Mainly compiled by Flora Daly with help from David and Helen Goodman.

Mona Dale

My first memory of the village was in 1920 as a girl of five, seeing the building of Cragg Cottage and the felling of the trees which had occupied the quarry. My mother, Amy, my brother Dick and I lived in Laurel Cottage. My father had been killed in the Great War, near Rouen in France in 1918. My mother had been born at Howsham, where her father was coachman at the Hall. As a girl Amy had learnt the piano, which she put to good use later, playing the harmonium at St Oswald’s church until she was over 90. Amy worked at Grimston Manor as a girl and married George Skilbeck, son of the village joiner at Gilling. Grandfather Skilbeck had been a keen cricketer who had played with Ranjit Singh at Gilling in his youth. His son George was also a joiner. Their first home was Southlands, which had been the village school until it was closed in 1908.

When George went to the war, Amy and the children moved to Laurel Cottage as the steps at Southlands were difficult for the pram - and there was no garden to dispose of the household waste. The move was suggested by Col. Benson, who owned virtually all the land and houses.

There was no water supply or drains at the time. Water was carried from the well down the Gilling road, or from the pump at St Gregory’s yard. Water came to the Terrace in 1924 and Laurel Cottage had a tap by the back door, but we still had an ash pit and no WC. The other houses were supplied from taps set into the wall.

Water supply tap in Terrace wall.

St Gregory’s was then called Sunnyside and was the home of the village blacksmith, Jim Stabler, a bachelor, who kept a few cows on the common along the top of the village. They were driven home for milking, after a drink in the pond by Birch Farm gate. The cows also drank from an old bath by the pump below the Sunnyside yard. Jim’s aunt also lived at Sunnyside, and his mother started a shop on the west side of the front door which sold sweets and odds and ends. Aunt Lil Skilbeck, came to live with us at Laurel Cottage, and later married Jim Stabler from over the corner. 

As the village school had been closed, I walked with the other children to the school at Gilling, mainly across the fields, coming out to the road by Spring Wood.

I can remember Col. Benson taking his morning drive with Mrs Horner, his housekeeper, in a Landau with a very smart coachman - Mr Pringle. They came down the village, over to Gilling and back via Stonegrave.  The Colonel later acquired a motor car for his tour.

The road to Gilling and beyond was widened in 1929, and the old right angle bends curved a bit. The village street by the church was widened in 1937. ‘Uncle’ Fred Gatenby from the Post Office acted as nightwatchman and I used to take him his supper, together with the three Gatenby daughters. The land in front of Southlands had been a rough playground with a swing in the 1900s. It was levelled into the village tennis court in the 1920s and became quite a centre of social life, particularly when increasing numbers of teachers from ‘The College’ came to live in the village. One such family shocked the village by putting their washing out on a Sunday !

I enjoyed playing in the village Tennis Tournaments which were major occasions in the summer. Aunt Lil used to provide teas at Sunnyside on tournament days.

My mother was an essential part of village life in the days before washing machines. She went to many of the village houses to help with the family washing. Each house had a ‘copper’, with a small coal fire to heat the clothes in water, a wash-board for more intensive cleaning and a mangle to squeeze out most of the water before airing on the line, or on a hanging frame, and finally ironing. It was a long job.

I lived for a time with the Goodman family, helping to bring up young David whilst his parents were dashing about in the social whirl of the 1930s.  I married Alf Dale, who worked for the Forestry Commission and we went to live in what is now the eastern end of Rigg Cottage as tenants of the Beecrofts who lived in the western half. My mother lived with us and daughter Anne grew up there before we all moved into No 3, The Terrace, one of the new council houses in 1949. Alf  enjoyed his work with ‘The Forestry’ and many of the woods in the area were planted and felled by the Forestry Commission. Alf distinguished himself by the speed with which he could turn trees into pit-props. I continued to help keep various houses in good shape and my mother helped Mrs Perry with the catering at the White House School.

