Grewelthorpe
a North Yorkshire Village
Les Taylor - Oral History
Les Taylor describes his reminiscences of Grewelthorpe from the 1930s in the form of a walk through the village. The recordings are in MP3 format.
In the first recording Les describes how his parents came to be living in the Old Post Office.
Les’s Father Frank Taylor was badly injured in the ’14 War and worked in Nottingham before coming back to the Grewelthorpe area.
Click here for the MP3 file 2.5 MB.
Les’s mother was Gertrude Taylor and his sister is Irene Taylor.
Les was born on 9th January 1925 in a little shop next to the Hackfall Inn, known today as the Old Post Office.
It became the Post Office when Les’s father applied for the job as Postmaster in the early 1930s.
From the old post office to Thorpe Mill.
In this second recording Les describes some of the activity associated with the Post Office in the 1930s and tells us about some of the people who lived in the houses close by and along past the Church to Thorpe Mill.
Click here for the MP3 file 3.9 MB.
School Days
In this recording Les tells us how he started school and describes some of the activity in the school. Miss Bennett was the infants school teacher.
Click here for the MP3 file 1.8 MB.
From the Pond End of the Village to Naegill
In this recording Les tells us about the people who lived between the pond end of the village and Naegill.
Click here for the MP3 file 7.5 MB.
From Naegill to Hackfall
Click here for the MP3 file 5.1 MB.
Footnote.
During his working life Les became the Post Master for Ripon. He is very well known locally for his illustrated talks. Unfortunately his eye sight has now deteriorated very much so and his descriptions here are made from memory without the use of notes.
Les is credited with inventing and describing the Ripon Rowel walk. His book on the Ripon Rowel walk is still available details here.
I am Les Taylors son in law .
I am very sad to say that Les passed away on the 1st of February 2016.
Ian
at 84 just learning lap top thanks for all the interesting history allways I will remember the sad incident with the mortar bombs we found on Masham moor going to school on that day saved my life my good wishes to all.