There’s a power station there now. Where the rhododendrons and roses and giant apple trees once stood, there is only a large ugly power station flanked by barbed wire and signs warning the potential trespasser to ‘Keep out’. Greystones has gone, the stream covered over, even the woods have gone. But nothing can erase the memory.

When I was 13, my best friend Rosanne and I called ourselves ‘mods’. On Saturday nights we sometimes went to the dance at Bishopthorpe church hall.

I would wear a purple mini skirt, long white nylon sweater, Pop- Art jewellery (a big white square ring and mod earrings) and hideous Mary Quant white lipstick, fashions copied from Petticoat magazine.

But on Sundays we reverted to jeans and t-shirts and would go exploring with her brother Andrew and his friend, along disused railway tracks, climbing up steep banks, wading across narrow becks and through woods.  She lived in Osbaldwick.

It was a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon when the four of us decided to go further afield and through the woods. The sun was bright and it was a drowsy day, golden and still, with the air full of bees humming and the scent of wild flowers filling the lane. There were all kinds of birds in the wood, I spotted a willow warbler once and we’d seen squirrels often, so close it seemed they would jump into my hand.

We walked along playing a game of being aliens from outer space, having just landed on earth and seeing things we had never seen before. Tapping on the trees, pointing at leaves and birds and talking in a made-up language, we continued on. We were so engrossed in the game that we passed the stream and continued deeper into the woods without realising it. We walked in single file, with Andrew in the lead, followed by Philip, then Rosanne and finally myself. And I heard the others gasp before I realised why.

We passed a particularly large elm and suddenly we were in a clearing. The trees had somehow melted away and we were in a large and beautiful garden. For a moment, no-one spoke, and we all stood gazing in awe at the paradise in which we found ourselves. On the left was an orchard, and on the right were vast rhododendrons and rose bushes and exquisitely shaped hedges. But there in the middle stood the house, Greystones.

It was like something out of a fairy-tale. It was vast. It was majestic. It was old, the ivy of centuries clinging tenderly to the walls. The front door stood grey at the top of half a dozen steps. There were four large ground floor windows and five above, each with its own tiny balcony and shutters, looking rather continental. On the very top were lovely old chimney pots, one of which was rather cracked.

After the initial surprise, we all moved forward as one person. It only took a matter of minutes to realise that we were alone in Eden. This place was deserted. We moved towards the door and Rosanne tried the handle. It was locked of course, so we peered through one of the windows and saw a large empty room. Moving round to the back, we found a small glass conservatory whose door swung open on its hinges, revealing a porch obviously once used as a storeroom. There were a few rotted wooden boxes, old sacks and empty containers. It had a derelict and musty air. And in the corner was a stepladder leading up to a flat roof. Philip was soon up the ladder and onto the roof and he managed to drop quickly from there to a window leading into the kitchen. We followed behind a little more cautiously. It didn’t take long to get the window open and we all squeezed through.

After only two visits, we began to feel at home. We made hand written labels for each of the doors and took our own supplies of apples, comics, lemonade and a few candles. I was amazed at the sheer size of the rooms. We imagined what we could do to improve the place, how we could install velvet couches and grand four poster beds and organise a great ball.

It was on our fourth visit that we arrived to see a man letting himself out of the front door. We hid until he had gone then quietly slipped in through our usual entrance at the back. We had taken the keys for the inner doors home with us, and as Rosanne was getting the bunch out, we were startled by a booming voice.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. We did not wait to answer but took to our heels, dropping the keys on the floor. The merest glimpse had shown that he was carrying a gun, perhaps ready to shoot rabbits and birds in the wood. We raced through bushes and nettles, not noticing the cuts and stings on our legs, until he gave up the chase and his voice, booming and echoing all around us, had diminished to a mere whisper in the distance. Then we collapsed in a terrified heap at the far end of the wood. We did not really feel we had done anything wrong, but we never returned.

I have often wondered what happened to the old house. Was the man with the gun the owner, or was he, as one story had it, an agent looking after it for a little old lady who was too ill to live there alone and had been put into a home? Did she ever come back to it or did it remain empty and unloved until they finally pulled it down? We loved it, we had great plans for it, but then we were trespassers for it didn’t belong to us. And now it has gone. There’s a power station there now.