I enjoyed taking a full part in village activities - the Women’s Institute, various events in the village hall, country dancing and as part of the team who looked after the flowers, brasses and other items in the church.

I became a Churchwarden of St Oswald’s in 1974 in succession to John Pullan, who was the last of the line of village shopkeepers. In 1997 I left the village to start a new life in Kirkbymoorside close to my daughter, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren    - so far.

George Stabler

I was born in Oswaldkirk in 1925. My father, Jim, was the village blacksmith and we lived in Sunnnyside - now St Gregory’s. My mother, Lilian,  was daughter of Dick Skilbeck, the village joiner of Gilling and sister-in-law to Mrs Amy Skilbeck. Lilian came to live with Amy and her family when brother George was killed in France in 1918.

My Grandfather was a blacksmith. He had learnt his skills at East Ayton in the late 1800s and used to walk from there to Scarborough to work on the iron hooks used in the construction of the Marine Parade. When he came to Oswaldkirk he set up business in what is now East Cottage on the Terrace. The garage for East Cottage was built as a shed in which horses were shoed and the forge and other parts of the work were done in the sheds up a few steps to the right of the garage.

Grandfather William had fourteen children and my father, Jim, was the only boy. He became a blacksmith also and moved house and business to Sunnyside with sister Charlotte. Sunnyside was a bigger house with better sheds for the forge and other work. There was also a well, with a hand pump, from which the family, the cattle and the business  got their water.  Aunt Charlotte kept a sweet shop opening onto the street beside the front door.

The Skilbecks lived just across the corner in Laurel Cottage.  Lilian and Jim were married in 1924 and Jim was  in his fifties when I was born in the next year.

We kept some cows which were grazed along the Bank Top and we had a cream separator which kept the family supplied with cream and butter.

I was called up into the army in  March 1944 and saw active service  with the Seaforth Highlanders in Holland at the time of Hitler’s final offensive in the Ardennes. From there we went on into Germany and ended up looking after German prisoners at Kiel. Of the 28 who went out with me several were killed and only two returned without injury. I had a shrapnel wound to my face, but fortunately it healed.

I was on leave at home and went to a dance at the Village Hall just before Christmas in 1945. Whilst watching the dancers from the balcony, I met a young lady called Frances, whose father had the shop and Post Office at Hovingham. We were married  in 1950 and went to live in Hovingham. After a year we returned to Oswaldkirk to live at Well House, at the east end of Manor Farm with my parents. Jim had retired by then. Our children, Bruce and Angela were born there. There were only two bedrooms, so we moved to a larger house in Gilling, where Frances started a Post Office in the house, which was just a few doors from mother Lil’s old home. She came to live with us there after father died.

I worked in the ‘Forestry’ for fifty years and saw the work change greatly. In the 1940s everything was done by hand - with saws and axes and sickles. Trees were felled, cleaned and loaded onto horse drawn carts. Felling was piece work job, at 6d per tree. Making pit-props was a major business. Alf Dale and I won the Pit Prop making competition at the Yorkshire Show for several years - until we were no longer invited to compete.

Son Bruce has followed into the forestry business, now much changed with chain saws, chemical weeding and computer controlled logging.

Brenda White

I was brought up at Broad Farm and I lived in Oswaldkirk until I married in 1955. I used to walk to Gilling Primary School, and later when I went to Malton Grammar School I used to catch the bus from Oswaldkirk. The road from Oswaldkirk to Gilling had wide grass verges where there were ammunition dumps covered with corrugated iron shelters which were open at both ends. The noise of the wind howling through these shelters could be very frightening, especially on dark evenings.

My father, Sidney Pickering, had a milking herd and during the war land girls used to come to him for a month at a time, for tuition in milking cows. My parents used to deliver milk in the village twice a day because, of course, there were no refrigerators. The milk was carried in an oval shaped can. Half the lid of the can was fixed, and the other half lifted up. Measures hung inside the can and were used to transfer the milk into the jug of the recipient. After 1934 we had a cooler and bottled the milk.

