Andrew McMillan's debut novel, Pity, packs a big punch

Pity, award-winning poet Andrew McMillian’s debut novel, is, at under 200 pages, feels hardly much longer than the archetypal ‘slender volume of verse’ –  but don’t let that deceive you, because this packs a powerful punch.

Set in a former mining village near Barnsley (where the author hails from), it tells the story of the men of three generations of the Banks family: Brian, his sons Brian and Alex, and Alex’s son, Simon.

The brothers had followed their father down the mines – there being little alternative at the time. Simon, born into an era after the miners’ strike and the pit closures, works in a call centre by day and as a drag performer at night. He has recently started a relationship with Ryan, a security guard in a local shopping centre who wants to become a policeman.

A group of patronising, nameless academics, spending time in the village to record the memories of those who lived through the tumultuous 1980s, observe that the years since the strike have seen almost every trace of the industry that once sustained have been obliterated.

And they are bemused that the locals they talk to are reluctant to talk of those times – and not least of a disaster that hit one of the local pits.

McMillian tells his story in sparing terms – though throughout the book, there are brief sections that describe the local men leaving their homes in the morning to go to work, over and over; the grim reality of the ride down the pit shaft in the cage, and the bleak, dangerous work, as the coal dust works its way into the lungs of the miners.

These sections have an incredible poetic quality. Not that they romanticise the industry – quite the opposite. It feels like a nod to WWI poetry.

In the first such section, as the men walk to their work, McMillan writes: “The village, on their shoulder now, still asleep, not watching the migration of tired bodies. One of the men once said that he thought he could hear the coal ticking. Another man told him to stop talking daft. And beneath their feet, a mile down, history; waiting to be hacked into chunks and pulled out.”

It’s a motif that is repeated with slight variations throughout.

Part of the power of the novel is that it doesn’t pander to any sentimental attachment to the industry – or indeed, to the strike – while also portraying the contemporary world of work as far from perfect.

It also doesn’t seek our ‘pity’ and portrays the men as strong, yet also vulnerable and flawed.

There is little in these crucial passages to suggest that any of the men would regret not having to trudge to the mine. Yes, there’s an element of community, but it comes across more as something comparable to men going into battle rather than something remotely joyous.

And within this context, McMillian makes a wider exploration of male identity, community, relationships, sexuality and fear. In maintaining an emotional distance from his characters, he has increased the power of this. And in a splendid example of how this can work (see Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice), by the end you really do care about these men.

This is a seriously good novel about working-class, male experience in the late 20^th and early 21^st century. Very much worth reading.

If you think food is food is food – think again

Utterly divine Yorkies and filling

It’s a fairly familiar moan of mine that here in the UK, far too few people really rate food highly and instead, treat it essentially as straightforward fuel, rather than one of life’s great pleasures.

A pleasure, incidentally, that taken with a dose of seriousness, would almost certainly be healthier for you than the food-as-fuel attitude that drives the punters in their millions into the supermarket ready-meal aisles for supplies of ping food.

And the same attitude reveals itself in other ways too: for instance, when people suggest that there’s no point in paying the kind of money a top-quality restaurant will charge, because, after all, ‘food is just food’.

Well no, it really isn’t.

On Friday night, with a trip to the theatre in the offing, we needed food first.

Now The Other Half and I generally like to avoid chains and franchises, and most certainly what would be called fast food joints.

When you’ve got two hours to fill, you might as well sit down and enjoy something decent.

Since we were heading to Shaftsbury Avenue, I had been considering where to eat in that vicinity. But I was struggling.

We thought about a Chinese – how about the legendary Poons, for instance?

It was agreed that that sounded like a good idea, but then I discovered that that establishment has gone the way of all flesh.

Soho is not what it once was – changing as developers move in: and for the worse, in my opinion.

We ummed and ahhed, and I trawled the internet looking for anything with consistently decent reviews, but all without finding anything remotely inspiring.

