Anyway, one of the reasons I’ve not been posting is a sense of shame, mostly caused by the shiny new Macbook Pro laptop [...]]]> Sorry for yet another extended period of silence on my blog. I know that I have at least two(!) readers and I should try to stick to my new year’s resolution and write more.

Anyway, one of the reasons I’ve not been posting is a sense of shame, mostly caused by the shiny new Macbook Pro laptop that I’m typing this on.

Now for most people, this is no big deal, but I am someone who has been banging on about Free Software for at least the last ten years. The last Apple product I bought was a Powerbook back in the year 2000, and I’ve been using GNU/Linux in one form or another ever since.

So what the hell happened?

Well, the first thing is, I’m still a Debian head. I still have my trusty thinkpad running Debian, and Debian will remain as the rock solid foundation of my business and all of my servers.

I also still love Android, but that isn’t really considered to be Free Software anyway.

But all that is beside the point. What really happened is that I was compelled to ‘get with the program’ and to stop putting philosophy before practical concerns. In plain and simple terms, I had a client complain that I was unable to edit his Microsoft Word .docx files without losing the formatting. I also had cause to use a clever drawing application for doing some sitemaps at work that was only available for OSX. In the end, I just couldn’t argue with a paying client and my direct needs related to running a small business.

The upside to this situation is that I’m actually feeling slightly liberated. Before the new mac came along I was starting to resemble the software equivalent of a religious fundamentalist. My hair shirt was comprised of my inability to run certain software applications without feeling like some kind of blasphemer. Now I have my mac, I can sample whatever I like, although I doubt I will ever be able to bring myself to sign up to iTunes.

It’s quite a strange feeling to come back to OSX after all these years. When I left, OSX was an infant operating system that was extremely rough around the edges. Now it’s sleak and fast and mature. The worst thing about it that I’ve experienced is a nagging feeling that I’m no longer in control of my computer – a feeling that dark forces might be peeking over my shoulder without me knowing.

Of course, it is this loss of control that makes Free Software so important. I suspect that for most people, the slick design of the mac and the OSX software more than make up for it, but really, I don’t think that I can ever stop worrying and learn to love big brother.

So, do not fear, I’m not lost, I just broadened my horizons slightly!

But the truth remains, I am a terrible hypocrite and I apologise to all my mac using friends who I have been slagging off for the past decade.

As usual, I’m making a new year’s resolution to post more often, and I’m going to treat myself to a new camera in the January sales which I shall be using to take photos of my walks. Anyway, here’s [...]]]> Sorry for the extended silence on this here blog – just been so busy this year.

As usual, I’m making a new year’s resolution to post more often, and I’m going to treat myself to a new camera in the January sales which I shall be using to take photos of my walks. Anyway, here’s wishing everybody a very happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.

I’m writing this on the train back from London where I’ve just had an excellent afternoon visiting the London Hacklab with my old friends James Stevens and Ian Morrison. The Hacklab is a not-for-profit organisation that encourages experimentation and innovation across a huge range of areas ranging from Computing to Bio science, with [...]]]>

I’m writing this on the train back from London where I’ve just had an excellent afternoon visiting the London Hacklab with my old friends James Stevens and Ian Morrison. The Hacklab is a not-for-profit organisation that encourages experimentation and innovation across a huge range of areas ranging from Computing to Bio science, with everything in between.

The Hackspace was fairly quiet when we visited – we were welcomed in by a Swedish Web Developer called Philip, originally trained at Hyper Island, which was a coincidence as I know some of his class mates from Lateral days. Philip graciously stopped his coding to give us a quick tour of the facilities which include 3d printers, laser cutters, PCs, and a whole room full of serious looking laithes, drills and assorted engineering plant. There was even a little room at the back of the Hackspace that had shelves lined with bottles, each filled with a mysterious green liquid. This is apparently the bio-hacking space, being used to experiment with algae.

The Hackspace is made up of two light industrial units, with one used mainly for Computing and electronics related activities, and the other for more hands on ‘maker’ type stuff. There is a kitchen area and a sort of social area in the centre of the space. We hung out for two hours or so, and it was interesting to watch various people come and go – each announced by their personal sound sample or robotic voice when they swiped into the space with their RFID oyster cards. We watched various drilling, hammering and grinding going on in one side of the space, whilst at the same time geeks hunched over laptops in the other side. The sight of this made me nostalgic for the good old days of Backspace, one of the earliest examples of this kind of project,  set up and run by James Stevens who kindly organised the visit to the hackspace this afternoon.

