With copies of The Wharfedale Mines selling well at the Yorkshire Dales Lead-mining museum in the old grammar school in Earby, and also alongside The Grassington Mines in Grassington, Mum and her partner went on to look for other places where it might sell.
The first most obvious place was Kettlewell – though looking at the village today it’s hard to imagine that it was once a lead-mining village, with smelt-mills and dressing-floors, as well as the mines themselves, as so much has disappeared over the centuries. No buildings remain and the only evidence of mining that can be seen now is a few spoil-heaps on the hillsides and along the lines of the veins where the lead ore was dug out many years ago.
Mum says she can remember when there was more to be seen, however, as one Sunday in the early 1970s she and her partner, together with a few friends, climbed up one of the hills in the village to see some of the mining remains up there. She’s long forgotten what they were, but she does remember that there was a horse by itself in one of the fields they walked across and, when it saw them, it came trotting across, casually bit her partner on the shoulder, then trotted back to where it had come from…
In the 1990s, however, she was trying to persuade the man at Kettlewell Post Office and general store to stock copies of The Wharefdale Mines – and at first he was most unwilling. He even told Mum that there was no market for “that sort of book”.
But, as you’ll know from earlier posts, Mum can be a bit stubborn at times and, as she’d had a quick look around his shop before introducing herself, she was able to point out to him that he was actually selling quite a few of “that sort of book” and she was sure that copies of The Wharfedale Mines would fit in very well with what he had already. At that point he relented and agreed to give it a try – and soon he became one of her best customers!
Although the mines at Starbotton and Buckden were also featured in the new publication, unfortunately neither village had a shop where books were sold.
But the tiny village of Conistone, on the less-travelled route through Wharfedale and across the river from Kilnsey Crag, had a post office and general store that sold books and they were also happy to take The Wharfedale Mines into their stock.
With these two publications selling well, Mum was able to publish two more British Mining monographs the following year. The first was The Grinton Mines…
the second was The Arkengarthdale Mines…
and they both complemented an earlier British Mining monograph, which had been published in 1989 with the amazingly long title A History of the Manor and Lead Mines of Marrick in Swaledale
These days Marrick is only a tiny place, with fewer than 150 inhabitants at the time of the 2011 Census, but in the 12th century it was chosen as the site for a Benedictine Priory, housing 16 nuns and a prioress. This lasted until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII, and its ruins still stand today, though what was once the parish church is now an Outdoor Education and Residential Centre.
Of course, such a small village didn’t have a shop at all, let alone one that sold books, but Mum and her partner knew the three places further up the dale where copies of the Lead Mines of Marrick had been sold and they were sure the new monographs would also sell there. The first two were in the village of Reeth…
where both the Post Office and the Swaledale Museum quickly became good customers.
And the other was The Red Lion in Langthwaite in Arkengarthdale, which some of you might recognise from the opening scenes of the original television series of All Creatures Great and Small…
And where copies of the monographs are on display behind the bar…
As The Red Lion is a good traditional pub, with real ale, pies and sandwiches, Mum and her partner always made sure they arrived there around lunch-time when they were delivering books – and also when they weren’t!
That’s all for today, so take care and stay safe – and look out for some more tales from me soon!
Follow my next blog: 194. MY MUM THE STORY-TELLER – PART EIGHTY-TWO
30/03/2022
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 