The Pontefract Liquorice Festival

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This morning we drove over to Pontefract for their annual Liquorice Festival. This event came to Janet's notice a number of years ago on an earlier trip to Yorkshire, but she was unable to attend on that occasion. She has been burning with curiosity ever since and recruited us to the cause fairly early on by alerting us to the fact that this event would coincide with our time in Haworth!!

Considering that the event is high on Pontefract's calendar of events it was surprisingly difficult to find. We thought that we would be able to follow the bunting from the outskirts of town?! Eventually we found our way into the town centre and that was where it was all happening. We had timed our arrival for the start of festivities so it was not very busy when we ventured into the town square to start making our way around the stalls.

Before we knew it we were being accosted by Vicki Liquorice! Hmmn, a bloke dressed in a flouncy, liquorice all-sort coloured frock with clownish make-up. (S)he insisted that Bernie take her photo in the company of members of the local constabulary. Honestly, it seemed like Vicki was stalking us because every time we turned around - there she was again!!! Janet had been hoping to meet Bertie Basset, but it seems that his brand of liquorice is not made in Pontefract?? Although her cousin tried to tell her that Bertie was made redundant? Either way - he wasn't there.

We made our way around the stalls tasting liquorice root, Pontefract cakes (coin shaped liquorice lollies!), liquorice stout and liquorice cheese. Kath had given us instructions to buy her some Pontefract cakes so we bought her a 3kg bag, which should keep her busy for a while!! Bernie also bought a pork and liquorice pie, some cheese and a three pack of stout. I bought a black and white scarf for £2 as my souvenir of the Liquorice Festival. I spent considerably less than Bernie did and I think my souvenir will last longer.

As the festival started to get crowded we decided to buy some lunch at the bakery and then make our way to the National Coal Mining Museum at Overton. The address we had was for New Road in Overton so that is what we programmed into the SatNav. We headed off and found ourselves on New Road with no mining museum in sight?! It seemed that we were in New Road in Horbury, the next village along on the A642?? We checked the programming in the SatNav and found that it was possible to select an entry for the National Coal Mining Museum in Overton. Sure enough, we were four miles away from where we needed to be.

The National Coal Mining Museum is free and includes an underground tour of the old mine workings. I don't want to even think about how far underground we were!! For the whole tour I just keep ignoring the fact that we were so far down. The tour was taken by one of the old miners who actually wasn't all that old - about Bernie's age, in fact!! You can tell that working 'down mine' is a much harder life than working for Centrelink. Our guide, Dave, was a very entertaining Yorkshireman who cracked bad jokes the whole way around the mine. Sandra would have particularly enjoyed the rubber rat that was put on the floor while the lights were out to show how completely dark it is underground. Dave told us that he is leaving soon for a job in Norway where he will be working with state of the art technology for much better pay.

After our underground experience we headed back to Haworth for a bit of a sit down while we ate the liquorice cheese and ginger parkin (cake) before going out to dinner with Janet and Jill's Aunty Kathleen and her daughter, Helen. When Kathleen and Helen arrived we walked to a restaurant in town that is run by a local and his Kiwi wife. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but there was no mistaking the NZ connection! The restaurant was lovely and the hosts very obliging. Janet has some more friends coming to visit and one is a vegetarian so the chef was telling her to let him know when they are coming to dinner and he will prepare some interesting vegetarian options.

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