This year’s Stray Ferret Christmas Appeal is to raise £30,000 for a much-needed minibus for Dementia Forward in the Harrogate district. 

The appeal is kindly sponsored by Vida Healthcare.

Please give generously to support local people and their families living with dementia. Let’s not forget who needs our help this Christmas.

Today, Flora spoke to a mother and daughter who use the charity’s services.

Growing up, parents seem invincible, and the thought of one day caring for them seems a lifetime away.

But in reality, thousands of people are caring for their parents living with dementia, and losing their loved ones before their very eyes.

One of them is Beverley Mitcheson, who looks after her mother, Mary Yelland. They told us their story.

Mary was once a talented window-dresser. She is a mother to her children, grandmother to her grandchildren and even great-grandmother to her great-grandchildren – Mary lived a normal life before getting dementia.

Beverley said:

“We noticed a lot of changes in mum, and we all knew she wasn’t remembering things, but it wasn’t until last year that we finally took action.

“There’s no handbook in these situations – you don’t know what to do.”

Beverley felt at a loss as to how best to support her 91-year-old mother, who had recently been diagnosed with this progressive disease.

Luckily, her husband had noticed the Dementia Forward minibus around the area and got in touch about Mary’s diagnosis.

Beverley said:

“As a carer, you never feel you’re doing enough.”

Beverley took on the role as her mum’s carer 18 months ago and, as a mother and grandmother herself, struggled to juggle it all.

After a home visit from the Dementia Forward team, they stepped in to provide Mary with specialist care she needed.

Fast forward a year, and she now goes attends the Hub Club twice a week with a smile on her face.

Beverley added:

“I couldn’t manage without these two days.

“I love my mum so much – she’s happy.

“I know she’s stimulated here – which is something I can’t do for her –  and they’re the main things.”

Mary with other members at the Hub Club.

The Hub Club offers those living with dementia the opportunity to spend the day at the Burton Leonard site. They play board games, have coffee and cake over crosswords, take part in quizzes and listen to their favourite songs. But most importantly, the members are socialising.

Dementia can be extremely isolating and people often feel misunderstood, but the group combats that and makes those people feel understood.

Beverley added:

“Dementia isn’t physical – people can’t see it – so, for her to be somewhere she’s understood is just amazing.”

The charity has brought light to a life-changing situation for Mary and Beverley, as well as hundreds of other families across the Harrogate district.

Mary said:

“When I come here, I just feel like I’m going to see my friends – it’s like a family.

“It’s like entering a haven where I don’t need to worry about anything. It’s a home for me.”

However, Beverley still has to watch this dementia take her mother from her.

Dementia Forward continues to support them, along with thousands of other families every week, but it can only do so with the help of charitable donations.

Every donation to our campaign will go directly to Dementia Forward, helping us hit our £30,000 target to buy the charity a new minibus and bettering the lives of those living with dementia and the people around them.

Dementia Forward’s current bus is old and urgently needs to be replaced. The charity would seriously struggle to afford a new one, which is why they need your help to keep this vital service going. Without it, many people living with dementia wouldn’t be able to access the help and support they need. 

Click here to donate whatever you can – you never know when you, your family or your friend may be in need of Dementia Forward’s help too.

Thank you.

The NHS found 1 in 11 people over the age of 65 in the UK are living with dementia. For those who need urgent help or have a dementia-related enquiry, call 0330 057 8592 to speak to a helpline adviser.

A marathon spell of bell ringing will take place tomorrow to mark the 1,350th anniversary of the consecration of Ripon Cathedral.

The cathedral’s bell ringers will attempt a peal to mark the consecration by St Wilfrid in the year 672.

Peals are traditionally rung to mark significant events in the history of both the cathedral and the city.

Over 160 peals have been rung at the cathedral since the first in 1764.

A post on the cathedral’s Facebook page said:

“A peal requires at least 5,040 changes to be rung continuously and without repetition or mistake and will take up to three-and-a-half hours to complete, so it poses a significant mental and physical challenge to the bell ringers.

“The attempt will be made by members of the Yorkshire Association of Change Ringers under the leadership of Martin Davies, the cathedral ringing master, and will start at around 9.30am. We wish them luck!”

