Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Friday, 13 October
A most successful tour. It was a great moment to get out into the Pennines along the route of the M62 and to see, up in the hills, a Yorkshire RCU crane on the skyline – ‘Colonel Lovell coming to meet us from the Yorkshire end.’ This, the first east-west motorway, will revolutionize east-west links. I intend that there shall be more of these cross routes, instead of the endless radial routes into London. After a day talking to Drake, I can really begin to see how I can get better planning and priorities into the roads programme.

Scare about a bomb in my sleeper. The Preston CID were at the station to see me safely aboard. I slept well.

Saturday, 14 October
Emerging from my sleeper I ran into Harold back from his trip to the northern region. ‘That was a good speech of yours: roads for regional development. I’ve been quoting it all over the place.’ ‘Yes, I’m determined to use roads more for this. It is the Treasury that has been the trouble with its insistence on economic return as the measurement. You just build where the traffic already is that way.’ ‘Did you clear it with the Treasury?’ ‘No. I just jumped the gun.’ He laughed. ‘They’ll say it has got to come out of your PESC allocation.’ Well, I know that.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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The photo is taken from the A672 Oldham Road above Booth Wood Reservoir and appears to show Broad Ing Farm – did that survive?

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Tags

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• Castle, Barbara (1910-2002) (2), Labour MP 1945-79, several Cabinet roles under Harold Wilson, only woman to have held the office of First Secretary of State W/G ·
• HM Treasury (2) W/G ·
• Labour Party (UK) (17) W/G ·
• Labour government, 1964–1970 (2) W/G ·
• Lancashire (35) W/G ·
• Lovell, Stuart Maynard (1), West Riding county engineer (1949-69), prime mover in motorway-building from the mid-1950s (M1, M62, A1) W/G ·
• M62 motorway (3) W/G ·
• Northern England (8) W/G ·
• North–South divide in England (3) W/G ·
• Pennines (11) W/G ·
• Regional development (1) W/G ·
• Road transport (14) W/G ·
• 📌Scammonden Bridge (1) W/G ·
• Spatial inequality (1) W/G ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (150) W/G ·
• Wilson, Harold (1916-1995) (4), Huddersfield-born prime minister (1964-70, 1974-76), leader of the Labour Party (1963-76), MP (1945-83) W/G ·

All tags.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Comment

The photo is taken from the A672 Oldham Road above Booth Wood Reservoir and appears to show Broad Ing Farm – did that survive?

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Similar

18 January 1966: Barbara Castle (Lab.) swings the Hull North by-election with a bridge over the Humber, convincing Harold Wilson that he has the momentum to win a general election

15 April 1985: Hervey Rhodes tells his fellow lords how, on the abolition of the Ridings in 1974, Saddleworth caused the invention of Greater Manchester

19 October 1816: Serenaded by the military, decorated barges leave Leeds for Liverpool to celebrate the completion, after almost 50 years, of the canal uniting east and west

28 January 1069: In the first major northern battle after Hastings, Tynesiders slaughter a Norman army at Durham, whereupon William the Conqueror ravages the north

15 November 1972: During the public inquiry into York Council’s plans for a motorway through the city centre, a college lecturer calls for the new religion to be made tangible

29 February 1824: Prophet John Wroe is baptised on the Leap Day in the Aire near Apperley Bridge before an audience of 30,000

28 April 1812: Luddites fatally wound the Marsden textile manufacturer William Horsfall on his way home from Huddersfield market

1 November 1643: Sam Priestley of Soyland (22) saves a Royalist enemy from drowning in Hebden Water at the Battle of Heptonstall, and himself dies later of pneumonia

4 September 1947: Conflicting hopes for the future of the nationalised coal industry, as a wildcat strike against increased hours at Grimethorpe spreads through the South Yorkshire coalfield

4 May 1818: At a Radical meeting at Lydgate (Saddleworth), Samuel Bamford proposes giving the vote to women

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Comment

Date and source from Helen Walton. I’d love to see her “dissertation on how women were represented at the Peterloo Massacre.”

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