One interesting thing I noticed was the preponderance of bicycles in the hackspace – just about everybody who appeared through the door was carrying a bike with them. There is an area given over to Bike recycling, much like Cycle Recycle at the ATC in Hebden Bridge. It seems that a lot of people use the Hackspace to mend their bikes while having a chat and a cup of tea.

We chatted to people as they drifted in and out, and got a real sense that people enjoy having access to somewhere where they can work on stuff while at the same time meet like minded others to chat with and possibly collaborate with. The basic cost of joining the hackspace is £25 / month, which gets you 24/7 access to the space with an RFID card and several other benefits such as:

• Voting rights
• Personal storage space
• Discounted workshops and events
• Github access

The legal structure of the hackspace is very interesting indeed – it’s a non profit company limited by guarantee, but is is also the first ‘virtualised non-profit organisation‘, utilising a new on-line platform provided by ‘One Click Orgs‘.

There are various display cases dotted around the room, showing off the interesting stuff people have hacked together using the equipment in the hackspace. All in all, it was an interesting visit and also most inspiring. Having seen what these people have achieved, I am excited by the possibility of doing something similar up north in the near future. Watch this space.

The media reaction has been remarkable, with everyone from president Obama to Bono eulogising the great man.

So far, I have only encountered one dissenting voice, and surprise surprise, it’s Doctor Richard [...]]]>

Steve Jobs By Matt Yohe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steve_Jobs_Headshot_2010-CROP.jpg

Sad news this week – Steve Jobs finally succumbed to his illness, after struggling on for years while appearing increasingly frail and fragile.

The media reaction has been remarkable, with everyone from president Obama to Bono eulogising the great man.

So far, I have only encountered one dissenting voice, and surprise surprise, it’s Doctor Richard Stallman. Last Thursday, he posted the following to his blog:

Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.

Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.

Coming as it does so soon after Mr Jobs’ death the sentiment on display in the quote above seems rather harsh. I have no doubt that RMS is going to get into a lot of hot water for saying what he said. The problem is, I think there is more than a grain of truth to it.

Now in one way, I too owe a small debt of gratitude to Mr Jobs and Apple Computer. In 1992, having previously failed my ‘A’ levels twice, I was working as a full time kitchen porter in a restaurant in York. The chef was shouty and the kitchen was boiling hot, and I was beginning to fear for my future. One night after work, I called round to a friend’s house (he worked in the same restaurant as a waiter) and caught sight of his brand spanking new Apple Macintosh LC personal computer. I had previously owned a ZX Spectrum, but this machine was something else. After an hour or so clicking around the menus, I was convinced that I had just seen the future, and I proceeded to beg, borrow and steal the money I needed to buy one of my own.

Apple Macs were very different beasts in 1992 – expensive, rare and exclusive. You couldn’t buy them from just any shop – the Apple retail stores so common today did not yet exist. Despite all that, there was a definite sense of rebellion in being an Apple aficionado.  I quit my job in the kitchen, signed on the dole and locked myself in my room for a year to get to grips with my new Apple Mac. The following year I moved down to London and discovered something called ‘The World Wide Web’. During those early years of the web, I was a complete and total Apple obsessive. I read the literature, subscribed to the magazines, and paid a fortune to have the latest and greatest Powerbook. Steve Jobs, although not at Apple at the time, was a real hero. I remember buying a sticker for my Powerbook that said “Windows 95 = Macintosh ’89″.

Sometime in the mid 1990′s I remember deciding to have a crack at learning how to write CGI scripts in Perl. I naively thought that it would probably be no more difficult than learning HTML markup. I discovered that to really get to grips with Perl, first one needed to understand something called Unix. My Unix journey began with an amazing Apple Macintosh program called ‘Tenon Machten‘ that allowed you to run a complete Unix system inside a folder on your Macintosh desktop. Machten opened up a huge vista of opportunity to me – suddenly I understood how the Web functioned on a technical level, just from tinkering around with my Mac. It wasn’t long before I heard somebody mention the  magic word ‘Linux’.

