The names and naming of shafts, levels, and veins is a subject which is really most interesting. If you wander over ground "highly mineralised" - to use a term we all know of from the prospectuses - with one of the "ancients" of the place and he likes your looks, he will oblige you, on asking him what all these lumps and hollows are, by reeling off a jumble of names and terms which, to the casual enquirer, convey little more than a string of mere words, because you don't know the history of these hillocks, these rakes, and these dumps.

What is really so astonishing is, that everything has or had a name, not only the things on the surface, but the things under one's feet, whatever they may be, have names as fixed and as immutable as your own, your friend's, and your neighbours' names.

The thought has often occurred to me that some of these objects, if they once were of importance for the prosperity or welfare of a community, must wear very ancient names, and I think, if one could collect these names together under one survey, possibly another door might be opened upon a gallery, which might lead us on towards a further answer to the riddle of the past: Who started mining in our country?

Now, up on the Hill, in the side of the Hill itself, is a great gash known as Sun Vein ¹ going east, and Greenho' Rake going west. The gash, in places yards and yards wide, was once filled with lead ore, now long since worked out - when, no one knows - and any person who first cast eyes on the formation, in picking it out from its surroundings, must have been arrested and fascinated by the peculiar material, if unknown to him. He would naturally tell others of his find, and probably also show it to his friends or members of his tribe. A source of future wealth would thus have been discovered, and, no doubt, also named.

Sun Vein faces the rising sun. To the west it was originally hidden by the turf, but to the east it formed part of an abrupt wall which, if stuck a light blow with a sharp stone, would reveal a glittering eye. Think how such news must have travelled in those dim days, when our fairy tails were born. The mountain, which, when the sun rose, would sparkle! Don't you think that it would outshine the sun itself in the telling of it? Would not such a wonder bear telling? Might the tale not be carried further and further afield, until the glitter of the sun, rising on Greenhow, would set alight the greed in the breast of some Eastern Monarch or grasping Phoenician, and set fire to the imagination of some adventurous dare-devil of Babylon, Tyre, or some other now lost ancient Eastern city? They worshipped the sun as the light and life-giver; why not seek out this wonderful place? Man was young then, and youth is the time of romance and adventure. Do not all romances and fairy tales telling about wonderful treasures and thrilling adventures begin "Once upon a time"? So they must be about a long time ago.

What else but a now-forgotten tradition of a mysterious and occult belief that once surrounded the Hill, and which still dimly clings to it, would prompt "Oade Will" ² to say to my little daughter one Easter Sunday, "Has tha beean upuv Greenho' Hill this morn, an' seed t'soonn dance wal it rose?" and, continuing, "If tha had, thoo wad have seed theeay husbond". I am well aware that this is a belief also found in other places, as, for instance, in some parts of Norway, but to hear it fall from the lips of a Yorkshireman in our days, came as a startling and pleasant surprise. It is nothing but a relic from the distant days of sun worship. "When the sun dances on Greenhow Hill" - does it not carry one back to the time when processions marched, headed by white-robed priests, to Stonehenge and other sun temples, East and West, to see the sun rise? We span the ages in our traditions and our customs - in throwing the pinch of salt over one's shoulder, the horse-shoe nailed on the stable door, and the piece of iron in the baby's cradle. Verily, we are all children of the past!

Traces of a Roman camp ³ may be seen on the Hill itself, and not far away, two lead pigs ⁴ have been dug out of the peat bearing the name of a Roman Emperor, with the date of their manufacture, 81 of the Christian era ⁵. We know the Phoenicians sailed round Africa 700 years earlier, while Stonehenge, as far as we now can guess, was built probably 1,500 years before that. If the world was so modern as long ago as that, why, then, jib at the idea of Babylonian and Phoenician company-promoters and mining experts? Might it not be possible that some of our beautifully romantic fairy tails originally were prospectuses circulated by ancient financiers, holding out undreamt-of realms of riches? Are modern financiers not often great dreamers, and are not modern prospectuses more often than not marvellously fine fairy tales?  The Babylonians and Phoenicians were first cousins of the Jews, and no race today counts more financiers and company-promoters - have they inherited the trait?

But, my fancies carry me farther than I intended to go! Let me come back to the humbler things I know of and wish to speak about. The things that tell of the struggles of "t'oade men" ⁶; giants they were, when one considers the means at their disposal. Their doings that tell of distressing fears, hopes of success, and glorious achievements.

