This Is It

Fresh from attending a funeral for a loved one clears the mind  and enables sensible perspective to form. Well it does for me.

By now some of you will have formed the opinion that I can probably continue to write articles for this site for decades and that is probably so!  Mind you there has to be a purpose behind all that scribbling. For a long time it helped me to find out about Ushaw Moor and what it represented. It also helped me to establish the life patterns of previous generations of my family, as well as the people they came across. We have discovered lots about the Valley have we not! For example:

- We stumbled across the identity of a murderer

-We can listen to the voice of Sammy Crooks

- We are aware of some of the characters in South Street from years ago

- Then there was that misbehaving coffin

-  We know much more about vicar Welby's family

-Pudding Henderson has come to life

-Arthur Hodgson is known to us

- Ushaw Moor's full playing record in the FA Cup is there to see

-the skills and character of many old Ushaw Moor cricketers - together with scorecards from the 30s - are there to delight in

- Brian's well crafted writings, although a bit rationed, are a delight because they have lifted the veil on the village's past

-Even the bowls team of the late 20s is no longer a mystery

- Whitehouse Court, dressed in early 60s snow, is there to see

-We have not allowed Sleetburn to slumber

And much more!

Some ingredients are a bit lacking. We need several more writers. Get more writers and keep me off  'Grumpy Man' articles! Stop me from being a bar stool Johnny!

Where is this leading me? We look back, we gain perspective but we need interaction. We need comments and lively view points, otherwise posting is little more than words blown into the ether.

This is it. The present is most of what we have. It is for people of the present time to comment on the past and peer into the future. We can criticise, applaud, disagree, cry, laugh, and a thousand more things. To do all that we need interaction. This is it.

WB