High on the Saddleworth hills, the Oldham family have created an inspiring kitchen garden which provides a wealth of rich flavours for the kitchen and larder. This column, written by Andrew and Carol, follows their journey throughout the year
For more information, visit their website www.lifeonpigrow.co.uk
PIG ROW is just one of many hamlets that stagger across the Saddleworth hills following the old toll road.
The hamlets that dot our hillsides are so old that those that live there don’t have to defend the right to be Yorkshire men and women – they are too busy remembering the old names for the land.
Even where we are, the old meres are remembered, the names for the moor, the people that lived here are carved into the land.
We even refer to Huddersfield Road as the ‘new road’ as if there is some sort of ill-fated newness to it all.
Living in a hamlet is to accept these clusters of buildings didn’t happen by chance, they happened for survival and not to please tourists. This act of survival was also an act of defiance – hill life is not easy even in these days of central heating, running water and electricity.
These things will pass, as the names of the hamlets have passed, as even the boundaries of our beloved Saddleworth have passed – but you cannot take the defiance from us.
This is not a Northern thing, this has nothing to do with pies, flat caps and vowels that stretch down valley sides. This defiance is all about the land we live on, survive with and in some cases, in spite of.
People don’t miss names, they don’t miss boundaries, they miss the land; the memory of the land and the sound of the land. It is always hard to give up the land. It leaves a hole.
Names pass but these hills will take millions of years to grind to dust. It is always hard for those who love the land to give it up, be it a patch by the back door, an allotment, a small holding or farm.
It’s a difficult thing to explain to someone who doesn’t see the land, it’s impossible to discuss with someone who sees the land as something to force ‘progress’ on. It’s almost as if the explanation of how we feel is just around the bend, just out of reach.
To give up land because of age, because of ‘progress’, because… can be hard to accept. A gardener who cannot garden the land leaves sorrow in the soil, a lament to what was, summers gone, autumns fallen for the final time.
You must be logged in to post a comment.