Amy-Jane Beer
Prolific naturalist writer Amy-Jane Beer is the new voluntary president of Yorkshire Dales environmental campaigning charity Friends of the Dales. Amy lives on the Castle Howard Estate.
What’s your first Yorkshire memory? Being met at York station by the man l’d later marry. We’d had a holiday romance in Australia, and I wasn’t yet sure if there was more to it than that. He drove me out to the Dales and as one vast view after another opened up, I fell for Yorkshire and for him at the same time.
What’s your favourite part of the county – and why? I’m a kayaker and a swimmer so I have to say the becks and rivers of the Dales, with their dippers and banks, their habit of coming and going above and below ground, their curves and cascades.
What’s your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in Yorkshire? A weekend definitely, because I love to be out as day becomes night or vice-versa. I’d pick May in the Dales so that I could wake to the sound of skylark and curlew songs, spend the day walking, exploring caves and crags and the limestone pavement, take a dip in at least one plunge pool and end the day with a good old pub dinner close to a campsite where I’m allowed a fire.
Do you have a favourite walk – or view? So tough to pick one, but if you climb the waterfall at Gordale Scar (surely one of England’s steepest and craziest public footpaths), you reach a place of peregrines and old gods – Yorkshire’s own Valhalla. And from there it’s possible to walk north via Littondale to the view of Pen-y-Ghent that formed the backdrop to our wedding photos.
Which Yorkshire sportsman, past or present, would you like to take for lunch? I’m going to take two, both kayakers. The amazing eight-time world champion freestyle paddler Claire O’Hara from Leeds, though she now lives in Australia; and the expedition kayaker Daz Clarkson, who’s a Bradford boy, though he now spends most of his time in North Wales and the Himalayas. We’d talk about adventure and self-care and protecting rivers.
Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, past or present, would you like to take for dinner? Sir Patrick Stewart, please. He can summon up something amazing from one of those Star Trek meal generators with a glowing, hallucinogenic alien spirit that looks like WKD Blue, but tastes like a fiery single malt.
If you had to name your Yorkshire ‘hidden gem’, what would it be? Well, it would no longer be hidden or secret. So I’m keeping that one to myself, sorry.
If you could choose somewhere, or some object, from or in Yorkshire to own for a day, what would it be? Without a doubt one of the Mesolithic antler headdresses excavated from the site of the astonishing archaeological site at Star Carr, near Scarborough. Of course no one really knows, but they have been interpreted as the regalia of shamans, ritually deposited in the lake that once existed there. They are objects of extraordinary rarity and power. Wearing one for a day I would be able to channel all the inscrutable wisdom of the wild.
What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity? I’m not a travel agent or promoter so I don’t have to pretend to believe in such things. Yorkshire has myriad identities – one for everyone who lives here or visits.
Do you follow sport in the county, and if so, what? I’ve never been much of a follower, but sports I’ve loved over the years include fell running and hillwalking, orienteering, kayaking, mountain-biking and wild swimming. I’m not competitive though. For me, they are all merely ways of getting out into amazing places, where I want to be able to stop and watch wildlife, climb a tree or daydream.
Do you have a favourite restaurant, or pub? Mmmm, several. Our local is the Stone Trough Inn at Kirkham Abbey, but I also have a soft spot for the Green Dragon
at Hardraw, the Lion on Blakey Ridge, and the original House of Trembling Madness in York.
Do you have a favourite food shop? My local town is Malton, so we are spoiled for foodie options. I’m going to hijack the question and say that more important to me is our brilliant new independent bookshop, Kemps. It’s become my main reason for going into town.
How do you think that Yorkshire has changed, for better or for worse, in the time that you’ve known it? There is a move to wilding and ecological restoration and regenerative agriculture and I genuinely think we’re turning a corner where more farmers, land managers and environmentalists are starting to find common ground. Meanwhile the intensification of grouse moor management, pheasant shoots and some forms of agriculture in the face of a climate and biodiversity crises is deeply concerning. It’s heartening though to see
Friends of the Dales taking a stance on our eroding peatlands.
If you had to change one thing in, or about Yorkshire, what would that be? The leave vote. It broke my heart that this extraordinary ancient melting pot of peoples couldn’t find another way to express its collective desire for whatever it was each individual hoped to gain. I feel that it’s hurt us all.
Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire? I’m dazzled and awed by the poetry of Ted Hughes, but as a man he wasn’t always admirable. So I’m going to say the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust conservationist Jon Traill. He’s wise, kind, astonishingly patient, and he works minor miracles on behalf of nature.
Has Yorkshire influenced your work? Oh, hugely. I write about place, and though I’m a blow-in, this has been home for 20 years – far longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. I see things here every day that I want to write about.
Name your favourite Yorkshire book (author/artist/CD/ performer). Common Ground by Rob Cowen – he’s brilliant on the visceral wildness within and around us.
If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be? Malham. The circular walk via Janet’s Foss and Gordale Scar to the Cove is our Yosemite Valley.