Yorkshire

I have just finished reading a 450 page tome about the place where I am from - Yorkshire. Written by Yorkshire exile and journalist,  Rick Broadbent, the title of his work is "Now Then", followed by this strapline: "The story of Yorkshire and its people". 

In Yorkshire it is very common to say to people we meet, "Now then". Sometimes that is short for "Now then, how are you going on?" I have used that greeting all my life but I recognise that in other English-speaking regions of the world and indeed this country, "Now then" will be unfamiliar.

Rick Broadbent was not trying to produce a definitive historical and geographical guide to Yorkshire, he was writing about the county from his point of view - in the full knowledge that it would be biased in several ways and omissions would be glaring.

It is rarely acknowledged that the population of Yorkshire is higher than  Wales and Northern Ireland put together. It is also slightly bigger than the population of Scotland - currently 5,547,000. In spite of its size, Yorkshire folk generally think that we are rather overlooked by the London-based government and media and there's no meaningful devolution here - with very little of the extra funding that Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland enjoy.

I enjoyed "Now Then" but some sections held me better than others. Rick Broadbent had clearly undertaken a lot of research as the foundation for his writing and he had held worthwhile interviews with a range of living Yorkshire people who have made their mark in the world.

Of course I know my county pretty well and after seventy two years of life and travel and rambling and exploration, there are very few significant places I have not been so it occurred to me - what would I have included that Rick Broadbent overlooked or missed out?

For one thing, there'd be more about Sheffield and I would have interviewed the great Arthur Scargill about The Miners' Strike of 1984/85. Football clubs would have figured more significantly and  I would have made a point of highlighting the fact that modern football was born here in Sheffield.

There would be accounts of visits to Spurn Point, Fountains Abbey, Barnsley and Beverley Minster and I would take readers along The Wolds Way. And Captain James Cook would have a chapter all to himself. And I  would visit Yorkshire pubs and residential homes to talk to old timers, gathering true Yorkshire tales before they are lost. And there'd be more focus upon deprivation and social housing and those who eke out existences when they should be living life to the max.

But of course "Now Then" was not my book, it was Rick Broadbent's and though I have a few reservations about it, I am very glad that he wrote it. At times it was provocative and I liked that. Yorkshire needs champions and it needs debate.