Day 4: 28 May, Standedge to Hebden Bridge

We’ve decided to call today “Togetherness Day”, as it is 41 years to the day since we met at the 50th Anniversary Cub Scout Camp at Erskine Hospital near Glasgow and the Erskine Ferry. Margarette and I didn’t know each other, but ended up on both dishwashing duty and also all-night patrol of a campsite with around 2000 Cub Scouts. I fancied her immediately and suggested a midnight trip on my yacht (actually, thew old Erskine Ferry, chain driven across the River Clyde). Dazzled by my sparkling wit and personality, Margarette agreed to desert our charges for a short ride. 10 minutes later, we arrived on the north side of the Clyde…only to find it had been the last ferry of the evening. The Captain, respectfully called “Sir” on this occasion, thought this was hilarious but did agree to run us back across the river. 2000 little children could sleep safely in their camp beds (whilst I tried my damdest to seduce their protector. Unsuccessfully, I might add.

Two weeks later I asked her to marry me – well, I was 16, had just finished my “O” Levels and the world was my oyster. She told me not to be so daft and come back in three years if I was still interested. I did, and still am.

This is all a long way of describing why we took so long to leave to leave Black Hey Nook…the seduction technique finally paid off.. I’m still convinced, though, that she only stays out of curiosity.

Anyway…an easy walk followed, north across the M62 and north to Blackstone Edge. The rain finally gave way to severe hail, so we took temporary shelter in a stone horse-shoe…thanks to whoever built it. . Out on the Edge, the hail became more severe and we were forced into a crack in the rocks, till it passed. Again, decent waterproofs and warm weather gear paid off, even in England in May.

Lighter hail and rain continued along the western sides of the reservoirs, with a little protection afforded by the perimeter wall. Once on to Warland Drain the weather lightened, with just a biting wind and some rain as far as the monument at Stoodley Pike. Originally built to commemorate the battle of Waterloo, it had fallen down in 1854 and was rebuilt in its present, very Yorkshire, solid form in 1856. An ever increasing slope down into Hebden Bridge followed, across both the River Calder and Rochdale Canal.

Smoke stacks from former mills dotted the town, blackened by the coals of long closed steam and cotton mills and souls of satanic mill owners. Actually, history suggests they weren’t all bad and that the more successful were quite enlightened in their views, providing basic schooling up to age 9 and some job security, as long as you used the mill shops and lived in a tied cottage. This area is littered with the derelict ruins of farmhouses from this period, as people moved into the mill towns for a better standard of living. From this gradually grew the second industrial revolution with education (to age 14) for all in1896 and eventually the National Health Service after WW II....

Bed for tonight was the B&B at Mytholm House…not too easy to find but warm and comfortable once there, with large beds, bedrooms and breakfasts.

Unfortunately, Hebden Bridge itself is a little off the beaten track for Way Walkers. It is an interesting town trying hard to recover its former glories as an important mill town and later as one of the English centres of the 1960’s hippie movement. Some of the latter still live in the town, but sadly it only gives the impression of a less than successful Hay on Wye.

Tomorrow is towards Haworth and Brontё country.