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You’ve heard the phrase ‘bringing the inside outside’? Well, I’m pretty sure there’s equal amounts of ‘bringing the outside inside’, especially at this time of year.
I’m not talking about our fascination with bringing a tree into our living rooms. By-the-way, whilst you’re dragging the tree through the door your pet dog looks at you as if to say ‘have you lost your mind?’, they may be onto something.
The influence of the outside world can be found in the most improbable of places. I reckon everyone reading this is making good use of their winter coat at this time of year, and most of those coats will have some parts stuck down with Velcro. ‘Velcro’ is actually a trading name, made from the two French words velours (“velvet”), and crochet (“hook”). The inspiration for Velcro came when the inventor (Swiss, George de Mestral) returned from walking with his dog and noticed that the burrs (seeds) from the heads of burdock he’d passed had stuck to his clothes and his dog’s coat. Whilst his dog worried about Christmas trees, de Mestral examined the burrs under a microscope and discovered they have tiny hooks which had caught on the loops of fabric and fur. From this, the idea of replicating the hooks and loops germinated, and eventually became the strips of nylon and polyester that we are all familiar with today.
My thanks go to Cbeebies (my usual source for knowledge these days) for providing that nugget of information.
Talking of which, I’ve long since wondered where Postman Pat lives. Growing up, I was conscious that he has the same accent as me (more-or-less), and therefore it’s quite apparent that Greendale is somewhere in the north. Having undergone many years of training, I’m now equipped to be more scientific about tracking down the elusive fictitious character.
My Landscape Character Appraisal of Greendale observed a vernacular building material of dark grey stone, used frequently for dry-stone walls. The initial impression is that proliferance of stone is in-fact Millstone Grit, associated with the Dark Peak area of Derbyshire (identified by Natural England in the (excellent) newly re-assessed ‘National Character Areas’ as Area 51; http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/file/3717539).
However, place names in the Dark Peak area (such as Marsden, Hathersage, Edale, Hope and Castleton) are less Norse than the ‘Dale’ in Greendale implies. For a truly Viking influence on the landscape, we should look further north, to the Yorkshire Dales. Alongside Yellow sandstones, Grey stone is a feature of many areas of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. (See the National Character Area 21; http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/file/4721262). In particular, the Strategic Stone Study (by English Heritage and the British Geological Survey) identifies that several types of siliceous rock in the northern dales area around Richmond are quite dark grey limestones. (See http://www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/directDownload.cfm?id=2484&noexcl=true&t=North%20West%20Yorkshire)
So in conclusion, by way of Landscape Character Assessment it is possible to say with some certainty that Postman Pat is indeed a Yorkshireman!
