefit greatly from her sojourn in the colonies. She introduced many new things in to the Bruce diet, and family culture and we are often reminded of how beneficial it is when someone who has lived only in Hull is able to realise a wider world is out there if only for 6 months .

• Oh the tiles ! Hull is full of Old Pubs ,often in dire need of restoration where the tilework is just Stunning . Forget the Georgian Society , and start thinking how to preserve all the wonderfully decorated buildings of whatever age 
•  Firstly The Windmill Pub Witham Description: Windmill Public House

Windmill Pub Witham 

Grade: II

Date Listed: 21 January 1994
English Heritage Building ID: 387859
OS Grid Reference: TA1071229284
OS Grid Coordinates: 510712, 429284
Latitude/Longitude: 53.7482, -0.3226 
 and the pubs in the

• Conservation Area around the Old Town .A lovely restoration job seems to have been done on the Green Bricks Pub, and its still a pub

 I noted the ceiling in my  old bank, Yorkshire Penny Bank at the very end of Savile Street,  now a popular CaffeNero. Thank God for the History lecturer at College who used to keep saying Look Up !Look Up!  I find such treasure above the many changed shop signs  in all urban streets  and shop interiors when plaster board has not lowered the ceilings. I don't really care if the Windmill Pub becomes a Greasy Spoon or a Cash Converter Shop as long as the workmanship and design of the tiles is kept . Coffee Shops from banks are perfect recycling .

Caffe Nero oka YPBank Savile Street Hull

• Now for the GRIPE

Seated area next to Lidl and across from Asda

I took the bus to Lidl , not the Beverley High Road one but the Hessle Road one. The Hessle Road is one of the most historic roads in Hull , skirting as it once did the Fish Dock , St Andrews. Closed to shipping in 1975 as the Fishing Industry moved out of Hull as practices changed , the Hessle Road still remains as the homeground of thousands of families whose fathers, grandfathers and sons and brothers once did business on the great waters *. 

This is a great area of the Culture of Hull , and I hope that the most is made of it from what remnants  here and in other dock sites remain.

Lidl and Asda ,those monuments to the buying habits of  Supermarket Shoppers nationwide are not high on my list of Public Spirited members of the community . 

Here you see  the detritus of the 21st Century man on the Bayswater Omnibus. We are all to blame ! Councils do not employ men and women to pick up litter, parents do not seem to instruct their children to refrain from dropping litter and those with addiction Habits have not got the inclination to be tidy or sometimes even clean. The homeless would not sleep here, and because I did not have any strong gloves I darent not even pick the cans in to the bins (many metres away ).

I would expect that Asda an Lidl who thrive on the spending of punters like me who get the bus just next to this quagmire of filth ,would really help the community by DOING THEIR BIT. It would take 1 employee 30 mins wearing Strong Gloves and carrying a black sack  to clear this up, even if they had to do it every day . 

I ask You Lidl ,and I ask you Asda 

could you spare  someone from your store for 15 mins a day each , pay them top rates it's a dirty job , and see if you can make your little bit of the CITY of CULTURE  a little more pleasant and more CIVILISED 

*Psalm 107 v23 

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;”
King James Version (KJV)

Requisite for body and soul, Wydale , a perspective .

Reposted in 2020 with new photos

Requisite for body and soul, Wydale , a perspective 

For several years I have been able to keep my Aged Parent  happy by lending her my battered copy of the 100th Edition of Crockfords. She has loved looking up Clergy she has known  and seeing if they are still alive. She is 95 and now living in the past , but always likes to know about Wydale  Hall ,our Diocese of York Retreat House .  AP talks fondly of her time in the 1970s  helping out, when she was widowed , at Bishops House , IONA, (I like the linked review from a spiritual Tripadvisor), the retreat house for the  Diocese of Argyll and the Isles. She made lasting friendships, and was able to grieve , and helping with the menial tasks of a place of hospitality for Spiritual  refreshment and Pilgrimage  gave her time to re-focus and seek direction and Healing  for herself.

I am guessing, without Crockfords , that there must be dozens of Anglican Diocesan Retreat Houses still trading . Now I have issue with Crockfords , Why do they not have a page of Diocesan Retreat houses listed ? The Church of England Year Book has a list of Retreat Houses, including Diocesan ones but not specifically so .

Few Diocesan Retreat Houses actually advertise at all in the Online and paper Retreat Listings . I do not have time to wade through websites and check out mission statements .If its an Anglican House I can expect , not withstanding the beauty of our broadchurch , that all our  Diocesan Retreat houses being under Authority , are going to be offering Courses , Holidays , Quiet Days and Conference facilities that I can trust . So please Church House Publishing publish  a list in Crockfords, I am quite able to discern from there on , having passed the first filter. Reading the sparse PDFs of Synod reports which mention Retreat Houses I cannot believe that the Anglican church in the UK is trying to keep them as undiscovered gems, when the treasure is yearning to be shared.

