Gilling East, Ryedale: The 1940s and 50s Remembered

GILLING EAST, RYEDALE:
THE 1940s AND 50s REMEMBERED
by Michael Air, Kenneth England, Antony Smailes, Peter Smailes
(Edited by Peter Smailes)

Including links to some genuine Yorkshire Dialect recordings

This little piece of personal history aims to give future generations of residents in the North Yorkshire parish of Gilling East, and Ryedale generally, a sense of what ordinary life was like for those of us who lived there as children and young adults in the 1940s and 1950s.  Sixty or more years later (between 2008 and 2011), it happened that four Gilling people independently felt the urge to record their memories of Gilling life in those turbulent years. Originally, we wrote mainly with our respective children, grandchildren and descendants in mind, but on reflection realized that this folk-history of our village and its people may also have a more general value of its own.  Three of the four of us were born and bred in Gilling, the fourth being the grandson of a Gilling farmer, who visited his mother’s home village for extended stays in his childhood, and regarded it as his second home.  Like all of Ryedale, Gilling was part of the traditional Yorkshire rural society that was living through great changes during our childhood.  We were probably the last generation privileged to experience many of the older folkways.  

Given by Peter Smailes, editor and co-author, to the Ryedale Family History Group to be shared with the people of Gilling, past and present, and to the people of Ryedale.