Bill Mitchell’s Yorkshire David Mitchell
‘The city man queried which creature had made such a blood-curdling sound. The dalesman said, ‘It was an owl’. ‘I know that,’ was the reply, ‘but what was ’owling?’’ Yorkshire folk may drop their ‘aitches’ but get a good laugh about life in Bill Mitchell’s insightful perspective. His ‘Yorkshire’ compiled by his son celebrates their home county with special focus on the Yorkshire Dales. Bill joined the staff of ‘The Dalesman’ in 1949 and his journalism ‘putting people before things’ has wide-range and warmth captured in this selection from his two hundred books and booklets about Yorkshire life. Alan Bennett writes ‘Bill can draw on forty years of experience in travelling the valleys and trumping across the hills, talking to all and sundry’. As former Settle residents my family enjoyed such talk with Bill up to his death in 2015 as well as with his late wife Freda. They met on the trademark Settle bus, the orange-sided Pennine variety. ‘In the ten minutes twixt Gargrave and Skip