Before the war started we all used to go from Gilling station to Scarborough on a day excursion. In those days you could set your clock by when you saw the trains and buses go by. The buses ran from Helmsley to York every four hours. I remember how we laughed when a young man, who my father had just employed, overheard my mother say she wondered what time it was. He was so anxious to please that he ran all the way from Broad Farm to the Post Office and back to tell  her.

The Post Office and general store was in the centre of the village, in the house which is now called the Old Post Office, and is within sight of the church clock. There was a joiner's shop on the corner in the house which is now St. Gregory's, and for a short time there was a haberdashery shop in one of the rooms there. Previously these premises were a blacksmith's shop. In the snowy weather we used to go sledging and ski-ing down Birch Bank, and I remember the joy of sledging in the moonlight.

Near the beginning of the war I remember the Military Police were billeted in private houses and, soon afterwards, huts were built to house 200-300 soldiers on the ground which is now built over with post-war houses (opposite the Manor House and the White House). First there came a battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps. They left in 1941 and were followed by the RASC and then the Grenadier Guards. The soldiers used to go on route marches of eighteen miles or so and do cross country running. Most of KRRC had been office workers in London and they found it tough at first.

The Bren Gun carriers used to practise up and down Birch Bank, in between the trees and gorse bushes. The military requisitioned the old village hall for a Mess and occasionally there were dances to which the local young people were invited. During the war the village was of course blacked out like all the rest of the country. My father used to be a special constable, and one day news came that a parachutist had come down and was dangling with his parachute in a tree on the side of the Malton road. Most of the children turned out to look at him but they dare not go too close in case he was a German with a gun. The planes used to go out from Wombleton airfield on bombing raids. My sister used to do fire watching duty with Miss Smith from Cliff House. They used to walk up Stockings Lane, looking over the countryside for sign of fire.    

When Dr. Richardson was the Rector he used to allow the Women's Guild to meet in two rooms at the west end of the rectory. The ladies used to sew things for the sale which they had in the summer. There were concerts at which my mother and sister used to recite in Yorkshire dialect, and there were whist and beetle drives, all in aid of church funds. There was a choral society who used to give concerts where choral works were interspersed with one act plays.

After the war there was a flourishing Women’s Institute which was founded by Mrs. Oade, the Rector's wife.

The last regiment to be stationed in the village was Polish. They left in 1944 and after the war my family was visited by a Polish man, who they had befriended, who had been badly wounded. He drove all the way from the south of England in a car for the disabled. Towards the end of the war Italian prisoners of war came to work on the farms. They were billeted in the Army Camp until 1945.

At the beginning of the war children from Middlesbrough were evacuated to the district and anybody who had a spare room had to take a child. Some of them stayed quite a long time.

During the war most of the cottages kept hens and a pig.  During these years there was an enthusiastic choir at St.Oswald's and there was a good church attendance. The soldiers used to march to church for church parade and the singing at morning service was lovely. Half the church was reserved for the troops. After the troops had left dances used to be held in the old village hall. The average attendance was about 200, but once 400 people packed in. I remember a special dance in 1951 where we all dressed up in gypsy costume. Later the dances were patronised by people from a distance who behaved badly and started fights and the dances were stopped.

David Goodman

I came to the village as a new born baby in 1932. My parents lived in the Bungalow at first. The only memory I have of that time is the oil lamp with a mantle and a red shade, which was the only source of light, apart from candles. We moved to the Manor House in 1934 and I have fond memories of sliding down the grassy bank (now wooded) behind the house. My father was one of the first two lay teachers at ‘The College’. The other was Horry Perry; his son Michael and I were the same age and were good friends,  particularly when the Perrys built the White House next door in 1937. We moved into Ledbrooke House in April 1939. My mother and Kath Perry taught us at home until we were old enough to go the Gilling Castle in 1940. My best memories of that time were ‘The Cubs’ having adventurous afternoons in the Gilling  woods above the lakes. It was all scrubland and bracken then, before the forestry had reached those parts.

