Tag: Danby Castle

The tale of the fox kicking the Bucket

A picture of Tom Boyes whom reader Dorothy Jackson knew well, taken from one of poet Bill Fall’s books
One of Tom Boyes’ greyhounds, sketched by Bill Fall. Is this Bucket?

Last week, I thanked reader Bill Filer who put me in touch with Dorothy Jackson from Helmsley, whose family knew Tom Boyes. Boyes, born in Castleton in 1882, was well-known as a horse breeder and dealer and member of the Farndale Hunt, as well as being a good friend of the Danby poet William E Fall (Bill) who wrote dialect verses under the name Erimus. His poems highlighted the quirky characters he came across and several readers have already been in touch with recollections about Bill and his family.

Dorothy revealed she had seen the photo of the 1927 Danby wedding in my previous column and it jogged her memory of having one of Bill Fall’s books, ‘Tom Boyes, Deealsman’. Dorothy has a lovely old moors accent, and explained: “When I saw your column I wondered if I still had that book…I went to the cupboard and it was the first thing that came out, so I hadn’t to look very long for it!” Considering she’s had the book for many years, that was some bit of luck.

She was given it by the Bonas family, who were good friends with Tom Boyes. Dorothy is still in touch with their daughter, now 97 years old. “We’ve always kept in touch and so I was interested to know if she remembered Tom Boyes. I talked to her and straight away she said, ‘Oh yes, Tom Boyes came to our place time and time again!’ He dealt with horses and ponies and her father was the same…At 97 she remembered him straight away!” It is clear Tom Boyes was a memorable character.

Dorothy revealed that during the 1939-1945 war years her family was friendly with the Palmers who owned Grinkle Hall Estate near Danby (now the Grinkle Park Hotel). They got to know them through the Glaisdale Hunt and Dorothy’s father, John Bell Sokell (known as Jack), was on the hunt’s committee.

Mark Palmer, heir to the estate, had gone to fight in WWII as an army captain, and Myrtle Palmer was his sister. Although from a well-to-do family, Myrtle wanted do her bit and registered to support the Home Front.

Dorothy explained: “They came to an arrangement where she would go to Tom Boyes. He had a smallholding and she would work there through the day and return to Grinkle Hall at night time. That went on all through the war years…She was a very hard-working person and very particular with horses,” Dorothy remembered. She also recalled that the Grinkle Hall horses were always very well kept and turned out and that they still had a beautiful old coach in one of the stalls, left behind from the days before motor vehicles.

Dorothy explained that Myrtle had some wonderful scrap books full of photographs documenting her life and the people she had met along the way, including a lot of Tom Boyes. “Myrtle passed away some years ago and I’ve often wondered what happened to those scrap books,” she said.

Mark Palmer married after the war, never returning to the estate, and it was sold to a hospitality group in 1946 which turned it into a hotel, and that is how it has remained ever since. The tenants living in estate properties were offered the chance to buy their homes, which many took up, although Dorothy’s family had already bought a freehold farm at Borrowby, near Staithes, in 1943.

Dorothy remembered a funny story about Boyes that Myrtle had told her: “He always had a greyhound and called it ‘Bucket’ and in one of Bill Fall’s poems, Bucket comes into it.

“One day Tom Boyes was sat on his shooting stick and his terrier went down this fox hole, and the fox came out and knocked Bucket over!” Dorothy chuckled at the memory. “Bucket was just sat there so sackless just looking around and it knocked him over!” Sadly I could not find the poem she refers to in the three books I have.

It was lovely to hear Dorothy use the old northern adjective ‘sackless’ which I’ve not heard for a long time. It has fallen out of common use, but means ‘innocent’ or ‘guiltless’.

I adore hearing first-hand memories like these of times gone by, and am now wondering where Myrtle Palmer’s scrapbooks ended up. Perhaps someone reading this might know?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 29th Aug and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 27th Aug 2025

T’in’t wat thoo ses, t’is t’way thoo ses it

The poem ‘Grandad – through a barfin’ featured this picture of Pam Chester’s grandad George Coverdale. ‘Barfin’ is a dialect word for an oval horse collar.
An old photo from 1978 showing an alternative dialect ‘Beware of the Bull’ sign erected by Danby farmer Ralph Winspear after trouble with walkers straying across his land.

