Voices From The Dales

Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby founded a museum and brought pleasure to millions of people through their popular books on the Yorkshire Dales. What started their love affair with the Dales? How did they encourage Dales folk to tell their stories? And what role does museum they created, the Dales Countryside Museum, have today? In this episode hear the voices of Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, Guy Ingleby of Littondale, Taylor Dinsdale from Gayle, and Fiona Rosh...

John Thwaite (1873-1941) was a Wensleydale dialect poet who wrote about the natural beauty as well as the ordinary working class people around him. He worked as a grocer in the town of Hawes. Some 30 years after his death a group of people in Wensleydale recorded his poems on cassette tapes. In this episode hear two poems read by Jack Fawcett: ‘The Quarryman’s Cross’ and ‘T’Auction Mart’. It is presented by Andrew Fagg from Hawes Main Street and was recorded on ...

“The energy is no longer there,” said the Methodist minister in Reeth in 2016, as another Dales chapel closed. As journalist Mike Amos reported, a way of life was quietly disappearing. Chapels were at the heart of village life in Wensleydale and Swaledale for around 150 years, but decline set in during the second half of the last century. And yet in half a dozen places such as Gayle and Gunnerside the Methodists are ‘still alive’, as they like to say. In this episode hear Wa...

Clogs, snow, the bus driver and the ‘kiddy catcher’ are discussed in Episode Two of Voices From The Dales. Hear the voices of Kit Calvert, Joan Fawcett, Eric and Vera Alderson and Reggie Fagg Rawlence – all from Hawes – as well as John Waggett from Gunnerside, Norman Guy from Muker, Jennie Sunter from Keld, Brian Sunter from Low Row, Eleanor Scarr from Bainbridge, and Allen Kirkbride from Askirgg. It is presented by Andrew Fagg from outside Hawes Primary School and was recorded o...

A cockerel down a chimney, school closures, sex education and a ‘Roman toilet’ are discussed in Episode One of Voices From The Dales. Hear the voices of John Waggett from Gunnerside, Joan Fawcett and Christa Fagg Rawlence from Hawes, Sally Stone from West Burton, Norman Guy from Muker, Enid Lundberg from Arkengarthdale and Barbara Buckingham from Reeth. Also meet Mary Burrow, the woman who devoted her life to one Dales school. It is presented by Andrew Fagg from outside Hawe...

Fell running is one of the oldest and most traditional sports in northern England. Races take place across the Yorkshire Dales throughout spring and summer. In this podcast you are taken to the ‘Hawkswick Dash’ in Littondale in June 2021, organised by the British Open Fell Runners Association. Hear the voices of Skipton’s ‘Mr Sport’ Roger Ingham, ‘Run The Dales’ writer and organiser Victoria Benn, Kilnsey Show fell race record holder Mick Hawkins and Wensleydale fell runner...

Producing milk and making cheese are essential industries in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. But what’s the story behind the great tradition of cheese in the Dales? Find out in ‘Cheese Past’, the first of two Voices From The Dales podcast episodes dedicated to cheese. Presented by Andrew Fagg, in Hawes, hear the voices of Brian Sunter, Margaret Watson, Matthew Bell, Eleanor Scarr, Kit Calvert, Derek Ramsden and Iona Hill.

The Courtyard Dairy cheese shop at the foot of Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales has been named 'among the best 50 food shops in the world' (by the Financial Times). In Voices From The Dales 'Cheese Present' hear the Courtyard Dairy story from co-founder Andy Swinscoe and his fellow cheesemongers, as they 'fill faces' with farmhouse cheese made from raw milk. 'Cheese Present' follows on from the last episode, Cheese Past, which featured clips from the oral history collecti...

Thousands of people, often from the towns and cities of Lancashire and West Yorkshire, travel each week to the Ingleborough area for recreation. In Part Three, hear two men from a Muslim hikers group. Group leader Sham Ali proudly declares that he is from ‘Bradford, born and bred as a Yorkshireman,’ while teacher Tariq Shiraz shares his admiration for the way people try to keep the area free from litter. ‘People walk with bin liners,’ he says. Also in Part Three, Anna...

Ribblesdale is the main valley in the Ingleborough area and is renowned for its quarries. In Part Two, local farmer and former quarryman Winston White reflects honestly on his career. ‘If they had the chance they’d knock your house down and crush that up as well,’ he says. Ribblesdale has also become home to printmaker Hester Cox. She has become so well known for using natural materials in her work that she receives unusual gifts. ‘People give me little boxes with dea...

