10:30am Saturday 9th January 2010
The holidays passed off in Skipton without untoward incident. As Christmas fell on a Saturday, the mills only closed for a short time and were open again on Monday. The shops remained closed from Christmas Eve until Tuesday afternoon. Christmas Day was ushered in with the usual ringing of the church bells, while Skipton Brass Band and the Skipton Mission Band played appropriate music.
The trade of 1909 in Sutton had been good in the textiles industry. Messrs T and M Bairstow, where some 800 people were employed, reported that in all departments full-time working had been maintained. The same could be said of the yarn trade at Messrs Hartley’s Greenroyd Mills. In the building trade, little had been done in the way of additional cottage property, but the road between Sutton and Cross Hills had been widened.
Ratepayers asked Skipton Urban District Council for a meeting to discuss improvements to the town hall. Proposed alterations and improvements included the provision of cloakrooms and toilets on the ground floor, an annexe, a supper room and kitchen, alterations and improvements to the offices, the provision of a new stage and dressing rooms and furnishing of a new council chamber.
The rector of Skipton Parish Church, the Ven A Sephton, referred to the jeopardy in which Sunday schools all over the country found themselves. He appealed to all parents who liked to have lie-ins on Sunday mornings to send their children to Sunday Schools to give them a chance to learn something of a Christian life and faith.
A scheme to improve the water pressure to houses in the Raikeswood area of Skipton was put before the Craven Water Board. There had been complaints from residents about the poor water supply.
Television viewers were about to see Broughton Hall as a place of “ambition, deceit and passion”. But it was not real life. The stately home – the seat of the Tempest family – had been chosen as the location for the soon-to-be-broadcast adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s blockbuster, A Woman of Substance. Filming had taken place over three weeks during the summer.
The headteacher of Clapham Church of England School, Marjorie Roberts, received an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s honours list. She was recognised for services to education. “My aim, like many of my colleagues, is to give children a good all-round education so they can confront the changing world with confidence,” she said.
Craven’s first baby of the new millennium came into the world courtesy of a large firework! Siobhan Elizabeth Akers’ slightly overdue arrival was set in motion by a firework which exploded outside the Silsden home of her parents, Colin and Jacqueline Akers. She was born just after 4am, weighing 7lbs 6ozs. And little Sean Adrian Brannan had the distinction of being the last Craven baby to be born before the millennium. The first son of Steve and Pam Brannan, of Eastburn, he arrived at 1am on New Year’s Eve, weighing 8lb 6oz.
Skipton had its own Bond girl. Former Aireville School pupil Amy Wear had been chosen to appear alongside 007 himself, Pierce Brosnan, on the cover of a CD called The Best of James Bond. Her face was also due to appear on TV adverts and posters.
Craven fared well in the New Year’s honours list. There were MBEs for Arncliffe farmer John Sayer (services to hill farming and conservation), Grassington’s Terry Woodhead (who spearheaded a millennium project to refurbish and extend Grassington Town Hall) and Glusburn charity worker Allan Clough (well known for his work with Glusburn Institute and Airedale Cardiac Support Group). And former Ermysted’s Grammar School student Paul Bradstock received an OBE for economic innovation in Oxfordshire.
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