Happy Youth

A Memory of Nesfield.

I first found out about when I moved to Great Horton in Bradford about 1952. I met a boy called Philip Tempest who lived in a house near by, we became life long friends.
His parent took me on holiday with them to a cottage they owned in Nesfield, it was called Hillcrest. In those days Nesfield was quite primitive, the street was not paved and Hillcrest cottage had no electricity, just tilly lamps and cold water and an elsan toilet out in what we called the barn. I had never been in the country before, so everything was new and exciting, and I never thought that through going there it would make a prolific change to my life. The fun I had there over the years I went on holidays with the Tempests was a big adventure. We would go to bed then climb out of the back window and go up the fields and climb Beamsley Beacon which was great for 12 year olds. We played over in the dean quite a lot, we made a cable railway up one side and used to go down on it. We also started a potting factory in the stream using the clay from the steep sides and we also dug out a tree den in the root of a tree. Many times we went over the Scar overlooking the river and built secret dens out of tree branches and slept there at night, scared by all the strange sounds around us. As we got older we got to know the farmer across the field, Mr and Mrs Walker, this was when we were 14 nearly fifteen. We helped them on the farm and at haymaking time. Infact the house at the top of the street in Nessfield was a barn then - I have filled that a few times at haytime. Mrs Walker and the other worker's wives would bring over really nice food. We used to go up to Langbar with John the tractor driver and sit for hours on the plough going up and doing the fields. We go to know Terry Harrison and her sisters quite well, and we used to go over to the farm hoping to see them. I must admit at that time, nearly fifteen, I had an eye for Terry who was a very nice young lady, but I never dared tell her that. Her sister, Mary, rode horses and one day she asked me if I had ever been on a horse. I said no, so she said "ok, jump on" so I made to get on. She said "hold on, you start with no saddle", so she took it off. Anyway, I got on after awhile and she led me round for a while and then said "right, over a jump", so she led the horse towards this very small jump. You can tell how small it was as Mary jumped it with ease followed by the horse and me who had gone over the horses head and was hanging around his head - what a laugh. If I remember, the horse was called James. I remember Philip and I went to Nesfield for the day, intending to just to spend the day on the farm then catch the bus home to Bradford.
Terry and her sister Christine were home from their boarding school in Skipton, they asked us to stay over for the night in the open barn in the farm yard, so we said ok. Well we had no blankets or anything and we thought we were in for a rough cold night plus we had no food. Well about 10pm a car came down into the farm yard, and there was Terry and Christine. They had brought us blankets and a basket of food which was much appreciated by us young lads who were getting quite cold and hungry by then.
Another thing was when I went to Nessfield, the family were very keen on going out on bike rides up the valley to Bolton Abbey or Barden Tower. I never had a bike, being from a poor family, so the Tempest family would start off in relays with me on the back, and I would change over every few miles to a different bike. Well, one day I was on the back on the return trip from a day up to the Strid. I was on the back of Philip's bike, just going along, we came around the corner near the Duke of Devonshire, when the village bobby stepped out and pulled us up. He looked at us, then at Philip, and said in a stern voice, "Philip what would your mum and dad say if they knew you were on a main road with your friend on the back", we were nearly cracking with laughter, because around another corner were his mum and dad waiting for their turn to transport me on a wee bit further.
Philip had two older brothers John and Peter. John had this long rope made out of platted Parachute chord, I did not know about climbing at the time, but that's what he used them for. We did not know so we borrowed them and used them for swinging on out over the dean and going over the scar over the river. We also used to swim just above the dam near the mill, we lived a charmed life. Anyway John found out and gave us a bit of a thumping. I asked about climbing, and he pointed out across the valley towards the Cow and Calf which I had often looked at from Nessfield but had no reason to go to them because we had lots of adventure enough at Nessfield. Then in 1954 we left school and drifted into teenage things; dancing on Saturday nights in Bradford etc.
But I never forgot the outdoor life and in lots of ways longed for it. A few years later I went to an air display at Yeadon, the next day I went to the rocks at Ilkley and started climbing and never looked back.

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