In the spring of 1967 when I was 14, I belonged to a Christian youth group and the group ran a coffee bar, called the Wagon Wheel, for a few weeks in the basement of St Columba’s United Reform Church in Priory Street. We had no connection with St Columba’s itself. But coincidentally the York Oral History Society, with which I’ve been involved for 25 years, now rents an office there. Various charities have rooms there and because it’s cheap and cheerful, it is ideal for us.

But back to the Wagon Wheel. To advertise the coffee bar, a group of us, of which I was the youngest, went round town on the back of a farmer’s truck, dressed as cowboys and singing some Christian songs to guitar. I also played the tambourine. I’m sitting on the left, facing forward, wearing a cowboy hat. 

I really enjoyed it and was not at all embarrassed. It was great fun to be involved in the coffee bar on Friday and Saturday evenings, especially as I didn’t often go out at night. It attracted a lot of young people from the city. So where are they now? The only person I’m still in touch with from the photo is Keith Hunt, second from the left of the men standing. He married another member of the group, Moira Pilgrim, who was one of my bridesmaids. They now live in Leeds and Moira is headmistress of a primary school. I see her a few times a year. It’s a brief memory but one I remember with affection.

I didn’t only wear the cowboy hat on this occasion. Funnily enough, a group of us would go into the Acropolis coffee bar in Lendal (also a steak house, with the coffee bar part called the Parthenon at some point) on Saturdays, and we decided to wear cowboy hats. I think we started a trend. I remember I had a pink flowered shift dress, navy shoes with cuban heels and the navy hat. The waiters got to know us and used to ask how ‘the horse’ (cowboys – get it!) was doing. There were usually four of us. One, my best friend at school, died some years ago and the other two I lost touch with many years ago.

The Acropolis is long gone. The Yorkshire Evening Press of 12 September 1967, reported, “Acropolis Coffee Bars, Ltd, in Lendal, York, announced it was to take over the lease of the De Grey Rooms at a rent of £2,500 a year.  The new owner’s plans for the building, which had been unoccupied for several months, included a coffee lounge, pub, restaurant, banqueting room and international entertainment”.

Coffee bar culture really began in the 1950s, and in the ‘60s it was still very popular. York had a number of coffee bars where we drank frothy coffee out of an espresso machine and these were only frequented by young people.  The waiters were all Greek or Italian, and knew how to make proper coffee. Another place we frequented, when I was 16 to 17, was Le Ponde on the corner of Stonebow and St Saviourgate. You could sit for hours with one cup and put the world to rights.  They didn’t close till late. They were the alternative to pubs. Taking guitars with us, we’d often have a singsong. You don’t see that nowadays. These establishments have disappeared – to be replaced by bars, tearooms and cafes, and most of them close early. For young people the coffee bars were just perfect. 

(Not to be confused with the well-known book ‘Travels with my Aunt’ by Graham Greene).

Ruth, one of my best friends at university, had a small mini and in our last year, we ventured out on a few trips in that car. Of course our trips were not without drama!

SYLVIA PLATH’S GRAVE

On one January day we went off to Haworth, Heptonstall and Hebden Bridge. We took the two hour picturesque route rather than the motorway. We had decided to bring some music and I had a cassette recorder which I put on a ledge in the front of the car. Unfortunately as we went over a bump down Fishergate (we hadn’t got very far), the recorder bounced off and onto Ruth’s leg causing her to swerve and drive onto the pavement. I don’t know what the people in the car behind us thought! There they were, just driving happily along, when the car in front drives onto the pavement and off again, narrowly missing pedestrians!

As we approached Keighley there were roadworks. Although the light was red, Ruth didn’t seem to notice and drove through it. This meant that we were almost lifted into the air by a JCB on our side of the road.  The workmen waved angrily to us but we avoided them and drove through sand on the road, narrowly missing the cars coming in the other direction. We stopped in the valley near Skipton to take some photos. The abundant brown ferns on the hillside glowed red in the sunlight but once we got to Haworth it began to rain. We went into the Black Bull, where Branwell Bronte obtained his laudanum and opium, for lunch by a roaring fire, and then to the church to see the graves of Emily and Charlotte, and the lovely stained glass windows, before visiting the Bronte Parsonage Museum. We were a bit wet and the curator said we looked like two orphans from the storm!

