Jemima the doll, Jemima the dog…
Standing around two miles south of the city centre, Sandal Castle is arguably Wakefield’s most important historical site. I’m ashamed to say it is also a landmark that I ignored for the first 40 years of my life and I’ve no idea why. True, I was never taken on a school visit there (of which there must be numerous), but for someone with an interest in history who has lived in Wakefield most of his life, it’s a damning oversight. I guess I thought it’s tiny, unimpressive and in Wakefield, therefore it’s a bit rubbish. Only some of this is true. It is small and not exactly imposing, but a tiny scrape of the historical surface is all that’s needed to make it a great deal more significant.
It was built in the twelfth century. Several upgrades were made to it by none other than Richard III, during his short and infamous reign in the 1400s. Richard III knew of Wakefield! Shakespeare did too. He set scenes in the castle in ‘Henry VI’. The reason for this is due to its role in the War of the Roses and this is Sandal Castle’s primary claim to fame. The Battle of Wakefield was a key battle of the long conflict and was fought on 30 December 1460, so it must have been bloody freezing when Richard Duke of York led his men out of the castle to fight the Lancastrian army in the fields just to the north of the castle.
A theory goes that this act was the inspiration for the nursery rhyme that goes, ‘The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again.’ As with most nursery rhymes, its origins are unclear to say the least, but it seems more likely that the song refers to the dozy actions of a Duke of York in the Napoleanic Wars. But who knows. Add centuries of history on top of nursery rhyme origins and you get a very murky soup.
Anyway, no one really knows why Richard left the castle where he might have been safe, but what’s certain is that he wasn’t tucked up in bed in one of the castle’s cosy chambers by sundown with a nice drop of brandy and a cigar. He was very much dead, as the Lancastrians won this skirmish, which is somewhat annoying – a bit like Wakefield FC being given a plumb home draw in the FA Cup and being stuffed by Man United. And the manager’s humiliation being compounded by being stabbed rather badly by a sword.
There’s a monument to Richard half a mile down the road from the castle along Manygates Lane that supposedly marks the spot where he fell in battle. This is where I first headed when I visited one October day. [Find out what happened to his son at the bottom of Post 3. Chantry Chapel]
The monument is quite impressive and again is something I knew nothing about till I started this blog. I took out my phone to take a picture and found I only had 2% charge, so I’d have to be quick. Just as I was about to tap the screen to take it, the phone said it was ‘shutting down, so if you want to take any photos today you are totally screwed'.
It was a shame because it was an unseasonably glorious day with an abundance of brilliant light. This wasn’t so much a problem for taking a photo of the monument – I’d take it when I was next passing and I don’t need a great day to take a picture of a slab of stone – but I was looking forward to taking some good ones around the castle itself. Never mind. I had a whole slew of good pictures from a previous visit and let’s face it, digital photography is great for taking dozens of photos whenever you feel like it, but then what happens? They sit on your device for donkeys before you finally get round to transferring them to your laptop, then you never look at them or do anything with them ever again.
It was a shame because it was an unseasonably glorious day with an abundance of brilliant light. This wasn’t so much a problem for taking a photo of the monument – I’d take it when I was next passing and I don’t need a great day to take a picture of a slab of stone – but I was looking forward to taking some good ones around the castle itself. Never mind. I had a whole slew of good pictures from a previous visit and let’s face it, digital photography is great for taking dozens of photos whenever you feel like it, but then what happens? They sit on your device for donkeys before you finally get round to transferring them to your laptop, then you never look at them or do anything with them ever again.
Neither did I think I’d have a dog. The wife and son ground me down over many months and now it looks like I’ll have a dog for the rest of my life. I guess I’m quite attached to Ellie now, though it's never nice to have to pick up after her with just a thin layer of polythene between her warm turds and my fingers. I could give that up in a heartbeat.
We started to walk round the castle grounds – it’s free to do so – and read the board detailing the Battle of Wakefield (just me, not the dog, for that bit). You can see why they built the castle here, as you can see for miles in three directions – it was probably four directions, hundreds of years ago, before Sandal took shape – and the brilliantly clear sunny day only made the views more fantastic.
Unfortunately, the wooden bridge in the middle of the ruins was out of action for remedial work, so I couldn’t go to the top to see even further. Some people were climbing the steep grassy slopes, but there wasn’t much chance I was going to get up like that. Probably just as well the bridge was knackered anyway, as if I’d made the climb up the castle steps to the top, I’d probably have had to roll down the grassy slopes to get back down due to my defective legs. I’ve not done that since I was about seven and it’s not the most dignified form of transport for a 48-year-old.
On New Year’s Eve, the viewing platform of the castle is full of revellers seeing in the new year up there and watching fireworks explode in the distance. I went up a few years ago when I was more physically able, but like the idea of any woman under 40 fancying me, I guess those days are long gone. Being middle-aged and having a chronic condition really is a pain.
Downhill along the side of a field, it was easy going, but then when I got to the bottom, I looked back to the castle and wondered how the hell I was going to make it back. I still forget about my new limitations and the walk soon became a struggle for me. I was only about halfway on the circuit I was intending to do and my legs were already saying, 'You're having a laugh'. I had to rest on the edge of a ditch, Ellie pottering round me wondering why we’d stopped, passers-by wondering the same. I mean, it wasn’t a ditch with a view particularly. I just couldn’t go on. I could see the castle up the hill in the distance and I felt like a soldier who’d been marching for days and was now felled by exhaustion.
The rest of the walk was conducted in the manner of this wounded soldier, struggling with the weight of his armour (well, I had to imagine it was a medieval soldier, being so close to the castle and the battlefield of 1460). I walked a short way, then slumped in the grass, walk, slump, walk, slump till I made it back to the castle grounds, weak and sweating.
Two dogs of the same breed as Ellie - Lhasa Apso – came bounding up to us. Ellie is brave as anything if she knows there’s a fence between her and another dog. She’ll bark at a bigger dog for all she’s worth in our garden, safe behind our boundary wall, but she goes pathetic whenever a dog comes right up to her.
So she stands there while these two dogs sniff her arse, before they decide there’s something more interesting to do than sniff another dog’s arse and go sprinting off down the slope. The whole family are with them and the dad is soon shouting at them to come back.
‘Bridget, Jemima, come on!’
I feel a pang of sympathy for him. I can’t imagine he named the dogs that – probably one of his daughters. Then again, I suppose some men have to shout Jemima after their daughters, so maybe it’s just me who has a problem with the name Jemima (Bridget seemed a bit strange to me for a dog too). With names, don’t we always associate it with the first significant person we come across in our life who has that name? For me and probably most of my generation, Jemima will always be the doll on Play School. Much better to give your dog a proper name like Ellie, in case you have to shout it out in public. I mean her full official name is Ellie Boo (and sometimes just ‘the Boo’) but no one needs to know that outside our home. Oh balls, I seem to have given the game away.
I properly struggle back to the car. Ellie decides to choose this moment to jump up at a well-to-do looking lady with muddy paws (Ellie, not the woman). All the way round, she’s been good and now when I can’t do anything about it, she’s bothering people, and not even a dog person. The woman says it’s OK but I can tell it’s not. I mumble something about having no energy left to control her with and hope the stick and the fact I look like I’m about to fall over will make her believe me. I manage to throw the stick in the boot and the dog in the car – or was it the other way round – and head for home.
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