Currer Laithe

Recently I was wondering about the place I used to live in Yorkshire, and for whatever reason googled on Moss Carr, Keighley. Sooner or later I arrived at Currer Laithe, a farm half a mile from where I used to live. From there I found this page, listing books written by the current owners of the farm. Out of curiosity I chased them down (the farm was a rich source of good memories for me) only to find out that they are currently out of print. Having no luck emailing the author I wrote and to cut a long story short I bought copies of the books from the author (signed even!). Jean, the author, is a (very slightly moderated) blunt Yorkshire lass and since we shared a small part of Yorkshire I thought we'd maybe share memories. Boy was I wrong. I knew a tiny bit about the family history, but even after a few tens of pages I've learned a lot, primarily how easy I had it in comparison.

If you're interested in Yorkshire, a hill farmers life (and can manage to translate the dialect, met quite regularly) then you might enjoy the books. I'll report further as I finish the first and move on to the others.

An English student I know found my collection of Yorkshire terms quite fascinating. As a starter for ten:

• Harvesting from the intake'?
• A posser
• the verb 'to lake (about)'.
• Progging?
• Taws and cheggies?
• Cellar cotts?
• cole 'ole,
• ash tub kennels
• clockin (should be clock in perhaps?)
• fents,
• thimble cakes and diddy pies,
• piggin,
• liggers-off,
• mistal,
• punk (bit different from todays usage)
• 'tekkin up',
• led (as in leading the hay in, p52)
• headings
• wind row,
• fork holes,
• groop (explained! )
• to stove (the bedroom),
• steadings,
• And as for tipply-top-tails, well...

Some I managed to pick up from context, others I knew. I doubt many from other parts of the country will have much joy though.

Well written from a lady nearing 80, I find the content fasicnating.