Celebrating all things Yorkshire

The boundary changes of that year certainly created the new administrative counties of North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Cleveland and Humberside, but they did not abolish the ancient North Riding, East Riding and West Riding, which have existed for more than 1100 years.

Since its inception, Yorkshire Day has continued to generate a wide variety of celebratory events throughout the county and today, or perhaps during the coming weekend, there will be lots more.

We can expect hundreds of cheerful occasions with parties, good Yorkshire fare, good Yorkshire sport and more than a smattering of dialect or Yorkshire talk in terms like "Noo then", "Ow ist tha?" and "Wheear's that?"

White roses, either wild or cultivated, will surely be worn if any can be found in bloom for the occasion, there are bound to be dishes involving Yorkshire pudding in its various guises and a declaration reminding everyone that Yorkshire still exists as it did prior to 1974 will be read at the Bars of the City of York.

The Bars in question are not pubs, but the sturdy defensive gates in the walls which surround the wonderful City of York. Have a good Yorkshire Day.

Shortly before settling down to compile this weekly budget, I watched a nerve-wracking battle between a pair of determined protagonists. This was nature at its most raw and cruel, but the question was - should I intervene?

If the creatures of the wild are to survive, many must prey upon others whether we like it or not. It can be argued that we humans should not interfere.

In this case the contestants were a wasp and a spider, and their battlefield was a tiny area just below the doorstep outside our south-facing door.

The spider had carefully spun a web which linked the underside of the threshold to the top step, the web being close to the wall within the shelter of the overhang of the threshold. I had no idea such a web existed until I noticed the unfortunate wasp.

It had become well and truly entangled and, when I spotted it, the spider was cautiously deciding how best to tackle this angry catch.

One interesting fact was that the wasp was three times bigger than the spider, but it was evident that the tiny spider was not going to let the wasp's size, struggles or frantic buzzing defeat it, although I did get the impression it realised the wasp could deliver a fatal sting.

As the wasp struggled in vain to free itself, and thus became ever increasingly entangled, the wily spider circled it, sometimes approaching to deliver its own fatal bite but always being thwarted by the dangerous abdomen of the wasp.

That part which contains the sting was always directed towards the ever-advancing spider - and the spider was wise enough to keep its distance.

Nonetheless, if it was to defeat the wasp and acquire a meal, it needed to deliver its fatal bite while avoiding its opponents' sting - and the wasp knew it.

Thus we had two dangerous creatures sparring with one another in a battle to the death. I watched at close range for several minutes, quite fascinated and curious as to just how this gargantuan tussle would end.

I had no idea, of course, how long it had been going on before I noticed it, but it was obvious that neither creature was winning. The spider circled the wasp without rest, sometimes darting towards it in its attempt to deliver that fatal and paralysing bite, but the wasp, always alert, responded each time with thrusts of its sting towards the advancing spider.

Neither of them appeared to have gained any kind of ascendancy and so I decided to intervene. I realised that if the spider got close enough to deliver its bite to a vital part of the wasp's body, then the wasp might also be able to deliver its sting.

In such a scenario, both could die like a pair of gladiators - and so, using a small twig, I extricated the wasp from the web and carried it to safety before delivering it to the security of an outdoor pot plant.

There it would have to find some way of ridding the strands of the web from its legs and wings, but at least it was safe - so I thought. The spider seemed to shrug its shoulders and say: "Ah well, better luck next time," as it retreated to its lair beneath the theshold.

I think the wasp must have successfully cleaned the web from its body, for when I looked again half an hour later, there was no sign of it. I trust it enjoyed its freedom and that, as a form of gratitude, it would help keep greenfly pests down in our garden.

I also hoped the spider would find some more worthy pest in its clutches. And I also wondered if the wasp would learn anything from its experience?

I have received an interesting letter and photocopy from a reader in Aiskew, near Bedale. She has sent a picture of a beautiful bridge which spans the River Cover a short distance downstream from the ruins of Coverham Abbey.

But what is the correct name for this bridge? It seems to have several names and my correspondent's photocopy is taken from an old postcard which calls the bridge Ullah Bridge.

She tells me it was known by this name in the Middleham area and her husband, who was a local man, always referred to it by this name.

In other places, however, it is called Hullo Bridge and so I decided to check on one or two of my own sources. I have a large-scale map of the area, revised in 1989, which shows the bridge as Hullo Bridge, while another map does not name it.

So I then turned to Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby's excellent book, The Yorkshire Dales, and discovered it has another name - Ulla Bridge.

It is difficult to know where and how this bridge acquired its various names, but one fact does emerge - all the names sound very similar.

The nearest similar-sounding North Riding dialect word I can find is Ullot, which is an old word for the barn owl, and it might be speculating rather wildly that the bridge could, in times past, have been the haunt of this bird.

In Swaledale, of course, there is Healaugh, often pronounced Heelah, and in times past bearing a range of names such as Helagh, Helag and Helawe, all probably deriving from the words heah or leah, which mean a high forest clearing.

I cannot see any association between this bridge and Healaugh other than the likelihood that each name might derive from an old word referring to a high forest clearing. I am sure some reader will offer a far better explanation.

My recent trip to Norway revealed that feverfew grows profusely in the wild along the shores of some fjords and inland lakes. We found it thriving along the side of Lake Hornindals, the deepest lake in Northern Europe and reputedly the home of a monster, like the wonderful Loch Ness Monster of Scotland.

This is a freshwater lake high in the mountains, unlike the fjords which have one end open to the sea.

In this country the feverfew will be in bloom around this time and it can be found both in the wild and in our gardens. There is every possibility that the feverfew was introduced to this country from Europe, but I would not care to say whether this was done by the Romans, the Vikings or some other visitor.

The reason for its introduction is undoubtedly due to its reputation as a herb whose products were noted for driving away fevers. It is especially useful in combating headaches and even migraine, and also found wide use in easing what are known as female complaints.

With a multi-headed flower which looks like a thick posy of daisies, the feverfew has a most distinctive scent which comes from its leaves and it is able to flourish in dry places like walls, flagged footpaths and waste ground in quarries and other rocky places.

The flower has a yellow centre surrounded by white petals and it grows to a height of up to 2ft (60cm). Its leaves are serrated and fern-like and even though it was once grown commercially for the drug it can produce, it now seems to be more of a weed than a cultivated plant.

In its heyday it was used rather like our aspirin is used in modern times - as a means of curing almost any ailment