So to Wydale Hall ,  my own York Diocesan Retreat &Conference Centre, a short drive from Filey , where I live and work and have my being.

Here on the North Yorkshire Coast , south  of Scarborough , and a part of the UK that is a holiday retreat for thousands, we are always getting mentioned in the Sunday Papers.  We are  a destination of choice, a place for a second home, a place with the best beach, the best fish and chips , etc, but this all comes with an infrastructure of Industry that has been finely  honed since the coming of the Railways .

The people of Filey and especially those in the Tourist trade , service a vast Industry .

From June to September we never take the car after 9am to Scarborough to the Building Society, or the hospital , M and S or Boyes (our much loved local emporium). We never go to our local greengrocer or butcher after 9.30am. The pavements of Filey are always four  abreast with happy tourists  with their children , mothers in law and dogs, enjoying a retreat of the seaside kind. Its the same all over this part of Yorkshire, beach or moor, dale or castle , we are a magnet for holiday makers, and proud we are that they all love us so much.

Wydale Hall then is where Filey Parishioners  love to go away from it all . We can go for the day to a Quiet Day , for Communion on the first  Wednesday in the month, for a couple of nights just re -charging our batteries. We can sign up for a course, or take our Youth Groups away for a break at the Emmaus Centre , have a Parish weekend , and all  just a short drive from home into a different world. Laughing lunches at Wydale are now being mentioned in our Parish magazine .

Every year in August a group from Filey Parish go for a few days holiday together, and this is open for anyone ,especially those who live alone and wants a break , or those who can’t do much but want to enjoy the views and not cook for a few days. Pat organises optional games and Rummikub in the evenings and makes sure all are included and special and those who want to walk have got company . Enough cars are taken so that everyone has a lift , and if a visit to Thornton le Dale is fancied, off they go and hit the Cake shops.

I have done much of my growing at Wydale . I remember the Quiet days that were led by Rev Ron Treasure in the 90s and 00s, where opportunities for counselling , Laying on of hands for Healing , and personal and private prayer times changed my life for ever. The same goes for Parish Weekends. It took a lot of courage for spouse and I to go to our first one. We didn’t want to go but felt we should join the rest of our homegroup. Twice , in 2010 and 2012 we were led by Rev Keith Powell , a Diocesan Renewal Adviser from Somerset . We were truly zapped in the most lasting (and anglican way ) no hype, no fuss , just good teaching and much Holy Spirit Power. The Parish Media Team blogged  through those times at Wydale, you may like to join us and see what the Lord Did with us, I have  put links at bottom of this post .  **

Diocesan Retreat centres, like  *Parcevall Hall for those in the West Riding are always Lovely houses in beautiful locations. They are all prayed in places and in my experience can  have an atmosphere of the aroma of God. They are places where the Holy Spirit dynamic may be ‘felt ‘. I find the atmosphere , fragrance , peace of God in Wydale, set in a hidden valley above Snainton, and yet is only half a mile from the busy Scarborough to Pickering road.

Yesterday I  went with Rev Liz Kitching to Wydale for the ride. She was taking her monthly informal Communion open to anyone there.

My beloved came too , and joined Liz for the HC. I wandered the grounds , got Mark the manager to show me the view again from the top bedrooms, sampled the coffee and sussed out any changes. I hadn’t been for 18 months since visits to Aged Parent in Beverley have taken so much of my time and head. I’d prayed for good weather, as I wanted to see the Labyrinth again in the walled garden . I rang my Telephone Prayer Partner Rachel in Nottingham first . She always keeps me in line, with her experience and good sense. On Bank Holiday Monday Rachel had been disappointed because she and her family , including small boy were due to have day out at her own Diocesan house Launde Abbey.It was pouring with rain so they couldnt go’ but I was told about last years Open day,with  Car Boot sale, Classic Cars to view, Games for children ,refreshments and Open Chapel . It sounded if the whole of Nottingham and Leicester go to - Next year Rachel !!  Wydale is different . I couldn’t work out where a Car Boot Sale could even go, but that is the joy of Diversity !

Wydale was looking great, Mark the manager didn’t have to tell me about the Work Party that had done so much in August. I read about it from York Dioceses e-newsletter, and of the 55 people who painted and gardened . What a great idea thought I! A working holiday in such a lovely place .

Jenny and Judith were working in the walled garden yesterday  with new pink Wheelbarrow, they are Friends Volunteers. Jenny said that helping at Wydale was just what she loved to do following the death of her husband. The Wydale Gardener  Ken and Charlie the maintenance man  were making safe the handrails on the steps down from the terrace, and like Parcevall hall have Moles on the lawn !

