Old Yorkshire [antikvár]

IntroductíonThis is the story of a landscape: its youth, its blossoming, the richness of its maturity and now the spreading spores of its decay. Yorkshire is a land; but it is alsó a state of mind, one which laps freely across the boundaries of modern administration to be shared by folk in Humber-side and Cleveland, and one which lives on in the emotions of countless expatriates. Yorkshire is not a county, and much more than a collection of counties. The word itself is powerful. Outsiders who have but the vaguest impressions of Leicestershire or the Chilterns are sure to have a distinct mentái image of Yorkshire. It might be centred on visions of wind-lashed moorland, smoking chimneys or tough, blunt people; it could be superficial and misinformed, but everyone has an image of Yorkshire - probably a firm opinion too.As a writer I lack the talents to take aboard a subject which I find boring and yet make it seem interesting to others. Facing an empty page my problem here is the opposite: an intensity of feeling about the homeland which, if unrestrained, could cloud the clarity of thought which the task demands. Thirty-one years ago I left the village school in a beautiful dale. Of three dozen schoolmates perhaps three or four still remain in the village. As a kid I daily walked the valley with two sheepdogs in tow, up and down and across and around. I could name the wild birds and somé of the plants, but I could not understand the scenery: where it had come from or how it was förmed. This was a blind love of the landscape. Gradually, seeping through the mists of rural tranquillity came the reluctant realisation that I would have to get a 'proper' job and so become another tiny corpuscle in the arteries of necessity which drained the valley of its lifeblood. I could scarcely bear the thought of going but, like the rest, I went.Recently, a mite richer and a little more learned, I was able to return. People who were middle-aged are now old, but many places that were lovely then are just as lovely now. Not long ago the beauty of the landscape could be taken for granted: the hills were old and the scene would not change. Now one walks through a handsome village or savours a glorious countryside and feels the cold stáb of uncertainty. How long will it be allowed to endure? What have the carpet-bagger