Wednesday 1 August 2012

Does tha' wan' owt fer nowt?

I've been told I rant? Really? Me? I mean… really? (Who knew?) 

Well, in my defence, there's a lot to rant about. This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this fortress, built by nature for herself against infection and the hand of war has been sold down the river by generations of politicians acting directly against the will of the people. 

On issue after issue, regardless of the cost, the great socialist dream of a European super-state has been relentlessly pursued, with treasonous surrender excused by vague reference to the might of the European institutions, mysterious to all but those in thrall to the Emperor’s new tailors. 

Mass immigration, placatory welfare and political correctness has removed the backbone of a once proud nation and rendered half its citizens quiver-jawed mewling infants, suckling on the teat of state and incapable of independent thought or survival. Referendum? What’s the point? We give the vote to people who can’t even spell ‘X’. 

Well, I’m not going to rant about any of that today; in fact I’m going to celebrate the greatest of our island’s counties. It’s the First of August: Yorkshire Day

From the jagged cliffs of Flamborough to the cold, high Pennines; from the brooding, bleak moorland to the dark, satanic mills of the southern conurbation, Yorkshire has much to cherish. Castles and coves, dry stone walls, ruined abbeys and towering cathedrals. It has views to astonish and views to calm; bosky glades, tinkling streams, dark forests and the bucolic splendour of the western Dales and the eastern Wolds. 

This northern paradise has produced its fair share of the nation’s narrative; the white rose county has raised and inspired the Brontes, Bram Stoker, Laurence Sterne, Alan Bennett, J.B. Priestley, Ted Hughes and James Herriot. It has produced Captain James Cook, William Wilberforce, Thomas Lord, George Birkbeck and Henry Briggs. Dick Turpin was despatched in York and Guy Fawkes was born there. 

Yorkshire also gave the world professional Yorkshire folk like Geoffrey Boycott, Michael Parkinson, Molly Sugden, Brian Glover, Fred Truman, Charlie Williams and Alan Titchmarsh. And what tribute to God's own country would be complete without a hearty helping of Yorkshire pudding and gravy, to the rousing accompaniment of the timeless classic “On Ilkley Moor Bar t’Hat”? 

The Dalesman's View

I leave you with the wise words of the Yorkshireman’s Creed: 
 
‘Ear all, see all, say nowt.
Eat all, drink all, pay nowt. 
And if tha’evver does owt for nowt, 
Do it for thissen. 

Wise words indeed.

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