Barefoot Shepherdess: The new women of the Dales

Davinia Hinde, vet, Wensleydale

“I always wanted to be a vet; in fact, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a vet,” says Davinia Hinde who has been running Bainbridge Vets practice in the village of Bainbridge in Wensleydale with her husband Michael Woodhouse since December 2011.

“I enjoyed the James Herriot books as a child and I had a lot of pets but I didn’t particularly have a ‘Eureka!’ moment, it was just something that I always wanted to do.

“Some people might think it strange – you spend so many nights on call, and being married to a vet doesn’t help because if I’m not on call, then he’s on call. It does take love and dedication.”

It’s immediately clear upon meeting Davinia –who is energetic, enthusiastic and passionate about her work – that she has both in abundance.
Lambing time, which takes place mainly in April across Wensleydale and Swaledale, is generally the busiest time of the year for Davinia when disturbed nights are the norm.

“You just have to accept that 
you are not going to get much sleep,” she says cheerfully. 
“Most of our clients are very sensible and they will only call us when they really need us but we do inevitably get a lot of calls in the middle of the night to do a sheep caesarean.

“Sometimes you have to do what you can in a bad situation: there are times when you just have to get a lamb out to save the sheep. I recently had to pull out a 13kg dead lamb from a sheep. In that sort of case it’s battlefield surgery so, if you are presented with such a scenario, you have to do the best you can.”

As a large animal vet, Davinia is dealing with people’s livelihoods – some of the prize Swaledale sheep which are bred by many farmers in her practice area can sell for up to £55,000. However, she says that she has never felt pressurised by any of her clients.

“They all know that I always do my best and they trust me to do my job – it’s important to have that relationship.

“The hours are long but, because our clients are so lovely, I can manage; I want to help them, so it makes it easier to do. I may not always be that cheery at 2am. But it’s easy because I want to make a difference for them.”

Helen Bainbridge, museum curator, Swaledale

Hidden away behind the green in the village of Reeth in Swaledale is one of the small cultural gems of the Yorkshire Dales – the Swaledale Museum, run with obvious affection and attention 
to detail by Helen Bainbridge (aka Dr Helen Clifford) and her husband Alan.

A wonderful treasure trove of a place, packed full of artefacts relating to the history of Swaledale and its neighbouring dale Arkengarthdale, the museum was originally set up in 1973 by a local couple, Donald and Erica Law, and Helen and Alan took it on in 2004.

“We had a holiday cottage 
in Reeth and we used to come 
up and spend every summer 
here,” says Helen. “Since the cottage, which is now our home, 
is next door to the museum, 
we got to know Erica Law 
quite well and we used to help her out when we were here on holiday.”

Erica had been running the museum on her own since the death of her husband and mentioned to Helen one summer that she would like to retire.

“She said that her family weren’t interested in taking the museum on and she asked us if we would like to take it over. We thought about it and decided, ‘Why not?’”

The museum is a private business and receives no external funding so taking it on was a significant commitment both financially and professionally. At the time Helen was working for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London teaching on an MA course in the History of Design department run with the Royal College of Art, while Alan, a potter by training, was teaching art at the City of London School for Boys.

“It was quite a big decision as I had had a long involvement with the V&A on and off since the early eighties when I was a student there,” says Helen. “But Alan and I were both ready to do something different and running our own museum really appealed. I think part of the reason was that, although I am an academic, I am also quite practical – and if you have a small museum, you have to do everything.”

The museum is housed in the old Methodist School Room, originally built in 1836 on the site of two late 17th/early 18th- century cottages and gardens. In 1862 the building became a Sunday School after a new Quaker School was built in the village.

“During the Second World War, the building was used to billet troops attending the six-week Battle Training course at Catterick Garrison,” says Helen. “We sometimes get elderly gentlemen coming in who remember staying here as young soldiers and during restoration work we found tins of boot polish and packets of Woodbine cigarettes under the floorboards dating back to that time.”

Annabelle Bradley, artisan blacksmith, Malhamdale

Annabelle Bradley, originally from Bradford, lives with her husband Nick and their two primary school age daughters, Millie and Hatty in Malham where, since 2007, she has been the village blacksmith. Taking on the smithy at Malham involved two major life decisions for Annabelle – the kind which not everyone is courageous enough to make.

One was to decide exactly where to live when the option to move house arose, involving the possibility of abandoning town life in Bingley, near Bradford, and her straightforward commute to work and, instead, take up country living in one of Yorkshire’s most visited villages.

The other decision, having by then spent four or five years in Malham, was to give up her regular job (and salary) as a tax accountant to work at the Malham smithy full time when that opportunity became available.

“The smithy had been empty for a couple of years and the church advertised for craft people who might be able to use the space,” says Annabelle. While the church had advertised the space as a workshop for any craft, the wardens had hoped it would be retained as a smithy as stated in the original bequest when the property was donated to the church by a previous artist and blacksmith, Bill Wild.

Seeing Annabelle at work in the forge is thoroughly absorbing. Both her skill and her enjoyment in her work are very apparent – it seems almost as if she was born to be doing what she does. She is also more than happy for members of the public to call in and see her in action with hammer and anvil.

Annabelle’s first creations 
which were offered for sale included coat hooks, pokers, candle sconces and fireplace companion sets.

As her expertise developed and became better known, she was commissioned to produce particular pieces of metal craftsmanship.

Television viewers of the first series of The Dales on ITV (hosted by Ade Edmondson) will have seen the process by which she made three chandeliers for the Buck Inn, the pub and hotel that stands close to the village green and to the smithy. More commissions have followed.

“The parish council got a grant to replace the old wooden footbridge in the village with a more traditional-style stone clapper bridge and they asked me to make the decorative wrought iron handrail. That was very satisfying but it has proved to be my hardest job so far.

“It wasn’t until doing that commission that I found the work physically difficult. It did take it out of me but it was great to do something that is now part of the community and it’s something that will endure.

“I like to think that one day in the future some children will be playing on the bridge and say, ‘My great-grandma made this’.”

• The Barefoot Shepherdess and Women of the Dales by Yvette Huddleston and Walter Swan is published by Scratching Shed, priced £13.99. It features 14 women who have carved out a life for themselves in rural North Yorkshire. The authors will be appearing at the Ilkley Literature Festival on October 6.