Wednesday, March 21, 2012

One Pin, Two Views 3 : A Bin, A Bath, And Time


Thornton is quintessentially Yorkshire: stone terraces climbing steep hillsides, mills and moors, bitter beer and dry humour. And Yorkshire folk hate nothing more than wasting brass (spending money extravagantly). We build dry stone walls up in these parts: why waste money on mortar when stones can hold themselves up. And if you have an inconvenient hole in your wall, just find yourself an old dustbin, slit its sides and hammer it out.


And if your wife demands a new bath, there is no need to waste the old one. The sheep need to drink and the bright blue fibre-glass will blend into the grass and stone landscape eventually, after a century or two. But time passes quickly up on these hill-tops; it was only yesterday that the young Bronte children trod these paths. I remember hearing the story of an old farmer who went down into the village to collect his pension for the first time. He arrived at the Post Office at 8.00 am only to be told that it didn't open for another hour. "It's all right mate", he said "it doesn't take me long to wait an hour"

This is the third part of the exploration of Thornton, West Yorkshire by Jennyfreckles and myself. We visited Thornton independently and used our cameras to record our own interpretation of the village. You can see how Jennyfreckles has approached the task by taking a look at her SALT AND LIGHT Blog.

21 comments:

  1. Love the view from the top of the hill overlooking the bathtubs. They would look better buried and the dry stone wall! How could they mess it up with a bin. Their ingenuity would have been better used in finding more rocks to fix the hole.

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  2. Oh dear - can't even see any sheep! Concentrate on the view - it's lovely. I am enjoying this so much, so glad we tried it. And a bonus is that I'm meeting blog commenters that I haven't met before, an unexpected bonus.

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    1. I agree Jenny, I have a feeling that we should make it an annual challenge.

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  3. Great article Alan, and thanks for putting me on to "Salt and Light".

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  4. There's nowt better than a bit of ingenuity.

    (But I HATE the bright blue fibreglass bin!!)

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    1. But can you imagine that if we could travel back in time - and take the bath with us - people would come from miles around to gaze at it in wonder.

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  5. I really like that I got to see the photos one by one (and not both appearing together), the first one has me thinking about the past and the stories that old bath could tell, so then when I got to the more modern version, I just laughed and had no interest whatsoever in who might have bathed there and what their life may have been like! Great post!

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  6. I'm just beginning to wonder if there's a connection between Yorkshire and Cornwall. The repair methods are strikingly similar.

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  7. A wonderful pairing of photographs, Alan! The first is so traditional and conservative, while the second is definitely modern art. I love the incongruity of the bathtubs in the pasture, especially the blue one. That one is definitely slated for display in a museum of modern art! Jim

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  8. Interesting... I especially like the landscape littered with bathtubs; very Magritte!

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  9. Oh these both made me smile! I must admit that when we had horses we used an old bathtub for a watering trough..recycling you know:)

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  10. I must have a bit of that Yorkshire blood in me somewhere; I bought a cake the other day for St. Paddy's day (lazy, yes, I know!) and it was enclosed in a huge clear plastic lid. I couldn't bear to put it in the recycling, or worse still, pitch it, so it now houses my oven mitts and tea cozies atop the microwave.

    Love the photos and the accompanying commentary.

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  11. the pictures añways are amazing here Alan!

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  12. The first photo is great. Well they both are, but I really like the first one enough to hang on my wall. I guess it's the lines and the shadows, the horizontal juxtaposed with the vertical and the diagonal, and the light and dark.

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  13. From one who's married to a Yorkshire woman, I find your comments hit the bull's eye.

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  14. Hi Alan .. I love old stone walls - it was the way after the War when we always used everything a few times .. I hate throwing things away. Your old boy is a classic .. " it's only an hour - it doesn't take me long to wait" .. love it!

    Cheers and I'm off to Jenny .. Hilary

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  15. I have a big metal livestock watering trough...I fill it up in the summer...and take baths on the patio under the magnolia...

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