Di Hammill
Self-sufficiency expert, glamping site owner and author of How to Set Up a Successful Glamping Business, Di Hammill runs the Wild Harvest School of Self Sufficiency from a former farm near Melbourne in East Yorkshire.
What’s your favourite Yorkshire memory?
Two immediately spring to mind. When my three children were small, we would walk with the dog for miles and miles most days. One particular day, we got caught in a blizzard and took shelter in the hole left by the root ball of a fallen tree. We cracked open a flask of hot chocolate and ate oatcakes from the backpack until the worst of the blizzard had passed. My second memory is of laughing so much trying to carry 25 litres of sea water in a jerry can with no lid. It was so heavy and banging about on my leg, but I was determined to make some Yorkshire sea salt. I did finally get it home and can safely tell you that 25 litres of Yorkshire coast sea water makes one litre of Yorkshire salt.
What’s your favourite part of the county and why?
I will always love the unfrequented top or bottom of a dale because they’re areas where the silence is almost tangible. I especially like the top end of Farndale (west side, north end) and the bottom of Rosedale (south end, west side). The bits beyond which most folk live have an eerily silent, intensely calm feel.
What’s your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in Yorkshire?
My weekends are always spent working so, for me, Mondays are a day when I enjoy solo hikes, either on the Yorkshire Wolds or the North York Moors. I love solo hiking among the hills; it gives me the ability to really think, breathe deeply and observe nature as I walk.
Do you have a favourite walk or view?
I like secret lakes or quiet parts of canals, where you can wild swim. I have three favourites, but I can’t tell you where they are. Two are on the moors and one is just a stroll from where I live. You can tell the water is clean enough to swim in if it has water snails and those yellow water lilies, which are known as nuphar lutea, as they will grow only in clean water.
Which Yorkshire sportsperson, past or present, would you like to take for lunch?
I don’t follow sport or have a television, so I’m afraid I don’t know anything about what Yorkshire sportspeople are doing.
Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, past or present, would you like to take for dinner? Argh, I’m not doing very well here, as I don’t know many actors either. However, an absolute heroine of mine, who has been on small screen, is Hannah Hauxwell. I admired her sheer grit and determination to keep going and desire to live out her life with very little on the farm. I love people who don’t need much but nature to be happy.
If you had to name your Yorkshire ‘hidden gem’, what would it be?
Crag Pond on the North York Moors, which is midway down the east side of Farndale, about three-quarters of the way up to the Blakey Ridge road. It’s literally a hidden lake. I love it for the fact it can’t be seen either from the dale itself or above. In spring it’s full of tadpoles and crystal clear.
What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity?
Its friendliness for sure, but, oddly, combined with a stony beauty and toughness.
Do you have a favourite restaurant or pub?
I love a traditional roast dinner, so any local, non-chain pub that does a good roast, especially if it has mashed swede with lots of butter. The Boot and
Shoe pub at Ellerton used to do the nicest mussels in a creamy, garlic sauce. I love seafood, maybe because I grew up by the coast.
Do you have a favourite food shop?
I’m not a big shopping fan or foodie, I just get what I need quickly and from the most local place possible. However, there is a fantastic butchers in Pocklington, my local market town, offering a host of delights, including proper, traditional pies with golden crusts, flans still warm from the oven, brick-sized flapjacks and Scotch eggs.
How do you think Yorkshire has changed, better or worse, in the time that you’ve known it?
Aside from studying at Durham, I’ve lived all my
life in Yorkshire and, yes, it has changed, but for the better. People have more pride in their areas now. There are fewer rundown areas and town centres, on the whole, are still bustling, constantly reinventing themselves with new offerings. I’m not liking the spreading estates that join one town to the other in rural areas. Despite this, the majority of the rural areas have managed to retain their character, and the people their friendliness. All in all, I think Yorkshire is on the up. Oh, and there’s also less litter and dog poo around than I remember as a child in the 1970s.
Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire?
Did I already mention Hannah? OK, I need to get out more.
Has Yorkshire influenced your work? Yorkshire grit is in us all here, somewhere. The landscape and the weather carved it into our DNA. I love the frugal, friendly, determined and honest way of our people, the make do and mend, just enough, nothing wasted nature of it here. Also the “tek care” attitude of being totally open and interested, but solidly sticking to their
way regardless. I’ve seen folk tying water barrels to the front of car bonnets to get out in the snow and reversing up snowy banks to get out of a dale; nothing stops Yorkshire folk. My work has mirrored all this. As a female “solo-preneur” and single mum, I’m determined to stay true to my ethos with the business and have a suck it and see, cautious approach to growth and an infallible energy to just keep going, despite it all.
Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artists/CD/ performer.?It
would have to be Kate Rusby. When my girl was little, we would sing all her songs. I drove from the top of Farndale to York to see her live with my seven-year-old. Kate is quirky, sturdy and strong, but equally ethereal and whimsical – just like Yorkshire really. Her song Blooming Heather is my moorland walking song, and Underneath the Stars makes me cry every time I hear it.
If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be?
It would have to be the
North York Moors around Hutton-le-Hole and Farndale as the landscape, the stone buildings and walls, and the smaller farms are stereotypical of Yorkshire. There are still many flat cap wearers there too, and the odd red phone box. Tin village halls are a scarce social resource but abound on the moors. I would send them to Ryedale Folk Museum. I’m not a fan of posh country houses, preferring folk museums that show the toils of the common man.