Friday Get Together, June report

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Squeezed into the precipitous Calder valley, like a cork about to pop out of a bottle, Sowerby Bridge fizzes with atmosphere, and there are plenty of champagne moments for folk of a picaresque sensibility who warm to the more saturnine corners of this sceptred Isle. It’s a great slapping Yorkshire lass of a place, prone to glamour on first acquaintance, but increasingly wreathed in self-deprecating smiles as inti​macy grows. With this unlikely quote Melvyn Cross started his talk entitled ‘Learning the ropes’. Melvyn celebrated a significant birthday this spring, and with his wife, Joan, decided to mark the occasion by Hiring a Shire Cruiser on the Calder and Hebble canal, as a beginner, sailing to Wakefield and back in a week, the birthday boy as the skipper. Instruction seems to have been minimal, but with a few mishaps they seem to have managed well. They were joined on the way for days, or overnight by friends, and family, including four grandchildren, and a very jolly time was had by all Afternoon tea was served, The collection was for Christian Aid The next meeting is on Friday, June 21 at 2.30pm. Frank Wright will be the speaker, and his subject is ‘The village butcher’. Everyone is welcome.