PENNINE TOURS

My friend Jonathan and I spent a pleasant afternoon in the hills yesterday (Sunday)
Years ago in the 70s, I happened on a place in South Yorkshire called Slaithwait. Local prounounciation is of course Slowitt and there hangs a tail.

Many years ago i had a silly job between gigs delivering not coal to Newcastle but rather, Steel to Sheffield also Barnsley, Doncaster, Hull, Lancaster and even Carlisle. I had one delivery to make in this place called Slaithwaite which was somewhere between Stocksbridge and Barnsley but could i find it? could I buggery. I narrowed it down to somewhere near Goldthorpe but no matter how often i drove back and forth there was no sign of the place.

I stopped people two or three times and asked them for Slaithwaite but all I got was head shakes and shrugs. No one it appears had heard of the place. Finally I gave it one last shot and stopped again to ask a retired miner sat on a bench, sucking his pipe and watching the world go by. He was in fact the only person for miles around or so it seems. He was just about to repeat the never heard of it mantra when he grabbed the delivery note and scanned the address. Suddenly he laughed and said, "Oh you mean Slowitt, your here now, its just down that lane at the big mill by the canal." I followed his gaze and spotted a stone build mill at the bottom of a valley. Of course he was right it was slowitt. but who would have thought that a lancashire lad who regularly met up with people from all across the UK and who had friends in France, Germany etc etc could have been caught out so thoroughly by a local Yorkshire dialect prounounciation.

I quickly found the old mill but Already running late I had little time to explore the delights of Slowitt but swore that one day I would complete my admittedly hazy knowledge of South Yorkshire and add Slowwitt to my tour guide. and yesterday, i did just that. Jonathan my friend from Leeds, supplied the wheels and fortunately shared my intrest in far away places with strange sounding names.

After a wet or even very wet week we were blessed with a dry and calm day on Sunday so we had a pleasant walk round the town. And, i have to say it was well worth the effort. Plenty of walkers were taking advantage of the day and the four cafes i found, were well used and welcoming. and after a nice cup of tea and a piece of banana cake, we took in the impressive delights of the Globe Worsted Mill, the old canal, re excavated in the 50s, the Free School and the very pleasant setting. It appears that the folks thereabouts, had taken more care of their home than had the burgers of Pendle for example, who had covered or ripped up all their cobblestones, bulldozed the ancient shops, built really tacky 60s and 70s ugliness in their place and allowed road planning and one way systems to run riot to the benefit of cars and trucks and little else.

The 17th,18th and 19th century architecture formed an attractive mix and there was much evidence that old trees had been spared the axe and softened the pennine stone.