Linux in the mid 1990′s was nothing like it is today. There was a GUI, there was a desktop and the Netscape browser, but not much else, unless you delved in to the command line. My experience of Unix with Machten had given me the perfect introduction to using the command line, and I took to Linux easily, mostly using it to run a webserver and database, while continuing to use the Apple Mac as my primary client machine.

Years passed, and the 1990′s drew to a close, and I found myself working for a London web agency called Lateral. Every single person in the company, apart from the accountant, had an Apple computer sitting on their desks. One day I was reading about Apple acquiring Next (The company Jobs founded after being ousted from Apple). The article set out how Apple were about dispose of the venerable ‘classic’ Mac OS, and replace it with Mac OSX, which would be based on a combination of the Next OS called Nextsep, and parts of FreeBSD. This meant that for the first time ever, the Apple Macintosh would be based upon Unix technology. This was exciting for me, and I decided that in preparation for OSX, I would start using Linux for my client machine, just to get more au fait with Unix and be prepared to adopt the new Apple OS (A few years before this, Apple had experimented with their own Linux Distro called ‘MKLinux‘ and I still have a copy for posterity).

In the year 2000, Apple finally released a Public beta of OSX, and I installed it on my new Pismo Powerbook. It was good, but rough around the edges. I started to use my Debian desktop more and more. Using Linux as my desktop machine caused me to take more of an interest in Free Software, and I began to read about Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Ian Murdoch. I visited a conference at Cambridge University, attended by RMS himself.

When I left Lateral at Christmas 2001, they bought me a first generation iPod as my leaving present, and I was so impressed I seriously considered spending my savings on Apple Shares (I wish I had). But looking back, that iPod marked a change from Apple as ‘rebel alliance’ to Apple as ‘big scary producer of consumer products’. They even dropped the word ‘Computer’ from ‘Apple Computer’.

Since then, I stopped buying Apple and started evangelising Free Software. I believe that the web is the most amazing thing that has happened to humanity so far. I believe that Tim Berners-lee really has changed the World for the better, and has done so without any profit motive. The same goes for Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds. Free Software provides the tools we need to effectively communicate. The Word Wide Web is built upon Free Software. None of these innovations were about money – rather they were about openness, freedom and philosophy.

Steve Jobs has presided over an increasingly closed and powerful regime that has pioneered the ‘walled garden’ model of computing – a model where Apple dictates what people can and cannot use their own computers for.  Apple has also appropriated key technologies from elsewhere, the famous example being the Mac OS desktop from the Xerox PARC research facility. In one sense,  rather than change the World for the better, Steve Jobs has exploited it for his own ends.

Having said all that, it would be a very mean spirited person indeed who is not moved by the famous Stanford Commencement Speech.

I (along with millions of others) am attracted to and fascinated by the legend of Steve Jobs. Like most legends however, the truth is a little more prosaic.

An erudite defence of RMS can be found here.

The conference featured talks by some of most important people in Free Software and Open Source, including Richard Stallman, Bruce Perens and Bob Young.

I attended on behalf of my employer [...]]]> Ten years ago, I attended the Code conference at Cambridge University.

The conference featured talks by some of most important people in Free Software and Open Source, including Richard Stallman, Bruce Perens and Bob Young.

I attended on behalf of my employer at the time (a London Web Agency) who I persuaded that it would be of benefit to the company for me to keep abreast of these momentous developments in the software industry.

I remember the conference very clearly even now – there was a palpable buzz in the air and a real feeling that a revolution was happening and we were even part of it. I was given a room in one of the Cambridge Colleges and spent three days and nights listening to talks and socialising with the other attendees.

One of the highlights was watching Dr Stallman engage in one of his famous public spats over the differences between ‘Free Software’ and ‘Open Source’. At the time, I just thought he was a bit of an eccentric – it seemed clear to me that the pragmatic ‘Open Source’ argument was compelling for most people and that the word ‘Free’ was just too ambiguous to be really taken seriously, particularly by those in business. So now I’m here to tell you that I was completely and utterly wrong.

Things were very different in 2001. No Facebook, no Twitter, not much ADSL in the UK. Free Software was purely of interest to those involved in technology, one way or the other. The Web of 2001 was indeed booming, but was still a long way from the mainstream penetration we see today.

Fast forward ten years to the Rose Bowl at Leeds Metropolitan University on August 23rd 2011 and Mr Stallman is giving a talk about the digital society.

As he begins his talk, it strikes me that he has been right to focus on ‘free as in freedom’ all along. Pragmatism is useful in business, but does not come close to addressing the very real philosophical and political issues we now see before us. In the last ten years the spheres of personal computing and digital communications have evolved quickly, and now companies like Apple, Facebook and Google hold real power over us and our information.

It struck me how prescient Dr Stallman’s position was back in 2001, and how little the World has listened to him. Perhaps now that more and more people at least have experience of the digital domain his message will gain relevance and find more followers. One thing is for sure – I no longer refer to Open Source Software. It’s Free Software all the way from now on.

Dr Stallman strikes me as a living legend – I think that it will probably only be when he is gone that the the World will realise how great he really was. I hope that he, and his colleagues like Eben Moglen, one day get the recognition they most surely deserve.

This is the first in a series of walks that I’m going to write about. Each walk will take in several points of interest, and more importantly, will end up in a hostelry where one is certain to find quality ale.

This walk is [...]]]>

Download GPX File (Right click, Save Link As).

This is the first in a series of walks that I’m going to write about. Each walk will take in several points of interest, and more importantly, will end up in a hostelry where one is certain to find quality ale.

This walk is one of my favourites, and will take in the big sky mythical grandeur that is Midgley Moor.

Midgley Moor is pretty much unknown to folks outside of the Calder Valley, but I love it for it’s shear scale and sometimes scary atmosphere. The moor is literally strewn with ancient remains, standing stones and interesting features. I often wonder why it’s not more well known – perhaps if it was in Wiltshire it would be. It seems the antiquarians of yesteryear neglected this particular corner of Yorkshire. Perhaps the dark satanic mills hereabouts put them off.

As well as the moor, the walk takes in Lumb Falls and Crimsworth Dean, and ends up at real ale nirvana – the Blue Pig. It’s about 8 and a half miles all told, and should only be attempted in decent weather – the moor is no place to get caught out.
Anyway, the map above shows the route. I forgot to turn my GPS on right at the beginning but you get the idea.

The walk begins at the junction of the busy A646 Halifax – Burnley road and little Brearley Lane. You can get a bus from Hebden Bridge or Halifax and alight in Brearley. The path starts at Brearley Lane Top and ascends quickly through Brearley woods to the picturesque village of Midgley. Once in Midgley, turn left along the main street and right up Chapel Lane. As you reach the top of the lane the road becomes a path and you soon reach the heather of Midgley Moor. Follow the path along the little gully on the left up on to the moor proper. The first point of interest is just up ahead – the cup marked boundary stone known as Churn Milk Joan.

Churn Milk Joan With Crow Hill behind

Churn Milk Joan is the most famous stone in Calderdale – mainly because Ted Hughes (who was a local lad) wrote a poem about it. There are various local legends about how the stone got it’s name, and there is a custom of leaving coins on top of the stone for good luck. I’ve heard locals say that when they were kids they would climb all the way up here to raid the coins on top of the stone to spend in the shop down in Mytholmroyd. The stone was erected as a boundary marker in the 15th Century, but it has cup marks that may date from the bronze age.

Roughly to the east of the stone is the mound of Crow Hill – you can see on the map that I took a little excursion to have a look. It’s reported that a mysterious henge is to be found on the southern slope of the hill, but it’s very hard to find unless the heather has been burnt back and I’ve never managed to see it. There is certainly something strange about Crow Hill – it is prominent on the moor and I have a feeling it knows a secret or two.

Looking back to Churn Milk Joan

The photo above shows the view looking back to Churn Milk Joan, with the view all the way to the peak district in the south.

Moving on now across the moor, we follow a thin but distinct sheep track roughly north across the moor proper. It’s during this part of the walk that you begin to get a sense of scale, and realise that you are setting off into a seemingly endless sea of heather. After ten minutes or so a small mound should come into view away across the heather to the right. This mound is the remains of a bronze age round barrow known locally as the miller’s grave.

Miller's Grave

All that’s left of the barrow now is a litter of smaller stones surrounding a natural outcrop that seems to align with the distant nab hill near Oxenhope. The barrow though much denuded is rich in local folklore. My favourite tale relates to the name. It is said that a miller working at Mayroyd Mill in Hebden Bridge fell in love with a girl who did not return his affections. Driven to distraction, the miller hung himself, and according to the custom of the time, was buried at a crossroads just outside the village of Midgley, as suicides were not allowed to be interred on hallowed ground. After various hauntings and mysterious goings on, the villagers dug up the body and carried it across the moors to this place, well away from the village. Apparently the church eventually relented and the miller was finally laid to rest in Heptonstall Churchyard.

The next point of interest is my favourite, and is clearly visible from Miller’s Grave.

Robin Hood's Pennystone

Robin Hood’s Pennystone is a large natural boulder made of a type of local millstone called ‘Huddersfield White Rock’. Apparently this kind of rock occurs elsewhere on the moor, and it would appear that this particular boulder was dragged into position by bronze age people. We know this because if you stand at this spot on the winter solstice, the sun appears to rise straight out of the Miller’s Grave (you can see a photo here). There is small natural bowl on the top of the stone, and legend has it that it was filled with vinegar and coins by local villagers during the plague. Kindly neighbours would come up here, take the coins and leave food for the hapless victims.

Looking back to the Pennystone

Setting off again, and just to the north of the Pennystone we come to another standing stone, this one engraved with the date of 1779. This is known as ‘The Greenwood Stone’ and it was apparently erected in that year by a school party from Heptonstall who were out walking the parish boundary.

The Greenwood Stone

Leaving this stone behind, we continue along the path through a longer stretch of moorland to the north, gradually climbing to the summit of High Brown Knoll. On the way we pass a strange brick structure which is actually an air vent for a Victorian water main that runs into Halifax from the distant Widdop reservoir.

The air vent

Passing the air vent on our left, the track starts to go steeply uphill, and we are rewarded with a view over the Luddenden Valley. The Luddenden Valley is another gem, and one which I’ll be exploring in a future walk. The head of the valley is private now, and was once the setting of a very grand stately home called Castle Carr. Now demolished, the strange water garden is still to be seen, along with one of the highest gravity fed fountains in Europe.

The View Towards The Luddenden Valley

After a strenuous mile or so of following the path steadily uphill, we eventually arrive at the summit of the walk, and the third and final standing stone of the day. This one is called Wadsworth Law (I think!) and seems quite mysterious because very few people around here have even heard of it. It occupies a prominent position on the summit of High Brown Knoll, just yards from the triangulation point. This is a great place to stop for a rest because the views are stunning.

Wadsworth Law

High Brown Knoll (at around 1350 feet) is one of the highest points in Calderdale, beaten only by Hoof Stones Height (1572 feet) away over to the west above Gorple reservoir. The rocky outcrop of Lad Law on Boulsworth Hill is even higher (1696 feet), but is just over the border into Lancashire.

Looking south from High Brown Knoll

Having stopped for a rest and a cup of trangia tea, it’s time to start the descent to Lumb Falls. Leaving Wadsworth Law we join the ancient and well trodden Limer’s Gate path that leads down to the Keighley Road. Crossing the road we can see a footpath sign. This path takes us steeply down the side of Crimsworth Dean and to the local beauty spot of Lumb Falls.

Lumb Falls

There’s a new plaque fixed to a rock near the falls that commemorates six young men who were photographed here then all killed in the First World War. There’s an article about it here.

Stopping briefly to take in the scenery is probably a good idea but quite difficult as the Blue Pig is now less than a mile away. Simply follow the footpath back south along Crimsworth Dean and you will soon find yourself in Midgehole, home of the the Midgehole Working Men’s Club, also known as the Blue Pig.

The Blue Pig

If you look carefully at the photo above, you will notice that even the hedges out front are shaped like pigs. In my opinion, this is simply the best drinking spot in the World. It’s a private member’s club though so if you want to visit, please be sure to ask a member to sign you in (or irish John will get upset). Once you have gained admittance you can sample a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Golden best, my tipple of choice.

And that’s that. Remember, if you want to walk this route, take a map and compass, and make sure you are prepared for bad weather. Midgley moor is definitely not the place to get caught out. You have been warned!

Cheers!

The alternate net we need, and how we can build it ourselves from FreedomBox Foundation on Vimeo.

What with the recent censorship threats from Mr Cameron resulting from the riots, the question of Freedom on the network is becoming more relevant everyday. The Freedom Box project is the most exciting thing [...]]]>

The alternate net we need, and how we can build it ourselves from FreedomBox Foundation on Vimeo.

What with the recent censorship threats from Mr Cameron resulting from the riots, the question of Freedom on the network is becoming more relevant everyday. The Freedom Box project is the most exciting thing I’ve seen for many years. Watch this blog for more Freedom Box news…

We went for a day out to Morecambe Bay yesterday. It’s still a bit of novelty for me to be able to visit the west coast for a change. I’m more used to going to Whitby, Filey and Scarborough.

Morecambe the town has seen better days, although there are efforts underway to regenerate [...]]]>

We went for a day out to Morecambe Bay yesterday. It’s still a bit of novelty for me to be able to visit the west coast for a change. I’m more used to going to Whitby, Filey and Scarborough.

Morecambe the town has seen better days, although there are efforts underway to regenerate it, not least with the impressive looking Midland Hotel.

We didn’t go to Morecambe for the town though, we went for a look at the amazing bay.

I think Morecambe Bay is one of the most striking landscapes in Britain. It’s just so vast, and the view over to the mountains of Lakeland is simply breathtaking.

We parked up at Hest Bank, to the north of Morecambe itself, where the coastline starts to become more countrified. There’s a smashing little cafe there that does potted shrimps and crab sandwiches. We left the car and took a walk along the edge of the bay almost to Carnforth, where we stopped and had lunch with trangia tea. The weather stayed warm into the afternoon, and we slowly walked back to the car, ready for the highlight of the afternoon – dinner at the Hest Bank inn.

The Hest Bank inn is one of those lovely old pubs that I just adore. They do great real ale and homecooked food, and on days like yesterday you can sit out in the garden. The garden runs down to the canal, and they have a little children’s play area with a wooden pirate ship.

I had a pint of Thwaites’ Wainwright, which was better than I expected. Last time we visited they had Landlord, but I suppose you can get too much of a good thing. So we ate a lovely meal, and caught the last of the early evening sun out in the beer garden.

Being relatively close to the north west has been one of the unexpected perks of living in Calderdale. I think I will always prefer the Yorkshire coast in some ways, but it’s really nice to be able to explore new places. We caught a view of the distant Howgill fells from the bay yesterday, and I think that will be where we’re off to next time, maybe to check out Cautley Spout.

Anyway, a visit to Morecambe bay makes a jolly nice day out, and I can recommend the food and drink at the Hest Bank Inn most heartily.

“You know what they say? Yorkshire’s all moors and hills, Lancashire’s all whores and mills”

Later this year I’ll be celebrating 10 years of living in Calderdale.

It is said that time speeds up as you get older, and I think that really is true. I can scarcely believe it’s almost a decade [...]]]>

“You know what they say? Yorkshire’s all moors and hills, Lancashire’s all whores and mills”

Later this year I’ll be celebrating 10 years of living in Calderdale.

It is said that time speeds up as you get older, and I think that really is true. I can scarcely believe it’s almost a decade since I first poked my head around the door of the Stubbing Wharf and thought to myself “this is it, I found my new home!”.

Many people don’t realise that Calderdale is the southernmost of the Yorkshire Dales – most folk regard only those valleys that reside within the national park of the same name as qualified for such a title.

But it’s true – Calderdale is a Yorkshire Dale, even if it lies outside of the national park. It differs from the other dales in many ways, not least the geology. The South Pennines are characterised by Millstone Grit – impermeable to water and given to the sort of fast flowing rivers so beloved of the early industrialists who wished to harness the power of water to spin wool and cotton. A lack of limestone also makes the water flowing though Calderdale exceptionally soft, as opposed to the calcite infused ‘hard’ waters of the hills to the north. Soft water is essential for dyeing textiles, and the softness of the water flowing down the river Calder was another reason why it became “the hardest worked river in England” in the boom years of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Calderdale is both shaped and scarred by the legacy of past industry, an industry that has moved away overseas like a dark cloud raining pollution but also accumulating great wealth for those who own it. Textile and dyeing expertise is now needed in China and Indonesia, not Hebden Bridge. As the industry has left the valley, an inescapable change has followed for the people who live here. It’s true that the rivers are much cleaner these days, and that the trout, heron and even otter that were driven out are all slowly returning. For the people though, it’s not all good news. There has always been a proud tradition of hard work in the valley, and a seemingly endless supply of jobs to go around. This is no longer true. As the pollution has disappeared from the river, the jobs have gone too. The mills provided real, solid jobs for man and woman alike. As the character of the valley and it’s towns have changed, so has the nature of the available employment. Not everybody is happy with the influx of coffee shops and organic cafes – these don’t provide the kind of work that a man can be proud of. Partly as a result of this upheaval, there has been an unhappy and tragic rise in the use of hard drugs and alcohol by some of the younger local population that has seen more than a few lose their lives through suicide and accidental overdose.

On the other hand though, there has been a radical transformation too. Talk to older locals and they’ll tell you that Hebden Bridge was a ghost town in the sixties before the first wave of hippies arrived, and now it has become very seriously desirable. Local shops and tradesmen are doing well off the influx of us offcumdens and the population of the upper valley is rising more quickly than at any time since the early 20th century. The fact that Calderdale lies so close to both the West Yorkshire conurbation stretching from Leeds to Halifax in the east, and greater Manchester to the west, means it makes the ideal place for commuters to make their homes.

When not at work, the valley provides it’s residents with a breathtaking landscape to explore. We have one of the largest and finest networks of footpaths anywhere in Britain and there is something about the landscape that gives rise to the feeling that there is always somewhere new to discover, even if you’ve been walking here for years. The upper valley is characterised by bleak, open moorland deeply cut and carved by steep sided wooded valleys, many of which contain the ruined and moss covered remnants of the industry that once fuelled the industrial revolution in these parts.

Then there are the pubs – this valley is something of a Mecca for real ale drinkers. What finer way to round off a day exploring the hills and valleys than a pint of local ale, served up in an ancient hostelry in front of an open fire?

There is something more, too. Something about the people around these parts that sets them apart from those to be found in my native North Yorkshire. The romantic view is that there is much more of an Irish influence here, as opposed to the Norse in the north. After all, it was the Irish navvies who built the reservoirs and canals, many of whom stayed when the work was done. Also, I think being close to the border with Lancashire makes a difference  – it is quite amazing how different the people and buildings are just a few miles either side of the boundary. But there is also a knowing familiarity,  infused with a rivalry that is as much based on a shared sense of humour than anything else.

I was having a pint in the working men’s club at Cornholme a few months ago, when I got chatting to a Cornholme resident about what it was like to live right on the border. I asked him if people in Cornholme thought of themselves as Yorkshire or Lancashire. He looked me in the eye and said “Yorkshire of course”,  he then drained his pint and gave me a smile. “You know what they say? Yorkshire’s all moors and hills, Lancashire’s all whores and mills”.

The Calder Valley has problems just like anywhere else,  but there is something about it that affects me in a spiritual sense. I feel that the valley has been kind to me over the last ten years since I arrived here.  I’ve started a business that is miraculously still running, met a new partner and had a son.

In many ways, the Calder Valley is where I finally grew up.

A few months ago I started to make my own houmous and now I’ve had chance to experiment a bit.

I realise that using canned chickpeas is cheating, but it’s convenient and a single can makes a good sized portion.

Once you start making your own, supermarket bought houmous seems a bit bland [...]]]>

A few months ago I started to make my own houmous and now I’ve had chance to experiment a bit.

I realise that using canned chickpeas is cheating, but it’s convenient and a single can makes a good sized portion.

Once you start making your own, supermarket bought houmous seems a bit bland by comparison.

The Recipe

You will need:

• 1 Tin (Organic) Chickpeas
• 1 Clove of Garlic, Skinned
• 1 Medium Lemon
• 2 Teaspoons Dried Cumin Powder
• 1 Tablespoon Tahini Paste
• 1 Generous Dash Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt and Black Pepper

Directions

Open the tin of chickpeas and pour off the liquid. Rinse well under the cold tap and pour off again.

Add the chickpeas to a medium sized bowl – I use a cereal bowl.

Chop the garlic,  juice the lemon and add all of the ingredients to the bowl.

Season well with salt and black pepper.

Either transfer to a blender, or use a hand blender to blend the ingredients in the bowl into a smooth paste.

Add more olive oil if the paste is too thick.

Once made, the houmous should last 4-5 days if stored in a covered bowl in the refrigerator.

I love mine served on warm wholemeal toast with sliced tomatoes – enjoy!