Flower Festival at Aysgarth church

The Flower Festival from 25th to 28th June at St Andrew’s Church at Aysgarth on the theme of All Things Bright and Beautiful, was truly inspirational and encouraging especially as over £900 was raised for Caring for Life and so will benefit some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

The festival was held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Penhill Benefice of which Aysgarth is a part and also the 35th anniversary of the Wensleydale Flower Club. The flower arrangements were created by members of the Benefice churches and the flower club.

One of the organisers, Juliet Barker, commented that the flower arrangements were great fun to put together and said: ‘Visitors told us they were blown away by the beauty of the displays and by the talent and imagination of their creators. Those who arranged church flowers said they were inspired by our use of garden flowers and clever mechanics avoiding the use of Oasis and would take our ideas back to their own churches.

‘So thanks and congratulations to one and all for a fantastic festival which fully lived up to its theme of “All things bright and beautiful”’.

Stop Ure Pollution 

Stop Ure Pollution has now issued a warning that there is a dangerous level of pollution at Aysgarth Falls for humans and dogs

I was amazed at  how soon Stop Ure Pollution came into being after I wrote an editorial for the March 2024 edition of the Upper Wensleydale Newsletter (Oh For a clean River Ure!). And I have met some truly amazing people. Over 130 have signed up the campaign to fight for a cleaned-up river.

We look forward to the day when there is, once again, an abundance of insects along the River Ure, plenty of fish – and a safe place for children and adults to bathe.

Stories from the past:

One of my most interesting  jobs each year is to edit Now Then,  the annual magazine of the Friends of  the Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes.

Last year a story about the playground at Townfoot in Hawes led to research on the presence of the Army in that area during WW2. Were they testing amphibious tanks at Gayle? Local people thought they were but maybe these were only semi-amphibious tanks.  I will follow up on this for this year’s Now Then. 

I’ve been collecting stories from the past from the Hawes Parish Magazines of 1896 (Street Criers of London) and also from The Church Monthly dating back to 1892 owned by St Andrew’s Church, Aysgarth, as well as those from the Heritage Event held at that church in 2009. The stories include these from 1894:  how to care for horses and a ride on a railway engine; how lighthouses were powered with paraffin lanterns and  using steamer horse-drawn fire engines. When rushing to a fire these days those on board the fire engine no longer have to yell ‘Fire! Fire!’ as they did in the 1890s. Nor do they have to harness horses before they could head out to a fire.

From the Heritage Event there is  A Mothering Sunday story about a man who I believe remembered his mother in a most unusual way at Aysgarth church; and the Doctor’s Window.

From The Church Monthly is  Children’s Playtime in early 1890s and the first two of the Rev Wood’s articles covering his natural history rambles in January and March 1892  plus  some local information about Aysgarth parish at that time. The Rev Wood’s nature rambles are included in Nightingale Duet.

And there is the story about the Telegraph Messenger boys of the 1890s. In that article it was stated: ‘If on any given day the electric telegraph suddenly came to an end, business would speedily become disorganised.’ The delivery of those messages depended upon boys aged 13 to 16 working nine hour days!

Visit  Penhill Benefice website for details of services in mid Wensleydale.

Personal memories:

There have been some special moments recently – such as meeting with my friend, Carolyn Murray, and hearing all about her work with Immanuel Kindergarten in Yei. In October 2021 she went to Windsor Castle to be presented with the MBE by the Princess Royal. She has returned to South Sudan again this year.

Fundraising is ongoing for the Kennel Field south of Thornton Rust which was such a special place for my late husband, David Pointon.

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