I’ve had some interesting correspondence following my two recent columns about the Danby dialect poet William E Fall who wrote under the name Erimus. If you remember, I was contacted by his great-granddaughter Sophie-Jean Fall who was searching for his books, and my dad happened to have been sent some copies.

Since then, she has revealed the discovery to her family and, following the publication of ‘Part Two’ of the story a couple of weeks ago, said: “Very excited and what an interesting image of Tom Boyes. Also, Gandan – AKA Erimus’ son – was really happy to hear about this all!” Hopefully ‘Gandan’ will also be interested in what the following readers can remember.

Pam Chester recalls: “My parents George and Ella Coverdale, my Grandad George Coverdale and myself lived at Danby Castle when Bill Fall and his wife Ella lived in a cottage at Castle Houses Farm, Danby. Bill would often walk up see my grandad. They would sit and chat about country life, hunting and farming…In the book ‘Poetry for t’Peasantry’ Bill wrote a poem about my grandad.”

I looked the poem up, and sure enough George Coverdale appears in ‘Grandad – through a Barfin’. Bill Fall states that Grandad George ‘Wi’ a dear auld nybour o’ mahn’, and the poem highlights one of Yorkshire’s most elegant of traditions – gurning. This refined skill involves people contorting their faces into gruesome expressions.

The poem describes a competition in which Grandad Coverdale took part. The competitors had to put their heads through a ‘barfin’, a dialect word for the large oval collar worn by cart horses. See if you can decipher the last verse of the poem – the language is bit ripe!

But then ‘e stopped – stood back aghast

Cos Grandad’s snitch was in ‘is gob!

‘Is chin was up – ‘is lugs stuck oot,

Wi’ t’ Judge wishin’ ‘e’d browd ‘is gun;

Freetened ti deeath, ‘e shooted oot,

“Deean’t cum onny clooaser – THOO’S WON!!!”

Pam wasn’t sure if her grandad ever really entered a gurning competition, but revealed that a picture on page 17 of the book is him with his head ‘through a barfin’.

She adds: “Bill and my grandad used to go and dig peats in the 1970s on the moor near the house to use as fuel in the winter months. He also used to follow the Glaisdale Hunt on horseback well into his 80’s. I remember him talking about Tommy Boyes.”

Janet Holt also contacted me: Bill “was our next door neighbour in Danby by our farm. My father had problems with straying walkers and Mr Fall came up with the idea of signs in the Yorkshire dialect. It caught the attention of the local press…He gave my parents a full set of the books.”

Her father was livestock farmer Ralph Winspear, who was fed up with walkers and children straying from the public footpaths across his land, damaging fences and leaving gates open. They ignored the polite signs asking them to keep to the official route and to shut gates. The last straw came in 1978 when two lambs escaped through an open gate and were killed on the nearby railway line. Bill Fall suggested erecting signs in Yorkshire dialect. One read: ‘if t’bull snorts, deean’t linger’, while another was very recognisably from Bill’s pen and entitled ‘Seestha’:

‘Noo, ye’ n’ me beeath need ti eeat

These beeasts’ll mak tasty meat

But not if fooakes gan runnin wild

Seea keep ti t’path n’ hod t’it child. Thankye’

The signs worked, as Ralph explained at the time: “We’ve had no trouble since they were erected because folk appear to be reading them carefully and the message gets home.” I wonder if anyone farming today has similar issues? Perhaps a warning sign in Yorkshire dialect might be worth a try!

I’d also like to thank Bill Filer who put me in touch with Dorothy Jackson from Helmsley, whose family knew Tom Boyes well. If you remember, Bill Fall dedicated a whole volume of poems to Boyes, and I featured a 1927 picture of a wedding at Danby Church in which Boyes could been seen accompanying the grand wedding car in his hunting finery.

But, alas, with me approaching my word count limit, I will have to leave Dorothy’s recollections until next time!


Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 22nd Aug and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 20th Aug 2025