Read more:

• Revealed: the three Harrogate district sites that could become investment zones
• Bequest could bring new recreational facilities to Quarry Moor in Ripon

Thousands of people lined the streets of Ripon to watch the return of the historic St Wilfrid’s Procession.

It was a party atmosphere as the crowds clapped and cheered as the parade made its way around the city, which is celebrating its 1,350th anniversary.

Led by an actor on horseback playing the role of St Wilfrid, the parade was accompanied by the award-winning Ripon City Band.

An actor on horseback playing the role of St Wilfrid.

It featured a colourful assortment of decorated floats, with designs created by businesses and organisations, including Bishopton Vets, Ripon Farm Services and Winksley cum Grantley Young Farmers Club.

You can watch a video of the procession on the Stray Ferret Facebook page here.

The parade was unable to go ahead in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

Bishopton Vets’ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory float.

But it was back in force today, with a total of 16 floats taking part.

Antony Prince, chairman of the St Wilfrid’s Procession Committee, said:

“It has been a huge success. It’s fantastic that it is able to take place again.

“The community and public have really got behind it. There is no procession without all the people who put it together. They are all volunteers and all the money raised goes back into keeping it going.

“The weather has held off and it is just fabulous to get the community back together again.”

Ripon Farm Services’ Top Gun float.

The quarter hour chime of the cathedral clock reminded visitors to Dean John Dobson’s Ripon garden that it was time to toast a successful launch to the city’s 1350 celebrations.

There was also a sense of relief that the annual beer festival he and his family host was back after two years of covid lockdowns.

Dean John, enjoying his pint of Wilfrid’s Ale — specially created in honour of Ripon’s patron saint — told the Stray Ferret:

“People have clearly missed it and this is looking like our biggest-ever turn out.

“It’s a great conclusion to the 1350 launch weekend, which provided the prelude to a whole host of activities and events between now and October.”

The bar team at the beer festival, ready to serve the first customers.

Bishop’s fingers on the pump – the Rt Revd. Jonathan Gibbs, who is the Bishop of Huddersfield, gave the bar team a helping hand

Baby Levi and his dad, Ben, were also on bar duty

To accompany the food and beers, seven bands provided live music.

The hundreds of people present between 11.30am and 5pm to try out some fine examples of the brewers’ craft, added to the thousands who had visited the cathedral for a wide range of events, talks and displays in honour of St Wilfrid, who founded the cathedral in AD 672.

Read more:

• The party gets started for Ripon’s patron saint
• Ripon wrapped in jubilee bunting

Ripon Cathedral is to celebrate the life and legacy of Wilfrid, its founding father, in a series of events marking its 1,350th anniversary.

The cathedral today revealed details of the programme, which include a sound and light show about Wilfrid’s life and an initiative to suspend stars from the nave.

Four artists will transform the cathedral’s Anglo Saxon crypt – the last remains of the church Wilfrid founded on the site and the oldest surviving building in any English Cathedral.

In addition, there will be arts, crafts, music, lectures, worship, pilgrimage opportunities, flower displays and the traditional St Wilfrid’s Day procession through the city.

The cathedral flooded the west front with words from the war poet, Wilfred Owen, and lit up in red to mark the centenary of the Armistice in 2018.

The cathedral has staged numerous art events before.

During lockdown it suspended tens of thousands of paper angels in the nave.

Now, in its anniversary year, it has lined-up a series of Wilfrid-themed initiatives.

Miracle maker

The Dean of Ripon, the Very Revd John Dobson said:

“Ripon Cathedral is here because Wilfrid was here. His life and legacy is written in these stones.  He was a miracle maker, a pioneer, a leader and a force to be reckoned with.

“He converted a pagan England and brought something of the beauty of Rome to these shores.

“In this, our anniversary year, we are committed to telling his story afresh, by breathing new life into our history and our heritage and sharing his love for beauty and the arts while ensuring worship is at the heart of all that we do, as Wilfrid, our forefather did before us.”

Tickets have just gone on sale for the anniversary launch weekend, which will take place over the May Bank Holiday weekend.

