One area did not mourn loss of Riding title

IN Malcolm Barker’s article about the loss of the three Yorkshire Ridings in 1974 (Yorkshire Post, April 27) there was no mention of the southern end of the county. While I know full well how bitterly people in the East Riding mourned their loss of 
“Yorkshire” status, at least in name, in South Yorkshire the story was different.

There, the name “West Riding” had always been something of a misnomer, partly because the area was clearly south not west, and partly because the county that became South Yorkshire was a distinct geographical entity with its own industrial heritage and identity.

The writ of the WRCC only ran in the less populated rural areas around the four county boroughs and in Sheffield was not acknowledged at all.

Although the South Yorkshire County Council between 1974 and 1986 divided political opinion in the metropolitan county – it proudly delighted in the sobriquet “the Socialist Republic” – it left one important legacy.

From the Seventies onwards the southern part of Yorkshire has always been accepted as South Yorkshire and the old West Riding was soon forgotten.