Ian McMillan: A song of praise for our places in the heart

So as far as I was concerned Sheffield was somewhere on the Russian steppes, on the way to Vladivostock. Mind you, I also knew that the jet planes that took you to Moscow went faster than my dad, who never drove his old Zephyr 6 above second gear in case it spontaneously combusted.

In a further geographical development, my dad’s sister and her family in Scotland called Darfield “down South” even though I’d heard Barnsley referred on the television as “Oop North” (I knew you didn’t spell Up with two O’s) so where were we, exactly? Somewhere in the middle, I guess, which isn’t too far from the truth.

My true Yorkshire map, however, was that fantastic hymn Hills of the North Rejoice; we seemed to sing it most weeks at Low Valley Juniors, even though it’s really an Advent carol, with Mrs Hinchliffe pounding away on the piano like a chapel pianist who wished she was playing Winifred Atwell numbers in the tap room of the Bricklayer’s Arms and Mrs Robinson’s church soprano rattling the panes in the hall windows that had been loosened by generations of pit buses going by on the road outside, taking miners to the coal face at Darfield Main.

One of the big lads in the top class had told me the song was about Yorkshire and I believed him. Mind you, I also believed him when he showed me a pellet from a .22 air gun and told me it was an atom bomb and it was called an atom bomb because it was so small and if he dropped it it would go off and destroy all civilisation as far as Pontefract if not beyond. I ran home blubbering to my man who gave me a purple Spangle and told me not to be so daft.

So I thought that Hills of the North Rejoice was about Yorkshire; that it was a chart and a history text and an almanac. If you can’t recall the song the first verse goes: “Hills of the North, rejoice, river and mountain spring, hark to the Advent voice, valley and lowland sing, though absent long, your Lord is nigh, He judgment brings and victory.”

The lines about the Lord were just the kinds of things I heard in church and I knew where they were coming from, but the descriptions of the places and directions were magical. The Hills of the North were those big black slagheaps that dominated Darfield; the river was the Dearne that seemingly kept reappearing wherever you went in South Yorkshire. The mountain spring was that old abandoned bedstead that me and my mates found on that little hill (that hardly really counted as a mountain) at the back of where Netherwood Hall used to be; the Valley was Low Valley, where the school was, and the lowland was that marshy area near the River Dove, one of the Dearne’s tributaries, where Mrs Hudson took us in our wellies to collect frogspawn.

The next verse was a bit more mysterious: “Isles of the Southern Seas, deep in your coral caves, pent be each warring breeze, lulled be your restless waves.” But after pondering on it for a while, I realised it was talking about Rotherham. We’d been there to Clifton Park on a school trip (I know how odd that sounds but it’s true) and we’d gone over the River Don and as I glanced out of the steamed-up window the river looked like it might have caves in it, and the waves looked a bit restless, and the wind that buffeted the Yorkshire Traction bus was making the Don’s water’s seem a bit choppy.

“Lands of the East, awake, soon shall your sons be free”, the third verse, was obviously referring to Bridlington because I knew it was in the East of Yorkshire and we’d once gone there and I’d seen a bloke who’d obviously had a few zizzing peacefully on a bench by the harbour. He ought to wake up or he’d miss the last train back.

The fourth verse told my younger self as much about the Lancashire Coast as I needed to know: “Shores of the utmost West, ye that have waited long, unvisited, unblessed...” As my Auntie said: “You can keep Morecambe. It’s just drizzle and shelters.” (I know that Morecambe has changed. We’re talking about the 1960s here). And the first line of the last verse is “Shout while you journey ho me” and isn’t that what all Yorkshire people want to do, when they’ve been away?

That’s my personal Yorkshire geography. What’s yours?