An advert for England

THERE are those, even in North-East England, who may never have heard of the Buttertubs and others, no less incredibly, who believe them to be a special offer on the dairy counter at Sainsbury’s.

In truth, it is the name of the pass, high and incomparably handsome, that links Swaledale and Wensleydale (but probably not in winter.) Car drivers proceed with caution, at every moment necessary – as the 1960s song observed – to keep the mind on the driving and the hands on the wheel.

Now, summer Sundays only, there is a bus service. If ever there were a transport of delight, a knife through Buttertubs, it is this one.

It’s the Arriva 827, or at least it is from Darlington. From Richmond to Hawes, the same bus becomes the 830 and from Hawes yet further into the Back of Beyond it’s progressed arithmetically to the 831, with glottal stops like Far Gearstones and Snaizeholme Lane end.

We catch it at Scotch Corner, 9.27am. Just five others are aboard, two of whom alight across the bridge to start the Sabbath shift at the hotel.

The driver’s a friendly sort, set similarly to enjoy his day out, addresses everyone as “my mate”, or “darling” – ladies only, happily – or sometimes simply as “matey.” It sure beats the surly-burly town service, but didn’t Matey used to be bubble bath?

IT’S May 27, the Sunday before the Jubilee. Skeeby has a scarecrow competition but Richmond, even the Georgian Theatre Royal, has not yet decided to go a-bunting. There’s still time.

A further four best-foot walkers join in the Market Place. Two are headed for Ingleton – not the Ingleton near Staindrop, the one past the Back of Beyond – intending to take four days to walk back again.

None pays: we are the bus pass brigade.

Reeth has already turned out in force. The village fire engine, alas, has not. Have I ever told the story of the Reeth fire engine? Oh, right.

Westwards through Healaugh and Low Row, merrily through Muker, ginnelling through Gunnerside.

Somewhat to our surprise, we also pass through a hamlet identified by the road signs as Strands, which in all these richly undulating years we’d never previously noticed.

It’s as if it’s been put there for a remake of All Creatures Great and Small, and that next day the props department might take it away again.

The lady’s loving it, like the Mole upon being introduced to the Wide World, and not least because she’s a bit of an amateur archaeologist. “I like looking at all the lumps and bumps,” she says, archaeologically.

Two and two dogs join at Gunnerside.

They’re going to Ingleton, too, and keen to discover if the fare’s cheaper than the petrol. The dogs?

“No charge, my mate,” says the driver.

Buttertubs Pass turns southwards just past Muker, like a one-in-four figure eight. “Unsuitable for long vehicles,” says a sign and might add for those of a nervous disposition as well.

It might also be inadvisable to be a sheep.

Whilst only the most ovine might have supposed the road over the Buttertubs to be a place safely to graze, it may still be a little unexpected to be mowed down by an 830 bus.

It’s running early, thus a shame that it can’t stop for five minutes for everyone to admire the view, as the trains formerly did on the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick (and still do at Glenfinnan.) It’s stupendous, a beguiling and breathtaking patchwork far beyond the urban imagination. We alight at Hawes, where the car parking charge would alone have been £4. What’s that line about the best things in life being free?

HAWES is en fete, jubilate. It’s 11.20am, ten minutes before the fish shop opens, and already there’s a queue to the market hall. Somewhat prematurely, or perhaps belatedly, a place next door advertises Christmas trees for sale.

The main street throngs with leather-clad bikers. “There must be a million,” says the lady. It may be an understatement.

Byways and bridle paths, proof of all that Mr Noel Coward supposed about mad dogs and Englishmen, we head off for Askrigg, five or six miles to the east. A milestone eventually advises that we are in Askrigg HD, though we can’t for the life of us work out what an HD may be.

A hilly district? A happy domain?

Someone may know.

The village, nice place, is surprisingly, almost alarmingly, quiet. A police car pandas past, though there’s no sign of trouble or, indeed, of very much else at all.

A pint, a sandwich and back the way we came. The lady is wearing her Ermintrude hat, of the sort worn by that daft cow in The Magic Roundabout. It makes her go faster, she says.

We’re too late to divert down into Bainbridge for the Pentecost Praise service on the village green, but hope nonetheless to catch the strains of Hawes Silver Band. It proves impossible; it’s the bikers who blaze away round here.

A line from Matthew Bridges’ wonderful hymn Crown Him With Many Crowns sings to mind – “Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own” – but when Mr Bridges wrote his master work they hadn’t invented the Yamaha.

Incorrigibly, the conversation turns to a collective noun for bikers.

A bombardment is suggested and an ear bashing, but the most desirable – purely in automotive terms, understand – would surely be a suppression.

There’s a little detour into Sedbusk, a stone built, fell-side, cul-desac village never previously visited, the lady waiting at the stile way below.

“There’s a buttercup meadow, butterflies, and down in Hawes a cricket match. It could be an advert for England,” she says.

No matter that half the cricketers wear silly shorts and grey socks, or that square leg umpire seems more interested in playing with his iPad, so it could.

WE interrupt this column for an email from David Walsh, in East Cleveland, who reports that at Middlesbrough bus station he came across a host of men and women in bright blue uniforms – Arriva Angels, it transpired.

He asked the archangel what they were doing. “We’re mobile, front line, customer service advisors,” she said and asked David if he had any observations.

“I’d like the United back,” he said.

Still on a cloud, the column offers a customer service of its own. The Dalesbus, operated in conjunction with the Yorkshire Dales National Park, leaves Darlington Tubwell Row (Stand M) at 9.10am on Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays and is back by ten past seven. The full timetable on arrivabus.co.uk THE homeward 830 leaves Hawes at half past five, the sort of almost forgotten early summer evening on which folk would don their doleful best, head for Evensong and beat breasts for the late lamented.

Buttertubs still melts in the sun, sheep still doze, dozy, in the middle of the road. The driver – “Move over, matey” – proves patient.

Though the 830 doesn’t, time flies.

We’re back at Scotch Corner before 7pm: Sunday best until the end of October – or so at least, it seemed.

The photographer went up last Sunday, and found the Buttertubs closed for resurfacing. Fortunately (or otherwise), the highways people hadn’t told the bus people and he was able to get pics of the bus at the Muker end – “facing the wrong way but it’ll suffice,” reports Stuart.

After an hour of telephone calls with an iffy signal, the driver finally returned to Reeth and took his passengers – all three of them – on an extremely roundabout route to Hawes via Leyburn. As the lady observed, truly it is an advert for England.