Telling it Like it Was

What was life like in the dales just two or three generations ago, in the days of horse and cart, candles and Tilley lamps, milking, shearing and gathering hay by hand? When housewives cooked on open ranges and toiled over dolly tubs. When churches and chapels were the centre of social life, and folk made their own entertainment.

Over the last twenty one years the Dent and Sedbergh Oral History Society has recorded interviews with a hundred local residents from all walks of life. From this growing archive Anthea Boulton and Veronica Whymant have selected no fewer than 528 excerpts from sixty nine contributors, a chorus of lively dales voices telling it like it was!

The result is a unique and captivating portrait of our community as it coped with a rapid transition from the old ways to mechanisation and modernity.