People have visions for the future of Ingleborough. For many, the hope is that it will become a wilder, even more species-rich environment. In Part Four, hear how Rachel Benson, who runs a bunk barn, has been making the vision a reality. ‘Now it is very flowery,’ she says of a restored hay meadow. Also hear the voice of an activist, Amy-Jane Beer. ‘It’s my place to go out to roam at will,’ she says. Presented by Andrew Fagg and Anna Greenwood.

The Ingleborough area covers around 100 square kilometres and it is the mountainous heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It is mostly a farmed landscape. In Part One of Our Ingleborough , commoner and dairyman John Dawson explains hill farming practices. ‘Our mark is a red arse,’ he says, referring to his sheep, before developing the argument that ‘everything is fine as long as you walk hand in hand with nature’. Presented by Andrew Fagg and Anna Greenwood.

Ingleborough is limestone – or karst – country. It is world famous for its caves. Part Five features Avelina Wright from the local Cave Rescue Organisation. ‘We don’t only pull humans out of holes,’ she says. Such was the pull of the caves for Lincolnshire woman Leann Rennie, she upped sticks and moved to the area. ‘There’s everything here that adventurous people like,’ she says. Her husband, Tam Rennie, also speaks of caving, while also giving an insight...

In Part Six, hear children from nearby Settle Primary School interview their grandparents. 93 year old Edna Thornton, from the village of Austwick to the south of Ingleborough mountain, remembers the days when the milkman delivered milk directly into a jug on her doorstep each morning. Two granddads from Settle are asked about the changes they have seen in the natural environment. Meanwhile builder Kevin Woods, who from his home looks at Ingleborough’s peak, reflects on a l...

Hear the voice of the bog as recorded by composer Sarah Smout in this one-off episode about the restoration of a vast area of peatland in the Yorkshire Dales called Fleet Moss. Peat Restoration Officer at the Yorkshire Peat Partnership Jenny Sharman speaks about how she has developed a ‘real love’ for Fleet Moss as as a ‘black, broken land’ has once again become a place with ‘a wealth of life’. The episode also features Bishopdale landowner and grouse shooting enthusiast Ro...

Voices From The Dales is returning for a second series - on dialect - on Friday 2 December 2022. This is our one-minute trailer. Series Two will have at a least six episodes of the usual 15 minute length, to be published fortnightly. Do come and meet the people of the village of Gayle and the little town of Hawes next door. Presented by Andrew Fagg.

Presenter Andrew Fagg introduces Series Two on Dales dialect, with special guests Val and Rob Ward. He visits Hawes Methodist Cemetery and makes the case for dialect. Enter then the remarkable voice of the late Lizzie Dinsdale, in a recording made in the 1970s but until now hidden away. She gives her recipe for havercake and speaks about doing a 'man's part' at hay time.

Presenter Andrew Fagg is by the beck in Gayle village to introduce the late local historian Rev James Alderson and the late Lizzie Alderson. There is a touching story about a petted pig, along with excerpts from a lecture given by Rev James in the early 1980s at the Grassington Festival. Both characters are remembered by special guests Rob and Val Ward. The work of Trevor Sharpe and Bradford Youth Service in the gathering of the original interviews, more than 40 years ago, ...

After a noisy introduction at Gayle Bridge, this episode opens with a little more of Rev James Alderson, including a short study of his 1980 Dales dialect primer. Presenter Andrew Fagg then stands by the black-painted railings of Foss Head Farm house in the village of Gayle to cue in a 1977 recording of the late Hannah Metcalfe (nee Alderson). The Metcalfe name and family is described. The late Taylor Dinsdale, interviewed by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, comes next. ...

Series Two special guest Rob Ward says, ‘There’s no fish in’t beck’. The sad recent demise of brown trout in Upper Wensleydale prompts a diversion from dialect into fishing. Three more voices from 1977 are heard: Fred Nuttall recounts the formation of Hawes and High Abbotside Angling Association; Jessie Blades speaks of her family’s fame at fly dressing and their work as bailiffs; and Chris Heseltine talks vividly about grobbling (tickling) trout. Presented by Andrew Fagg f...