Yorkshire Curious & Surprising by Stephen Waden

There was the man who stood in court, accused of murder, and never said a word. He hadn’t spoken to anyone for years. Then there was the squire who was almost killed by a crocodile, and the riot that broke out over a funeral path. These are just a few of the tales in this collection. The county of Yorkshire has arguably more than its fair share of stories in its colourful and unique social history, and this book brings together a selected collection of some of the best in the files of Stephen Wade, one of the foremost historians and storytellers on Yorkshire themes. Here the reader will find records of astounding longevity, bizarre crimes, unexplained appearances from some other dimension, and in short, there will be surprises and shocks along the way as the focus shifts from famous to infamous and from eccentric to heroic people who have figured in the story of the Ridings. There are unpredictable appearances too, of people usually associated with other places, like George Sala, friend of Dickens, who tried to launch his ballooning career in Hull, or the adventurer Harry de Windt, who was a judge at the Doncaster Air Show when the women pilots competed with men and often won. Yet the traditional tales are here too, so country houses, sea coasts and some intriguing deviants and ‘characters’ have their place. Perhaps most compelling of all are the stories from the odd footnotes of history, narratives missed in the chronicles of this great English shire.