Keith Wilkinson
Harrogate-born environmentalist Keith Wilkinson helped raise £100,000 in 1982 so that the Woodland Trust could secure the future of Nidd Gorge. Since then, 55,000 trees have been planted. Keith and his wife Rhona live in Bilton.
What’s your first Yorkshire memory? Being led by the hand by my grandmother through shoulder-deep snow to the new prefab that my dad was awarded when he was demobilised in 1946 – these were the original “homes for heroes”, and he had been in the Pioneer Corps, the guys who went in after the front had moved on, to clear up the mess. This would be in the March of that year.
What’s your favourite part of the county – and why? I was born and bred in Harrogate and it is still my favourite place. I am delighted that some of its finest buildings and parklands are still there. The Royal Hall (arguably the county’s Frank Matcham masterpiece), the Royal Baths, the Pump Room, the Stray and the Valley Gardens are accessible to all, projecting the calm gentility of the Regency period.
What’s your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in Yorkshire? Rhona and I have fallen in love with Scarborough, so a long weekend over there would definitely include Armed Forces Day, Alfie Boe in concert at the
Open Air Theatre, and a play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. We’d set off around the bay in the Hispaniola, then have a plate of cockles in the harbour. That would be followed by a stroll up to the castle, and a paying of respects to the grave of Anne
Brontë en route. The climax of it all would be the view from the clifftop, taking some photographs of the wild orchids, and watching the peregrine falcons diving overhead.
Do you have a favourite walk, or view? The view from the top of Sutton Bank. There’s the vista below of the Vale of York, with the Ice Age remnant of Lake Gormire, and 40 miles away you can see the glint of the sun on Ripon Cathedral.
Which Yorkshire sportsman, past or present, would you like to take for lunch? It would have to be the late, great World cycling champion Beryl
Burton, who tragically died not very far from where we live now. But she was doing what she loved best, out in the saddle on her bicycle.
Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, past or present, would you like to take for dinner? Michael Rennie, whose family came originally from Bradford, but they then moved to Harrogate and he died in the town and is buried in Harlow Hill cemetery. In his day, he was one of Britain’s and then Hollywood’s foremost “character players”, and I certainly remember him for The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Third Man TV series. It would be fascinating to ask him all the studio gossip from the golden age of Tinseltown.
If you had to name your Yorkshire ‘hidden gem’, what would it be?
It has to be Nidd Gorge, where I have volunteered with the Bilton Conservation Group since 1982. Fifteen miles of footpaths now connect the Nidderdale Greenway, which runs from a starting point at Harrogate station to Ripley Castle. The River Nidd glides through the 200ftdeep gorge and the biodiversity is truly amazing. There are over four thousand years of human activity in this spot. Add to all of that 20 species of mammals around 120 resident or migratory birds and hundreds of wildflowers, it is simply breathtaking.
If you could choose somewhere, or some object, from or in Yorkshire to own for a day, what would it be? The North York Moors Railway. I’d request that the Repton, a gleaming beast of an engine, be brought out of her shed, and I’d glide up and down the line.
What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity? The county is the “Texas of England”, a place of wonderful contrasts – the bigger cities and the towns to the south, the Dales and then the desolate Moors of the north. We have
endured centuries of tough times here, hewing coal, smelting steel, weaving, fishing and ploughing unyielding soils. Generations have left their mark on the land, from monks to toughened artisans.
Do you have a favourite restaurant, or pub? The Travellers Rest at Crimple.
Do you have a favourite food shop? Roots N Fruits at Bilton, which is a truly old-fashioned greengrocers run by a very modern young couple who do wonderful work in the community.
How do you think that Yorkshire has changed, for better or for worse, in the time that you’ve known it? We are certainly much better connected to the rest of the country now, with all the motorway access, and there are stunning green spaces in places like Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Rotherham. We might mourn the loss of heavy industry, but hi-tech enterprises are taking their place. The arts are thriving, and the film and television industries have at last discovered that Yorkshire is extremely photogenic. It’s not all cloth caps and clogs, mill chimneys and whippets.
Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire? The late Harold Wilson, whose premiership is terribly underrated. Amongst many other things, he was the driving force in setting up the Open University, and he reminded us that defining the right question was the only way to achieve the right answer.
Has Yorkshire influenced your work? I had an interesting career before retirement, but it has been the time since then that I have truly loved. Every time we go down to Nidd Gorge, it gives me a wonderful feeling that I have been part of an inspirational team who have both preserved it from development, and have secured it for posterity.
Who is your favourite Yorkshire author/book/artist/CD/ performer? And Furthermore, which is the autobiography of Dame Judi Dench. And, like the lady herself, is honest, direct, and twinkling with fun.
If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be? We’d pack up a nice picnic and we’d be off for a beautiful summer’s day at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Deer Park. Incomparable.
It was walking through woodland near to her Ripponden home with her grandad that gave Alysia Vasey her love and knowledge of edible plants which would turn into a career supplying some the country’s top chefs. Little did she know back then that her grandad’s seemingly endless knowledge of how to live on nature’s bounties came out of necessity, living in the woods near Poznan hiding from the Nazis during the Second World War. “I never thought my childhood was different to anyone else’s,” says Vasey, whose customers have 20 Michelin stars between them and include the likes of Simon Rogan, Michael Wignall and
Rene Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagen – voted the world’s best restaurant four times. She has also appeared on James Martin’s Saturday Morning and BBC Countryfile.
“Every weekend me and my brother Adrian would go for walks in the woods and on the moors with our grandad as he searched for plants, nuts, mushrooms and fruit. I don’t ever remember him teaching me exactly, but I copied him and listened and he would test my knowledge, correcting me if I went wrong. Thanks to grandad by the time I was seven or eight I could identify every tree, plant, flower, animal and bird that we came across. I knew which plants, nuts, berries and mushrooms were safe to eat and which had to be left alone.
“I just presumed every child knew how to recognise trees and plants.”