Sunday, 19 July 2015

The Last few days

I have found it much harder than I expected to keep up with the daily blog. Particularly now it is summer and the there is so much more on, and also because the fruits of retirement planning are starting to bear fruit. By way of example I shall recap the last three days giving I hope some insight into some interesting subjects.

On Friday we returned Marion’s parents to Poole via Leeds Airport. I think that I have said enough on that subject, but suffice it to say it lived up to its previous poor reputation. A long time ago we had booked tickets for this evening at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, so we had some time to kill. Marion suggested visiting Salts Mill at Saltaire.

This is a great preserved part of our industrial heritage in West Yorkshire. Simply it is a huge mill at the centre of a planned village built in the 19th century when this part of the world was a centre for world textile manufacturing. It was built by Sir Titus Salt, hence the name Salts Mill. It was one of the first planned towns in the UK where Salt provided for all of his employee’s needs except drink, the place was strictly teetotal.

The mill was saved from the demolition that was the fate of so many similar buildings. It now has an interesting variety of uses. One floor is the home of Pace whose main business I think is the manufacture of television decoders like Skyboxes. The anchor though is an exhibition of the works of David Hockney that changes according to the season. For those of you unsure of this juxtaposition Hockney was a native of nearby Bradford so it is entirely appropriate that it should be a centre for displaying his work. In between there is an excellent bookshop, a household shop and an excellent café. These are all set in the vast halls of the mills interiors. It is not hard to imagine the thundering machines that must have occupied this space. All in all it was a lovely couple of hours, also good for the quiet talk/discussion that we had.

So then it was on to the theatre, and this time it was a truly entertaining play about a Yorkshire sporting heroine, Beryl Burton. Beryl dominated women’s cycling in Britain for twenty years from the late 1950’s. She was a remarkably talented athlete and had some awe-inspiring achievements. Beryl was the first woman ever to break a men’s record in any sport. This was for the distance covered over twelve hours of road racing. The woman’s record still stands today almost fifty years after it was set. Remarkable when you consider the improvements in bike technology and training, and the fact that Burton had a weak heart.

The play itself was written by Maxine Peake a well know British actor. It was well constructed, had pace and was both funny and poignant at the same time. I felt that we were getting a great insight into a remarkable life. It was also played with verve by the small cast. So we did not get home until nearly midnight tired after a long day, I was certainly in no state to write a coherent blog.


To be continued………

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