The Ampleforth College Junior school was in temporary accommodation when I got there in 1944, as Avisford  prep-school was in residence to escape the flying bombs on the south coast.

Model aircraft were my main relaxation both at home and in the Upper School. Little diesel engines were taking over from twisted rubber as a source of power. Otherwise there was a lot of hard work and my father’s teaching finally got me to University, after which I had  two ‘Gap Years’ with National Service in the Air Force, mainly in an underground radar station at Seaton Snook.  I then began  my thirty four years, with ICI on Teesside. Helen and I had met at Stockton, whilst I was still doing National Service. We were married in Saltburn in 1960 and lived mainly in Middlesbrough. Three children  later, we came, and I returned,  to Oswaldkirk in 1974, first to Orchard House and then back into my old home  - with a few updates. Twenty eight years later it is still great to be back.

Charlie Oldfield

I first came to live in Oswaldkirk in 1933 at the age of seven, and I left nine years later when I went to work in York. My father had been appointed gardener to Major Gatty Smith at Oswaldkirk Hall, and we lived in the cottage in the grounds. At that time the outbuildings at the Hall were used for various purposes. There was a defunct brewery and laundry as well as several stables and garages. The previous owner, Col. Benson, had had a lot of carriage horses and riding horses. In one building gas was made to supply the house. In the back yard there was a huge well, but in my time there was an electric pump which took the well water to the upper floors for bath water. One of the buildings on the roadside was Major Gatty Smith's Estate Office. During the war part of the Hall was the Officer's Mess and the laundry became the cookhouse. At that time the father of George Stabler was the blacksmith, in the house which is now St. Gregory's, at the bottom of Oswaldkirk Bank.       Joseph Gatenby had the Post Office, and in the building over the road his brother, Herbert Gatenby, had a cycle repair shop where he also sold cycle lamps and charged the accumulators that were used for wireless sets. The Gatenby family also owned the petrol pumps. At that time there was not a repair garage in the village. Herbert's shop was in the corner of what had been the estate yard which later became a timber yard run by Mr Percy Hugill. One day there was a huge fire which demolished the timber, and it was after that that Isaac White built his garage. Ike White lived in Pavilion House.

About a quarter of a mile beyond the Hall there was a field with a small brick building in it. This was where the cow belonging to the postmaster lived, and I remember seeing him walk along the road carrying his milking stool and pail twice a day.

In Abbey House lived the threshing machine man, and he kept his machine in the building which is now the garage for the White House. The threshing machine was powered by steam, and it used to be taken round the farms. In Hagg Cottage, on the way to Ampleforth, lived Mr. Brown and his family. His son was a male alto singer and sang in the church choir.

Dr. Richardson was the Rector and he was a keen collector of fossils. He used to take the local boys to show them the fossils in the nearby quarries. At the Harvest Festival Service Canon Kyle from Carlton in Cleveland often came to preach. He had a broad Yorkshire accent and was known as the farming parson. At that time at the west end of the Rectory there was an outdoor staircase which led up to a room which was used by the Ladies' Guild. I remember when Hag wood was cut down for timber. A team of men with twelve  huge horses came, and the horses seemed to understand every word that was said to them. The ground of the wood was a carpet of aconites, then primroses and bluebells further up.

