Tag: countrymans Daughter sarah walker

Raising a toast to Dad

(This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times  on 27th July, & the Gazette & Herald on 25th July 2018).

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Next week marks the most important day of the year which, as all who read this newspaper know, is August 1st, or Yorkshire Day.

According to my Dad’s column from 29 July 1978, the day was established to mark the demise in 1974 of the three Yorkshire Ridings when county boundaries were rearranged and Cleveland and Humberside were established. It was originally more commonly known as Minden Day, a commemoration of the 1759 Battle of Minden in which the soldiers were said to have plucked roses from the hedgerows on their way into battle. So on Minden Day, soldiers place red roses in their ceremonial headwear as a tribute to their predecessors and Yorkshire soldiers use white roses instead to represent their county.

My dad loved his food and one of the things he most looked forward to on Yorkshire Day was the traditional meal with Yorkshire puddings eaten in the classic way, as a starter with gravy, followed by roast beef and vegetables. He would particularly enjoy it if it was accompanied by a glass of good red wine. On our recent holiday to France, we stayed near Bordeaux, and as I drove past field upon field of vines, I couldn’t help but think of my dad, and recall a special family holiday we had to the same area eleven years ago in 2007.

We’d gone to celebrate my parents’ 70th birthdays, but also because we’d had a difficult year. Dad had been diagnosed with prostate cancer a few months earlier and his diagnosis had been very serious. But thankfully he responded remarkably well to the treatment and was in relatively good health, even through we still had no idea what the future might hold. So my mum decided that a special family holiday was in order and found a splendid manor house between Bordeaux and Perigueux in south-west France that could accommodate all 16 of us.

It was a truly memorable holiday, and Dad was in his element, enjoying the local food and wine to the full. He found himself a special little corner in the garden where he could write up column notes while enjoying a glass of something lovely.

As we were so close to some famous wine-producing domaines, he and my mum spent one day visiting a chateau near St Emilion. Although one might imagine chateaus being ancient castles with turrets and towers (of which France has many), the word also refers simply to an estate upon which wine is produced and sold.

I managed to find the column he wrote in 2007 following that holiday, and it’s interesting to read back on it now, especially following last week’s column in which I wrote about how much better the French road network is compared to ours. Dad apparently felt the same way. “I must say that the French roads, whether urban, rural or motorways, are splendid,” he wrote.

During my holiday this year, I was also determined to visit a chateau and sample a local vintage so the boys and I set out one day along a long straight local road which was lined with vineyards.

We pulled into Chateau Haute-Goujon, a smart, modern-looking place, and were very fortunate to be shown around by the owner himself, Monsieur Vincent Garde, whose family have produced red wine there since the early 20th century. In excellent English, he explained the process, taking us through the vinification room, with huge stainless steel vats where the grape juice is fermented and turned into wine, then to a room full of hand-made oak barrels, where the wine is aged, to a vast cellar-like room full of resting bottles, and then finally to the labelling facility. The labels are only put on last minute to deter thieves. If the wine is unmarked, they will have no idea what they are stealing, explained Mr Garde.

Of course, I had to buy some and was pleasantly surprised to find the choices weren’t as expensive as I’d imagined, with prices starting at £10 and the most expensive being around £50. I bought some at the average price, and then a couple of a more expensive one. It’s just a shame Dad isn’t here to enjoy it with me, but I will raise a toast to him when I open it.

For more information visit chateauhautegoujon.com.

Visit my blog at countrymansdaughter.com. Follow me on Twitter @countrymansdaug

The goat was Cooked

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Captain James Cook, who was born in Whitby
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A replica of The Endeavor near the Whitby coast. Captain Cook’s original vessel was built in the town
painting Death of Captain Cook
A painting depicting the death of Captain Cook

(This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on 27th April, & the Gazette & Herald on 25th April 2018).

Following my column in January about mascot goats, I was intrigued to find out from Dad’s column from 29th April 1978 that one of North Yorkshire’s most famous sons had his own companion goat.

Captain James Cook took a goat on one of his famous voyages, and she was so important, that we have a record of her 1772 death, the anniversary of which falls this week on 28th April.

Dad says he didn’t know its name, but “such was the fame of this goat that it was admitted to Greenwich Hospital as a pensioner. My information is somewhat scant on this subject, for I do not know the gender of the animal, nor its age.”

Well of course, that was a challenge to me to fill in some of the blanks about this famous creature, and those of you paying attention might have spotted that I’ve already revealed one fact – the goat was a she.

There was a very practical reason why Cook would take a female goat – she was a constant source of fresh milk. In his time, illnesses were rife among sailors who spent months away at sea with poor hygiene and little access to fresh food or water. Life-threatening illnesses such as dysentery, typhus and scurvy thrived due to malnutrition and dirty, cramped living quarters. Dr Samuel Johnson described the life of a sailor as like ‘being in jail with the chance of being drowned.’

Often, crews would return from long voyages with barely a third of their number alive. Author Jonathan Lamb has written about scurvy several times, and says: “In 1499, Vasco da Gama lost 116 of his crew of 170, in 1520 Magellan lost 208 out of 230, and in 1742, George Anson lost more than 1,300 of his compliment of almost 2,000 – all mainly to scurvy.” (It makes me wonder just how many bodies still lie at the bottom of our oceans?)

Captain Cook’s first global expedition in 1768 was in the Whitby-built HMS Endeavour, aiming to reach Tahiti for the Transit of Venus (where the earth, sun and Venus all aligned), which would help them measure longitude at sea, an opportunity that only came around about once every 125 years. He took with him an elite team of scientists, including an astronomer, two naturalists and eminent botanist Sir Joseph Banks.

It was Banks to whom the goat belonged, and it had already circumnavigated the globe with him, so had well-honed sea legs. In Robert Chamber’s 1864 Book of Days, a compendium of interesting facts, he mentions this famous goat and calls it simply ‘The Well-Travelled Goat’, so it’s not surprising my dad couldn’t find out its name.

Cook was determined to change the bad habits of his sea-faring predecessors by implementing a strict regime of discipline and hygiene, and carried the best nutrition possible. It was already known that citrus fruit could prevent scurvy, but they had no way of preserving the fruit on board. Instead, Cook ensured his men were very well fed, taking along vast quantities of sauerkraut, and whenever they landed in port, they stocked up on as much fresh fruit and green vegetables as possible.

Previously, sailors were used to using excrement-filled slop buckets in their filthy living quarters to relieve themselves, but Cook set aside a specific area on the ship for a toilet. Severe punishments were meted out to those caught going to the loo anywhere else and there was a regimented cleaning rota to ensure the ship was kept as clean and bug-free as possible.

It has been reported that Cook lost none of his men to scurvy on any of his three epic sea voyages, and although that fact has been disputed, it is clear that the health and wellbeing of his men were top priorities. Undoubtedly he had a far better survival rate than most and set the standard for successors to follow.

As for the goat, she was rewarded for her loyal service by being allowed to graze out her days among the green pastures of Kent. Her high status was reflected in an engraved silver collar which the grateful Sir Joseph Banks bestowed upon her. Dr Samuel Johnson himself wrote the latin inscription which, once translated, read:

“In fame scare second to the nurse of Jove,
This goat, who twice the world has traversed round,
Deserving both her master’s care and love,
Ease and perpetual pasture now has found.”

(Sources: captaincook.org.uk, mediographia.com, wellcomelibrary.org (Nicola Cook), bbc.co.uk)