Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

My boy, What ails you? Write. D. All the pets are well.

Comment

Comment

There was evidently a reply, because ten days later his father puts pen to paper again:

Boy,

Go on, but don’t work the brain too much. You do not know how pleased we are at your success.

You will soon be home again and there are plenty of rabbits and fish. Tom wants the rabbits and fish killed, but we will keep them back. John has become a Teetotaller. The new horse goes on very well.

We are very busy with the forthcoming election. There is to be such a row. Jessica, Tompkins and all the rest send their remembrances, and this is from
D.

Do you want anything?

Son William comments:

Jessica and Tompkins, I need hardly say, were two of “the pets” already referred to. “Tom” was the village tailor and general factotum. He used from my very earliest days to accompany me shooting and fishing. He made my father his first pair of trousers, and he also made mine. He was seldom sober. His name was Palliser, and I have seen in the records of the Kilvington Church Registry that a Thomas Pallacere inhabited Kilvington in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

“John” was one John Stillingfleet, who served as a groom-gardener, and was also much addicted to drink, but, being unable to live up to the standard of Tom Palliser, appears to have sworn off altogether at the time when my father wrote.

As a matter of fact, sober men in the North Riding were very exceptional at that period. Among my earliest recollections is hearing the farmers and others driving home from Thirsk market on Monday evenings. They used to drive or ride full gallop through Kilvington, all drunk, and shouting at the top of their voices. None, so far as I know, ever came to grief.

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Original

My boy,

What ails you? Write.

D.

All the pets are well.

20 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Alcohol (drug) (59) ·
• Alcohol intoxication (27) ·
• Alcoholism (12) ·
• Allison, William (1851-1925) (12), Yorkshire-born sporting journalist ·
• British national identity (1) ·
• Horse (71) ·
• North Riding of Yorkshire (51) ·
• Public school (United Kingdom) (2) ·
• Rugby School (3) ·
• Social sharing of emotions (1) ·
• South Kilvington (6) ·
• Stiff upper lip (1) ·
• Thirsk (14) ·

All tags.

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