Willie’s diary tells of the cruellest winter of all
Last updated at 16:10, Thursday, 18 December 2008
THE recent snowy weather has had people across the district wringing their hands and bemoaning the Arctic conditions.
However, you may have noticed few people over the age of 70 agreeing with them.
For many of them remember the cruel winter of 1947, when Tynedale turned to white iron for the best part of three months.
Memories of what many regard as the worst winter ever have been rekindled by the welcome republication of Jennifer Norderhaugh’s excellent book Sparty Lea - an upland leadmining community.
First published in 1988, the reprint is now flying off the bookshelves like snow off a dyke.
Among the 160 pages is a harrowing account of that 1947 winter, as seen through the eyes of farmer Willie Parker, born at Sinderhope, but farming Scotchmeadows in the shadow of the 2,000 ft Killhope Law.
His diary of the storm makes literally chilling reading.
Starting on February 2, it reads: “It started to blast, and within an hour, the roads were blocked.”
The “blast” went on for a full week, when the road was finally opened, but Willie still had to take feed to his sheep by sledge.
After being open for one day, the roads were blocked in again by still more snow and gales.
Willie wrote on February 9: “Started to blast at 11 o’clock, and has been the worst of all”. And on February 10: “Roads all blocked in again. No mail, no milk away. Cannot get any hay to sheep with sled.”
Later that week, 70 men went to Sinderhope to seek bread and other provisions, and by the 14th, there were reports in the press of “Allenheads starving”.
By the end of the week a bulldozer and 100 men were trying to open the roads.
There was a brief respite from falling snow, but the temperatures were “very hard” and the sheep “keen of hay”.
The snow returned on the 20th, and by the 21st the roads were all blocked in again.
Willie wrote: “The bulldozer cannot get on for the want of fuel, and the wagon cannot get up to her.”
Despair was setting in by the 22nd, when he wrote: “Sheep are taking hurt now – seven hoggs died this last day or two. Hay is getting very short.”
The main road was re-opened on February 25, but the following day Willie wrote: “It has been a very rough night, and all the roads are blocked again.
“It has blasted all day, the worst day of all, and it is still raging tonight.”
The next day Willie said: “Sheep are dying like flies – this is the worst winter in my time.”
The horror went on into March, and on the 6th Willie recorded: “More snow through the night; sheep are dying two, three and four in a day.”
Incredibly, the blizzards raged on throughout March.
Willie wrote: “We have been burying sheep all day, and put 14 in one hole.
“We have sheep in seven different places; they all have shelter, but the weak ones lie down and are trampled on.
“It makes one frightened to look round in the morning.”
On March 18 Willie wrote: “Snowing and blasting again, roads all filled in again.
“We have had no mail for a week, and no milk away since March 8.”
On March 22 Willie was a bearer at the funeral of Harrison Heslop, who was pulled by sledge over the fell tops from Allenheads to St Peter’s churchyard at Sparty Lea.
The roads were still impassable, with only the telegraph pole tops sticking out of the snow.
The weather did ease towards the end of March, but on April 4 Willie wrote: “Sheep still dying every day – have lost 90 so far, but others have lost 500.”
As late as April 8 he was writing: “Snowed all day.”
That horrific winter is only part of the Sparty Lea story, told in loving detail by Jennifer, who moved to the lead mining outpost in 1983.
Her fascination with Sparty Lea’s past began when she moved into what had been the old village school, which was converted into a house when it was closed down in the 1970s.
People would visit the house with memories of their school days, and Jennifer grew more and more interested in their tales of days gone by.
But it was not just the history of the school that intrigued her.
On walks in the dales she noticed isolated buildings falling into disrepair and wondered just how they had looked and what they had been used for in their heyday.
Conversations with other residents also brought the past to life, as they recalled how they had lived many years ago.
Soon she was building up quite a collection of old records and memories of bygone days.
And when she shared this information with others, the amount of interest shown was tremendous, so she decided to collect her material together to record it for future generations.
The book, therefore, contains extracts from diaries, newspapers clippings, reminiscences from local people, and church and school records, supplemented with research that Jennifer did at the County Records Office at Gosforth.
It is a miscellany of information and memories organised by subject matter but presented clearly throughout.
Fittingly for this time of year, it’s easy to stick in a thumb and pull out a plum of fascinating fact or figures.
Did you know, for instance, that Sparty Lea folk have a long tradition of giving their menfolk surnames as Christian names, with hosts of Emersons, Parkers and Harrisons?
And what about John Joseph Phillipson, who attended school for just one half day in his entire life?
He was caned on his first morning, and took the decision to terminate his formal education there and then.
The lack of schooling did him no harm, for he taught himself to read and write, and ran the Burnfoot Show for many years.
There’s a fire and brimstone sermon from the pulpit of Swinhope Chapel, directed against blacklegs who broke the Allenheads lead mine strike of 1849.
Under a wall hanging reading ‘God is love’, the preacher thundered: “If they are fastened underground in the mines, let them die, and go into the fury of the Devil, to be kept without remorse in the fire of Hell for ever and ever.
“If I had a houseful of bread, I would not give one of them a mouthful to save their lives.”
These is a look at St Peter’s School, an inspector’s report noting in 1885 that the smoke and soot were filling the building, and the reg-ister had got wet because of rain dripping through the roof!
Attendance was not rigidly enforced, with the headmaster deciding to extend the holidays so the children could help their parents with the hay harvest, or to dig peat.
This book is a joy, and while it may have doubled in price since the original publication, it is worth every penny!
Priced £12.99, it is available through Pebbles Gallery in Allendale, the Forum bookshop in Corbridge, and other outlets.
First published at 13:09, Thursday, 18 December 2008
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk
