The harsh winter when help dropped from the skies (From Craven Herald)

The harsh winter when help dropped from the skies

4:20pm Saturday 6th February 2010

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On Sunday February 2, 1947, a grim spell of weather began with snow borne on a howling wind. The snow stuck, then squeaked underfoot. Not until the end of March would the last of the big drifts be cleared. Giggleswick author WR Mitchell recalls a long chat with Edith Carr who, with her family, endured that grim winter at Capon Hall, on Malham Moor. Though Edith has died, her vivid tales live on.

Jet aircraft pass over Craven with a whine and a whoosh. Edith was to remember to her dying day when a nine-week-long silence was broken by an unfamiliar sound: the drone of aircraft – RAF Dakotas – circling above Malham Moor. The crews were looking for black crosses hurriedly created on an unbroken snowscape. Here they had arranged to offload emergency rations for farmfolk and their livestock.

News of the air-drop had reached Capon Hall, the home of the Carrs, via an old postman on his rounds. He said: “They’ve gotten word through that you’re just about on your beam-ends. A chap on t’radio said the RAF were organising a mercy flight.”

It would take place from the airfield at Dishforth. When?

“All being well,” said the postman, “it should be tomorrow.”

Edith and Robert, her husband, used “provin” sacks and old motor oil to form a black cross on the frozen snow. “We waited and listened, ready to put a match to the oil.” About 2.30pm, they left the shelter of home and started a big fire. From it rose a dense cloud of smoke.

Half an hour later, they heard the drone of approaching aircraft. Edith thought: “Great! We got in the house to be out of the way of anything that was dropped. The children, scared by unfamiliar aircraft sounds, had taken shelter under the living room table.”

The aircraft circled the farmhouse several times, then flew so low the Carrs could see doors being opened.

In the first drop were large parcels of food. When the aircraft returned, it had bales of hay which, on hitting the ground in the front meadow at Capon Hall, burst open. Most of it was transferred to the barn, then Robert brought sheep from the croft beside the house into the meadow to clear up what remained. The starving animals ran delightedly from one clump of hay to another.

Edith (nee Shackleton) and Robert Carr had been married at Kirkby Malham Church on the first day of March 1943.

They met two years earlier at one of the Home Guard dances held in the Church Hall. He was working for his kinsfolk at Lee Gap, a high farm reached along a continuation of the Gordale road.

Edith was delighted when they moved from their first farm, at Wharfe, to Capon Hall, which she knew to have been the home of Abraham Banks, a wise old man who had lived in one of the two Capna’ farms for over 50 years.

Edith had first visited Malham Moor while living at Hanlith. It was not a moor in the Bronte sense of peat and heather, though this occurred at higher levels on Fountains and Darnbrook Fells. Much of the parish of Malham Moor was on limestone. The fields held short, sweet grass. There was an abundance of flowers with pastel shades.

However, the hay crop of 1946 was poor. Malham Moorers were hoping for continuing mild weather so the cattle might be kept outdoors until late in the year, thus conserving the stock of hay in the barns, but winter came early.

At night the moor was frosted. During the day, snowflakes danced in a cruel wind.

Just before Christmas there was the expected mild spell. Then winter really set in. On the second day of February, a north-easterly blast delivered snow that lingered. It also blew snow off the fields and fellsides on to lower ground. Roads were blocked. The contours changed as drifts up to 15 feet high were formed. Farms were isolated. Sheep were overwhelmed. By day, gangs of men cleared the roads. Their efforts were in vain. Their excavations were infilled by wind and snow at night. At Nether Hesleden, in nearby Littondale, the farmer and his helpers excavated a tunnel through snow for over 20 yards in order to reach the big barn.

By the end of February, with continuing bitter weather, Edith and her family – plus Karl, a German prisoner of war who was lodging with the Carrs – could do little more than huddle over the kitchen range, wearing woollies and “toasting our chilblains”.

The children viewed the outdoors through peep-holes made on the rime that had formed on the windows.

Just before the sun set behind Black Hill, a frosted world was tinted red. The searching north-east wind blew. Then it would begin to snow again. Happily, a spring on Black Hill did not dry up. Local farmers used it to fill milk-kits with water, thus satisfying the thirst of their cows. At Capna’ – to use the farm’s local name – a large number of brown hares were seen foraging around the farm buildings.

Shortage of food led to the cows being permanently hungry and “bawling” all day. When a snowstorm eased, Robert, wearing his warmest clothing, plus scarf and cap, set off on horseback to locate food, returning at dusk with some potatoes and porridge oats.

Karl, persuaded to travel by horseback to Settle for food, was away for such a long time the Carr family were alarmed. The horse returned without its rider. Robert found Karl blundering about. Next day, his wavering journey back to the farm from Settle could be traced by the bits and pieces of groceries he had dropped on the snow. Postmen kept up a service of a kind. They had a four-mile round when covering the farmsteads of Malham Moor. Often, mail was left at Capna’ to await collection by neighbouring farmers.

Postman Chaffers, short and stout, arrived puffing and blowing. He unpeeled his waterproof leggings and the brown paper and newsprint he had wrapped round his legs. This wrapping was secured by thick, coarse string. Chaffers had great faith in this “thermal” wear. News came that a team of snow-cutters and a bulldozer from Thornton and Garnett’s at Rathmell had reached Cowside Farm, just over two miles from Capna’’. In a cavalcade of snow-cutters, each man carried a wax candle, rubbing it against his shovel so that snow would glide off as it was thrown to one side.

Tragedy occurred when Mr Bullock, one of the council workmen, slipped from a high drift into the path of an oncoming snowplough. With another snowstorm raging, the severely-injured man was wrapped in a top coat and borne to Capna’, being set before the fire in the hope he would revive.

Alas, he died. For several days there was no more snow-digging.

The thaw was at hand. On a memorable day, Robert, standing in the farmyard at Capna’, called out for Edith to join him. They stood in Quaker-like silence. There was a deathly stillness. Then their faces lit up. From across the moor came the bubbling call of a curlew, announcing the arrival of spring. Not until April was it possible for the Carr children to return to school. They had been snowbound for nine chilling weeks.

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