Country Week Letters: Dont' blame the potato for price of a bag of chips

I REFER to the letter last week from Mrs Jennifer Pindar about raw materials and food prices.

Just to put the record straight, the pricing of chips in any fish and chip shop is governed by the average price over a whole year.

It has to be worked out on the basis that at the beginning of the season, potatoes can be obtained for, say, 4 per bag, with new crop.

It take two bags to fill the fryer's tub with cut chips, thus 8 per tub.

By the end of the season, using "old" potatoes, at 8 plus per bag, it takes a minimum of three bags to fill the same tub – thus 24-plus per tub, the waste being that much more.

Therefore, the price of "raw" material fluctuates between 8 and 24-plus.

Given that prices are in the main prompted annually by increases in wages, gas, electricity, rates, fats and oils and many other services required, it is only a matter of psychology that the annual increase should come when the price of the potato is in the news, when, in fact,

the potato price is not the real culprit.

From: Malcolm Adams, Moorland Drive, Moortown, Leeds.

I am the person, right, peering intently at the model N Fordson in last Saturday's Country Week.

I was probably harking back to when I was a schoolboy, in Adel, Leeds during the war.

The West Riding War Agricultural Executive decided that the land near our house should be cultivated, and they sent a Fordson and single furrow plough to do he job.

I got friendly with the driver and he taught me how to plough. He then left me to it and I ploughed up most of this land which had been laid out for housing with kerbstones and manholes in place.

These were hidden by the grass and I would often catch the plough on them which took off the nose bit of the plough share, which was held in place by a wooden dowel. A trip to the nearest hedge to cut a replacement, and off we would go again.

After ploughing, it was disc harrowed and then planted with cabbages.

For this, I drove a Farmall (I think it was) towing the cabbage planter with four land girls sat on to feed it.

From: Malcolm Rainforth, Southfield Avenue, Ripon.

So William Snowden (Letters, last week) doesn't think August 12 should be the Glorious Twelfth.

Well, it was the Glorious Twelfth long before William Snowden was around and, for the sake of the moors, it will be long after he has gone.

Whatever he and others like him think, grouse moors are a source of huge income for the surrounding areas and if the day should come that there is no grouse shooting, then that is the finish of the moors as we see them today.

The moor owners and gamekeepers do an excellent job with regard to heather, and not only are grouse looked after – so are other ground-nesting birds; all paid for from the proceeds of shooting.

As for the statement that moorland should be publicly owned, now what a potty idea. This has been tried via Natural England, English Nature and the RSPB. The result, disaster.

After they put their idiotic ideas into practice these areas of moorland were just barren of any form of bird life – stoat and foxes soon took care of that.

So long live the Glorious Twelfth – and forget public ownership of the moors.

As i was saying – yorkshire words of the week

From: Roger Nelson, Bolton Abbey.

In As I Was Saying (July 31), Pauline Sheffield from Keighley asked if anyone knew what is "titipaum".

It is pussy willow, the fluffy flowers of the great sallow bush. The "paum" part is "palm", which is the country name often given to pussy willow because its masses of yellow flowers tend to peak around Palm Sunday, and are often put in vases at that time.

The "titi" part is analogous to the "pussy" part of pussy willow – many flowers which have fluffy flowers or leaves (such as cat's foot and cat's ear) have feline names.

Rev William Carr's 1828 Dialect of Craven gives "titty-pussy" as a dialect phrase for "cat", and gives the derivation as "Welsh, titw: cat".

The modern English word, "kitty", is probably of similar derivation.

As I Was Saying is always interesting, but I'm sure many of the dialect speakers among us are bemused to see that people write of hearing their grandparents using such words, when we still use them daily. Some of us not only speak dialect, but read and write it as well.

The Yorkshire Dialect Society's Summer Bulletin is packed full of poetry and anecdotes in dialect, and anyone who is interested can find details of how to join at yorkshiredialect

society.org.uk

From: Roy Garthwaite, Stone House, Pinfold Lane, Mirfield.

A Batley lady used the expression "donkeys for galoshes" (pronounced goloshes). I have forgotten the context in which she

used it.

Has anyone else heard this phrase and, if so, what does it mean?

From: Shirley Parker, Ash Tree Walk, Bedale, North Yorkshire.

I would like to add a few words and sayings.

As a child, I lived in Bradford and can remember the local gossip would be said to have "a mouth like Low Moor tunnel".

The nosey neighbour was said to "want to know from t'thread t'needle" and if someone was trying to con you, he was told "you must think I've fallen off a flittin".

My elderly aunt used to say she was "doitering" – wandering aimlessly through the day. Or she would say she was "yonderley" – lacking concentration.

No-one has mentioned "mafted" which I believe means feeling hot.

The other day, in our local hostelry, I heard our barmaid tell us that it was "hoikin it down outside" – raining heavy.

From: Roy Kaye, Carr Lane, Willerby, Hull.

My Uncle Bill, who came from Pontefract, often used the exclamation, "By shots", if he was surprised.

While I was involved with a colliery band, the bandmaster – said if things were not going right – would say "well, I'll go to Kippax Beck".

My grandma, if she was busy, would say she was "reight throng".