In November 2018, I blogged about a walk I took on Longstone Edge. There I came across a small stone platform upon which was a metal plaque that read "Ruby's Chair". You can read about it here.
It was a mystery until last weekend when the platform's maker got in touch with me and kindly provided this explanation:-
"Hi Longstone Moor Farm was run by my family from 1943 to 2020 and I have spent a lot of time up there. About 9 years ago me and my daughter who was 8 years old at the time were having a picnic on Taylor Lane. In the lane was an old broken limestone gate post and I said let's make a chair with it. So me and my daughter Ruby set to building it and she worked so hard I thought it would be nice to make a copper plaque with her name on. I fitted the plaque to the chair with two rivets with my initials stamped on N S. If you sit on the chair facing into the chair you will see an iron ring set in rock with lead on the other side of the lane. I have set 8 such rings in different parts of Longstone Moor and called them the Longstone Moor ringtones. I just wanted to leave something behind that will last a long time. I told my daughter when she holds the ring it will be like holding my hand. Hope that was interesting to you."
Well it was indeed interesting to me. The writer was a gentleman called Mr Smart - an appropriate surname for someone whose first name is also Neil. To leave something permanent in the landscape like this seemed to me such a beautiful thing to do. Of course Ruby, the daughter in question, will be seventeen years old now and on the verge of her adulthood. As the years go by it will be so nice for her to think of the rough chair she made with her father when she was a little girl. Maybe one day she will come back to the ridge with a child of her own and they will sit on Ruby's Chair together admiring the view, perhaps recollecting a departed man.
Oh my goodness, how perfectly lovely! What a gorgeous dad he is!
ReplyDeleteHe has a proper perspective on time and the landscapes in which we dwell.
DeleteWhat a lovely story and such a wonderful dad.
ReplyDeleteWonderful yes - on the basis of the evidence we have.
DeleteThats a great story, about Ruby and her dad and the chair bbut it just gets better when I think that his bloke somehow found out you were wondering and then made the effort to tell you.
ReplyDeleteHow did he find you?
I suspect Ruby's chair might be there for generations
In the Geograph site where I have posted 15,000 pictures, it is possible to e-mail contributors.
DeleteSome people have a knack of coming up with something unique for a memorial.
ReplyDeleteA hundred years from now what will remain of you or me?
DeleteWhat a wonderful memory for them to share and for her to reminisce about later! Neil Smart sounds like a creative and interesting person.
ReplyDeleteThe first name is so strong and manly yet authoritative and sweet too.
DeleteThe most touching part for me is that about Ruby holding the ring will be like holding her father's hand.
ReplyDeleteYou say he got in touch with you? Did he come across your blog and decide to send you his explanation? Anyway, thank you for sharing it with us!
No Meike - it was via the Geograph site where I have now posted 15,000 images.
DeleteAnd that is the way that all of the stone monuments on the moors have been left 'in rememberance' a time or a person. Sweet story, and how did an 8 year old Ruby manhandle that large stone with her dad she must have been strong.
ReplyDeleteMaybe she was the forewoman directing operations. As you are always curious about stone monuments, isn't it interesting to know of the modern inception of such a feature?
DeleteHow interesting. Isn't nice where something that pops up, as at times happens with my blog.
ReplyDeleteYes. It is serendipitous.
DeleteWhat would your lasting legacy be (bearing in mind that even Google would find it difficult to delete iron rings)? I have planted apple trees around the moors. I don't know whether any of the cores have germinated.
ReplyDeleteI have asked my nearest and dearest to build a statue of me on a mound in Endcliffe Park - something along the lines of the Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue in Mongolia.
DeleteAnother lovely story to lift the spirits. It serves to remind me that all is not doom and gloom everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThere is still joy and serendipity out there if you stop to see it.
DeleteWhat a beautiful and moving story in these depressing times.
ReplyDeleteYou are as soft as I am Graham.
DeleteWe all think about leaving our mark but this person has done so. Fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI have often thought about carving my name into a remote rocky outcrop with chisels and a mason's hammer but as yet I have not got round to it.
DeleteIt is comforting to know that the bench was made not in tribute to someone who is no longer here, but a young girl who can come back throughout her life and remember. I hope her father can come with her for years to come.
ReplyDeleteIf she is seventeen now then the likelihood is that he is under fifty.
DeleteHow great that he contacted you and explained the origin of "Ruby's Chair"! The ringtones are an interesting idea, too. Did you see those when you were there?
ReplyDeleteNo I didn't Steve but I go up there again I will be looking out for them and I will tell my son-in-law too. He loves a good country walk.
DeleteWhat a lovely thing to do, and so nice that you know the story behind the seat now.
ReplyDeleteAnother mystery solved.
DeleteWonderful that he read your post and got in touch with you YP.
ReplyDeleteNo Dave Cameron, he spotted the picture on the Geograph site to which I regularly submit photos.
DeleteFabulous - I love the idea of the rings-stones too. How good that it is for someone alive and who can use it and cherish it - paying tribute to the living is something we ought to do more of.
ReplyDeleteSimple but beautiful... a bit like me!
DeleteWhat a fabulous story; you seem to have a real knack of uncovering these treasures on your adventures Neil, and it's so lovely that they are preserved and swept into the folklore heritage through your blog. Thank you so much for sharing.
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