By the time we came out it was 4pm and already dark. We had gone to Heptonstall specifically to see the grave of the American poet Sylvia Plath (who committed suicide in 1963). There we were in the pitch black, torrential rain as we began to search the churchyard for the grave.  We had no torch, only Ruth’s box of matches, so it was an impossible task. Ruth’s umbrella had blown inside out so that was no use in holding off the rain. I can’t think of anyone else who would stand there in that weather and consider it a lark!  I suppose we had thought there would be a sign to the grave as it was so famous, but there wasn’t. The rain got heavier, and it was very cold and windy, quite appropriately!

Then I noticed a light on in the window of a house near the church, and thought it might be the vicarage. We decided to knock on the door and ask if they could help. A man came to the door, and before I had even finished the sentence about Sylvia Plath, he said, “Yes I’ll just get my boots”, and donned wellington boots and a big raincoat, picked up a torch, and came out with us. He wasn’t the vicar, just a neighbour, but he said he’d been asked a number of times for directions to the grave. He led us to a new graveyard at the rear of the church and there was the grave. Without him, we would never have found it. We’d have spent hours searching the main graveyard before we even noticed the other one so we were very grateful. He seemed to take it as a matter of course!  So by the light of Ruth’s matches we managed to take a few photos, not sure if they would come out or not.

The gravestone originally had the name Sylvia Plath Hughes, but the name Hughes has been scratched off a number of times. Ted Hughes had left Sylvia for another woman only a year or so before her death, (a woman who also committed suicide a few years later), and there was no chance of a reconciliation although she told friends she still loved him. He was still her husband so he inherited all her literary estate! Each time the name Hughes was taken off, it got replaced until it was finally left alone. Visitors leave all sorts of reminders on the grave, such as candles, flowers and pens and pencils. When we saw the grave it read only ‘Sylvia Plath’ without the Hughes, but now the photos on the internet show the name Hughes again. We drove home over the moors in pitch black, only stopping to eat our sandwiches and fruit and drink our tea, playing Everything but the Girl on the cassette.

RIPON

In April, Ruth and I drove to Ripon to look at the college library there. Unfortunately it was a wet and gloomy day. We seemed to be unlucky with the weather on our trips. We parked in the centre beside the market cross and went to get a street map (which we finally found in an estate agent’s). Then we drove to the college, which involved navigating a few steep hills. At one point I thought we were going to start rolling backwards, but she put the handbrake on and we were fine. The map didn’t show one way streets, and consequently Ruth drove up one the wrong way, to the extreme consternation of a woman about to drive in at the other end, where the entrance was quite narrow. She began to shriek and make wild gestures, and the more she flapped, the more we laughed! Fortunately the rest of the visit went smoothly.

ALDBROUGH

I had visited Aldbrough on the east coast of Yorkshire some years before, so I suggested to Ruth that we go there. I had some special memories, having stayed in Hornsea in 1969 at the age of 16, on a village mission. I was loaned a bike and spent a week cycling to various villages in glorious weather. Ruth and I went to Long Riston, New Ellerby, and Skirlaugh where we stopped at a newsagent’s shop and I bought some ‘Care Bears’ stickers for my daughter. We ventured to Withernwick where I had also stayed in 1969. At that time I had also been to Humbleton, where I had my first trip in a plane, a small two-seater owned by a farmer called Robert Knapton. We circled over Hull and the North Sea before returning for a big farm tea.

When Ruth and I reached Aldbrough, it was to face the worst gales for 90 years. The interesting fact about it was that the cliff top was crumbling into the sea. There were still signs warning of coastal erosion. It was too windy to venture onto the beach, though I had walked on that beach 17 years before and it did bring back some memories.

As we approached the road to the sea, it seemed that even more of the cliff had eroded. Houses near the edge were in imminent danger of falling! Indeed some of them were now empty and cordoned off to prevent entry. But we sat in the car and looked out to sea, careful not to venture too close. I opened the car door to get out, but was almost whisked into the sea by a sudden huge gust of wind. Then horror of horrors, the wind blew the car door inside out. In fear and trepidation we sat there, wondering what on earth to do, but we finally managed to manoeuvre it back into place. As we sat there getting our breath back, the car started to rock to and fro and Ruth spilt half the flask of boiling coffee. We eventually drove off in hysterical laughter, relieved to be in one piece.