In the end, I tried out a rather different idea on The Other Half: what about an early dinner down the road at The Gilbert Scott, and a cab to the theatre after?

He readily agreed – which pleased me, since I’ve been dying for a chance to return since my own first visit 15 months ago for the set lunch, and also wanted to introduce him to this rather special place.

It would, rather obviously, be more expensive than we’d expect to pay if we’d stuck with the idea of dining nearer the theatre.

So what do you get for spending all that extra filthy lucre?

Well, you get a very great deal.

To start with, though, it’s worth pointing out that most middle-range restaurants are not cheap.

Yet what you will frequently find is that, if one course is good, the others won’t match it for standard.

What you get at top restaurants is, in essence, simple: flawless cooking all the way through.

The Gilbert Scott is no exception.

Arriving a little early on Friday, as the team was still having its pre-service meeting, we sat in the bar for cocktails – a wonderful, refreshing rhubarb and ginger sour (with vodka) for me – and popcorn.

Now popcorn is ‘in’ at the moment. And popcorn is also not something that The Other Half likes. But this was just wonderful – and I was far from being alone in chucking it into my mouth.

Not that this was just any old popcorn, mind, but very carefully flavoured. I couldn’t quite work out what the subtle smokiness was – fortunately, chef Nick Ward later explained to me that they cook it with smoked butter from their salmon supplier.

So, what was first up for dinner itself?

In an exception to any previous experience, we both had the same.

To start with, a Yorkshire fishcake with lavabread mayonnaise, and topped with a divine little sprig of ever-so-fresh herbs (chervil, dill and chives) that was far more than a careless garnish, but added a glorious bitterness to the gentle sweetness of the fishcake itself.

For our mains, it was wild pigeon, roasted with tiny onions and mushrooms, and lardons, in a truly voluptuous gravy, and poured into individual Yorkshire puddings at the table.

Now that’s great restaurant threatre, of course, but it also ensures that the pudding is as crisp as possible when it reaches the diner.

Did I say “crisp”?

Now I don't consider myself bad at Yorkies, but I have never tasted one so good – and nor had that thoroughbred Tyke himself, The Other Half. Neither, should it be added, had I ever tasted such tender pigeon.

On the side, we opted for white tenderstem broccoli and carrots cooked in tarragon and star anise.

Both were cooked to perfection – none of that ‘al dente’ means almost-raw nonsense, while the carrots were perfectly complimented by the tarragon and the warmth of the star anise.

We didn’t have the time to sit and digest, and then order a dessert – but I know that we’d both have opted for Yorkshire rhubarb posset, if we had had that time.

The Other Half could see a regional theme here that he rather liked.

In the last year or so, we’ve finally sussed that, in really good restaurants, ordering a glass of wine doesn't simply translate as the house white or red, so we picked a good white for the fishcakes and a good red for the pigeon.

The former was a Riesling ‘Brauneberger Juffer’, Kabinett, Paulinshof, from Germany’s Mosel, while the latter was a Côte du Rhône, Domaine Charvin, from France.

The Riesling in particular was superb – great bouquet, great length, great taste. It’s the same wine I’d enjoyed on my previous visit, and it was most gratifying to find that The Other Half was really impressed with it too.

The service was exemplary: friendly, attentive but never intrusive.

The dining room is a pleasure in itself.

It probably doesn’t need pointing out that we will be returning – and recommending it highly to all and sundry.

Next time, I want longer – not least because the menu itself is worth browsing over at leisure before you even get down to eating.

The food, as you’ll probably have gathered, is not the kind of obviously French-influenced cuisine that has blossomed in high-end British restaurants under the tutelage and influence of the Rouxs and Raymond Blanc, and which has massively improved at least some of the country’s restaurant scene.

But then again, Marcus Wareing, who designed the menus for the Gilbert Scott, is himself immersed in what Michel Roux Jr would call “The Classics”.

