'Great Fun In Grassington'

I had a lovely time up in Yorkshire at the Grassington Dickensian Festival! Its rather a LONG way to go from Hastings for a two day break but well worth it in my opinion.

Grassington is a traditional Yorkshire village full of those quaint, olde-worlde stone buildings and its situated high up in the hills so the air is always fresh and clean. I was lucky this time to see real snow on the rooftops of the buildings while I was there and the scenery all around Grassington was also similarly festive looking with its dusting of the powdery stuff!

Even luckier was the fact that none of the pavements were slippery or dangerous as the amount of snow in the area had not been enough to lay on the paths and roads just 'decorate' the tops of things. This was just as well as there are lots of cobbled stone walkways and paths in Grassington and there are a few steep-ish climbs on your way around the village, which could be quite a hazard in bad weather.

Grassington is not very big and you can walk around the market in the town square and look at most of the stalls in around an hour if that is all you want to go there for. The Dickensian Festival works though because of the spirit in which the locals 'get into' both the Christmas spirit and the swing of dressing up in Dickensian clothes!

I met the Town Crier while I was there and he was delighted when I congratulated him and the people of the village for making Grassington the 'Murray Walker of Christmas Attractions'. When people are enjoying themselves and are happy to do all they can to create a lovely, old-fashioned Christmassy environment the enthusiasm they give off is infectious and so most of the fun in going to the festival is in the 'hanging around' to soak up as much of the atmosphere, hear as many of the carol singers, brass bands and other musical performers as you can and watch the many different Morris Dancing groups that 'do their turn' throughout the day.

I took over 100 photos (some of which you can see here) and have a good deal of fun footage to edit and upload to my Youtube channel (Maybrick44) as soon as I can. If you take a look at those films you will see what I mean (I hope!) and get a flavour of what it feels like to be in Grassington on a cold December day.

I was especially lucky to get the footage I did when I did as the longer the day went on the more packed the place became! While it was nice to see people enjoying themselves it does make 'taking your time to savour' something more difficult when you are constantly likely to be in somebodies way. My advise to you therefore if you want to experience the festival in a more laid back and leisurely way is to arrive as early as you can...

During my time in the village I ate a LOVELY warm bowl of Apple crumble and custard (£3) to keep the chill of the season at bay AND went over to the local school where they were selling a variety of fresh cakes, teas and coffee's (another £3). Some of the school children were dressed up as 'urchins' and one of them was ringing a bell and calling people over for 'teas, cakes and coffeees!'. I spoke to some of the mums who were taking part and joked about the use of child labour and had a few nice words with an elderly couple while I sat and munched my chocolate cream slice and drank my tea!

There was also a Tombola but I forgo that as I didn't want to have to carry anything. Back in the village there were regular calls of 'Chesnuts! Hot Chestnuts!' from the street sellers and I managed to listen to a REALLY good Choir singing 'Joy To The World' as well as hear one of the brass bands play a festive take on Jona Lewie's, 'Stop The Cavalry'.

There was also a HILARIOUS double-act of 'Scrooge' sitting in a wheel around cart with a blanket over him and his 'Mad Hatter' like 'friend', who was wheeling him. 'Scrooge' was in a good mood and taking much pleasure from abusing people, wishing them ' a horrible Christmas' and 'singing' Christmas carols as badly and off-key as he could to annoy people!

As the light started to go so the many twinkling lights around the village began to come into their own and just before it was time for me to go it actually started snowing! What a perfect setting for a festive break, eh?

P.S.) I also handed out a few free copies of my, 'A Nod To Mr. Dickens' Christmas album while I was on holiday. My old mate, Alan Gaywood was on my mind as it was his CD collection that paid for the trip and I felt he would appreciate me showing a bit of kindness to some of the BRILLIANT and Christmassy individuals whom I felt were going the extra mile to make Christmas brilliant for others. Hopefully, Charles Dickens would approve of that sentiment as well! I even wanted to give a copy to Scrooge and his 'friend' but they disappeared and I couldn't find them again!

 I  did give a copy to the lovely ladies on the 'crumble & custard' stall (they were also selling other things including mulled wine) who were kind enough to pose for a photo and  also to one of the mums at the school. She had a small boy there and I told her that he would most probably like, 'If Santa Was A D.J.'!

It will be interesting to see if I hear anything from any of the people I spoke to and gave a copy of the album...

I'll write more of my 'adventures' in Yorkshire soon...