I remember the old village street and I remember when it was built up to make it more level and pavements were put in. At that time the wall was built which supports the drive up to the garage of the White House. There used to be a night watchman for the road building works. Once, due to an academic achievement of mine, my reward was to have my supper with the night watchman by his fire. Hall Farm had a granary, which during the war became a cobbler's shop for the army. It is now the west end of Hall Farm House. I was also in the cricket team. At that time the cricket pavilion was alongside the Terrace, but it had to be moved when Major Foster built the two houses where the Mastermans live. The cricket pitch was in the field behind the houses and the pavilion was moved to the side of the Gilling road. The footpath which runs from Broad Farm up the hill to the Bank Top was known as the Bunny Run because there were so many rabbits. One winter there was a very heavy snowfall which was nearly to the top of the telegraph poles on the Malton road. Tobogganing down Birch Bank was much enjoyed.

Raymond Wood

I was born in 1945 at Abbey House in Oswaldkirk and lived there until I was married. My parents bought the house for £350 at the sale in 1932 and I was told that the Hall was sold for £3500, ten times as much.

My father, Harold, had a mill, driven by a traction engine and a blacksmith and woodwork shop in the barns, which are now the garages, at the White House.

Harold Wood & his Traction Engine.

My mother, Irene, was much younger than my father and they had six children: Ken, Chris, Ida (Babs), Stan and the twins, Wendy and me. My father died when I was eight so my mother had a tough time bringing us all up. She was well known for her good cooking and her rhubarb pies were much enjoyed. She took in lodgers to make ends meet and Bernard Vazquez was one of them.

I first went to school in Ampleforth at St. Hilda’s  (thirty pupils then), then to Gilling  and on to Ryedale School which I left when I was 15. I belonged to the Model Club at school and got interested in building free flight planes. I now make ones with an 8 ft. wing span and an electric motor. I used to deliver The Yorkshire Post  to almost everyone in the village so I got to know people quite well. I earned 6 shillings a week. I did a lot of work helping Mr. and Mrs. Perry at the White House. Once I remember some boys pinching apples from the Perry’s orchard being disturbed by my father. He chased them away and one of them jumped over the wall at the top of the drive. He did not realise what a steep drop it was and broke his leg. I don’t suppose he pinched apples again. 

Ike White used to run the garage and was the first person in the village to get T.V. He invited children in to watch cowboy films. He also ran the Cricket Club.

            I went to work for Major Foster at Leysthorpe Hall, then for Mr. Armitage, where I lived in Leysthorpe Cottages, but have now moved away to work at Ness Hall.  

Joan Masterman

I first came to Oswaldkirk in 1947 to work as a member of the Womens' Land Army at Birch Farm. Eighteen months later I married George Masterman. We had three children and I lived and worked in and around Oswaldkirk until very recently. In 1952, when we had two babies, George contracted tetanus (lockjaw). He rapidly became very ill and was rushed into York Hospital where they warned me that it was nearly always fatal. However he was saved by penicillin, our prayers, and the fact that he was young and strong. He was the first such case to survive at York Hospital.

I have many memories of old Oswaldkirk. A very popular recreation was walking, especially on Sunday evenings when you would see whole families out together. Immediately at the top of the bank, in the middle of the road, there was a small green with a signpost in the middle and a seat all round. This was much used by all as a real meeting place, where the 'news' was exchanged, especially by the old men of the village, while resting on a fine day after a toil up the hill to smoke a pipe. One of the favourite walks was along the Terrace and across Birch Bank which was a hard wide path in those days. Then back along the top road to the roundabout, stopping there for a rest and to gather up the latest news and gossip from whoever happened to be sitting there at the time, then on down the bank and home. Another walk was up the bank, along the path that went in among the trees along the top of the village, and then back down the path behind the White House and on down to the church.

Some of the cottages in the village have now been enlarged and completely changed. It is most noticeable that nowadays everybody leaves their gate open, or else they don't have one. Years ago, it was woe betide anyone who valued their garden and left the gate open, because a flock of sheep or a few cows were sure to be driven down the street, to or from the farm and fields. This was an accepted thing and part of village life. Bob Oldfield who, miraculously, with one arm (having lost one in the first world war) was gardener at the Hall. Bob Wright was the roadman. There was no fancy roadsweeper then. Just a willing workman, with a brush, a shovel and a wheelbarrow. In the winter he would get up at 4 a.m. if it was icy, to salt the bank. He always had time to pass the time of day and have a little chat.