It is a menu, though, that makes you aware and proud of our British food heritage – and when such food is done like this, it is as good as anything else.

It will equally need little pointing out that it was all rather more expensive than it would have been if we had trawled around the Shaftsbury Avenue area and simply found somewhere – anywhere! – to eat.

But I hope that what I’ve done here is to illustrate exactly why, in food terms, you really do get what you pay for.

I still remember – without needing to look it up – what I ate on that first visit to the Gilbert Scott, over a year ago. I cannot recall what I ate at a small restaurant near Charing Cross just two months ago on our last visit to the theatre.

I rather doubt that either us of will find this meal to have been instantly forgettable.

And that really should tell you something.

Kitchen sink drama

“I’ve always painted. I recall sitting on the back doorstep of a house that we lived in before we moved to the ‘posh’ suburb, and being shown how to draw mountains with clouds around the tops by my older cousin.

“So that would date it to pre-1964 and I’d be about six or seven years old.

“After that, I’d draw on anything I could get my hands on, mainly on sheets of brown wrapping paper which would arrive at the house from Brian Mills Catalogue (my mother was an ‘agent’ for our area).”

Two of Gary Kitchen’s paintings currently adorn the wall of my flat, and as someone I’ve known for some time via the world of UK Rugby League, it seemed obvious to ask him how he got started with a brush.

Predictably, Gary’s story is as colourful as I expected, having read his wonderful blog.

“My father’s office was one floor below the distributors for Walt Disney Films in Leeds,” he explains.

“He'd bring home lots of cinema posters for me to copy from or to draw on the back of: the people in that office would bring them down to him when a film had finished doing the rounds and they had the big advertising posters left over.

“This was still in the early ’60s and I had original posters for The Aristocrats, Jungle Book – anything that Disney released in the ’60s, I had.”

That must be some collection!

“No, I didn't keep any of them,” he admits wryly. “I copied everything though – I swear that at the age of nine I could have probably got a job at Disney!”

But it was while he was a pupil at Leeds Modern Grammar School that Gary started to take art seriously.

His form master – a man called Bernard Phillips – was also his art teacher. Gary says that “he was the sort of old-fashioned teacher who would take his class of 30 boys, identify half a dozen of them who had any talent, and then concentrate on them alone.

“We who got picked got almost one-to-one tuition on all of the technical skills of drawing and painting: colour mixing, perspective, styles of painting, colour harmonies: a priceless education and the only subject that I found I could actually do –  and enjoy.”

And that enjoyment was productive. Well, sort of.

“It was around that time that I was given a set of oil paints one Christmas and painted a picture of a horse’s head – very stylised and probably very corny – but my dad sold it at his local club and brought home orders for more.

“I painted that bloody horse’s head at least 10 times on the back of sheets of hardboard (the rough side). My dad made the frames and houses all over Meanwood hung my work on their walls.

“I didn’t see much of the money though – strange that, isn’t it?

“My dream is that, one day, in a Sotheby's somewhere across the world, a painting of a horse’s head in a crappy frame will turn up somewhere and will be attributed as ‘An early Kitchen’ – you never know!”

Gary went on to take an art A level in 1973. It was a time, he points out, when only around 20% of pupils went on to that level at all – and usually only those who were studying for “the professions”, so “you didn’t take ‘frivolous’ A levels without a definite plan to use them for something work-related.”

His own A level class – himself, one other boy and 20 girls – were taken to Leeds Art College one afternoon for an interview and an introduction to what lay in store; a degree course and a career in art.

“I hated it,” he says. “The college was full of bearded hippies doing weird things with paint and sculpture, and I didn't connect to any of it.”

Shortly after, he explains that he decided to pursue a more “commercial art-based career” after the class were taken on another tour – this time, to the art department of a large printing company.