In the past, up on the Hill, each man or family worked "on their own", worse luck, as it prevented systematic exploration and development, but what it has done is to preserve some sort of record of the past, if one reads it right. Not only as to who were the men who lived and worked there, but also something about their sweethearts, hopes, successes, and many other things.

When a row of shaft hillocks is pointed out to you, and you hear that the shafts have been sunk on Folly Vein, and you are told that these are Pounder, Busfield, Hope and Joy Shafts; that below in Hope Shaft, Mary's "lead" was cut: farther on in Joy Shaft, Jenny's "String" opened out, and you see for yourself that, round Joy Shaft, there is a thumping big hillock - what does all this convey to the casual enquirer? Why, nothing! But wait, and let us see if one can open the book, and read a page of the past. I read it thus: The man who sank Hope Shaft was a pioneer who, in spite of possible failure, dared to try an apparently hopeless venture on Folly Vein, striking ore, where there was a thing or lead; he would name the same after his wife or sweetheart, as it would mean all the difference to him or her, if it should turn out rich. Farther on, another man would sink Joy Shaft, and likewise cut a lead and call it "Jenny's String", make his "pile", and either clear out or waste what he had earned. Pounder and Busfield would come in later, get nothing in return for their labour in this place, but, buoyed up with hope by the other man's success, would struggle on again somewhere else, as the fact that their descendants still live on the Hill proves they must have done. The names of these shafts and veins are real; so are the shafts, etc., for anyone to see to this day.

The same repeats itself in all directions, and so consistent are the stories the Hill tells that in this way I have been able to ascertain the names of many families that lived there in the past, to trace the origin of wealthy captains ⁷ of industry in neighbouring factory towns and prosperous farmers ⁸ in the adjoining dales. In fact, I have got to know "t'oade men". They don't know me, but I know who they were, where they worked, and in many cases whether they succeeded or failed.

Then the things "t'oade men" left behind them in their narrow workings - these, too, have stories to tell. Some years ago, when in the course of driving a drift, the men who were carrying on the work broke into an old working, and found, piled up neatly in a corner, a little hammer and drill, a small pick and a tiny wooden shovel, like children play with at the seaside. They also found a curiously-constructed three-lift pump of wood, still in its original position. The iron tools were marked "A.Y.". The mineral right belong to the Yorke family, and have done so for several hundred years. The local tradition handed down, maintains that a Miss Alice Yorke ran a mine up here in this neighbourhood about 400 years ago, though the Yorke family records fail to identify her ⁹. However, there was a Miss Amy Yorke, whose father died in 1568. When Amy Yorke died, I don't know, but it may be that it is Amy Yorke whom the tradition refers to; her enterprise would be quite in keeping with the best Elizabethan traditions. These tools may have been the tools of her workmen, who must have been flooded out of their workings, the feeble pump not having been powerful enough to cope with an unexpected inrush of water, and no doubt the catastrophe took place when they were not at work, as otherwise they would not have sided away their tools, but saved them. There they remained, under water, until their modern successors re-discovered the ore deposit and succeeded in drawing the water away. If the mine had not been under water, the wooden parts of the tools, as well as the pump, must have perished hundreds of years ago. Another thing which the drill proves, is that Miss Yorke must have been an up-to-date miner, as she made use of powder in her mining operations, unless the drill was used in connection with plug and feathers, but such were not found. In any case, she was "yan o' t'oade uns".

But there are still older workings hewn out of the solid millstone grit with hammer and chisel, and the chisel marks are as clear as on the day when they were incised, when and by whom no one knows. Of these oldest workings of "t'oade man o' all", there is little left, and that little rather impersonal. I think impersonal riddles, where there are so many, less attractive than those that tell of men one can trace. However, some of them being so old, so well planned and carried out, knowing, as we do, that a Roman lord was winning lead up there once for his Imperial master, I think that it does not require a very vivid imagination to see in one's mind a stolid Roman legionary encouraging a British ancestor to get on with the work at the point of a spear. 

Whether this work consisted in the driving of Jackass and Sam Oon Levels or the carving of the curious Sam Oon or Panty Oon ¹⁰, as it is also called, the riddle of all riddles on the hill, we cannot tell.

One such riddle - a shaft - used to puzzle me, not only because of its position relative to other shafts, but also because it is walled nearly all round - Wall Neuk Shaft, I find from an old mining plan more than a hundred years old, was its name. Few know its position today. Here a man located a pipe, or vertical body of ore, in a neighbour's field, obtained a "tak note", sunk a shaft and walled it off, made a handsome sum, left the Hill and his neighbour with rankling bitterness in his heart. Had he not robbed him of his wealth and spoiled his field? And what happened to the lucky fellow? I believe he went "under". Prosperity was too much for him, and, so far as the Hill is concerned, he has left behind nothing and nobody.

