Just over a year after Bernard finally retired, we moved to 1 Dales Avenue, Embsay on Thursday October 6th 2011, after 30 years in the same house at Woodley and 40 in the South of England. As 40 years is the Biblical period of wandering in the wilderness, we told our Yorkshire family we were re-entering the Promised Land … of course, we’d told our Berkshire friends that we were setting off on a mission to the North of England!
Embsay is just outside Skipton, in North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales – in fact, the National Park boundary runs through the middle of Embsay, which means that the two halves of the village have different planning authorities; our house is in the NP area. We are about 90 minutes’ drive from Adrian and Angela, and 30-45 minutes from most of Katie’s family.
This move was NOT as eventful as the previous one! But it had its moments – because of the distance the van was parked in a depot in Leeds overnight; it rained, and rain entered the van, doing a bit of damage; one or two pictures were affected, the most valued being a Zairian picture Rosalie had given us. It could have been much worse!
The new home was an extended bungalow; two bedrooms, a large dining room, a bathroom, a large kitchen with conservatory, and a very large sitting room with picture windows overlooking the Embsay Steam Railway and hills. Upstairs was a large bedroom with en-suite shower room and a walk-in wardrobe room.
Being now “on our own again”, we could take the settling in process at our own pace. One or two house renovation jobs had been flagged up by the surveyor, so an electrical inspection was needed early on. We knew that the previous owners were taking part of their free-standing kitchen furniture, and that we would have to buy a new kitchen – which revealed a new, previously unsuspected (by either of us!), aspect of my dear wife’s character; when we went to Magnet to have a new kitchen designed for us, she knew very clearly what she wanted and was adamant about the details … handles had to be round, not rectangular (fear of grandchildren’s heads), end units had to be cornered, not square (ditto), and all doors had to be ledge-free (to avoid dust gathering). Anyway, the new kitchen proved to be very good, and we had no later regrets.
Another surveyor-flagged problem was damp in the front (visitor’s) bedroom. Thankfully we found a very good specialist company, based in Yeadon, where our first house had been, and they worked out that the problem had been caused by “dry lining” (a false wall inside the true wall, done for extra insulation); sadly, condensation between the two walls was causing damp everywhere. The company did all the work needed, removing the false walls and old plaster, installing “tanking” (a plastic damp-proof liner) on 3 walls, then re-boarding and plastering. This means we cannot do anything involving nails or screws on those walls, other than a curtain rail, but it did make that bedroom a warm and cosy one, so it was money well spent.
Over the next few years we gradually decorated throughout; but we had the big sitting room done professionally. In 2019 the garage roof was replaced, and in 2024 we had a new upstairs shower area and a re-roof of the older part of the house.
The garden had a lot of borders – it was technically smaller than the one at Woodley, but the flower borders meant that it was more work; Katie says that it has got bigger since we moved in! In the back garden are two ponds, the lower one at ground level and the upper one within a stone semicircle below the patio (so another early job was to get them “grandchild-safe” with grids). After a few years we decided to dig out the mud in the top pond, and we were surprised to find one adult and about 70 baby newts; a bit later the similar job in the lower pond came up with 8 adults and about 120 juveniles! Each Spring the lower pond is filled with mating frogs, and resultant tadpoles (many of which, we think, feed the newts).
The garden has a small vegetable patch and a number of fruit trees – 3 plum, 2 apple (plus two more we added in 2022 for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee); we have also a rhubarb patch and have planted autumn-fruiting raspberries. There were a few “unusual” trees in the garden before we came – including a garria and a “toffee apple tree” (Sunday name: Katsura), so called because in Autumn the falling leaves smell of toffee-apples.
The Village is about 1½ miles out of Skipton; a local bus service loops round the village on an hourly basis, on weekday daytimes; a Saturday service was added in 2024. There is a Post Office, two pubs, and a Village Hall, plus a heritage steam railway (I had thought of volunteering for it before we moved up; that didn’t happen .. but our grandchildren have loved it). Part of the Village Hall is the Library – almost as soon as we had moved in, we heard that the Library was to be closed, unless the village was prepared to run it as a Community Library; Katie put her name forward (having worked in Bulmershe College Library) and was asked to co-lead the project with Jenny Buckland, another ex-University Library helper. They met to plan the project, and I heard them talking about computing … they had to supply their own computers and find software to run the Library system; so I was volunteered in to help there. The Library re-opened as a Community Library in 2012, and Katie and I have been volunteering ever since; it was an excellent way to get to know a good number of the folk living in the village.