There, they “let us have a go at what is now achieved using Photoshop on a computer. But then was done using magnifying glasses, colour negatives and chemicals to retouch original prints right down at pixel level.

“I left that place after one afternoon with a blinding headache and the stench of those chemicals in my nostrils – that was another art-based career crossed off the list then.”

Having taken technical drawing at O level, that was where Gary turned next, thinking he would become a draughtsman.

So in the summer of 1974, he left halfway through his A level studies and applied for three jobs – two with architectural practices and one at an electrical contractors where a small amount of drawing up schematic diagrams was involved.

“Fate decided that I was offered the job at the electrical contractors as a quantity surveyor that involved no draughting at all, and so art simply remained a hobby for the next 30 or so years.

“I still regret not taking up the architectural route and still have a love of architecture: maybe the discipline of fine detailed draughting wouldn't have suited my freehand drawings though?”

Even a brief glance through some of Gary’s paintings today reveals his love of the landscape – not least that of his home county of Yorkshire. He captures the moodiness of the county's hills in a way that conveys the dark romanticism of Heathcliff.

There’s a moodiness and bleakness that belies his rich palate: these are very evocative.

“I enjoy the landscape and love to observe other artists who specialise in semi-abstract landscape,” he explains.

“That’s where I like to think I'm going – contemporary artists like Kurt Jackson, John Mckinstry and the late John Blockley is where I want to be.”

Yet some of the moorland paintings are reminiscent of something older – more Turner-like in their depiction of the swirling, battering elements.

The one pictured left, with the sheep huddling, is one I particularly love. As is the beautifully blue seaside huts, reproduced below.

“I also like buildings – again in the abstract or in a simple pen and wash style like the late Sir Hugh Casson’s sketches, a real life architect who could switch off the precision penmanship needed to design buildings and just sketch with a wonderful freehand in ink and watercolour: he must have had two interchangeable brains to be able to do that …”

Gary’s studies included a year doing art history, “during which we studied the Flemish Masters …”

Brilliant!

“I hated every minute of it.”

Oh.

“I dropped the subject at the end of the year and can honestly say that I don't connect to any form of historical art until the French and English Impressionists of the 19th and early 20th Century – with one exception, Turner.”

Ah ha.

“I went to an exhibition of watercolour sketches that he made while touring the North of England. It was in the cellar gallery of Harewood House, and standing up really close – with no barriers to hold you beyond arms length – to a genuine Turner sketch is magical.”

His favourite gallery remains the The National Gallery of Scotland, where they have a small collection of French Impressionists: a couple of Van Gogh, a couple of Monet and “a pair from my favourite pointillist, Seurat”.

“Again you are unhindered by ropes and barriers and can ‘feel’ the works properly. It’s hard to explain. but the rest of the gallery leaves me cold. It’s the two Impressionist rooms that do it for me.”

One of the other subjects that Gary paints is Rugby League. After attending his first game as a nine-year-old in 1966 – a night fixture between Leeds and Castleford – he was “hooked".

“There’s an honesty to the game that appeals: an awe that they are doing something that is relatively simple to do – the rules are never complicated: anyone could pick up a ball and run with it – but you just know that never in your wildest dreams or daftest moments would you ever dare to do anything like those professional athletes do.

“There is a reason why millionaire professional football players attend Rugby League games and profess to being huge fans, and it’s for the same reason that us mere mortals attend too – they see athletes doing what athletes shouldn’t do.

“It goes against all logic to build up the physique and stamina of a professional rugby player and then spend 80 minutes running into collisions that match car crashes in their intensity - but that’s what they do, for very little money, and that is its appeal.”

So where next for Gary?

“I’m 56 years old now, so in 10 years time, I’d suppose I should be retired, but in these extraordinary times, I just don’t see that happening.

“I’ll paint until the brain stops working, until they prise the brush from my hand and tell me its time for the overdose of morphine and could I just remind them again where the deeds to the house are.”

