FAIRBURN
September 1979 - February 1982
When I first landed in Fairburn, age 7, it seemed like the middle of nowhere. Light years away
from my old family home in Castleford, down a winding country lane that had no streetlights
and no speed limit. As it turns out, it’s only a couple of miles away, but back then it might as
well have been another country. It was, at least, another county. Or at least, it was supposed to
be. Everyone told me Fairburn was in North Yorkshire, as opposed to West Yorkshire, where I’d
always lived, and the Wikipedia page will tell you no different. But since the nearest town was
Castleford, itself in West Yorkshire, it has a West Yorkshire postcode: WF11, part of the
Wakefield postcode area. Which all makes sense until you realise the postcode for Castleford is
WF10, and WF11 is the postcode for Knottingley, which is slightly further away.
FAIRBURN ONLINE
Waggon & Horses
Real Ales Available
HISTORY 1
Sept 1979 - Oct 1981
MY ADDRESS (from Sept 1979 to Feb 1982)
2 School Terrace
Fairburn
near Knottingley (not Castleford, which is closer)
West Yorkshire
WF11 9JX
School Terrace is a small row of three-storey houses at the top end of Gauk Street, where it
meets the Great North Road. So-called because it overlooks the school (see below). My
bedroom was in the attic right at the top of the house. My favourite colour was red, so we
painted the walls bright red (or rather bright reddish-orange - the exact shade was poppy). I
also had a pair of bunk beds all to myself, which was pretty cool. Not because I liked having
people to stay - I didn’t. I just liked sleeping higher up.
LOCAL AMENITIES AND ATTRACTIONS (1979 - 1982)
•
FAIRBURN INGS - a protected bird sanctuary and wetland nature reserve, just
outside Fairburn. Down a windy country road that didn’t have a pavement, so we
rarely went. And yes, as it turns out, ‘ing’ is actually a real word, which means
pasture or water meadow, or a marsh which floods
•
WILDGOOSE GALLERY - purveyor of fine art, fine giftware and bespoke framing.
Also very angry about the parking situation
•
ST JAMES’ CHURCH - a 19th century C of E church with a long history, and a
graveyard which houses a war monument and the remains of prominent past
Fairburnians. The vicar back then (who I think was called Ernest but I can’t be sure)
ran a Christian youth club called the 7-11 Club, which I often went to
•
A CRICKET FIELD - with goalposts, just in case, a set of swings (built on concrete - I
once spectacularly fell off one and landed on my face) and a large-ish building we
used as a community centre, for discos and other exciting village events
•
A FARM OR TWO - one of them used to be called Swales Farm but it looks like now
maybe it’s called Bay Horse Farm Limited. I have no reliable memory of what they
farmed, but it might have been horses. Or hay. I don’t know much about farms
•
A COUPLE OF GARAGES - you know, for fixing your car and that. Actually, it might
just have been one garage
•
A POST OFFICE - which also sold sweets, if I remember right. But not comics. You
had to go to a completely different town for that
•
Not one, not two, but THREE PUBS, all horse-themed - The Three Horse Shoes and
the Waggon and Horses, which are still open today. And The Bay Horse, visible
from the A1 and therefore probably the busiest for passing trade. Sadly this was
bulldozed many years ago. The Waggon and Horses was the one most of the
locals went to, and the only one I ever went inside (mainly because it was run by
my mate Jason’s grandparents)
•
A SCHOOL - see below
FAIRBURN COUNTY PRIMARY SCHOOL (now Fairburn Community Primary School) was a small
Victorian building with two classrooms, a dining room, an assembly hall and that’s it. There
were probably only about 40 or 50 pupils in the entire school, from the ages of 4 to 11. Three
years’ worth of infants (ages 4 to 7, which these days would be called Reception and Years 1 &
2) and four of juniors (ages 7 to 11, or Years 3 to 6).
My class teacher (and the school’s headmaster) was called Mr Geraghty. I wish I remembered
his first name, because he’s so important to this story, but I can’t. It might have been Stephen.
He was an affable, middle-aged guy with slightly greying hair. Engaging, funny, but also deadly
serious when he needed to be, and not afraid to clip you round the ear if you didn’t stop talking
when he asked you to (these were the days when that sort of thing was still pretty much
expected, even from progressive teachers). I remember him in corduroy jackets and muted,
earthy colours, but I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been watching too many gritty
documentaries about British education in the 1970s.
