Canon John Twisleton’s talk at TT 100 launch party

Canon John Twisleton’s talk at Tom Twisleton 100  launch party

Thursday 16th February 2017 in Settle

I’m delighted to be really back in Settle on such a day as this. I’m ‘Back in Settle’ on Facebook - but here for Uncle Tom’s Centenary launch – that’s a life event! I’m proud to have helped bring today about with Anne Reade, and to be helping bring the next nine months about - with all of you.

Uncle Tom – my grand dad’s cousin – was known as such by my father, Greg, born 1900, who first walked me up to Winskill and introduced me to Tom’s poems. Dad thought I inherited the same gene as ‘Lang Tom’ – the name Tom uses of himself. I got nick-named ‘Fourth Peak’ at Giggleswick School! Dad showed me the precious family relic from an early 19th century newspaper of Tom’s towering dad Frank nicknamed ‘The Craven Giant’ 7 foot 6 inches!

That press cutting got me going as a youth on local history, going up to today. I’m delighted to be here and that my work on the Twisleton’s will help young people here run a project that can be the making of them, Settle and the dialect. I wouldn’t be here today without our former Mayor Joe Lord. His youthful enthusiasm seized on Uncle Tom to teach dialect in school – and seized on me in the process.

We look forward to republishing Tom’s ‘Poems in the Craven Dialect’ with a supplement of contemporary poems at the end of this exciting nine month journey I’m to be part of – in the wings. If you don’t know, I’m Dalesman become Downsman. I live in Haywards Heath between London and Brighton near the South Downs. Before that my family lived at 1 Stackhouse Lane, over the wine shop, 7 Falcon Close and 5 Whitefriars Court from where my mother Elsie moved to us 6 years ago. 95 last week she is in remarkable health of mind and body and wishes to be remembered. It was a delight to see 50 or so folk liking my post about Elsie and sending messages to her via ‘Back to Settle’.

Uncle Tom’s Facebook Page and Centenary website touch on five things  we’ll be weaving into his project – the Dales, dialect, farming, temperance and Twisletons near and far.

Amongst what’s great about Tom is the way he excites us to reflect on the beautiful land we live on, to quote one of his poems, a land Of frownin’ cliffs an’ lofty crags, which raise aloft their points an’ jags, romantic’ly an’ grand; Of rounded piles of limestone white, like batter’d towers of ancient might built by some giant’s hand. Tom’s helped me love Craven, write about it and promote it. May he help get us all going from today!

Our Craven dialect comes from living by hills and dales that isolate us and help preserve the distinctive way we speak English. I saw that Yorkshire Post headline on Uncle Tom’s project: Craven dialect to be saved through new Settle heritage project. We do so aspire – and it will mean developing the gift of listening among our youth, listening to their elders better formed in the dialect, not just for posterity, but conversations that will school the next generation in Craven dialect.

Uncle Tom’s family has farmed the Dales for over a thousand years. ‘Twisleton’ folk lived in a settlement (‘tun’) on a river fork (‘twisla’) on the slopes of Whernside above Ingleton, where Kingsdale and Chapel le Dale meet. Go up from Ingleton along Twisleton Lane, which bisects the Waterfalls walk, and you pass Twisleton Manor to Twisleton Hall below Twisleton Scars.  

Tom’s farming, at Winskill, above Langliffe and the former Twisleton home of Sherwood House, is well described in his first volume of poems. ‘Splinters off Winskill Rock’ tells  how his writing stops in lambing season ‘hevin’ miss’d a deal o’ sleep, wi’ sittin’ up an’ watchin’ t’ sheep… my heead for thowt was just as fit as if ‘t were med o’ wood’. This Centenary is occasion for celebrating farming, a vital ongoing pursuit in Craven. I’m grateful for my friend Tom Lord’s leadership towards this Centenary launch and his plans to engage us up at Winskill over the year. Tom Twisleton shows us some of the creativity that flows from farming, living mindful and thoughtful, close to the land and our fellow creatures.

I identify with my poet Uncle in his concern for good values serving the common good, in his writing and campaigning for temperance.  Values come from vision. Tom like his father Frank taught a Christian vision of fulfilment that in their case excluded alcohol use. With wit and humour they engaged that vision with folk on the rough end of things helping them get their lives turned round. Tom’s ‘penny readings’ at the regular Settle Temperance Festival are very powerful.

I value especially his poems against hypocrisy such as ‘Church gangin’ that I’ve read to my own congregation at St Giles, Horsted Keynes. It’s a series of verses describing the very mixed motives that might have been found at worship 150 years ago, I guess, in St Alkelda, Giggleswick.  Uncle Tom’s a bridge figure church-wise, baptised at St Alkelda’s and buried so to speak from Zion. I’m keen with my friend, our Vicar, The Revd Hilary Young to mark his Centenary in a visionary and ecumenical Memorial Service over the Festival weekend to be built around Tom’s poems.

Uncle Tom’s poems were mainly written during his time farming at Winskill. Later in life he moved to Menston, Burley in Wharfedale where he’s buried in God’s Acre cemetery.  We’ll have some Twisleton’s from afar, not just my family, coming to our November weekend. Tom’s brother and son, both confusingly called Henry Lea and non-dialect poets, became pioneer settlers in New Zealand. Tom’s grandson Dick Twisleton who died in 2013 regularly corresponded with me and authored a family history. I keep in touch with some of Dick’s nephews and nieces, as in a meeting last month sort of half way in Hong Kong. My youngest son, James, is currently studying there on an exchange scheme from Sussex. My wife Anne and I met up with James and Uncle Tom’s great great grandson Marcus Turver and his family.

So far as the Twisleton’s go – I rather speak for them today – we’re delighted at Sita Brand’s initiative through Settle Stories attaining Heritage Lottery Funding to fund Hazel Richardson. Settle is honouring our distinguished forbear and we want to place what resources we have online and at the service of the young people, Settle Stories, The Folly and so on. I’m keen the Centenary helps land more about the history of Twisleton’s Yard and my grandmother’s shop sited formerly below the Coop.  What we do in Settle from today will impact and gain follow up across Yorkshire, across the UK Twisleton clan – my cousin Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes knows about it – and in New Zealand where there’s Uncle Tom’s son Frank’s writings about World War One have gained prominence in that Centenary with a special exhibition in Napier.

It’s good to be ‘back in Settle’ tonight, not just on the Facebook group of that name, making history from history and, as we do, celebrating our Dales, our dialect, our farming, our values and Twisletons near and far in space and time - and our young people as their gifts shape the year. I look forward to conversations over the next hour as I put myself at your service as Settle marks Uncle Tom’s Centenary with a project thrilling with potential.