But it was not only from the surface, so to speak, that a man might lose his land; such dreaded misfortune might also come from below, as old workings cave in and leave huge barren hollows, and sometimes ponds. Besides, underground workings also tend to drain the moisture out of the ground, and leave it a dry waste. The origin of such a piece of sinking soil, Old Will told me of, which happened in his fathers time. They were cutting hay in one of their small fields. "Ooz knew nowt afooare behint ooz, joost whar ooz had beean coottin, ooz heeard soomebody saey, ''Tis a gran day', an' tharr war t'eead o' Oade Natty wey t'stick stak oot o' t'meadow amang t'gers, wharr ooz hed beean coottin. Natty hed follo'ed t'metal reet oop tull t'gers roots, an' he thout wal 'e war aboot it, he mud hev a leuk an' seay wharr 'e war an' coot throo t'sod. Ah war bud a lile lad, bud me an' meeay fadther war that stagnated, wal, yan mud hev knocked ooz doon wey a fevver. An' if Natty hed cootten throo t'sod a minute afooar, meay fadther wad hae cootten 'is heead off'n wey t'scythe".

I asked Will what Natty had been using the stick for.
"Stick? Ah diddent saey e' hed a stick!"
"You said 'Natty wey t'stick'".
"Oh, aay, noa, ah diddent saey 'e hed a stick; ooz allus eused to call 'im Natty wey t'stick ¹¹, coz whenivver t'weather war reet bad, 'e eused ta coomm oot at neets wey a black stick wey a knob on t'end an' wave it aboon 'is heead, cuss an' damm soomm'at awful, an' gan back tuv 'is boouks. He war a turreble good scholar, 'e war. an' a good moosician, ez weeal; he plaed t'fiddle an' t'bassoon i' t'village ban, an' 'e also plaed a hinstrooment ah nivver hae funn oot t'neeame on. T' war shap like a haggwoomm wrigglin oop an' doon wey hooales on t'top o' t'wriggles. T'mooth war oppen an' van cud seeay t'red toong, an' tharr war a bootten on t'side on't an' whin yan pressed t'bootten wey t'lile finger, t'toong darted oot ez wick ez owt. T'war green all ovver an' hed yaller ean. 'T war a sarpint, reet enooff. Ah oft eused ta coomm ovver to yooer spot, wharr 'e lived, an' lissened tuv 'im plaein, it war a treeat. Hev ye ivver heeard t'neeame o' t'instrooment?"

I had to admit I had not, but I told him I had heard of them, and that I thought it was just a fancy instrument. I asked him whether Natty believed in cursing the weather had any effect.

"Weeal", said Will, "ah's seuer ah don't kno', bud he oft eused ta saey 'e changed t'weather, whin t' had changed, an' ez like ez nut 'e thout 'e hed doon 't, ez 'e wad gan oot ivvery neet an' cus, an' 'e wad beeay seuer ta hit it yance in a wal. He eused ta wait tull t'war murky an' coomm oot an' cuss. Ooz lads wad hide warsen behint t'wall o' yooern, an' whin 'e hed doonn cussin, ooz wad set oop a skriek, 't eused to flay 'im an' 'e wad roonn in. 'T war gert sport fur ooz lads".

Coming back to the field incident, Will told me that they had had a great deal of trouble with Natty's "peephooale", as he called it. They got Natty to stemple it up, and they turfed it over again, but it had sunk more than once since.

"All thim tharr oade shafts an' wurrkins dew sink ez t'timber rots ¹². Ah mind an oade fellah ¹³stann cussin 'is dawter, yan Soonda morn, on t'top o' yan hillock anenst t'rooad side, yon side o' yooer pleeace; t'shaft hed beean sunk intuv t'Stee Vein. Whin 'e hed doonn cussin 'e ganned oop t'Engin Bank, an' afooar 'e war hoaf way oop t'bank t'hillock dropped intuv t'shaft. 'E war happen twenty yads off, bud it scaared him proper. T'hooale war aboot fifteen fathoms deep. 'E allus wad hae it, tharr war a groove tharr, an' whin t'pipe track coommed throo, theeay coott t'groove proper. T'vein war fower feet wide solid metal".