I remember the name of the infants teacher - Joan Cunniff. Miss. Twenty-something with long,
straight, dark hair. Slightly hippyish, dressed in dark greens and browns, like a forest. Softly
spoken, projected a sense of warmth and kindness - the kind of person you wished was your
Mum. These teachers were basically just nice people who loved teaching kids.
It all sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? This tiny little Yorkshire village with its quaint horse-named pubs
and its lovely little school. That’s probably because I forgot to mention the A1 running right
through the middle of it.
THE SCHOOL
THE VILLAGE
SCIENCE 1
Sept 1979 - Mar 1980
GEOGRAPHY 1
Sept 1979 - Feb 1981
THE A1
If I remember the history correctly, Fairburn started life as a waypoint along the Great North
Road, somewhere to rest overnight while taking the journey up the east side of England from
London to Scotland. Hence the preponderance of pubs named after horses and carts. The A1,
since its designation in the 1920s, followed the same route, and as a result went right through
the middle of Fairburn. And as the traffic increased, and sections of the road got repurposed as
motorways, that went right through the middle of the village too.
School Terrace was right next to the A1. The vehicle noise must have been constant, but I don’t
remember it ever being a problem. Except that, as an adult, I find it impossible to sleep in
places that don’t have the sound of motorway traffic constantly swishing away in the
background. I do think it might have been a problem for other residents though. There was a
sense that the village had somehow been ‘divided’ - with Old Fairburn on one side of the A1
and the more modern Fairfield housing estate on the other.
The only way to cross on foot was a single footbridge, just south of the school. I don’t have that
many photographs from the period, but in this one, taken at the door of our house facing into
the back yard, you can just about see the (washed out) footbridge in the background.
OTHER DELIGHTS
Since we left in 1982, I’ve only ever been back to Fairburn once. In 2007, twenty-five years after
leaving, I took my wife there to show her this place I kept raving about. To my horror, it had
mutated. At some point, the A1 had been diverted along a new bypass and no longer went
through the village. Which made it harder to get there and utterly changed the character of the
place. The road in the middle was still there - except it was the A1246 now, not the A1 - and it
didn’t have the same amount of traffic. Admittedly it was just after Christmas, but the whole
place just felt dead. There was a plaque outside the school excitedly commemorating the
‘reunification of the village’ but it still seemed divided to me, with this great big road space in
the middle that wasn’t even being used as a road any more.
We went in the Waggon and Horses - a truly American Werewolf in London scenario where a
packed pub of villagers turned and stared at us warily as we walked in - until I explained I used
to live there as a kid and started talking about how much it had changed. We still smoked back
then, so we had a few cigarettes outside with a few of the regulars, some of whom had lived
there all their lives, and I got the impression that they felt abandoned in some way. Like the
world used to come through Fairburn every day - sometimes it used to stay for a while - but
now it went somewhere else and it might never come their way again.
Whether it was better then or better now, I can’t tell you. I only know the place felt very
different when I lived there, and I can never go back.
FAIRBURN MEMORIES
When I first landed in Fairburn, age 7, it seemed like the middle
of nowhere. Light years away from my old family home in
Castleford, down a winding country lane that had no streetlights
and no speed limit. As it turns out, it’s only a couple of miles
away, but back then it might as well have been another country.
It was, at least, another county. Or at least, it was supposed to
be. Everyone told me Fairburn was in North Yorkshire, as
opposed to West Yorkshire, where I’d always lived, and the
Wikipedia page will tell you no different. But since the nearest
town was Castleford, itself in West Yorkshire, it has a West
Yorkshire postcode: WF11, part of the Wakefield postcode area.
Which all makes sense until you realise the postcode for
Castleford is WF10, and WF11 is the postcode for Knottingley,
which is slightly further away.
MY ADDRESS (from Sept 1979 to Feb 1982)
2 School Terrace
Fairburn
near Knottingley (not Castleford, which is closer)
West Yorkshire
WF11 9JX
School Terrace is a small row of three-storey houses at the top
end of Gauk Street, where it meets the Great North Road. So-
called because it overlooks the school (see below). My bedroom
was in the attic right at the top of the house. My favourite colour
was red, so we painted the walls bright red (or rather bright
reddish-orange - the exact shade was poppy). I also had a pair of
bunk beds all to myself, which was pretty cool. Not because I
liked having people to stay - I didn’t. I just liked sleeping higher
up.