He currently sells his work on here, here and here, and describes that as being “a very sustainable market place in future”.

And it’s particularly the case when you consider the cost of renting a gallery. Indeed, in just the last few weeks, Gary was quoted $3,600 per annum for a New York gallery to represent and market three works, plus commission on sales.

“I politely declined,” he says.

“I would like to be is in the log cabin studio in my garden,” he muses. “The ground is cleared already for it. The actual log cabin only exists in my imagination at the moment, but that’s where I’ll be, log-burning stove in the corner, decent coffee always on tap, the dog at my feet and several huge canvasses on the go at any time.”

“The wife’ll be banned from venturing up the garden path, and I’ll be on first-name terms with our local postmaster from handing bubble-wrapped canvasses over his counter for shipments most every day.”

So what’s his favourite painting so far?

“The one that I hang above my desk is a small painting – 12” x 12” – that took me literally 10 minutes to complete and started off with me simply painting over a canvas that had gone wrong. (see left)

“Somewhere in those 10 minutes something came out of the paint and that’s what I ended up with.”

He says he’s heard “a lot of artists refer to ‘being in the zone’. It’s “the moment when you’re mixing colour and slapping paint on a canvas and you are not thinking about what you are doing”: so probably a bit like those prop forwards knocking seven shades of something or other out of each other on a rugby field, really.

“Everyone has a creative section of their brain, which is suppressed by their practical side. To lift up a paintbrush, to mix colours is all very practical – you can learn it very quickly: to be creative cannot be learned and just every now and again something just flips a switch and your creative brain dominates.

“It doesn’t happen often, but good work always comes out of it. This (see pictures at the start of this article) was literally just watercolour daubed on a sheet of paper while I was waiting for my wife to get ready to go out.

“Again it was 10 minutes tops – and it was the first painting that I sold on the internet.

“I’ve repeated the first one many times since, because its an easy one to copy, but the watercolour one defeats me every time I try and do it again – that’s the nature of watercolour.”

So there’s just the one of those that may end up in a Sotheby’s – and at least Gary gets the money himself these days.

So, there's a suggestion for Christmas. Because if you look at his galleries, Gary's prices are insanely cheap. But get in there before he sees this and ups those price tags.

Beside the seaside

Yorkshire. Day two. Or to be pedantic, day two and a half. And having breakfasted, we set off from the hotel with a firm plan of action.

This time, we boarded a train to York and beyond, skirting the North York Moors and finally pulling to a halt in Scarborough.

‘Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside …’

For all the sun – and it was a lovely day – there was a blustery wind coming off the North Sea. I had my leather jacket with me for the trip as a whole, but it was rolled in a bag for this trip. This was neither the time nor place to be swanning around in leather.

But a t-shirt with very short sleeves was taking things too far the other way and my arms were covered in goosebumps by the time we were halfway down the town’s main Clone Town shopping street.

An Edinburgh Wool Mill offered rapid relief in the form of a sea green sweatshirt – and then it was off again, cutting away from the crowds down a side street of far greater charm.

This brought us out near the top of the cliffs, near the Grand Hotel, with a funicular railway and the absolutely delightful Parlour Tearooms next door.

We took seats outside and ordered tea and cakes: in my case, a slab of tea loaf, moist with plump fruit and slicked with a generous portion of butter. Who says Yorkshire folk are stingy? We could gaze at the sea or over toward the remains of the vast castle that top the hill on the opposite side of the bay. Perfect.

The café itself harks back to years long gone, with a touch of humour in a painted window sign that proclaims “dogs and sprogs welcome”.

Wending down to the seafront, you hit a different world. All the gaudy sights and sounds of the seaside; amusement arcades, shops selling loads of kitsch (to which I am addicted) and, in Scarborough’s case, countless eateries offering fish and chips.

There was even a shop offering huge sticks of fudge – some with very peculiar flavourings. Not least amongst these was a Marmite fudge – and no, I didn't try some!