It will start on April 28 with dancing in the nave to a local jazz and swing band, a beer festival, a pilgrimage from Bradford Cathedral, and a sound and light show finale that promises to recreate Wilfrid’s miracles — including that of a lunar rainbow said to have appeared to the monks of Ripon Monastery one year after his death in 709 AD.

Ripon Bible

Other headline events throughout the year include the premiere of new digital projections from the little-known Ripon Bible.

Currently held in the special collection of the Brotherton Library at Leeds University, this illuminated document in its rich blues, golds and purples is believed to have been created by scholars in Oxford.

Pages from it have been recreated in sound and light and will be projected across the interior of the cathedral, offering visitors the chance to see it for the first time.

Ripon Cathedral

There will also be lectures from historians Tom Holland and Max Adams; a series of tours taking visitors behind the scenes, an organ festival featuring an animation created for piano and organ to tell Wilfrid’s story, while four artists, including Sara Shamma, will transform Ripon’s ancient Anglo-Saxon crypt with specially commissioned works in paint, words, tapestry, and a new light and soundscape.

Read more:

• Arsonists attempt to set fire to Ripon Cathedral
• More children’s activities announced for Ripon Cathedral Spring Show

Jo Bussey, director of development, said:

“We are super excited to bring to life Ripon Cathedral’s rich heritage and history in such exciting and unique ways.

“There’s something for everyone, young and old, art buffs, historians, even pizza, and cake lovers.

Who was St Wilfrid?

Wilfrid was born into a noble Northumbrian family.

A patron of the arts, he studied at Lindisfarne before embracing the Roman ways, was deposed on more than one occasion, and yet helped to unite England behind a single Christian tradition.

It is said he was born in flames, survived shipwrecks and exile and his jailers could not keep him chained.

He was a healer, he kept people from hunger by teaching them to fish, and the moon and stars shone so bright for him that a lunar rainbow appeared on the anniversary of his death.

Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

£11 million Station Gateway a ‘haphazard whim’

Despite all the consultations undertaken by North Yorkshire County Council and others, it seems as though Councillor Don Mackenzie’s scheme is to be implemented whether we like it, or not.

Buoyed by the cycling fraternity that requires cycle lanes everywhere, we are to spend £11million on what is essentially resurfacing of two streets. Oh and a hundred yards of cycle lane that links up to nothing and finishes nowhere.

NYCC spent big in Ripon city centre 20 years ago, it was an utter disaster from the start and still looks dreadful. The poor people of Ripon will, I’m sure testify as to what an ungodly mess NYCC has perpetrated upon them so the chances of getting an impressive out turn in Harrogate isn’t that promising.

But wait, if we are serious about cycling provision the thinking and implementation needs to be joined up, not just a haphazard whim of our local councillor and a couple of cycling pressure groups.

The Stray Act is outdated and needs reform to meet the modern world, the act needs amending to allow cycling on the Stray. We need to stop replacing every square inch of grass with a similar area near the Woodlands pub

Then install a cycleway from Knaresborough Road at the back of the hospital over Wetherby Road, Oatlands Drive, Stray Rein, the railway, and Leeds Road terminating at the Otley Road cycleway that is about to start.

Provide raised plateaus at each road crossing to give cyclists priority.

This arrangement will provide mega cycle route infrastructure through town from east to west and north to south, much safer than on road schemes, cause very little disruption during construction and will give a lasting legacy.

But do we have the bottle to even consider it?

David Howarth, Harrogate

Traffic evidence based on ‘flawed modelling’

Having watched and listened to the Station Gateway presentation on Thursday evening, the reason for the loss of the major A61 route through Harrogate is now clear.

It seems that all the modelling for this project was made using flow numbers taken during lockdown. No wonder pedestrian and vehicle numbers were so low and unrealistic, and the road had been made so narrow!

Before all this costly and wide-ranging change is passed and thrust upon us, please can we have a re-run using typical A61 working day traffic?

Living on this north/south A61 national highway, we are fully aware of the normal use of this main road, which became unusually quiet during pandemic restrictions and road renovations.

