Giggleswick and Calendar Girls

August 4, 2007 

As we drove north and east on A65 along the eastern edge of the Yorkshire Dales, the blue skies of the past few days gave way to a woolen blanket of gray and mist. “Lest you go off with the wrong impression of England,” explained the Hesselwood’s son, Andrew, “we’ve treated you to a bit of the typical English weather.”

Our destination Saturday morning: Giggleswick. Once a Norse encampment, the village of Gigglewick lies adjacent to the historic market town of Settle across the River Ribble. The slightly ticklish name for this village comes from the Norse word “Gaeggle,” once the family name of the owner of the ground upon which the village sits. A “wick, “ also in the Norse tradition, is a stretch of land; hence, the appellation “Gaeggle’s Wick,” which has morphed over the centuries into the delightfully named village of Giggleswick (no doubt to jovially compete with the nearby village of Wigglesworth).

As we seemingly drift backwards in time from a suburb of Bradford circa 1820’s to a village with roots extending at least as deeply as the Norman invasion of the British Isles, our accommodations befit our regression through the centuries. For example, Sarah, Annemarie and Nicola (a British student) are sleeping in the Kendra home, which was built in the early 1600’s and is composed of hewn stone over two feet thick.

The oldest complete structure in the village of Giggleswick, though, is the parish hall. A stone above the entry way bears the initials of the original builder and the date 1612. The village church named for Saint Alkelda is one of only two churches dedicated to the Saxon princess who, according to tradition, was strangled to death by some Danish women for professing her faith in Christ. She was allegedly martyred in Middleham where her other church can be found. Another possible, yet certainly less macabre, derivation of the name may be a distortion of the old English “hiliga keld” or holy well, as there are ancient wells near each church once frequented by pagan practitioners before the extension of Roman Christendom into the British isles. Whatever the case, as we arrived at this ancient village, history seemed to press down on us like the soggy English sky.

August 5, 2007

Sunday morning during Family Communion, the students were presented by Vicar Peter to the members of St. Alkelda’s and treated to a lunch of shepherd’s pie, pork pie, and flapjacks. The Post Communion Prayer captured the essence of that gathering:

Holy Father, Who gathered us here around the table of your Son to share this meal with the whole household of God: in that new world where you reveal the fullness of your peace, gather people of every race and language to share in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

We emerged from morning services into a breezy bright afternoon filled with guided tours of church steeples and ornate chapels, belly-busting laughter and awe inspired by the grandeur of our storybook surroundings. After a refreshing swim in the gymnasium of the old Giggleswick School, the students tucked in to pizza and a movie in the vicarage den, but this proved to be no ordinary movie.

The film was Calendar Girls, the story of a half dozen cheeky British women who pose for an “alternative” calendar to raise funds for Leukemia research after the death of one woman’s husband-- John Richard Baker, Assistant National Park Officer for the Yorkshire Dales-- from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The students roared at the film’s quintessentially British humor and wept at the heartbreaking story of these tenacious women. After a brief discussion of the film, the doorbell rang. The visitor was none other than Angela Baker, wife of John Richard Baker and The Alternative WI Calendar’s Miss February! Angela, who has recently married a vicar in a neighboring church, shared her story and signed copies of the 2007 Alternative Calendar for all the participants.

August 6, 2007

Monday morning, the group rose early and bounded off for a picnic and some “walks” (read, hikes) through Yorkshire Dales National Park. We visited Malham Tarn, an ancient lake; Malham Cove, a limestone cove formed during successive ice ages; and the Gordale Scar, an immense crack between stark limestone cliffs where the rushing waters of a moorland beck (read, stream) violently descend some 300 feet. Again the generous people of Yorkshire and the diocese at large humbly and patiently share the richness of their home with us: our guide through the Dales, a revered geology teacher at the local independent school, took time out of his busy day to spend time with us, and his wife had tea and freshly prepared scones ready for us upon our return.

The day ended as auspiciously as it began with the group gathering for worship and song in the soft glow of candles illuminating the stained glass windows of St. Alkelda’s Church. Again, the scripture reading provided by Vicar Peter for this day could not be more fitting:

“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place . . . ‘ He was full of awe and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’” (Genesis 28: 16-17)

Peace, and God be with you!

-- Hank and Aimee Bostwick, chaperones