10:20am Saturday 6th March 2010
With a spate of new housing, the population of Hellifield has soared. A major immigration of families, trebling the population, occurred in “railway time”. Bill Mitchell relates two Compton Mackenzie-type stories – each quite true – concerning Hellifield station. In 1926, during the General Strike, there was much talk about jam and whisky. During the Second World War, the Home Guard, which evolved from the Local Defence Volunteers, was alerted about a possible invasion when a rough map was found on a bus at Burnley.
It was supposed to be secret, which was asking too much in Craven where gossip is the small-change of local life. The year was 1926. A General Strike was in progress. Only the proverbial handful of people was supposed to know that vans containing a large number of cases of jam and whisky were lodged in the railway sidings at Hellifield. There was a fear that they might be pilfered.
Hellifield station is of the island type, its platforms being approached via a tiled subway. Stone for its construction came from Shipley, dressings from Haworth and flagstones from Hawes. On the station’s ornate canopy might be seen MR, for Midland Railway, and the outline of a wyvern, the Midland’s monogram.
Normally the station buzzed with life, by night and day. A knocker-up made his doleful rounds in the wee small hours, rapping on the doors of men due to begin duty. The call was acknowledged when the roused worker, sleep-mist in his eyes, rapped a knuckle against the bedroom window. The knocker-up would shout: “Double-head to Carlisle” or “Relief to Manchester”.
Now, with a General Strike at hand, a guard consisting of 30 special constables was organised by Captain Denton, then living at Riversdale, Long Preston.
He asked Major JEE Yorke, of Halton Place, to help him, which led to the raising at short notice of a further 30 people. At the approach to the station was Midland Terrace, a row of 40 houses, built for railway families in the 1870s. They were of advanced design, formed of concrete blocks and with back windows that were double-glazed. (These railway houses are now privately owned, having been sold by the railway at prices between £250 and £500).
With a protracted strike in 1926, the staff at Hellifield station was skeletal, consisting of the stationmaster, a porter and two ladies in the refreshment room.
In the halcyon days, the caterers were a manageress, three waitresses, a cook and cellarman.
Normally, local farmers were attracted to this facility by the quality of its ale. A railwayman, arriving for a snack might bring with him a bucket of coal to augment the stock that fed a coal fire. A lad with a basket laden with fruit and chocolates greeted the passengers of each stopping train. Luncheon baskets were also available.
Many amusing tales of country life were related to me by the late Major Yorke. None was funnier than the jam-and-whisky episode. “We had shifts of six or eight men each night until 12 o’clock. We walked up and down the station and the sidings. Odd trains came and went. There were perhaps two each night. At midnight, the police took over from us.”
Memories of the first night were blunted when, at the changeover, Captain Denton produced a case of champagne. The volunteers were soon in party mood. Afterwards they found their way home by various means.
“Captain Denton himself had a four-wheeled dog-cart with a grey mare, which he also drove as a tandem. He took himself back to Long Preston.”
The operation was supposed to be cloaked by secrecy. Hardly. When Captain Denton, an extrovert, visited the station, he tooted a car horn and had the sidelights blazing. When there was no more champagne, he limited his bounty to two dozen bottles of beer.
Major Yorke said the special jam-and-whisky guard lasted until the end of the General Strike. Nothing was stolen. Anyone who thought of theft was doubtless put off by what he described as “the fun and tales and laughter” of the guards in the porters’ room.
So to his tale of the local Home Guard during the Second World War. The Commanding Officer was Col Clay of Airton and Major Yorke was his adjutant. A message from the police inspector at Settle required an urgent reply. He had a map of Craven, up to Oughtershaw, that had been picked up on a bus in Burnley. The names of several farms were underlined with the words “Friends here”.
A bizarre message implied that Hellifield station was to be taken over by an Irish army commanded by a German captain!
The police, who requested that a contingent of the Home Guard be present to repel any invaders, would be at the station buildings. A contingent of the Home Guard – augmented by some “old contemptibles” – would patrol the area outdoors, using the password “Salmon”. Not everyone was told about this.
With shotguns available, Major Yorke borrowed a Sunbeam van from Walter Oliphant, who was serving as transport officer, and drove it to Wakefield, returning with 30 rifles and about 200 rounds of ammunition. The rifles were covered with grease that had been smeared on them when they were laid up in 1918.
The colonel and major decided to put what they considered was the best “butt” – a grouse-shooting term! – facing Skipton.
“All our friends wore big overcoats, with bottles of beer or whisky clanking in each pocket, ready for the night.”
Two policemen, bearing revolvers, created alarm when they were seen walking down a railway track.
“We shouted ‘Salmon! Salmon!’ and levelled two rifles at their heads.
They were alarmed, having not heard of the password.
This was also the reason for a row that developed at the entrance to the station subway. A policeman was seen to have one hand up. In the other hand, he grasped a pistol. Levelling a rifle at him was the Vicar of Gisburn, who was shouting: “Salmon, salmon, salmon!”
Waiting at their posts, men had nothing out of the ordinary to occupy their minds.
“Dawn came. We were getting bored with the whole thing. A gunshot was heard from the station. Everyone stood to and rattled the bolts of their rifles. It turned out that one man had pressed the trigger of his gun by mistake.”
This guard was mounted for about a month. The men were left wondering if the map found on the bus – a map marked “Friends here”, “Withdraw to here” and “Irish friends here” – was genuine or just an imaginative hoax.
Chatting with old-time railwaymen at Hellifield gave me an insight into the village which, becoming a railway junction, became as shift-conscious as a mining community. Isaac Hailwood, engine driver, loved talking about cameras, but took relatively few photographs. He impressed us one week when, developing a film he had taken, we found he had a set of first-rate pictures of the cutting at Dent with his locomotive and attendant wagons waist deep in snow.
My favourite story relates to the Second World War. The guard of a goods train was languishing in his tail-end van as a train clattered over the stretch of track that gives the impression of being cut from a steep fellside south of Dent. A Spitfire appeared and was briefly flown alongside him. The pilot gave him a cheery wave!
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/trade_directory/