There is often heavy traffic in both directions and a real need for the central crossing bollards erected at needful places between the wide traffic lanes.

Half of this traffic will pass down Parliament Street, but the equivalent southbound traffic has to join the shoppers and bus/train users in Station Parade. The video seemed not to show any of this.

The question raised about access to the A61 from the conference centre car-park was scarcely addressed, except to infer that there was no need to cater for it.

It will certainly be a dangerous place for cyclists on either side of the road, let alone pedestrians.

So serious re-run, please, with realism. There is so much new building going on in and around our town that all numbers will surely soon outgrow this dream.

Beryl Dunsby, Harrogate

Read more:

• In Depth: To BID or not to BID? Divided opinion in Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon
• Beech Grove closure officially extended until August 2022

Packed school buses explain Harrogate’s soaring covid rate

I’m not surprised the covid rate is rising. I accompanied my grandson on the school bus Harrogate to Knaresborough a few days ago and it was rammed. Children about 11-15/16 stood and sat shoulder to shoulder. Not one more person could have got on.

No windows were open and not one person except me had a mask on, not even the driver.

My friend in Brighton is suffering a bad dose of covid following an informal singing session. Out of the 70 there at least 30 have tested positive. They had ventilation and and all are double vaccinated.

I’ve read of a new variant, highly contagious, which is suspected in a few cases including a friend’s wife who is currently very ill in hospital down south. It’s been reported in Japan, six cases last I read a few days ago, and Australia, one case, similarly a few days ago, maybe a week.

I’ve heard nothing apart from that. I don’t follow news closely, it’s too depressing.

Teresa Liddell Shepherd, Harrogate

Double standards by cyclists

The Stray Ferret reported Harrogate District Cycle Action group commenting on Tesco’s arguments concerning sustainability:  “That is greenwash, and based on nothing more than a far-fetched hope” and that there should be “segregated, protected cycle tracks on either side of Skipton Road”.

This is the organisation who is actively supporting the Otley Road cycle way also based on nothing more than a far-fetched hope. They have never provided any evidence that it will see motorists on Otley Road forsaking their cars. Or that those motorists are happy to have a narrow pavement, become a shared non-segregated cycle path for Otley Road residents and pedestrians to negotiate.

Double standards?

Chris Dicken, Harrogate

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

Ripon has a tremendous opportunity to enhance its reputation and attract more people from this country and abroad over the next five years.

That’s the view of Ripon Business Improvement District chairman Richard Compton.

In June, Ripon businesses voted in favour of creating a BID, which aims to increase footfall in the city.

Ripon BID will have an annual budget of £160,000 over the next five years to spend on projects that encourage visitors. A BID manager is being recruited.

In the meantime, Mr Compton points to a number of positive developments already taking place, including the refurbishment of the Spa Hotel, the reopening of The Old Deanery Hotel under new operators and the imminent opening of the Claro Lounge, on a high street where voids are steadily finding new occupiers.

Read More: 

• Battle to save Ripon Spa Baths being sold for housing receives boost

• Ripon Curzon cinema to reopen this month with James Bond film

Longer-term he sees even greater opportunities.

He said next year’s 1,350th anniversary of St Wilfrid’s founding of the city’s cathedral could provide a springboard to future growth.

Mr Compton, the owner of Newby Hall, whose own family roots in the area go back centuries, sees heritage, history and tradition as cornerstones to build on.

Ripon Cathedral celebrates its 1,350th anniversary next year.

He told the Stray Ferret:

“If our magnificent cathedral was in the Cotswolds, it would attract wide international recognition.

“Next year’s landmark anniversary gives us the opportunity to put Ripon on the national and international map.”

Improve the appearance of the city

Mr Compton said the cathedral, combined with the city’s museums, the ancient Market Square, Fountains Abbey and Newby Hall, provided a package of heritage and visitor attractions that would benefit the wider local economy.

He said:

“The aim is to promote and make Ripon more attractive as a retail and tourism destination and the BID can help in a number of ways.

“These range from improving the appearance of the city and making better use of Market Square as a public space, to enhancing car parking and lobbying for better wayfinding and signage.

“The signs are looking good and I’m feeling confident about the future.”