And so we reach the last of these Festive posts… although Wharfedale closed down at the end of 1994 some of us did get together at Christmas 2001 for a reunion Christmas Meal back at the Craiglands. It is interesting to look through and see how we all had changed in the 8 years from 1993 to 2001… Our looks had changed a lot more then than they have done in the 8 years since… Continue reading →

Christmas 20 years ago, back in 1989, was the first Yorkshire Area Christmas Dance at the Castleford Civic Centre. I don’t actually remember much about the dance other than what I can glean from the photographs, I do remember we had a bus there (well a shared coach, with Horsforth and Pudsey groups) and that the alcohol was flowing on the coach… so perhaps it’s not a surprise I don’t remember much about it. At the time I used to take lots of pictures so I could use them to work out what had gone on, and now twenty years later I’m still using the same technique to piece together what happened. Continue reading →

The Wharfedale Group Christmas Meal of 1994 was a bit of a sad one, in that it marked the end of the group. We had decided to close down (as under the rules of the organisation at the time we were all getting too old as we were in our early thirties !) So we arranged a final Christmas meal, paid for in the main by the funds we had left in the group bank account Continue reading →

The Yorkshire Area Christmas Dance of 1988 was held in one of the halls at Bradford University. This is only a short post cos back in 1988 we were on film cameras and you had to pay real money to get the films developed and printed and so sometimes I just didn’t take that many photographs ! Continue reading →

For the next installment of Wharfedale 18 Plus at Christmas we go to the group Christmas Meal of 1992.

This time we had gone upmarket and were at The Devonshire Arms at Bolton Abbey. The Devonshire Arms is owned by the Duke of Devonshire, owner of Chatsworth, and The Devonshire Arms is of a similar high class, with a helicopter pad in the car park and pieces of antique furniture from Chatsworth around the restaurant. Unfortunately we couldn’t afford a helicopter to get to there, we hired a bus instead. Continue reading →

My Great Great Grandfather was James Bettis who was born in 1825. (I have seen some family trees that have his birth date as 4/11/1825 and another that has him down as James Edmund Bettis, though I have seen no documents or records to concur (or disagree) with either) He was born in Stanford Rivers, lived all his adult life in Ivy Chimneys Lane, worked as an Agricultural Labourer, and died in 1872 in hospital at the Epping Union Workhouse. Continue reading →