Review of Ron Beswick's book
Ron's Story : Memories of Old Taddington, by Julie Bunting

RON'S STORY : MEMORIES OF OLD TADDINGTON

It is always a special treat to see a native Peaklander go into print. Ron Beswick's Story is a wonderful book of home-spun memories of Taddington and thereabouts, born in an age when a boy took pride in his ability to harness a horse and milk a cow, the butcher made his winter deliveries in a horse-drawn sleigh and there were still trains on the Cromford and High Peak Railway.

To sit down with the book is almost like having a fireside chat with the author, blessed as he is with a gift for entertaining and often humorous detail. When he tells you about the woman 'chasing maggots round the plate with a large spoon', don't doubt for a minute whether this is true - a similar mouth-watering (?) scene cropped up in another local book a couple of years ago. And yes, the maggots were for eating.

Ron tells little-known ghost stories, including some first-hand experiences, and an even more hair-raising undertaking when he had to paint the clocks on Cressbrook Mill, reaching them by a method which today would make Health and Safety inspectors blanche.

Then there's the pig in the sidecar, a resident monkey, elephants just passing through and human characters galore - a ranter, a lad who howled at the moon and a couple of scurrilous tales about Tideswell folk.

Of course the author's memories go back to the days before Taddington was by-passed by a new stretch of road. Gone now are the village's two petrol stations, the Temperance Hotel, many shops and a post office and craftsmen from shoemakers to saddle and harness makers.

So it is a bitter-sweet story which will be handed down through Ron Beswick's book, all the more valuable for not being an exercise in nostalgia but for just 'telling it like it was'. A beautifully written book. Enquiries for copies of Ron's Story: tel 01433 621801. Email:

Review by Julie Bunting