Chapter 5: Storm Bert and the Wessie (pronounced Weh-zee): Noun: (Yorkshire, slang, often derogatory). A person from West Yorkshire
Hi all, I should have bee driving 310 miles to Sherborne Dorset, but storm Bert put stop to that. I should have been enjoying my Latte sat on a bench overlooking Bridlington Harbour harbour when a portly looking man on the next bench belowed into his phone;
'Efin Wessies, cum over Fridays in their efin cars with their efin kids and him over thi er - he points at a couple scoffing fish and chips- e's never givn me owt fo fact a let im park in me efin parking space every efin weekend. Efin pint or fish and chips wud be nice but nowt, all they ever say as leaving is, "see ya later" and their off. Efin Wessies"
I was planning to respond and say, 'excuse me old chap but I am a Wessie and live here' but given my accent has gone all funny in fifty years down south I thought better of it.
Instead I sit at my new shiney, intel core ultra 5, all in one thingy typing. I need to know more about this tribe - The Wessie Tribe - to which I very firmly belong - as they clearly sound interesting. Enjoy...
Did you know the Wessie Tribe would have come 8th in the 2012 Olympics medal table had it been an independent country? Yorkshire claimed; 7 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze medals. Yes there must be something in the water so lets go back in time to see where our trousers [Genes, silly] come from:
Lads [and lasses] from Yorkshire
Wessie (pronounced Weh-zee): noun: (Yorkshire, slang, often derogatory) A person from the West Riding of Yorkshire.
In the ninth century the growth
of all the Christian kingdoms of the English was disrupted by invaders from
Scandinavia. Most of those came to Yorkshire across the North Sea from Denmark.
The Vikings first arrived in Yorkshire
on November 1, 866, when they attacked the Anglo-Saxon town of York. The
boundaries of Yorkshire, which were settled during the Viking period, and which
remained until 1974, are roughly those of the Danish kingdom of York (Jorvik)
which was ruled over by more than a dozen kings between A.D. 875, when Halfdan,
the son of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok, who founded the kingdom, ruled, and
A.D. 954 when the kingdom was lost by Eric Bloodaxe. For the rest of the period
until the Norman Conquest Yorkshire was re-absorbed into the English kingdom
and the Danelaw ceased to exist. The subdivision of Yorkshire into three
ridings or "thirds" (Old Norse: Þriðungr) took place during the early
Viking rule. The West Riding was first recorded (in the form West Treding) in
the Domesday Book of 1086.
See what I mean about the genes! Not easy to row accross the North Sea and jog 30 miles to York for a party on a Saturday night unless your made of tough stuff, me thinks.
In its later days the Kingdom of
York became more and more dependent on the rest of England. The last of the
English kings to reign before the arrival of the Normans in 1066 was Harold,
son of Godwin, who was partly Danish. He lost his throne and his life after a
reign of only 40 weeks, largely because he punished his brother, Tostig, for
ill-treating the northern subjects into whose care Harold had placed them.
Tostig’s offences included the murder of a local chieftain in Yorkshire, Gamel,
in 1065. The names of Tostig and Garnel appear on an inscription on the
sundial, which dates from 1055, which refers to the rebuilding of St Gregory’s
Minster by ‘Orm the son of Gamel … in the days of King Edward and Earl Tostig’.
Tostig formed an alliance with the Norwegian king, Harold Hardrada, and
together they invaded Yorkshire in 1066. Having harried the coast from
Cleveland to Spurn, they sailed up the Humber and the Ouse to Riccall, and from
there marched on York. After defeating an English army under Edwin and Morcar
at Fulford, they camped at Stamford Bridge and there awaited King Harold, on 25
September 1066. The battle of Stamford
Bridge marked Harolds death and the end of Viking rule.
Although Harold was the last
Anglo-Danish king of England, the AngloDanish strain in the ancestry of the
people of Yorkshire remained, and indeed remains to this day. Traces of Danish
speech are still to be found, especially in the dialect of the folk who live by
the Yorkshire coast. The Yorkshire open ‘a’ is Danish; so is the Yorkshire name
for a brook, beck; and the Yorkshire use of gate for street. Many Yorkshire
village names are of Danish origin, the -thwaites; the -bys; and most of the
-wicks, -kirks, and -thorpes. On the other hand, the -leys, and the -tons and
the -hams are of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Throw in the Wars of the Roses
(too long a tale for here) and we arrive at the industrial revolution. The
Industrial Revolution in Yorkshire began in the late 18th century. Inventions
and improvements to manufacturing processes, together with certain benefits of
geology and geography and the presence or otherwise of established practices
and traditions, determined the progress of industrial change. One of the major
natural resources in the county is coal and the large coal measures, covering
over 3,000 square miles, stretching from the middle of the Aire Valley,
southwards through Sheffield and into Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, were
important in establishing the West Riding of Yorkshire as one of the main
industrial areas in the country. Another mixing of genes as the Celtic
(ginger hair) and Viking combination paved the way for those future Olympic
golds.
[A bit of me and a lot of https://www.wilcuma.org.uk/northumbria/yorkshire]
As you can see us West Riding of
Yorkshire folk have evolved over many centuries to be the proud Wessie men and woman
of today. I did type a different sentence but may have been censored.
I started this blog by saying every summer from 866 onwards the Vikings would invade our east coast. A different invasion started 980 years later in 1845 with the opening of the railway between the West Riding and the coastal towns of Bridlington, Filey, Scarborough and Whitby. I made my first Wessie journey to Brid by train age four, Acton Hall Colliery annual day out for the kids.
Bridlington expanded rapidly with a direct train line to the heart of Wessieland , Pontefract, Castleford and my beloved Featherstone all 90 minutes by steam train.
I therefore say a big thank you to my fellow bloody Wessie’s, cos without you we wouldn’t have the beautiful Bridlington I see before me.
Might not be an olympic gold but what happens next shows just who's genes I possess. It's about to get scary.
Colin
Ps I am dyslexic and can't spell but thats ok.
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