FAIRBURN COUNTY PRIMARY SCHOOL (now Fairburn Community
Primary School) was a small Victorian building with two
classrooms, a dining room, an assembly hall and that’s it. There
were probably only about 40 or 50 pupils in the entire school,
from the ages of 4 to 11. Three years’ worth of infants (ages 4 to
7, which these days would be called Reception and Years 1 & 2)
and four of juniors (ages 7 to 11, or Years 3 to 6).
My class teacher (and the school’s headmaster) was called Mr
Geraghty. I wish I remembered his first name, because he’s so
important to this story, but I can’t. It might have been Stephen.
He was an affable, middle-aged guy with slightly greying hair.
Engaging, funny, but also deadly serious when he needed to be,
and not afraid to clip you round the ear if you didn’t stop talking
when he asked you to (these were the days when that sort of
thing was still pretty much expected, even from progressive
teachers). I remember him in corduroy jackets and muted, earthy
colours, but I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been watching too
many gritty documentaries about British education in the 1970s.
I remember the name of the infants teacher - Joan Cunniff. Miss.
Twenty-something with long, straight, dark hair. Slightly hippyish,
dressed in dark greens and browns, like a forest. Softly spoken,
projected a sense of warmth and kindness - the kind of person
you wished was your Mum. These teachers were basically just
nice people who loved teaching kids.
It all sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? This tiny little Yorkshire village with
its quaint horse-named pubs and its lovely little school. That’s
probably because I forgot to mention the A1 running right
through the middle of it.
THE SCHOOL
THE VILLAGE
THE A1
If I remember the history correctly, Fairburn started life as a
waypoint along the Great North Road, somewhere to rest
overnight while taking the journey up the east side of England
from London to Scotland. Hence the preponderance of pubs
named after horses and carts. The A1, since its designation in the
1920s, followed the same route, and as a result went right
through the middle of Fairburn. And as the traffic increased, and
sections of the road got repurposed as motorways, that went
right through the middle of the village too.
School Terrace was right next to the A1. The vehicle noise must
have been constant, but I don’t remember it ever being a
problem. Except that, as an adult, I find it impossible to sleep in
places that don’t have the sound of motorway traffic constantly
swishing away in the background. I do think it might have been a
problem for other residents though. There was a sense that the
village had somehow been ‘divided’ - with Old Fairburn on one
side of the A1 and the more modern Fairfield housing estate on
the other.
The only way to cross on foot was a single footbridge, just south
of the school. I don’t have that many photographs from the
period, but in this one, taken at the door of our house facing into
the back yard, you can just about see the (washed out)
footbridge in the background.
Since we left in 1982, I’ve only ever been back to Fairburn once.
In 2007, twenty-five years after leaving, I took my wife there to
show her this place I kept raving about. To my horror, it had
mutated. At some point, the A1 had been diverted along a new
bypass and no longer went through the village. Which made it
harder to get there and utterly changed the character of the
place. The road in the middle was still there - except it was the
A1246 now, not the A1 - and it didn’t have the same amount of
traffic. Admittedly it was just after Christmas, but the whole
place just felt dead. There was a plaque outside the school
excitedly commemorating the ‘reunification of the village’ but it
still seemed divided to me, with this great big road space in the
middle that wasn’t even being used as a road any more.
We went in the Waggon and Horses - a truly American Werewolf
in London scenario where a packed pub of villagers turned and
stared at us warily as we walked in - until I explained I used to
live there as a kid and started talking about how much it had
changed. We still smoked back then, so we had a few cigarettes
outside with a few of the regulars, some of whom had lived
there all their lives, and I got the impression that they felt
abandoned in some way. Like the world used to come through
Fairburn every day - sometimes it used to stay for a while - but
now it went somewhere else and it might never come their way
again.
Whether it was better then or better now, I can’t tell you. I only
know the place felt very different when I lived there, and I can
never go back.
FAIRBURN
September 1979 - February 1982
FAIRBURN ONLINE
Waggon & Horses
Real Ales Available
FAIRBURN MEMORIES
HISTORY 1
Sept 1979 - Oct 1981
SCIENCE 1
Sept 1979 - Mar 1980
GEOGRAPHY 1
Sept 1979 - Feb 1981
OTHER DELIGHTS
