A Yorkshire Easter

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Sun 28 Mar 2010 21:19
A Yorkshire Easter - oilrag

Time`s effect on memory has distorted the sequencing - but there were curlews in great flocks, passing over with that familier call. Familiar in memory that is, because that seems only where they reside around here.

Rememder sky larks? That sounds like larking about in a airliner perhaps - but they were birds in the 1950`s of course.Then there were hares laying in shallow depressions in the grass and even a local rabbit warren in a clump of gorse, that probably dated back a few hundred years, given it`s proximity to an aged farm.

There were stickebacks in streams too and in a village called Dirtcar - after a marsh - named by the Vikings when they populated this area.

You could write on, of course, in great detail about the environment of which you were part - but there is little interest.

Ever heard a Skylark sing?

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Mon 29 Mar 2010 20:16
A Yorkshire Easter - Manatee

Oily, you must be older than I imagined - I knew it wasn't in my lifetime, so I looked it up - Dirtcar was renamed to Durkar in 1906 ;-)

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Tue 30 Mar 2010 12:45
A Yorkshire Easter - oilrag

I grew up in that village, Manitee :-)

But it was a chance meeting with an aging geologist and some maps he gave me that put me onto it.

What with `dirt` being the term for grime around here -- perhaps understandable that villagers would want to move the image of Dirtkar `up market` with Durkar.

Wonder how many other original names have been lost like that?

I knew someone once, who worked in a Local Government department and they had started to name small streams on maps after themselves ie `Wiggins brook` (real example). Locals had other names for them, of course, often going back centuries.

Edited by oilrag on 30/03/2010 at 12:47

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