I knew of this being so, but it was of less interest to me just then than the lore about the old mines, so I told him that Henry ¹⁴ - "Spurgeon", he used to be called, as in his younger days he was a strong lay preacher - had told me that when he was nine years old, his father had taken him into the mine to work, carrying him on his back down Duke Shaft, which was 64 fathoms deep, I thought.

"Yes, ah daar saey 'e did; theeay all on 'em eused ta dew that. T'Duke Shaft war sixty-fower fathom deep. It war stempled, bud it hed nae boonnins. Sin theeay hed t'accident in Andrable Shaft ¹⁵, t'wimmen eused ta drah t'men oot wey a jack rowl at lowsin time".

"Andrable Shaft? T'Andrable Shaft war t'way geeate oot o' t'Cleaver an' Primgap Veins; ye mun hev noticed t'shaft hillock oop bey Harry's ¹⁶, wharr three walls meet on t'top o' t'hillock".

I admitted I had noticed the hillock he mentioned, and had wondered why the walls had been built in that fashion. To my question what accident he referred to, he told me another of the strange tales of the Hill, of which he seems to have a never-ending store.

"Andrable hed nae boonnins nather, joost stempled ez all t'shafts war i' them days - hard limesteeane sides. Yan day at lowsin time t'men war coommin oot all tegither, whin theeay heeard a steeane coomm clatterin doon frav aboon, sae theeay popped ther heeads intuv t'corner o' t'shaft behint t'stemples, theeay war seuer t'steean wad hit yan on 'em. Bud t'steean glotted crossways joost aboon t'leeadin chap an' squose 'un geeanst t'stemple sae he cuddent drah breeath. T'chaps behint 'im cuddent git past un nor dew owt ta help un, an' theeay hed ta climm doon intuv t'boddum ageean an' git oot bey anudder way-geeate, git a han' saag, climm doon tull wharr t'chap war fast an' saw t'stemple throo, bud t'chap war deead bey thin; 'e war drooned i' mid-air. Neeaboddy wad gann that rooad sin, an' theeay covvered t'shaft top ovver, an' built t'walls ta meet on t'top in t'middle, coz theeay thout, wal ther war three on 'em, it wad beeay maar difficult ta re-oppen 't. 'T warrant likely ony yan wad climm past t'pleeace wharr yan o' theeare mates hed beean doonned ta deeath; yan mud hev gitten corpse nipped ¹⁷. 'T steean nivver stirr'd sin, an' ah is seuer it's in t'seeame pleeace today, if it war reet leuked intuv".

Spending the day on the moors with Will is, at any time, an education, but when the day is fine it is a treat. "Oade Will" simply delights in his "heeame", and loves to praise it. When we come up the banks together in his cart, no sooner do we turn the corner at the top of Red Brae, where the breeze always catches one, but Will says, "Ah can smell Greenho'!" He says he is a "moor poot", as the cottage where he was born stood right on the edge of the moor ¹⁸, and the ling grew all round it. Like one of these birds, he is never happier than when he can bask in the sun amongst the heather and sing at the top of his voice. Will must once have had a fine voice, and even now, shaky as it is on some notes, its timbre is very sweet. "Home, Sweet Home" seems to be his favourite tune, and more than once have I tried to sing "seconds" to him, coming up from the Station with him in his cart, or, when sitting in some wind-sheltered hollow, with the larks singing and tha curlews "pierling" overhead against the blue sky. Then we never differ; we have regular quarrels on other topics, but we heartily agree that, at any time, the Hill takes a lot of beating.

Would Will "swop" his home for any other place in the world? No, not likely! As long as he is able to make any sort of living up there, Will will hang on, and I think he would die if the moors were taken away from him. The moors, with their sweet air, sunshine, shadows and colour. The moors, with storm-driven, drenching rain and mists or icy snow, that peels the skin off one's face. When the wind shrieks in the telegraph wires and growls in the big chimneys, then there are no snugger, cosier and more comfortable places in the world than the hearths on the Hill.

