Father-daughter road trip
Just got back from a trip with Emily around five counties: Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. I will blog about why and where exactly we went in the future. In the meantime it is good to be back in time for Yorkshire Day. Good to breathe the northern air again.Yorkshire Day
Yorkshire Day is of course entirely made up – like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Secretary’s Day – but it had noble origins in 1975 as a protest against local government reorganisation and the date was picked to remember:- the Emancipation of Slaves anniversary spearheaded by William Wilberforce, MP for Hull and
- the Battle of Minden, an Anglo-German victory over the French in 1759, which was already celebrated with the wearing of roses by army regiments, including the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (now the Light Infantry) who, of course, chose white roses to wear
Chance to promote stereotypes
A bit of research shows that tabloids often use Yorkshire Day as a chance to promote flat-cap-wearing, ferret-down-the-trousers, muddy-welly Farmer curmudgeon stereotypes of Yorkshire folk. Karl Young in The Metro cites Size, Tea, Pride, Olympians, Culture and Passion as reasons to celebrate coming from Yorkshire. It’s as good a list as any, as long as Culture embraces History as well as the Arts; and Passion and Pride includes the Moors and the Dales and the Rivers and the Crags. |
| Nicola Adams, Sir Ben Kingsley, Jessica Ennis-Hill, JB Priestley, Amy Johnson, Alan Bennett, David Hockney, Judi Dench, Scary Spice (Mel B), Sean Bean, Katherine Brunt and Danielle Hazell (cricketers), Henry Moore, Dame Janet Baker, Geoffrey Boycott, Betty Boothroyd, Michael Parkinson, Barbara Hepworth, Corrine Bailey Rae, James Martin, Brontë sisters |
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