Adrian and Angela, Cameron and Sinèad : were closest to us after the move, about 90 minutes by car. We had to be careful about phoning Adrian (was he on shift? Or asleep?) so apart from text messages we left it to him to initiate phone calls. The grandchildren went to Kayes First School in Clayton West, then to Scissett middle school and then Shelley College; in 2023 Cameron passed his GCSE’s and started A-level subjects at College in Huddersfield. And in 2025 they both awaited results; Cameron A-levels and Sinead GCSE’s – both did well enough for their next steps, a University place for Cameron (after a gap year) and A-level courses for Sinead. They had a Springer Spaniel, Mary, until 2024 … Mary would come to stay with us when the family had a non-dog-friendly holiday.
While we have been at Embsay, the children have grown up; Cameron developed a love of skiing, and Sinead a love of ponies – and they have developed that; Cameron has become a “world ranked” skier, winning podium places at National level, and Sinead has her own horse “Owl” which she stables a couple of miles away – we have enjoyed seeing her doing dressage and jumping with him.
Angela has had to take early retirement; she was Nursing Director in Sheffield, but sadly deteriorating eyesight led to her taking the inevitable decision and leaving work. Since then she has put much of her energy into raising funds for healthcare in Zambia; starting with medical supplies, this led to her shipping two surplus ambulances over there (the first such in Zambia outside the capital … they have already made a major improvement to local health), and following them up with more supplies, computers, school supplies, sports kits and more. Adrian soldiers on with his “first responder” paramedic work, focussed on keeping people away from hospital – the problems of ambulance delays is well-known nationally, but is a significant frustration to most paramedics, who feel that the “system” is stacked against them.
Chris & Helen, Matthew, Charlotte, James and William : Part of our thinking, when we moved back to Yorkshire, was that while C&H had Helen’s parents within easy reach, A&A did not. Sadly, that situation did not last long, as Helen’s parents decided to retire to Derbyshire not long after we were settled in Embsay, leaving C&H with no local family. We have tried to compensate for this by regular visits … but we remember vividly that just after we moved to Embsay, getting a phone call from Charlotte “I want my Grandad, and I want him now!”. William was of course born after we had moved North.
The children all went to school in Ickford, a village North of Tiddington (where they lived when Matthew and Charlotte were born) and south of Oakley (where they moved before Matthew hit secondary school age (Buckinghamshire have not adopted solely comprehensive schooling). Next to the school is a pre-school building, and Helen for many years led the pre-school, her teacher’s qualifications being very necessary when pre-schools came under the OFSTED regime. This was very convenient, as she and the children went in and back together. At the time of writing (2025) William is the only one left at Ickford school. Matthew went to Wheatley school, did well in his GCSE’s and started the A-level course, but found it a bit too academic for his liking; he was fairly quickly taken on by a local building firm that specialise in cladding (not the sort used at Grenfell Tower), and are paying him to go one week a month for specialist training (with travel, hotel, meals etc thrown in), so we reckon he has fallen on his feet. Charlotte went to Aylesbury Girls High School, did well in her GCSE’s – her history grade was 4 levels higher than she or her school expected – and is currently studying A-levels in English, RS and Sociology. James is at Aylesbury Boys Grammar School and seems to have settled in well.
Chris has had a series of
part-time jobs since leaving McCormick’s, one with a soft drinks company, one
with an overseas aid charity, but has now settled with a “customer reaction”
company, doing logistics … if we are running a promotion in town X, we’ll need
(long list of samples, etc) delivered there on these dates. Helen has sadly
been diagnosed with Parkinson’s; after a spell of getting her medication
stabilised, she was able to continue her pre-school work for several years,
largely due to very supportive staff; but inevitably the progression has led to
her giving that up. In 2025 she realised a long-held ambition (if we’re ever
going to do it, it needs to be now) and she and Chris had a holiday in the US
and Canada, the highlight of which was visiting “Green Gables” on Prince Edward
Island – “Anne of Green Gables” had been her favourite book as a girl. This
holiday – with no kids – meant that Katie and I had 4 grandchildren, a house,
and a large black Labrador to look after for the duration!
Us and the wider family : ????
Holidays during these years:
·
2011
- ???
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