One of the favourite places for children to play was Birch Bank which was quite steep in places. In those days it was covered in daisies and buttercups and other small flowers. There was a quarry in the middle where the children went fossil hunting, and there were good trees to climb. The end nearest the village was covered in brambles, gorse and it was full of wild life. On Easter Monday the whole village came to roll their eggs, not the chocolate ones of today, but hard boiled and all in different colours. We seemed to have more snow in those days and that was when they arrived with their sledges and toboggans, even tin trays. Mums and Dads joined in, snowball fights and all.

Dick Smailes

I moved to Oswaldkirk in 1949 with my wife and small daughter. This was the first time we had a house with a bath in it. We were able to move into one of the houses which the Council had built at the east end of the Terrace. These houses were for the workers at three different farms, and I was working for Mr Phillip Harrison at East Newton Grange. I used to bicycle to work, up the path that used to run diagonally across Birch Field up to the Malton road. The council houses at Bank Top were also for men who worked for certain farmers. We used to call the east end of the village the poor end, and the west end the posh end. We used to know the name of everybody in the village.

Note on council house occupants in 1949: The Terrace: Mr.Walker worked for Ray Burrell, Dick Smailes as above. Mr Holiday and John Richardson worked for Major Foster. Bank Top: two for Major Foster, one for Golden Square, one for Newton Grange.

The Reliance bus used to run from Helmsley to York about every two hours, and on a Saturday it was often full. In 1949 there was no electricity and no telephone at East Newton Grange, just gas lamps. When I arrived for work the first thing I did was to put some cereals through the mill for feeding the animals. At first the mill was worked by a tractor motor, later by electricity. In one of the cottages (now ruined) at East Newton Bottom alongside the river there used to live a tanner. He used the water from the Rye for his work. When I was a young man I used to take my bath in the river in the summer time, and in the winter there was one bowl of water for all the workers to wash in, and there was a pecking order. By the last person the water was far from clean. There was one roller towel which had to last a week. The Oswaldkirk garage was once Col.Benson's stockyard.

Sylvia Stephenson

I came to Oswaldkirk, to 1, Bank Top, on Good Friday, 1955 with my husband and my first child, Denise. At that time our rent was £1 per week including rates and water rate. Now it is £109 per fortnight excluding rates. Oswaldkirk Bank was about the same as it is now. The old village hall was still there. When I was a girl I went to my first hunt ball there. In the Manor House lived Col. and Mrs. Dudzinski who had come over from Poland. Twenty boys lodged with them. Col. Dudzinsky worked in the offices at the College. After those boys left school they moved to St. Gregory's. During the nineteen sixties they would go back to Poland on holiday. After they left the Manor House a Greek Orthodox priest, Father Rodzianko moved in with a number of boys of the Orthodox religion. Mrs. Perry's school was in the White House and her husband taught at the college. There is a story told that some nuns from York were going round the village collecting money. When one knocked on Mrs.Perry's door she told the nun that she was very busy with her children. The nun enquired how many children she had and when the reply was nineteen she didn't press for a donation!

Betty Ward lived in Keilwey Cottage. She was disabled and she used to do knitting for people. On a Sunday her father, Charlie, used to push her up the hill in her wheelchair to where everyone went for a chat at the Bank Top. Birch Bank path was a bier road down which they used to carry coffins to the church.

In East Cottage lived Bumper Cooper who used to organize parties and outings. Miss Rugg, a retired missionary, lived in the schoolhouse. When Alf Dale's dog was knocked down she prayed over it, and the dog lived.

The first weekend in June was Parents' Weekend at Ampleforth College and a number of parents used to stay at the pub. The ladies wore long skirts and big hats. At that time the beer was in barrels along the side of the bar.

