So me & Chris went walking on The Tops again today.
Up Cragg Vale.
I wanted to show him the route I took on my 30th Birthday , doing The Pennine Way with Phil the Ex-Fireman ..i thought it might help........
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cragg_Vale
I have always thought it a strange,particular, place.
Last week's
post showed it's
magical spaces ( deer;mushrooms:holy wells ).
But (this week) it feels to have sinister elements too......
The Cragg Coiners tried to hide away there
, from the government...but they got themselves found and hanged eventually.....
http://www.mytholmroyd.net/features/coiners.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cragg_Vale_Coiners
In more recent times, Jimmy Savile was a churchwarder at the local church. He lived in a campervan in the church's grounds........
He Put on lurid costums & gave sermons from the pulpit.
How'a about that then?
https://bitsofbooksblog.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/savile-and-st-johns-in-the-wilderness/
For 3 weeks over my 30th Birthday, me & Phil 'did' The Pennine Way , including our passing through Calderdale & Cragg Vale.
I remember turning '30' being quite traumatic for me.
. It's funny. '18':'21''40' even '60'! never really bothered me....
But '30'.wow! a shock....
I remember the night I turned 30. We were camping in some Godforsaken village in North Yorkshire.
I got terribly pissed.
I started chatting-up up some woman in a local pub ( even though her boyfriend was sat right next to her at the time).
He got a wee bit angry & was going to thump me.
Luckily Phil ( home on leave from Northern Ireland) whisked me out of the pub sharpish. It was closing time, anyway....
" A Lucky Escape" I remember Phil saying as we went back to the empty field we had put up our tent.
. The next morning. Hungover, we crawled out of our tent , to find the couple had (in the night) pitched their tent right next to us.
we made our excuses, & left rather fast....
