Sherburn farmer, Don Bramley, has dug into his many archives of tapes, jottings and photographs to produce this enthralling book straight from many “horses mouths” (so to speak). The villages of Sherburn-in-Elmet, South Milford, Monk Fryston and Fairburn and their citizens, both past and present, are particularly well covered.

All the subjects tell their stories in their own way

• A crystal set radio making wheelwright and undertaker
• Lord King’s ex-mining mechanic
• A Bookie’s runner
• A railway wheel-tapper
• A perfect village headmaster
• A cricket secretary of seventy years
• A blind gentleman’s gentleman
• A blacksmith from Devon
• and more!

Long gone shops and farms are listed as well as the Good Old Days of farming, steam ploughing and threshing. Other chapters tell of the last cattle at Home Farm and the sad demise in 1993 of Church Fenton Young Farmers Club

Favourite writers J.L. Carr and A.G. Street also get a chapter.

Don tells of the cycling adventures of his father Jim to Aberdeen, Brighton and Switzerland and sport is well covered with rugby, cricket and badminton as well as the ploughing competitions which have become an annual event at Home Farm.

The Pollum Farm fire of 1929, the Sherburn Windmill fire of 1921 and the Saxton murder of 1933 are long gone tragedies recounted within the pages.  Nurse Metcalfe of Church Fenton tells of her experiences in Salonika during the First World War and of her peacetime role attending to the nursing needs of 25 villages on her bicycle.