Settle in and let Old Tom, a retired Yorkshire Dales shepherd, walk you through one January night in eighteen eighty on a small hill farm at the head of Swaledale. The snow is on the fell, the hay is carried out to the field barns on a man’s back, the cows sleep through the wall from the kitchen, and peat and Tan Hill coal burn on the range. There is haverbread drying on the creel, knitting sticks clicking by the fire, a sick ewe in a basket on the hearth, lead-mining neighbours from down the dale, and a box bed with frost on the glass. The family are imagined, the dale and the winter are from the record, and where historians are not sure, Tom says so. Calm, honest about what we know and don’t, and a little bit boring, so you can drift off to sleep.
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The family on the farm is imagined; everything around them is based on the historical record, and where historians aren’t sure, OT says so.
CHAPTERS
0:00:00 Settling In
0:03:52 Upper Swaledale, January 1880
0:09:14 The Harkers and Their Lad
0:14:06 Hay in the Field Barns
0:18:26 Foddering in the Snow
0:24:28 Sheep on the Fell
0:30:03 Under the Drift
0:35:38 One Long Roof
0:41:29 The Cows Next Door
0:46:44 Peat, Coal and the Range
0:53:17 A Sick Ewe by the Fire
0:58:10 Oatcake on the Bakstone
1:03:14 Supper by Lamp and Rushlight
1:09:31 Monday Was Washing Day
1:14:38 The Knitting Sticks
1:21:07 Neighbours from the Lead Mines
1:28:05 Wool and Clogs
1:32:34 Chapel on Sunday
1:37:14 The Carrier and the Post
1:41:01 The Clock and the Almanac
1:45:25 Up to Bed by Candle
1:50:10 Frost on the Glass
1:55:24 Dawn Foddering
1:59:05 Goodnight from the Farm
Sleep with OT: calm history to fall asleep to.
#historyforsleep #sleepstory #victorianhistory #yorkshiredales copy
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