On the Hill there is always a wind from somewhere, terrible at times, and so violent, in fact, that sometimes houses get unroofed. Not so very long ago a tin roof ¹⁹ was carried for a couple of hundred yards, hurtling through the air without touching the ground, and striking a telegraph post, it cut it nearly in two. That same afternoon a tin building ²⁰ was blown away from its foundations, and was found next year a ball of tin sheets in a gill hole, about a mile away from where it had originally stood. This may sound incredible, but it is, all the same, literally true. On the same occasion, two grey slate roofs ²¹ were whirled away across the moor. Because of these violent gales, unimpeded by any obstructions whatever from sea to sea, in the East as well as to the West, as we live on top of England's "backbone", the roofs of the houses have to be built very flat, and are usually covered with heavy grey slates in double layers, the slates being one and a half to two inches thick. But because of the wind, the air is light and sweet, and therefore the Hill folk are healthy and strong, never ailing anything from their childhood, except when there are epidemics like the one we had during the War, which will be remembered for years to come, when people were so scared that they hardly dared to go to see each other; when no single house was not visited; and when, in more than one house in our parts, there were two dead in the same house at the same time. Will was, perhaps, nearer the truth than he knew when he once said to me, "If ooz cud live'r wind, ooz wad all beeay fat upuv Greenho'!" They may not grow fat, but they seen to thrive, all the same, and are as a rule longlived.

The weather rules on the Hill, and though it varies, it is always keen and bracing, and that, I believe, is why the Hill folk are so different from the low-landers, and why their wits are as sharp as their tongues ²². He is a foolish man who tries to "take a rise" out of them; he is as sure to be "downed" as anything. I heard a good joke illustrating this, and, as Will was in it, I might as well tell it here.

On one of those sparklingly clear days we have, when the air is so transparent that the eye travels from one blue hill to another still bluer and still fainter, until it is held by the haze, which broods over the sea, a motorist with a car-load of ladies, whose idea of smartness was just the average successful tradesman's, after asking Will about the road, remarked on the distant view. Will replied that on a clear day one could see "fur ivver an' ivver". The smart man said, "Fur ivver?" "Yes", Will said, "fer ivver an' ivver weyoot en'". "Ah", remarked the gentleman, "then you will be able to see as far as America". To which Will replied, "Ooz can seeay furrther nor that; soomtimes ooz can seeay t'moon!" The ladies giggled, the clutch was put in, the car sped on, and Will is still waiting for the gentleman's observation!

1. It was also refered to as "SLIFTER" as it is the biggest slifter on the hill. "Slifter" was the old mans term for a vein slit out of a hillside standing open to the top for its full height. Bat Hole Vein is another slifter. Return
   
   
2. William Longthorne. Return
   
   
3. I showed Dr Francis Villy of Keighley this place, he is certain it is a camp but not so sure it is of Roman origin. Will told me that Parson Kershaw had engaged him to cut into the wall or mound inside the dyke and that in that place they had come across a row of blackish stuff that might have been old or rotten wood. It ran across his trench and might have been about a foot. Kershaw had said it was the foot of a timber wall. Return
   
   
4. Found when digging a dyke on Hayshaw Moor in 1731. They bear the inscriptions: "Imp. Caes. Domitian Augusto Consula Septimus" and "Brig". Return
   
   
5. Domitian began to reign in 81AD. Return
   
   
6. Joseph Lucas; Studies in Nidderdale; London. Page 270. Suggests that "Oade men" is really "the old mine"; Gaelic: Méin, Méinn, Meun; a mine mineral; Welsh : Maen; a stone, mineral; Màn, a space what holds or contains.
   The lead miners on Greenhow on striking into old workings say they have come upon "the old man", which is clearly the old MINE, as shown above, but this being forgotten, they sometimes express the same by saying "the old man has been here". Considering the absurdities as regards the meaning of Scandinavian words as given first on page 28, Lucas can not be considered a reliable authority at all. Return
   
   
7. Barons of Leeds and Gloucester. Return
   
   
8. Gills, farmers in Wharfedale, also Garthes at Thornthwaite and Hummerstone Bank.
   Another such family was Rodwell, road surveyor to Skipton council. His grandfather sunk a shaft, which used to be called "Rodill" {Rodhill} shaft on Sunside. It was one of the row that runs from Swalla {Swallow} shaft to Derby shaft, close to Joss' house. Here the level is 25 fathoms down. Return
   
   
9. See letter. I had asked Miss Yorke previously when she had lunch with us one day, if there was an Alice Yorke. Hence this information. The period when Amy lived corresponds with details of this tradition. Return
   
   
10. Panty Oon. Panty is Welsh for a gill. I excavated round Sam Oon on September 10th 1921 and from the pottery I found, Dr Villy of Keighley and Butterfield, curator of Keighley Museum as well as J.Taffeit of York concluded it was of 13th Century origin. That is probably monkish. This makes Panty Oon a modern name, and Sam Oon the older. Return
    