It’s rather tragic that, although Scarborough is still a working harbour, not one of those restaurants or cafes serves fish that has come inland there. There’s not enough stock in this part of the North Sea; the big catch for local fishermen is lobster, with something like 20,000 pots in the area.

Not that wandering around the small harbour itself wasn’t fascinating, particularly as it was a day when the camera barely shifted from around my neck, allowing me the chance, on one occasion, to rip off a shot of a gull as it flew out of a skip.

Looking inside after the bird had gone, there were masses of left-overs from fish that had rapidly been filleted. And the thought that struck home was the amount of waste – well, obviously not as far as the gull was concerned.

We ate at a café on the harbour itself. Run by a couple, we were warned that our lunch would take 10 minutes, as it would be cooked for us. That is absolutely fine by me.

And it was the best fish and chips I’ve had in many a year, since an afternoon a long time ago in Hull, although the cook explained that he gets his fish from the Faroe Islands – unfrozen. Wherever it came from, it tasted very good.

The batter was a dream: wafer thin and covered in a filigree of light crispiness that made me remember exactly why, as children, we rated scraps – the bits of batter left in the fryer, which could be bought by the bag for a penny – as such a treat.

The chips were not piled high, but they were hand cut and properly cooked. The mushy peas were fine and there were even slabs of bread on the side. Forget the slice of lemon that came with it – a modern affectation – all you needed was salt and perhaps the barest hint of malt vinegar on your chips.

It was a meal to relish.

Ambling further, I took the chance to photograph more gulls, who stayed put in their determination not to risk losing a spot near where a boat was expected to dock or where leftovers materialise from the sheds.

With time on our hands, we made a rapid decision to join a boat going for a trip out to sea, and found ourselves in the middle of another bit of history.

The Regal Lady was built in 1930 by Fellows & Company of Great Yarmouth for the Yarmouth & Gorleston Steamboat Company.

Originally called the Oulton Belle, she was a double-ended steamer that became one of the ‘Little Ships’ at the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, before being requisitioned by the Navy until 1946.

In 1954, she was brought to Scarborough and given her current name.

We sat out at the front as the boat chugged gently past the little lighthouse before hitting the first real swell.

A few minutes later, fellow passengers had fled inside as waves splashed over the prow. “Shall we go in?” asked The Other Half. On the basis that my hands were by that time attached very tightly to the boat itself and my stomach was debating whether having eaten beforehand was a wise move, I had no inclination to risk shifting my body, and besides, as I told him, I’d wanted something that would blow the cobwebs away.

Eventually, with the cobwebs fully departed, I edged inside, managing to crash an elbow into the thick plastic window of one of the doors. Fortunately, nobody noticed the rather large cracks.

Inside was quite surreal, like stepping into a 1970s pub, with customers perched on small upholstered barrels and shipping maps turned into tables, listening to ’60s pop hits and supping pints.

There was something rather Alan Plater about it: indeed, it could almost have been straight out of his wonderful Beiderbecke series.

We didn’t imbibe. And my stomach coped. Which couldn’t be said for everyone. A man nearby had a face that was bleached of colour even before his wife attempted to put his coat around his shoulders comfortingly.

Then he stood, lurched forward a little, put his hand to his mouth and vomited all over the place.

This was not apparently an unusual situation. One of the crew pottered nonchalantly out with a bucket and mop. The wife took the same coat into the tiny toilet, and was still attempting to scrub it clean when we docked again.

We ambled some more, wending our way up the steep streets until we were back in Clone Town and near the station once again. And then it was back to Leeds aboard a ridiculously small Pennine Express train, with a couple of outbreaks of bad temper as people discovered that, for whatever reason, seat reservations had not been prepared in the carriages.

Things happen – technical problems, shortage of staff etc – but the company really should announce to passengers that there’s been a problem, thus helping to avoid fractious outbursts as people accuse others of sitting in ‘their’ seat.

