TAB

It was September 1988 when we undertook the great journey from the City of Leeds to the relative obscurity of our new home in Thwing.

A neighbour observed “they wearnt stop they’re from t’ West Riding”…and we are still here some 33 years later, but I digress.

The neighbour was the remarkable Arthur Berriman, universally known by his initials TAB.

He proved not only to be a good neighbour but was already established as an outstanding member of the community. Tall with long arms ending in hands as big as a bunch of bananas, good natured and avuncular. Who cleared the pathways and road when snow descended, who cut back the overgrowth up the garth, who cut both the churchyard and a neighbour’s grass, who left home grown vegetables on neighbours’ doorsteps, who put flowers on the graves of those whose relatives lived away, who every week ‘wound‘ and set the Church clock, who was rightly honoured by an invitation to a Buckingham Palace royal garden party…TAB. One of the great characters of Thwing!

MJD

PS. TAB died in December 2009 and the clock has never worked continually since !!