Rags to Riches Wild West Yorkshire Nature Diary, Tuesday 8th February 2000

The stone mills in the area were almost all connected with the woollen trade. The local bus company was at one time the Yorkshire Woollen District Transport Co. Ltd..

Why do I still possess a bus ticket I bought in 1965? It's part of a spoof bus ticket collection that I made on a page of my notebook while at school. I had a strange sense of humour in those days. Ironically this piece of emphemera is today one of the more interesting pages in the book.

I must show you the rest of my collection some day.

There's very little left of the local textile industry today. Even in it's heyday the industry had its up and downs. After a severe slump in the Victorian period it was the manufacture of mungo and shoddy, textiles made from woollen rags, that helped put another local town, Ossett, back on its feet. Once almost every street in Ossett had its rag warehouse. Today they have been converted into offices or demolished to make way for housing. But, to my surprise, I notice one warehouse at the west end of the town that is still in use.

One of the last of the Ossett rag merchants, Spedding Oddy, told me that the massive growth in charity shops, with their house to house collections, had flooded the market with rags, reducing the price and forcing him to sell up his premises. For a while the handsomely restored old warehouse held not only offices but also an art gallery. I exhibited some of my pictures in the opening exhibition.

Because of the winds, birds keep to more sheltered places, such as our back garden. A Starling probes the grass at the edge of the lawn. On a calmer day it would probably prefer to be out on open grassland as part of a larger flock.

Crossbills

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@daelnet.co.uk'