There are lots of new touches in the Public rooms, and the bedrooms are all being updated as funds allow. The last manager Barry made positive  changes and this continues .His years of hard work were appreciated. Mark the new manager brings his own gifting and we in Filey will support him all we can . These special houses are such an asset and we need to use them and   publicise them .

The Lacemakers were just finishing their workshop together.

Rural Deans and a bishop and lots of clergy were having  a meeting too, and lunch , only the ladies wore clerical collars , but none was our new Bishop Of Hull . We are longing to meet her . Rev Liz says she’s been to Westway Open Arms and she’s ‘fab’ !

From all over the UK with cushions covered in bobbins and threads they had been updating their skills for a few days  with  tutors from Belgium . I’ll be able to tell AP all about that . She’ll  smile and tell me about her wedding veil of Brussels lace that had been her mother’s too in about 1908. We’ll talk about all the times she’s been to Wydale . She might say it belonged to her father, or that she had lived here once. I just go along with it .

So I’m sitting in my little office in this old cottage, thanking God for the central heating on today for the first time since June. The children go back to school here on Wednesday next , so town is still full of caravanners , day trippers and people in holiday cottages working out how to light the Log Burner and thinking where to dine out tonight in Filey.

We’ve had non stop visitors here since July knocking to say Hello! whilst they have a day out at the seaside.

A day or two In Wydale would make a good break,  the many trees around Wydale Hall will soon be thinking of shutting down for the winter as well, so all the views will change.  Jesus was very keen on being away from it all , and by God incidence my early morning Bible reading on my You Version Bible app yesterday was about having rest and refreshment.

‘The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of the people and not people to meet the needs of the Sabbath’ NLT Mark 2 v 27

‘Most of all we need to stop and pause and fill our cups with God, even if it’s not on Sundays or for an entire day. Making time to rest in the Lord can be really challenging, but the benefits of that are worth the effort’ from the Devotion ‘The lies of Busyness’ from www.timeofgrace.org

*All I know from a visit to Parcevall Hall was that a mole came up through the lawn about a yard from where I was walking with my husband . It might not have been special for the gardeners , but it was wonderful for us.

**

http://fileyparish.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/please-pray-for-our-parish-weekend-away.html

http://fileyparish.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/2pm-saturday-afternoon-of-rest.html

http://fileyparish.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/saturday-night-from-wydale.html

http://fileyparish.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/sunday-at-wydale.html

http://fileyparish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/1-keep-praying-and-bless-blogging.html

http://fileyparish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/3connect-to-wydaish.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/down-and-out-in-wydale-hall.html

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Entrepreneurs of Hull , read this ! #Hull City Of Culture

In my mind Ive never seen this in the Science Museum . I must have done , but never read the label and realised that it was the very one that was flown by Amy Johnson to Australia, D.H.60 Moth 1928 G-AAAH Jason.

She is a famous daughter of Hull, and many of us learned about her thrilling flight as we were at school just after the  2nd World War. Hull people needed a heroine then , just as we do now. I've been to Sewerby and seen the exhibition of her personal artefacts donated by her family .

So today I read in the Times that the Science Museum has refused to lend the plane to Hull for the City Of Culture 2017 event . Their reasons are all very sound, just as Hulls reasons for borrowing it are very sound. This debate will no doubt run . I wait to see comments on the Hull Facebook and Hull and East Riding  pages, which are THE place to see what Hullesians really think. IMO. AS a rider here I say that Philip Larkin might have been a great poet, but SON OF HULL HE WAS NOT. 

So to you organisers of festivals and entrepreneurs of Kingston upon Hull's City of Culture 2017 event, make something of this!

Hire a large warehouse or Shop  down Humber Street:

• Make a Lego replica of the Gipsy Moth (Span 8.84m (29’) Length 7.16m (23’6”)
• Make a cardboard replica of the Gipsy Moth 
• Make a CAD of the one in the Science Museum , they cant object to that , display on giant screen
• Order very small, plastic models of the Gipsy Moth (in a local Plastic Factory ) to sell 
• Make a film , a Biopic starring locals , and involving students doing Media Studies
• Have a competition amongst local Schools to write short stories about Amy Johnson , or Play Scripts. Arrange for the best to be performed in the exhibition Venue, filmed or shared on u tube
• Get your 8 year old grandchildren to design a Minecraft Aviation game , or adventure 
• Get a Listening Project going like the one on BBC radio 4 where people of Hull aged 80 can talk about Amy Johnson, Aviation, travelling by Air, doodlebugs etc

There I've given you a start !Get Going NOW