Look — but never leap!
QUESTION Why is Bolton Strid, a narrow stream in Yorkshire, so dangerous? Bolton Strid can be found near Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale, north Yorkshire. on the surface it’s an innocuous-looking hill stream, about 6ft across.
But below the water’s surface is a deep chasm with powerful undercurrents that are extremely dangerous.
travel just upstream of the Strid and you will see the waterway expands into the River Wharfe, 30ft across, with frothing currents and waves.
the reason the Strid is so dangerous is because the terrain has squeezed the river so tightly that it is effectively turned on its side. Instead of being wide and shallow, it becomes narrow and deep, an extremely powerful wedge of water racing through a crevasse riddled with underwater caves and overhangs. It is often said that no one has survived a fall into the Strid, and sometimes their bodies cannot even be recovered.
From above, the Strid appears so modest and its banks so close to one another that some foolhardy visitors have assumed they could jump across it, or walk across its stones.
It is believed the name Strid comes from the word ‘stride’. there are warning signs on trees around the area discouraging people from attempting the leap.
Romantic legend has it that the ‘ lost Boy of Egremont’, the only son of lady Alice de Romilly, drowned in the Strid in 1154. this tragic tale was immortalised by William Wordsworth in his poem the Force of Prayer, which tells how the boy’s death led his grief- stricken mother to grant land to Augustinian monks to pray for his soul. the monks later founded Bolton Abbey.
In recent years, the last fatality was in 2010, when an eight-year-old boy fell into the Strid.
Richard Wood, Harrogate, N. Yorks.
QUESTION What was the first tractor made by Massey Ferguson?
thE Massey Ferguson tractor company was founded in 1953. Its first tractor was the MF35, but the company’s origins are much older than this.
Daniel Massey ( 1798- 1856) was an ontario blacksmith who produced agricultural implements from 1847. he merged with A. harris, Son and Company in 1891. this was a farm equipment company established by ontario sawmill operator Alanson harris (1816-1894). the merger formed Massey-harris.
huge demand for food for the troops in World War I saw Massey-harris enter the tractor market through licence with Big Bull tractors of Minneapolis, then the Parrett tractor Company of Chicago. Parrett tractors nos 1, 2 and 3 were the first to carry the Massey-harris name.
After World War I and the subsequent agricultural recession, demand for the Parrett-designed tractors dropped off.
Massey-harris re- entered the tractor market when they bought J. I. Case Plow Works and the rights to Case tractors. this coincided with a decline in the fortunes of the Ford Motor Company’s tractor division and quickly established Massey-harris as the market leader in north America.
In 1930, Massey-harris designed and built their first tractor in-house, the General Purpose or GP — a four-wheeldrive design with equal-sized wheels. the agricultural market wasn’t ready for such advanced features and it sold poorly.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Irishborn engineer harry Ferguson (18841960) was also selling tractors. he had begun by developing farm implements for the Model t, many of which had been converted into farm tractors as part of the war effort. Ferguson subsequently invented the three- point linkage, ushering in the modern agricultural tractor which he demonstrated using his Ferguson’s Black tractor.
Ferguson went into partnership with David Brown to produce his tractor, launching the Ferguson-Brown in 1936. In 1946, Ferguson launched the tE20 from his newly acquired plant in Coventry.
While the tE20 was a great success in Britain and the U.S., Ferguson preferred the engineering side of the tractor business, so in 1953 Massey-harris acquired Ferguson, becoming what is now known as Massey Ferguson.
the first Massey Ferguson, the MF35, was a re-engineered version of a Ferguson prototype. It was the first tractor to use the company’s red and grey livery. the MF35 was in production until 1964. It was superseded by the MF135, a classic machine still sought after today, in secondhand versions, thanks to its simple construction and high reliability.
Charles Foley, Ipswich, Suffolk.
QUESTION Why do we send someone away with a ‘flea in their ear’?
AS A detested parasite that made people’s lives an itchy misery in the days before improvements in public hygiene, fleas were bound to enter the popular phraseology. But having a flea in one’s ear has a subtly different meaning in France, Germany, the netherlands and Britain.
In Britain, the idea of sending someone away with a flea in their ear dates from the 1430s and signifies a sharp rebuke. however, in the original 14th- century French, ‘ mettre la puce a l’oreille’ means ‘to get someone thinking’, with the particular nuance of planting the seeds of suspicion or alarm in their head.
this further developed into the idea of having amorous desire: Jean de la Fontaine wrote in the 17th century: A longing girl With thoughts of sweetheart in her
head, In bed all night will sleepless twirl. A flea is in her ear, ’tis said.
In Dutch, it is a way to say you’re fidgety or restless. In German, it means someone has a fixed mindset.
Whatever the nuance, the idea is unpleasant. But as the East Germans used to say, ‘ Lieber einen Floh im Ohr, als eine Wanze im Telefon’: ‘Better a flea in your ear than a bug in your phone.’ Mrs Jennifer Dunne, Shrewsbury.
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