    
11. Natty (Nathaniel) Grainge lived at Kell House. He was a great reader. If he could not sleep he used to go down and cut a piece of bread, and a "lavrack" of raw bacon and eat this sandwich while reading a book, till he fell asleep. He married twice. He had a son called "Tinker" and a daughter with his first wife. The second wife had a daughter called "Big Annie" to distinguish her from "Lile Annie", the stepdaughter. "Tinker" had to undress in the peat house and leave his clothes there overnight, and put them on wet the next day, even in winter. "Tinker" died. She kept the bread box under her bed and intentionally starved "Lile Annie" and was said to bleggard neighbours if they gave "Lile Annie" anything to eat when she ran errands. I believe "Lile Annie" is still alive though. (1921) Return
    
    
12. About the 10th March 1922 the high road caved in along side the gate to George Mackwells farm, at the spot called Prim Gap, and it is no doubt but that this is caused by the top working in Prim Gap Vein caving in. Half the road was involved. Return
    
    
13. I believe this was Thy Pratt, also called "Abraham" because of his long beard. He was a son to Jamie and a brother to George, and the rest of the Pratt family. There were 23 and they were all brought up in the little two roomed house that is now a ruin in the garden, and was the original Kell House.Return
    
    
14. Henry Newbould. Return
    
    
15. An old estate plan shows the field to have been called "DRABBLE" allotment. Return
    
    
16. Harry Walton who was shot? in the mine and eventually died from it. His farm, is now called Hill View or something. It used to be Prim Gap and is now farmed by George Mackwell.
    The place was also called "WAPPIN", what that meant I cannot say. Return
    
    
17. I have twice come across this curious belief, once Bin mentioned it (not as in the tale "Will") and once a contractor (Laugton) who built the Southcoates swing bridge at Hull, when I was assistant resident engineer (I designed the whole of the bridge). We had one of the men killed there by accident. Laugton would walk up to the spot from one side. If he wanted to be on the other side (the old bridge had been removed by then), he either got ferried across or he would walk a mile or so up to the H & B bridge and then back. When I discovered this I asked him why; it was a waste of time. His reply was, "You may think me foolish Mr Bruff, but I am not going to risk being nipped. It will be alright tomorrow when he is buried".
    Bin once casually remarked that one often got "corpse nipped" when working in a spot where a man had been killed. As far as I could gather, the "nipps" showed themselves as ulcers which took a long time to heal. I expect it is due to a mental state, similar to the five wounds of Francis of Assini, a form of hypertension or suggestion.Return
    
    
18. The house Will was born in stood alongside the old barn above Herbert Story's, not far from Ravenstone. Return
    
    
19. This was the roof of the pump and engine house at No2 well house, close to Kell house. The roof struck the telegraph post at the south end of the garden.Return
    
    
20. The tin building stood close to No3 well house, near Blow Tarn. It was found in a branch gill to the Washburn. Two men tried to crawl on all fours from No3 to No2 shafts. One got through by hanging onto the tramway rails, the other turned round. The wind on this occasion commenced with rain from the south west and swung round to the north east with snow. Busfield told me he had to hold the windows in place for two hours. Return
    
    
21. One of these was the Jamie Mine roof. The slates were blown 200 yards away from the building. Return
    
    
22. Some on Greenhow are very cute. Henry Newbould is a difficult customer and he has had several law-suits, so he is sometimes referred to as the Greenhow Lawyer. Henry once boasting about how keen they used to be up there, said that the Pateley men were cute. "They war that sharp, it used to be said that it was no use for a Craven man to go to Pateley market till he could diddle his own father". I remarked that this was rough on the Greenhow chaps, who were in-between them. "Nay", he said, "T'Greenho' chaps diddle beeath on 'em". Return
    
    
    

Oade Will died on 4th March 1933. Harald Bruff left the following notes in his manuscript:

C {Charlotte} went to the funeral. I could not come. Saw Will last time on 1st March. He was very weak and could scarcely speak. I told him of the big snow we had had, and Lizzie said he wanted them to prop him up so he could see the big drift outside his house. It was about 15 feet high after it had been raining on it and about 50 yards long. Will whispered when I had told him that we had snow in the {porch} there, "It'll coom through a hoal nea bigger than a knittin' needle". Those were the last words I ever heard him say except "Goodbye" when I left. He had not been told about the big snow till the day before as they did not want to upset him. I am told that his last words were: "I am in the arms of Jesus". Will was 88 years and 1 month old.