Finally we drove to Hornsea, where we sat facing the deserted seafront and the wild turbulent ocean. We saw the Mere, which brought back memories for me of getting stuck in the weeds in a rowing boat with several friends, in 1969 again.

The Mere is lovely and when Ruth got out to take a photo, we were suddenly surrounded by masses of birds seeking food. We gave them everything we had left, two packets of crisps, a digestive biscuit and half a sandwich. It was like a scene from Hitchcock’s film ‘The Birds’, so we decided to stay in the car and watch the sunset over the Mere, a breathtaking mass of colour, with continually changing exquisite shades of pink and gold.

I’ve always liked hot air balloons. In the 1970s there seemed to suddenly appear the odd hot air balloon in the evening or very early morning and they looked so beautiful against a clear sky. The world championships came to the Knavesmire in York for the only time in 1977.   In fact it’s the only time they’ve been held in England before or since. Then the European championships came to York in 1984, (again the only time they have been in England), this time flying from Castle Howard, and I saw them. And they were glorious. We’d wake up in the early morning to the sound of the burners going, and there they were sailing over the housetops, in all their colours and shapes. Then again in the evening they came over, floating with the wind, looking resplendent.

World hot air balloon championships

	YEAR AND LOCATION	CHAMPION
	1973 – Albuquerque, USA	Dennis Floden (United States)
	1975 – Albuquerque, USA	David Schaffer United States)
	1977 – York, England	Paul Woessner (United States)
	1979 – Uppsala, Sweden	Paul Woessner (United States)
	1981 – Battle Creek, USA	Bruce Comstock (United States)
	1983 – Nantes, France	Peter Vizzard (Australia)
	1985 – Battle Creek, USA	David Levin (United States)
	1987 – Schielleiten, Austria	Albert Nels (United States)
	1989 – Saga, Japan	Benedikt Haggeney (Germany)

AI European Hot Air Balloon Championship

1984[

Castle Howard

Great Britain

27 – 31 August

1. Victor Trimble (GBR)    2. Thomas Feliu Rius (ESP) 3. David Bareford (GBR)

38 balloonists

So in 1985, three university friends and I decided we must have a trip in one. We found a man called John Henderson who had a balloon and sometimes took people up in it, but it wasn’t a commercial enterprise. It cost us £10 each for a ride. It was cancelled twice due to weather conditions but then the big day came.  We met at Bootham Park Hospital grounds, and arrived to see the balloon lying flat on the ground, as if someone had punctured it, with a hot air machine beside it. We had to help erect the thing as John blew air into it. Eventually it was upright and the basket attached. There were four of us and because the basket was fairly small, we had to go in pairs along with John. Sharon and I were the first to go. The others climbed into the Land Rover with John’s assistant Sean and his walkie-talkie radio, and set off to follow. We climbed into the basket and suddenly I felt a bit scared. But then we took off and wow, it was a fast ascent. My stomach lurched a teeny bit but then we were in the air and gliding over the city. We passed over the Minster and we saw tiny people waving from below, as we floated on, kept aloft by the burner in John’s capable hands. We landed at Acomb Green, and as we were coming down, John shouted loudly, ‘I want anyone to come and hold this balloon down’. Adults and kids appeared from nowhere. Two boys jumped off their bikes and dumped them, racing over to help. They all held onto the basket as we jumped out and the other pair jumped in, and then they were off as well.

Sharon and I got into the Land Rover with Sean, and we drove out of the city to meet them. John landed again in a field outside York, and it was a very muddy one. But we stopped the car and ran over to hold the basket down. John then dismantled it, to put back into the Land Rover. Before doing that, he reached into a box inside the basket and took out a bottle of pink champagne and six glasses. He said it was a tradition that you always drink champagne after being in a balloon! He also presented us with a metal badge which was a replica of the blue balloon.