Being near the sea can never be a bad thing for me. And the day had moments of utter bliss – not least that tea loaf, the fish and chips and the gulls, from their skirling cries to their reluctance to flee the moment I pointed the camera at them.

By the time we were back in Leeds, the only thing to consider was dinner – and for that, we headed to the nearby Brasserie Blanc.

Given a big lunch – every last crumb of which had been enjoyed – the general feeling was that this meal would involve no starter. But that was a flawed plan, since it ignored the many enticements of the menu.

In the end, I opted for an asparagus risotto (lovely textures and tastes, with the asparagus itself served in three different ways: as a sauce, stalks slivered into the risotto itself and a couple of spears topping the dish), followed by a second ‘starter’ – superb Cornish smoked mackerel with cucumber and horseradish: perfectly-sized portions just bursting with taste.

And to finish, a dish of rhubarb and custard, topped with smashed cinder toffee – a delicacy that I’d forgotten about until we’d spotted some in York and then bought two bags in Scarborough in a fit of delighted nostalgia.

There’s a recipe in the Yorkshire Relish book I’d found in York that involves cinder toffee – indeed, it even gives instructions for how to make it.

Regional food is a thing to cherish.

In the land of The Other Half's fathers

Or Yorkshire, as it's otherwise known. Yes, dear readers, I spent part of last week in the white rose county, from which The Other Half hails. And I survived – although I do now possess a tweed flat cap to show for it – but no ferret or whippet!

Taking advantage of the double bank holiday (sounds like a happy hour special), we took an extra three days off work and then took off for Leeds.

Arriving there on Tuesday afternoon, I was offered a choice of activities to while away the rest of the time before evening (and dinner).

Now how many blokes do you think would ask their bird if she'd prefer to go shopping or visit a military museum – only for the aforementioned bird to opt for the latter? Well, this one picked a visit to the Royal Armouries – after all, given that pretty much everywhere in the UK is Clone Town these days, it seemed unlikely that Leeds' main shopping area would produce anything novel.

The Armouries, on the other hand, was fascinating. Yes, it is what it says on the tin – a lot of weapons and armour, including a suit of jousting armour that belonged to Henry VIII, and a very weird and slightly creepy horned helmet that was made between 1511 and 1514, and given to the same monarch by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.

It's a strange piece. The spectacles may apparently indicate a fool – was Max taking the pee, so to speak? But the horns made me think of Andrew Graham-Dixon's fascinating Art of Germany documentary series a few months ago, in which he started by emphasising the place of the forest in the German imagination. The horns on this extraordinary item – which was made by Konrad Seusenhofer in Austria – seemed to nod to the fairy tale fears that hide in the dark amid the trees.

Moving beyond Henry VIII, though, there was much more to interest – not least seeing the real versions of iconic weaponary that we know through comic books and westerns: a Colt 45, for instance, or the impossibly flimsy Sten submachine gun MkIII. And given my own historical passions, it was particularly interesting to see a display of arms from the Franco-Prussian War.

It's an interesting museum – if a tad noisy from all the many interactive displays that are aimed primarily at children, which seem to overlap in your ear.

But with that experience behind us, it wasn't long before the hour chimed for dinner.

We were staying near the river and decided to pop just a door down from the hotel to Brasserie Forty 4. This proved an excellent choice.

My first meal in Yorkshire began with duck rillettes, a lightly spiced rhubarb chutney and crostini. Very tasty it was too – and while I could get pedantic, pointing out that rillettes really is supposed to be a dish made with pork, at least the meat was shredded as the pork should be.

Rhubarb, of course, is a very Yorkshire ingredient – the 'Rhubarb Triangle' is only a short distance away – and it works as an excellently tart accompaniment to duck, cutting through the sweetness of the meat.

That was followed by a rather nice piece of roast haddock with black pudding rösti, and then a dish of lemon posset with a pistachio tuile.