When Ian and Carol Pickering were landlords, Ian organized a custard pie competition for charity. There were trestle tables in the pub yard and you had to throw pies at each other; there were two teams with sponsors. Jack Leng was the gardener at Gilling Castle.

There was a local tramp, Spud Murphy, who used to push a greyhound round in a pram. He used to do odd jobs on the farms and his wife was a tramp also. They used to sleep in barns and when Spud was drunk he used to dance for the children.

Joan and Michael Moore were the first to live in the Police House at Bank Top, then Peter Walker, then later Alan and Renate Worden. Alan worked on the North York   Moors railway as a hobby, and Renate painted pictures of the trains as well as other subjects. Mr. Maynard at Sunnybank reared several children, and he had to walk halfway down the bank to fetch water.

There used to be point to point racing from Wikeley's farm half way round the valley.

The biggest difference between the village then and now was the gardens. Practically every cottage grew their own vegetables, front and back. There was no need to go to the greengrocer, in fact there was not much need to go shopping at all because vans came round selling household supplies. The other  big difference was the lack of traffic. In the 1950s I was quite happy to allow my small children to walk down the bank to the village shop and Post Office in the middle of the village.

In 1970 Mr. Pullan, the postmaster, retired, and I took over as postmistress in our house at 1, Bank Top for several years. My daughter Janice was born in the village and still lives there in No2.

Len Brown

I have lived in Leysthorpe and Oswaldkirk for forty three years. Kath and I came in 1959 and bought White’s Garage Ltd and ran it as a showroom for new cars and repairing others until 1992. Previously I had run a garage in Holme-on- Spalding Moor after returning from Army service. I was in the Signals Regiment, attached to the Derbyshire Yeomanry Armoured Corps, serving in North Africa  for two and a half  years. When I was young I lived in Malton and my first job at fourteen years old, was as a mechanic earning 7s 6d  for a forty eight hour week.  In 1964 we built a new garage in Malton and ran it with the one in Oswaldkirk until 1972 when we sold the Malton one to J.B.Motors.

At first  we lived at Leysthorpe Cottages and Major Gordon Foster was one of my best customers. He bought at least six new cars from me for his family and I remember one especially that he bought for his daughter when she was eighteen. He suggested a second-hand one that was not too sporty but in the end I persuaded him that a new Austin A40 was just the thing. A bright red saloon one was what she requested and it was duly delivered to Leysthorpe Hall. It arrived so quickly that I had not had time to make out the bill but the Major telephoned to say that he did not want anything on his premises that had not been paid for and so I was obliged to do the paperwork speedily  and rushed up to the Hall to give him the bill. We closed the garage in 1992 and Philip Thompson, my son-in-law, built three new houses on the site.

In 1964 I built a bungalow in Oswaldkirk, now Holmecroft, with stone I had bought from a partly demolished wing of Grimston Manor in Gilling, and then moved into another bungalow on the main street when Jack Bradley bought  Manor Farm for £10,000, from the Cooper family, in order to build the new development. Northern Developments drew up detailed plans for seventeen houses but the land was built on finally by Sketchmead Homes, which later became Persimmon Homes. The footings and drains were laid down in 1967 but the houses were not built until a few years later. The old garages and my office which had been the old Reading Room for the village were demolished and twenty two houses were erected. Anthony Fawcett and Norman Lilley were the builders and the Lilley family lived in 1, St. Oswald’s Close. Tragically Norman, his wife Sue, and son Mark with his girl friend, were killed as he was flying his aeroplane over the Channel in 1990. They are buried in a spacious grave in St. Oswald’s churchyard.

One of my ambitions was to own a Garage and people said how useful it had been to the community, but another one was to breed race horses. This has given me great pleasure and I produced at least two flat race winners. It was good to live near the horses when I built Oak Lodge in 1989 in which I now live.