I TOOK a "double-take" when I looked at one of the photograph's in Bill Mitchell's impressive picture gallery

depicting the evolution of Ribblehead viaduct on the Settle to Carlisle railway.

There, on page 70, white safety hat perched on head, leather gloved hands and wearing a blue sweater was my cousin, Frank Clare.

My need to look twice came as I flicked the pages in Bill's latest volume, with in the back of my mind the knowledge that Frank, a railway engineer, worked for several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s on helping restore this demonstration of 19th century monumental engineering. Looking close I spotted him standing at the side of one of the scaffolded pillars with four other coleagues.

"Ribblehead, the story of the Great Viaduct at Batty Moss on the Settle-Carlisle railway" is Bill Mitchell's title for his 80-pages of glossy, colour photographs and detailed copy telling the Wild West-like tale of the construction and then preservation of the structure.

Bill, a journalist all his life, opens his tome with a dramatic image, thanks somewhat to the Victorian pundit and art critic, John Ruskin.

He writes: "John Ruskin, looking at Ingleborough on a windy day, wondered how the mountain managed to stand without rocking. A similar thought came into my mind as I parked my car near Ribblehead viaduct. The car rocked.

"The viaduct stood firm as yet another storm from the west advanced up Chapel-le-Dale stirring the air until the wind moaned between the high arches."

That must have been a similar experience for all those people who worked there from 1869 right through until the time of my cousin Frank battling the elements to save the structure for posterity more than 100 years later..

TV crews have been up there recently filming a drama about the construction of the viaduct in the early 1870s. Jericho is an eight-part ITV series which takes its title from one of the overcrowded, ramshackle settlements that housed workers on the Ribblehead section.

Jericho consisted of two lines of huts, roaming pigs and a pub in a rock-roofed hole, and overlooked Whernside and Ingleborough, the two highest peaks in the Yorkshire Dales.

Bill's book is packed with impressive colour photographs of the structure in fair weather and foul, pierced by stunning westerly sunsets and long shots of the Settle-Carisle line sweeping across panoramic Ribblesdale.

He starts his book with a history of the construction of the viaduct illustrated with ancient black and white photographs of the structure rising from the boggy fell and slowly being surrounded with shanty town communities - Batty Green, Salt Lake, Jericho, Jerusalem, Inkerman and Sebastapol and Belgravia.

We get a description of the tough life in those "towns" which housed 2,000 workers among them navvies, stonemasons, carpenters and engineers, many with their families. They were served by a hospital, post office and eventually day and Sunday schools. The hospital was essential, judging by the number of deaths registered at Chapel-le-Dale church in the year 1891.

Bill tells the story of Job Hirst, master mason and subcontractor who came to a sticky end. His gravestone is near the lych gate at Chapel le Dale church.

The viaduct naturally gets all the attention. There is no way of missing it. But Bill doesn't forget the other work of engineering accomplishment, this time underground with the digging of Blea Moor tunnel, the longest on the line at 2,629 yards. It took five years to complete its subterranean journey on its way to Dent Head, another viaduct and the 300 miners, bricklayers and labourers, working at the same time as the construction of the viaduct.

The re-birth of the railway came in 1989 after many years of campaigning, both locally and nationally by groups including the Friends of Settle-Carlisle line who collected a 30,000-name petition to prevent its closure.

The "reprieve" latter from Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman of the Department of Transport, arrived in April 1989. She declared: "I have decided to refuse consent for British Rail to close the Settle-Carlisle railway line.

"I very much hope that the organisations and individuals who had fought strongly for the retention of the line will now give it their practical support."

The hard work was to begin. A task which would challenge modern engineers with the job of saving the ailing giant.

They were aided by modern technology and know-how but they would be experiencing the same working environment as their counterparts more than a century before - fierce westerly winds, driving snow and rain and even in summer conditions that would test the team's endurance and tenacity.

Bill's book is dedicated to Tony Freschini , resident engineer for the viaduct's restoration between 1989 and 1991, who provided him with rare and important material. Bill is also thankful to the photographers who loaned the images.

The book is published by Kingfisher Productions of Settle and costs £18.