What a wonderful experience it was. And it felt like I’d left the world behind, and we were just standing in space, almost touching the clouds, escaping from the world with all its stresses and pressures, just for a short time. It must have felt like that to the Montgolfier brothers when they took the first balloon for a ride. That was in 1782.

Interestingly, there were hot air balloons every year at the York Gala which was held in the same grounds from which we ascended, Bootham Park, a big event to which half of York would go. The Gala started in 1858, moved to the Knavesmire in the 1920s and then closed in the 1930s. There were stalls, fireworks, animals, sideshows, and of course the balloons. The event was in aid of various charities. The balloons were tethered to the ground and visitors could make an ascent for a few minutes. Soon there were two balloons. One was a captive tied to a steel cable operated by a traction engine. The other one was for ascents, with Captain Spencer in command. It cost £5 to fly away with him, but for 5 shillings you could get a trip in the captive balloon and ascend to 500 feet.
In 1859, balloonist Henry Coxwell was in charge, and reported how some of the crowd had tried to release the balloon. Henry shouted to them to let go which they did not, so he punched one man on the nose. The balloon was too low and just missed hitting the refreshment tent. However it got clear and landed safely.

The Board of Trade regulations meant that a servant of the company had to accompany each ascent. Spencer sent a boy up who had no knowledge of ballooning. Also in the basket were a deaf and dumb man, an acrobat from one of the variety troupes, and a woman wearing her best hat. But when they got to 500 feet, the balloon broke off and went sailing away. No-one knew what to do as it rose higher and higher. The woman with the best hat began with a nose bleed and was crying profusely. The acrobat thought he would be a hero so he climbed up the network of ropes and made a gash in the side of the balloon with a pocket knife. Gas began to escape and eventually a descent began. They bumped into a tree and the woman, thinking they were going to be mangled to death, threw her best hat out to save it from destruction.

The acrobat thought that if he were to jump out, he might be able to catch hold of the trailing rope and draw the balloon gently to earth. So he turned a series of somersaults, landed safely on terra firma and, looking round for the rope, saw the balloon leap up above the trees and get carried by the wind across the fields. By now, people from all over had come to watch, following the balloon, and a crowd of cyclists also joined in pursuit. Eventually the party was rescued and driven back to the gala field where a rousing reception awaited them. But the acrobat was due on stage, the woman fainted and the boy was being interviewed by his employers. That left the deaf and dumb man to cope with the excited crowd. A reporter handed him a notebook and, after thinking for a while, he eventually wrote, ‘The rope broke’, which explained the event perfectly.

My Grandma talked to me about going to the York Gala, on one of the many times I asked her to ‘tell me about the olden days’ when I was a child. I’d like to think she had a ride in the balloon there too.

MOMENTS IN TIME

So what are my moments in time? In 1977 when I was 24, I wrote in my journal that I had several ambitions – I wanted two children, a girl and a boy, I wanted to do an English degree, I wanted to own my own bookshop and I wanted to have a book published. And now I’ve done them all.

Oh no I haven’t done much in the way of exploring. I’ve barely travelled – two trips to Australia, three short breaks in Paris and one in Amsterdam, as well as holidays in Ireland, Wales and Scotland.  But I’ve had my moments. And I’ve had some special ones. And I want to go back and recall them again and feel glad I’ve had them. But I don’t just want to go back to look forward and take great pleasure in special moments, even if they are simple things, like enjoying spring flowers and books and music and the company of good friends.

Songs of course are evocative of moments, of relationships, of special times. Just hearing a particular song can transport you to a certain time and place, and touch a chord in you that nothing else does. From the records my Mum used to play, to the songs we danced to when I was a teenager, to the songs my first real boyfriend sang or played to me, to music I discovered myself, to the songs I received on tapes from my brother in London introducing me to lots of new music, to songs my kids recommended (apart from the rap or wild dance music). I am pleased to have an eclectic taste, thanks to other people as well as radio, records and now music documentaries. I’ll explore this in my next blog. Of course Spotify is perfect as you can get almost anything. I say almost, as some songs seem to be covered by copyright, and others just aren’t there (like Dark Eyes by Bob Dylan).

One of my most special moments is going for afternoon tea at the Ritz in January with my two favourite people. More in my next blog.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton