Friends in high places

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.

– Hamlet

THE Askrigg Equitable, Benevolent and Friendly Society, often abbreviated to just the Friendly Society, but since its inception known universally as “t’club”, marked its 200th anniversary last Thursday.

Back in 1809 it was one of thousands of fraternities – the Independent Order of Oddfellows and the Ancient Order of Foresters among those still familiar – established to help working members in times of sickness or, perhaps worse, death.

Particularly they were desperate to avoid the Union workhouses, an unremitting Poor Relief known unflatteringly as the Bastille, and for 30 years not a single Askrigg member had to avail himself of that feared roof over his head.

Poor do no longer, they remain as amiable and as affable as their name implies, one of few rural friendly societies which independently survives.

Its traditions live proudly on, too, not least that only men may be members.

“Someone once objected to it, but they didn’t get anywhere,” recalls Tucker Metcalfe – former garage owner, retiring president and a member since 1952.

Members first paid 3/6d a year, benefits doled out for sickness, death and for reaching three score years and ten, the early society somewhat taken aback when so many healthy dalesmen artfully conspired to do so.

Now ordinary members pay £10 a year, receiving up to £50 between the third to tenth weeks of illness. Honorary members pay £3 and get nowt.

For the feast day church parade, honorary members wear white rosettes and ordinary members blue rosettes. In Askrigg they’re white ’uns and blue ’uns. Few stake a claim, anyway.

“They only ask when they really have to, nothing willy-nilly about it,”

says Bob Deans, the secretary. “It’s only when they really need something that they apply. I think it’s more social now.”

ASKRIGG’S in North Yorkshire, top end of Wensleydale – friends in high places, it might be said. The church service, members once heavily fined for non-attendance, is another year-dot tradition.

Until 1967 there was an annual outing, too – they seemed curiously fond of Morecambe – though the most frequently recalled is the trip to a night football match in Manchester which called for a quick one in Clitheroe.

It was market day, all-day opening.

Search parties sent round the pubs to chivvy the tardy were themselves waylaid. “We only just made the kickoff,”

recalls Tucker.

Something similar seems possible last Thursday, one or two reluctant to leave the embrace of the Kings Arms – t’club house throughout – for the short walk to St Oswald’s church.

Since it’s June, you can smell the coal fires. “A bit fresh,” they conclude, and since they’re dales folk it sounds like creme fraiche.

The same proud banner – “Plenty and peace” – has been carried since 1881. They follow it two-by-two, a couple suggesting that they might have benefited from a haircut hand-out, three or four courageously in shirt sleeves.

Many are Metcalfes, or Scarrs, or Kirkbrides or Dinsdales, just as they were 200 years ago.

Inevitably there are comparisons with Durham Big Meeting, but in Askrigg there are no cowboy hats, no dancing girls and no ghost of Harold Wilson. There’s no band, either.

Given the nature and location of the society, it would have had to have been a brass band, of course.

Ann Chapman, the vicar, says she’s never seen so many men in church – “it’s amazing, I don’t suppose I will again” – and praises two centuries of community commitment. “The service won’t be any longer than it needs to be,” she assures them.

John Packer, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, notes that it’s also an election day. “We lift our vision above the messiness of much of our political system and pray for peace and plenty in the world,” he says.

In 1809 they’d paid the vicar 10/6d for the service, a fee which by 1881 had risen to £5. What these days they pay a top-rank bishop is sadly not revealed.

Afterwards, church bells pealing, about 140 pose in tiers for a huge team picture in Lodge Yard, behind the Kings and base in the 18th Century for James Pratt’s racing stable.

Pratt, it’s said, had learned most of what he knew about racing at Kings College, Cambridge – so effectively that he trained the winner of the 1782 St Leger.

The bishop and vicar are in the centre of the front row, she as conspicuous as the matron on a boys’ school photograph; out of shot, someone holds back an obstructive fir tree.

The photograph will become the basis for an oil painting above the Kings Arms fireplace.

It’s there that they retire for dinner – equitable, benevolent and friendly, back in t' club once more.

Sick notes... Ten things you might never have known about the Askrigg Friendly Society

■ The Society’s morally strict articles forbade membership to anyone “of notoriously scandalous life or conversation,” though not those born out of wedlock. The rule lasted until 1969.

■ Only the military and seafarers – and, of course, women – were denied membership.

■ Funds were held in a large iron chest, kept at the Kings Arms and known as “the box”. The chest had three locks – one key each held by the president, steward and pub landlord.

■ Quarterly meetings were allowed a seven shillings “spending allowance”

for alcohol. You could sup a lot of ale for seven bob in 1809.

■ The Society ruled in 1851 that any member found guilty of poaching would be fined a guinea for the first offence and expelled for the second.

■ Other fines included sixpence for wearing a hat in the clubroom or for swearing, gaming and “causing debate concerning Church and State”. Early fines for non-attendance at the annual church service were as high as 2/6d.

■ By 1832, the rules disallowed payment if the disability had been caused by venereal disease or fighting – unless in self-defence.

Cricket, football and cycling were added in 1969.

■ Samuel Halton, a labourer, paid £5 17s 6d between 1866-79 and received £63 5s in benefits. His widow got an extra £4 on his death.

■ Funds have usually benefited, however, from the healthy lifestyle of dales’ folk. Between 1985-89 the pay-out was 81 per cent lower than the actuarist’s forecast.

■ Dr Katherine Coltman became the Society’s joint medical attendant – with her GP husband – in 1948 but was denied even honorary membership.

Taken from In Sickness and in Health, Dr Christine Hallas’s history of the Society, published in the year 2000.

What’s half a sixpence worth?

AN email arrives from Raymond Wilkinson in Evenwood.

“I have a 1967 sixpenny piece which is split clean in half, leaving me with one half with a head and one with a tail. I am anxious to know if they were made in two halves and whether this is common.”

Inspiration strikes. Could it have something to do with the film Half a Sixpence, starring Tommy Steele and best remembered for the song Flash Bang Wallop? A check reveals that the film, coolly acclaimed, was indeed released in 1967.

A promotional gimmick? “I’ve never heard of it, but it sounds just the sort of thing they did,” says Darlington film historian Tony Hillman.

A call to Mr Wilkinson puts a tanner in the works, however. “I did it myself back in the 1960s,” he says.

“You know when you’re using a spanner to edge off a nut. I was using the coin to fill the gap between the nut and the spanner and it just came out in two halves.”

So far we have been unable officially to ascertain what half a sixpence may be worth. The unofficial estimate is threepence.

THERE’S a nice little coincidence, however, following the obituary in yesterday’s Gadfly column on former Northern Echo reporter Ian Nelson – the man who got the world exclusive interview with Elvis Presley when the singer’s US military plane stopped to refuel at Prestwick, in Ayrshire.

For almost 50 years it was believed to be the only time that Presley set foot on British soil. Prestwick airport even has a plaque marking the spot.

In April 2008, however, theatre impresario Bill Kenwright claimed on radio that Presley had spent a well-disguised day in London with Tommy Steele – the boy from Bermondsey – in 1958. Steele even took his guest to the Houses of Parliament, he said.

“It was two young men sharing the same love of their music,” said Steele afterwards. “I swore never publicly to divulge what took place and I regret that it’s out now.”

Proud Prestwick demanded photographic evidence. Flash, bang, walloped, nothing has so far developed.

TONY Hillman, incidentally, not only points out James Bolam, 71 next week, had a bit part in Half A Sixpence – a threepenny bit part, perhaps – but wonders if any can help him.

In the late 1980s, Tyne Tees Television made a programme in the Magnetic North series on his unending passion for collecting film star autographs. The film was called The Headhunter.

Thousands of signature wishes later, Tony loaned his copy and got it back with all but five minutes wiped. He’d love to hear from any who may have another: Tony’s on 01325-354391 or 0191-423-3686.

PAUL Smith, one of the great characters from the departed days when pubs had landlords and not just licensees, has selfpublished a slim autobiography.

After a lifetime down the pit, Paul’s dad was 60 before taking his first pub, the Jack Crawford in Sunderland – trade so terrible that the previous tenant had committed suicide.

Smith Senior succeeded, moved to the Oddfellows in Seaham Harbour, made enough to send Paul to be privately educated by Jesuit priests.

“That,” he says coyly, “was quite an experience.”

His own first pub was the Blue Bell at Fulwell, Sunderland, before moving down town to the Bridge End Vaults. He was 23, and idealistic. “I wanted to get rid of all the prostitutes and did, but my trade dropped so dramatically, I had to let them back in.”

He moved to the Mill Hill at Wearmouth, in six years transformed the Oak Tree at Bowburn, near Durham – aided by a resident comedian called Nichol Bambling – still reckons it his favourite pub.

Paul had just three months at the Swan in Billingham, admitted defeat and moved to the Stone Bridge Inn on Durham’s south-west hem – “a script writer’s paradise, something always happening” – where he and his wife Norma became national figures in licensed trade charities.

Paul’s now 82, and in Lanchester.

His book’s called Time Gentlemen, Please but, happily, he still raises a glass.

SINCE these columns of late appear to have had something of Aviation News about them, here’s word from David Thompson of two flying visits in the next few days.

At Teesside Airport – “I still can’t call it Durham Tees Valley,” says David – at 10.45am on Saturday there’s the now-annual gathering in memory of all those, particularly the Canadians, based there during the Second World War.

It’s organised by Betty and Jim Amlin from Sedgefield, who with the Echo successfully campaigned for a statue to Andrew Mynarski VC.

The following weekend, lunchtime on June 21, there’s a reunion service at the former RAF Skipton-on-Swale – between Thirsk and the A1 – for the four Canadian squadrons based there.

The RAF Regiment band will play; a Dakota and Spitfire will fly past. In the evening, the band plays at the Forum in Northallerton.

I’d attended a memorial service at Skipton-on-Swale in 2004. Operational for barely two years, the base flew 2,300 sorties, won 132 DFCs, nine DFMs and a reputation for flying by the seat of its pants.

A Spitfire again flew overhead, two dozen banners paraded, maple leaf once more flew alongside English rose. Amid it, a Vauxhall Motors flag flew, too. Times change: these days, even reunions are sponsored.

SPEAKING of reunions, a final reminder that the gathering to mark the 25th anniversary of the closure of Shildon Wagon Works takes place at the Railway Institute tomorrow evening from 7.30pm. All welcome – and more of that next week.