Voices From The Dales

Producing milk and making cheese are essential industries in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.    But what’s the story behind the great tradition of cheese in the Dales?  Find out in ‘Cheese Past’, the first of two Voices From The Dales podcast episodes dedicated to cheese.   Presented by Andrew Fagg, in Hawes, hear the voices of Brian Sunter, Margaret Watson, Matthew Bell, Eleanor Scarr, Kit Cal...

Fell running is one of the oldest and most traditional sports in northern England.   Races take place across the Yorkshire Dales throughout spring and summer.  In this podcast you are taken to the ‘Hawkswick Dash’ in Littondale in June 2021, organised by the British Open Fell Runners Association.  Hear the voices of Skipton’s ‘Mr Sport’ Roger Ingham , ‘Run The Dales’ writer and organiser Victoria...

A cockerel down a chimney, school closures, sex education and a ‘Roman toilet’ are discussed in Episode One of Voices From The Dales.  Hear the voices of John Waggett from Gunnerside, Joan Fawcett and Christa Fagg Rawlence from Hawes, Sally Stone from West Burton, Norman Guy from Muker, Enid Lundberg from Arkengarthdale and Barbara Buckingham from Reeth.  Also meet Mary Burrow , the woman who devo...

Clogs, snow, the bus driver and the ‘kiddy catcher’ are discussed in Episode Two of Voices From The Dales.  Hear the voices of Kit Calvert, Joan Fawcett, Eric and Vera Alderson and Reggie Fagg Rawlence – all from Hawes – as well as John Waggett from Gunnerside, Norman Guy from Muker, Jennie Sunter from Keld, Brian Sunter from Low Row, Eleanor Scarr from Bainbridge, and Allen Kirkbride from Askirgg...

“The energy is no longer there,” said the Methodist minister in Reeth in 2016, as another Dales chapel closed.  As journalist Mike Amos reported, a way of life was quietly disappearing. Chapels were at the heart of village life in Wensleydale and Swaledale for around 150 years, but decline set in during the second half of the last century.  And yet in half a dozen places such as Gayle and Gunnersi...

John Thwaite (1873-1941) was a Wensleydale dialect poet who wrote about the natural beauty as well as the ordinary working class people around him.  He worked as a grocer in the town of Hawes.  Some 30 years after his death a group of people in Wensleydale recorded his poems on cassette tapes.  In this episode hear two poems read by Jack Fawcett :  ‘The Quarryman’s Cross’ and ‘T’Auction Mart’.   I...

Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby founded a museum and brought pleasure to millions of people through their popular books on the Yorkshire Dales.   What started their love affair with the Dales?  How did they encourage Dales folk to tell their stories?    And what role does museum they created, the Dales Countryside Museum, have today?  In this episode hear the voices of Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilb...