Walking Through History..BRONTE COUNTRY

[midas]

This may interest some of you who have never been to West Yorkshire??
On channel 4 at 8pm tonight.25th Oct..Tony Robinson (I know he's a bit like "Marmite")Returns with a new series
of his very watchable walk through the pictursque historic landscape.
He begins on the West yorkshire Moors,taking a 4 day hike through the landscapes that will forever be
associated with the BRONTES
His walk starts in the suburb of Thornton,were Tony enjoys a coffee in the Bronte sisters birth place,now a cafe.Then its on to Haworth.,the tourist hub of the tourist industry,where Tony commendably goes beyond the familiar family story to explore the harsh realitiesof mill town life in the 1820's.

[saxonaxe]

Hopefully that will appear on BBC Iplayer later, as I don't have a TV set. My memories of West Yorkshire are from so long ago I've forgotten most of it, but I remember being kicked out at Hebden Bridge with a big reservoir to the North and a RV point at the North end of it, Wilshaw?? Tough country in late February early March. I remember the Pennine Way was close by but obviously not for us.. Was given accommodation at a big Police building at Wakefield..

[saxonaxe]

I had to cheat Sapper and look it up.. It was Walshaw ( Dean Middle) not Wilshaw, out at Hebden Bridge and head North. I remember too going to a range that the Police used at a place called Deer Hill, we used to go from Wakefield then via Hudderfield to get to it, but that's about all I can recall of that area, except laying in the frosty grass, freezing, and trying to work the bolt on a L96A1 which had only just been adopted...

[saxonaxe]

Good grief! Small world. Well hat's off to you for volunteering to rescue people in that sort of terrain, at any time of the year let alone winter!! It was bright cold with enough wind to blow the Lapua off course, but not really at all bad. Search and rescue in that area for someone in a winter storm over that wild ground must be absolutely terrible.

[saxonaxe]

13 years, that's a lot of miles walked.. Not for the forum really but I was just doing a guest appearance up there at the time... There'd been an incident involving Police searches in which someone who had been with 22 helped find a man wanted for shooting people. It was North of your area but as a result it was decided that police officers needed training in such things as open country search/tactical movement, basic map and compass work etc: So I ended up sight seeing some beautiful countryside..

[Silverback]

Aye lots, been blown over fallen in bogs avalanched just in these parts but my service took me to the 4 corners of the UK. Passed our search dog assessmenta on the flanks of the Fan and Fan Fawr for example.

The search was for Barry Prudom.... Eddie Magee was called in to track him, remember it well. I'm friends with his son Perry vis facebook.

We very often ended up doing those types of searches particularly for high profile mispers...People like Shannon Matthews, Claudia Lawrence and April Jones, I was briefly involved and en route to Cumbria to search for victims of Derrick Bird early on in my dog handler service....

[midas]

Lydgate Rifle n Pistol Club at Deer Hill,Still going strong,as is Diggle at the otherside of moor.
It can be very hard going over our safety zone.Tho the grouse shooting syndicate seem to manage.

[Silverback]

Deer Hill is pretty easy going compared to out on Saddleworth or Blackhill......maybe its because they do it in daylight and without the additional weight of a casualty on a stretcher

[saxonaxe]

This is what is great about this forum, here I am miles away in the South and there's folk who know the same places, a lot better than me I might add... I was just helping out on a course and passing on drills etc: that the police were not familiar with. Some real problems were identified at the Prudom de-brief and I do believe that the local Search and Rescue Team(s) had quite an input advising about equipment, appropriate first aid ( Not Police stick a plaster on it type drills... ) and other aspects highlighted by the incident. It became obvious that searches of that kind of terrain need to be conducted by properly trained people. If the local Bobby is sent up there even in summer he can get into trouble. As you point out Sapper, injuries, falls and on that occasion a few cases of dehydration I seem to remember.
Only got to use Deer Hill, Mike. I took the oportunity to get acqainted with my shiney new L96 with Smit and Bender...

[Silverback]

Ha ha we had 2 cyclists find a wartime 17lb shrapnel shell, the police left a bobby in the middle of a bleak moor to guard it and he was in a quite bedraggled state when we got involved...lots of UXO up on that bit of the moor, had hypothermic police and ambulance staff who had gone up there to do their jobs but completely unprepared for the terrain or the weather.

Deer Hill is Tame in comparison to Black Hill and Bleaklow...