Tony Cunnane's West Riding Diary
About Me
Site Contents
Grandparents
My Arrival
Wartime Wakefield
Little School
Big School
Appendicitis?
After the War
Open Prisons
QEGS Wakefield
Leeds Years
Salford Years
After School
Frustrated Musician
Diary Tips

The "White Rose" County of Yorkshire -

- always known to Yorkshiremen of a certain age as "God's Own County" was, until 1974, divided into three areas known as ridings. So, we had the north, east and west ridings. There are several explanations of the word 'riding' but the most plausible is that it is derived from 'thryding', the ancient Norse word for a third. There was never a South Riding (well, you can't have four ridings by that definition can you?) There is, however, a well-known novel of that name by Winifred Holtby.


Wood Street, Wakefield, 2008This web site is devoted to anecdotes about my first 18 years, 1935 to 1953, most of it spent in the West Riding, in and around Wakefield  (image on left is Wakefield Town Hall in 2008) and Leeds, but with two short exiles to Manchester and Salford. I was born in the West Riding but today, sadly, there is no West Riding - only West Yorkshire and that's not the same thing. The stories are based almost entirely on my family's memories and my own detailed dairies. My tips for budding young diary writers, learned the hard way over 60 years of writing them, are here.


My other web site, takes up the story at the point when I left home in August 1953 and covers my subsequent 47 years in the Royal Air Force. My two published books are still available - type "books red arrows cunnane" into your favourite search engine. You can also read short extracts here.

As an alternative to clicking on the buttons on the left, which are in roughly chronological order, an alphabetical list of topics is here.

This site was last updated 12 May 2008. The site is still growing as I continue to trawl through my diaries for new material. Your comments are welcome and I reply to all sensible messages:-

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