It's the last day of 2018 and the perfect time to thank everyone involved in planning and delivering the Yorkshire Dales Celebration. In particular, a huge thank you to Dr David Johnson who co-ordinated it all - it couldn't have run without him. We're very grateful to Fiona Rosher, manager of the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes; Anne Read, curator of the Museum of North Craven Life, Settle; and Andrea Burden, Sustainable Development Officer for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, for all their work to make this so successful.
The celebration marked the 50th anniversary of Hartley and Ingilby's classic book, Life and Tradition in the Yorkshire Dales. The idea to re-publish the volume, and build a year of Dales events around it, came from Kirsty McHugh and Paul White. Kirsty did much of the ground work to plan the project and exhibition, while Paul designed a beautiful new edition of the classic, which is now flying off the shelves at Hawes (and through our distributor - see here).
Altogether 50 events were planned - not all went ahead, most notably the sheep-washing demonstration in June, abandoned because the beck was dry. A price to pay for a brilliant summer! A few didn't attract enough interest, but among the 43 which did run were some spectacular successes: historical walks, a talk on the forthcoming Yorkshire dictionary, demos and workshops on food and traditional crafts. It's generated fresh ideas for future activities, and certainly attracted some new participants.