It’s all go in West Yorkshire. I think of Yorkshire as the British equivalent of County Cork: it knows it’s the biggest county and the real capital and is quietly confident of its own superiority. So Yorkshire folk won’t have been in the least surprised to find that HM the Q has appointed a West Yorkshire man, Simon Armitage, as her Poet Laureate: only right and proper, they’ll think to themselves.
But he’s not just from Yorkshire, not just from West Yorkshire: he’s from Marsden, on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. And the HNC between Marsden and Huddersfield has inspired a garden at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, which will use two pairs of gates from the HNC.
Huddersfield has many claims to fame: the railway station, the statue of Harold Wilson and, of course, the Magic Rock brewery, to name but three. I do hope the poor benighted folk of Chelsea will appreciate what they’re getting.
[h/t The Gaffer]
Irish waterways history 