All good stuff. And washed down with a Sables and Galets Gewürztraminer 2008 terroirs d'alsace that offered a nice moment of personal satisfaction. Having suggested we go for that one, The Other Half nodded in my direction when the waiter arrived and was about to pour a drop or two for him a taste.

A really flowery aroma and taste brought to mind elderflower and I said so. It wasn't, but the waiter looked impressed (I hate to think what the general reaction to wine is, given his response to my novice's analysis) and told me that it was rose and lychee. But most important, it was very nice as well.

And so that was day one.

Wednesday saw us potter around by the river for a while before heading out to York, which is only a short train journey away.

This was one of the day trips that I'd most wanted to do, never having visited this historic city, and we started with a gentle stroll from the railway station into the centre of the city via a very nice park, with plenty of flowers and a ruined abbey (another bit of Henry VIII's legacy, no doubt).

We crammed a remarkable amount into just a few hours, starting with the famous minster itself – although I drew the line at going all the way into the church, having seen the prices.

The Jorvik Viking Centre offered another history hit – this a look at the remains of a Viking settlement under the present city. Excavations since the 1970s – which are ongoing – have provided an extraordinarily detailed picture of life in that time, allowing a recreation of a few streets, together with animatronic figures – and smells.

We're so absorbed with the idea of the Vikings as warriors that we forget that they were sailors and traders and superb craftsmen – some of the work that survived in the Yorkshire soil is astonishing and beautiful.

Glancing around the centre's little shop, I found pieces of stone engraved with runes – in one case, the rune for 'ing'. This intrigues me. My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Ingham. Now given the difficulty of finding out anything concrete about either side of my family, a few years ago I did a spot of research around that name, since it doesn't seem to be one that you hear or see every day.

It's made up of two parts. The first part is the 'Ing'. The second part – the 'ham' – means a 'hold' or 'home'. But who, then, was Ing that had a hold? I eventually came up with a German name for the goddess of fertility known in the Norse as Freya (whose name gave rise to Friday – Freya's day).

So it seems reasonable to suppose that at least part of my family was Saxon. Which seems pretty cool, really. And it horrified my parents when I told them (thus tickling me pink). But it's also why I find the whole northern European thing of particular interest. Any why I bought the stone with the rune for 'Ing' on it.

The Shambles offered some more non-Clone Town shopping amid half-timbered buildings that lean so far that you wonder how they're still actually standing. Around the corner at an old-fashioned market was where, in a spirit of ee-by-gumness, we both picked up tweed flat caps as souvenirs. It's hanging on top of my French beret right now.

There was also time to visit the infamous Clifford's Tower – it's difficult to look at this rather picturesque ruin now and think that this was the scene of the 1190 massacre of Jewish residents of York – and then take a walk along some of the enormous lengths of city wall that are still standing and in excellent condition.

And I cannot forget to mention spotting the best address I think I've ever seen: 1 1/2 Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate. How splendid is that?

It's a lovely city that also offered the chance for a spot of foodie shopping – a book of recipes by chefs of restaurants in Yorkshire and a packet of tea from Holmfirth, which The Other Half intends to send out to his mother in South Africa, since that is where she hails from.

Back in Leeds, we enjoyed a couple of pints of Theakstons sitting next to the river outside a pub next to the hotel in the early evening sun, and after tidying ourselves up, headed for dinner. I'd had fish and chips for lunch in York, but it wasn't particularly good.

Now we headed for a Loch Fyne restaurant in the centre.

It wasn't bad. I had some paté, which was nothing out of the ordinary, followed by dressed crab with lime. The best part of the meal was, without doubt, a blackcurrant sorbet that absolutely zinged with natural fruitness. Later this year, I may well make some of my own: it was gorgeous.

And there we were: half way through our little trip and wearily to bed, with hopes that the excellent weather would hold at least a day longer.