Postman Steve
Not all post is exciting. Some of those brown envelopes can instil a feeling of dread.
It doesn’t seem to matter what he’s carrying — bills, returned items or unwanted junk mail. It never feels quite so daunting when Steve delivers it.
Steve doesn’t just deliver the mail. He always brings a smile, and often a joke. He isn’t a gossip, but he has his finger on the pulse of the town and somehow seems to know what’s going on.
Everyone likes to feel special, and Steve has a knack for making us feel like we’re his favourite shop to deliver to. As much as I like that idea, I have a sneaking suspicion we’re not the only ones who feel like his favourite.
When Royal Mail offered a free collection service, we’d see a little more of Steve. He’d come and collect any parcels we needed to send, bringing the labels with him — if I’d remembered to tick that box.
Whenever I’d forgotten, it was never too much trouble for him to pop back later. By then, I’d usually printed the labels myself.
I was disappointed when Royal Mail started charging for the service. Not because it was particularly difficult to manage without, but because it meant we’d see less of Steve.
As much as I like him, I’m not paying for a collection service when I can carry the parcels to the end of the street myself.
But I do miss our daily visit from Postman Steve.
The Rope Swing
I’m not sure what took us to that part of the woods that day.
We were exploring new places, venturing into the second valley for the first time. With my younger brother and some friends, we chose not to follow the paths, but to be guided by the landscape.
We followed the shallow river, the steep banks and ridgelines between the valleys. Like natural roadways through the woods, they were our guides.
Our destination unknown, we scrambled down a long, steep slope towards the river. The loose soil released a musty smell as it slid beneath our feet.
We realised we had arrived when we saw the ropes hanging from the tree.
The best rope swings in the world.
A huge beech limb reached up and over the river at a wide but shallow spot. From a point impossibly high, two proper ropes hung. They felt rough in our hands, reassuringly thick. One had been spliced to increase its length. The splice was high in the air, but looked neat and professionally done.
Whoever had built them knew what they were doing.
But who had built them? How had they got the ropes up there?
These mysteries were never answered.
Two small platforms had been made on the steep bank as take-off points, and the sticks used as seats were neatly tied and perfectly smooth. They had been polished by countless hands and bottoms, but that long summer we never saw anyone else there.
One rope was longer, tied further up the branch, making the take-off a few feet further up the steep bank. We all practised jumping onto the seat stick and dismounting on the smaller swing before progressing to level two.
Swinging back towards the side we had taken off from felt safest. But the steep bank made getting off the seat stick tricky, especially if, like my brother, you were the shortest.
Get it wrong and you tumble down the bank into the river, or end up stuck on the swing above the water.
The best option was to jump off above the flatter bank on the far side.
We returned home a little later than expected, hungry, with dirt beneath our nails and a bump or bruise we didn’t have when we left. Our parents had to slow us down as we tried to explain where we had been and what we had found.
Did we really have to wait until next weekend to go again?
Later that summer, possibly our third visit, perhaps our fourth, we set off again. Snacks packed and excitement building, we began what was now a familiar journey.
Racing towards the end, hoping to get the first swing, we slid and scrambled down the steep slope.
Then we saw it.
The huge limb which had once reached out across the shallow river was now lying in the river. The ropes lay tangled among the branches and countless leaves, soaking wet.
Finding the branch had fallen confused us.
We quietly stood at the water’s edge, looking at the smashed branches and ropes lying in the river.
We thought it would be there forever.
We had no idea when it had fallen. Could it have been that morning? The thought of it falling while we were there didn’t escape our young minds.
I realise now we were always going to venture into the next valley, and if the ropes weren’t there, we would still have gone and said…
That branch is perfect!
We would have found a rope and tied the knots and then, like the actual builders, left it for others to discover.
Somewhere, there is another child standing beneath a different branch, looking up and thinking…
How did that rope get there?
Many Hands
Collaborations often start with a shared interest or ethos. Sometimes, they start out of necessity.
When Cooper King Distillery had an issue with their still, they asked a favour of Spirit of Yorkshire.
These are the kind of companies I like to deal with. Businesses that are willing to help each other, even when they operate in the same market and could, by some, be considered competitors.
What began as a helping hand eventually became Many Hands — a collaboration between two of Yorkshire’s pioneering whisky distilleries.
The result is a blended malt whisky that brings together two distilleries, two approaches and one shared sense of place.
A quick word on blends
A single malt whisky comes from one distillery and is made entirely from malted barley. A blended malt, on the other hand, brings together malt whiskies from two or more distilleries. Blended whisky is a broader category and can include both malt and grain whisky.
Many Hands is a blended malt. What makes it interesting is that the two distilleries behind it are both here in Yorkshire: Spirit of Yorkshire and Cooper King.
Blended doesn’t mean inferior.
Some of the world’s most respected whiskies are blends. The art is in bringing together different spirits to create something balanced and consistent, despite the fact that whisky naturally changes from cask to cask and batch to batch. It’s not simply a case of following a recipe. The quantities may need adjusting, or a different whisky may be needed altogether, to achieve the character people have come to expect.
Even single malt whisky is often a marriage of different casks from the same distillery, perhaps matured in bourbon, sherry or red wine casks, and sometimes at different ages.
Many Hands brings together spirit from the two distilleries, matured under one roof in sibling casks before being blended to create the finished whisky.
On the nose, there’s honeycomb, peach and blackcurrant leaf, followed by biscuit, toasted cashews and cracked black pepper. The finish brings toasted rye bread, butter and honey.
A collaboration born from a helping hand, bringing together two Yorkshire distilleries and their shared spirit of independence.
From Our Shelves
Beautiful
Captain Fawcett Original Eau de Parfum
Some fragrances announce themselves before you’ve even entered the room. This isn’t one of them.
Bergamot and mandarin give way to cardamom and coriander, with sandalwood, vanilla and moss underneath. It smells warm, considered and quietly confident.
It looks good too.
Useful
Ashwood Leather Washbag
You could use a plastic carrier bag to carry your toiletries.
It would do the job.
But it wouldn’t last as long, wouldn’t age as well, and definitely wouldn’t look as good.
A good leather washbag is one of those things you buy once and use for years. This one is made for exactly that.
Made Properly
Carrion British Leather Belt
Some things don’t need improving.
A good leather belt is one of them.
Handmade in Yorkshire from British leather with a British-made buckle, this is the sort of belt that gets better with age rather than needing replacing when the fashion changes.
A proper belt, made properly.
