Skipton is my town. Always has been, always will be.

Not because I’ve got the deeds or a plaque on the High Street - because I know it down to the stones, the massive wooden beams and the rusting iron bolts that hold it all together.

I’m not telling you this to boast - I’m telling you because I think everyone should claim a bit of where they live. Lay your claim, look after it, carry its stories. I’ve personally spent years in this place, mostly unnoticed, which is perfect for me. When I worked down at the council I did so much, I was the guy who kept the museum dry when the roof leaked (long before they spent millions renovating it), the one who checked the archives in winter, the one who made sure the public toilets didn’t flood before the Christmas market, I was even the one who collected the waste from your homes. I’d repaint the benches, scrub the spray-painted dicks off the bus stop, fix the beams in the old town hall, rearrange the storeroom in the museum and help run the local elections till 2 am. I say people in and out of Skipton, by which I mean I helped set up citizenship ceremonies, weddings and funerals and on that note, I was, at one point, even the one who cremated your loved ones.

Do you want a tour? Let’s start with the name. Almost 1000 years ago, in an exceptionally old tax ledger that we call the Domesday book, the name is written as Sceapetun. In Old English, the word for sheep is sceap and the word for a town or farmstead is tun. Skipton literally means Sheep Town. We’ve always kept things simple in Yorkshire: sheep, a castle and hardy folk who are stubborn enough to stand guard over both.

The story of Skipton and sheep goes far deeper than just the name. Our glorious castle famously withstood what’s claimed to be the longest siege of the Civil War. They took the fleece from the sheep, soaked them and hung them over the castle walls. This was not done for decoration; it was a war tactic used to dampen the blow of cannon fire. Yorkshire brains: you can’t break the wall if the wool soaks up the blast. It still didn’t stop the siege, but it slowed it down, hence the longest siege in the Civil War. Also, its roots in feminism are wild, read anything about Ann Clifford and you’ll want to go back in time and high-five her for single-handedly restoring many of the Clifford family buildings in honour of, and very interestingly, despite her family. She was amazing, and it's her we have to thank for having one of the best-preserved medieval castles in England. That’s Skipton in a nutshell - never fancy, always tough as old boots.

I love that town. I love its canal. I love the canal basin, and I love the forest and Artillery Hill (in the photos at the end).

Two of my favourite things about Skipton town are both little oddities. Stuff left over from another time that doesn’t seem to fit now, but stands out like a comfy Oxford chair in a contemporary home.

Firstly: Over the road from the rendezvous hotel there’s a wall that’s about a meter high, at noon every day there are 3 or 4 old gents who lean against it from the other side, they smoke and watch the world go by and people who pass them every day wave and shout hello. It’s nice, no phones, no pints, just old guys watching the world go by, enjoying each other’s company.

There’s a song by Damien Rice called Older Chests, it always reminds me of it, he talks about old men, sitting on a fence, cap in hand, looking grand, watching their city change. I pass and wonder how many years the guys from that particular job have been leaning on that particular wall. Most recently, they will have watched them build the rendezvous, and probably complained about how it spoiled their view of the canal towpath, the bikes and people walking their dogs.

Secondly, outside the bakery in the centre of town is a delivery bike, it stands all day with one pedal leaning on the curb in the road, right next to the zebra crossing, no one ever steals it or, as far as I’m aware,e has bumped on to it with their car. My brother once said “if you own something that’s old and shit but functions, no one will want to steal it” and that rings true for this, It’s the most middle-of-the-road bike you have ever seen, it’s a 7-UP bike from the 90s, it’s white and lime green and that old bike shape when bikes were just bikes. It’s not overly rusty or manky, it’s just really uninteresting? No - inconspicuous! You wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t looking for it.

A couple of times a day if you're watching, you’ll notice the guy who owns the bakery come out with a big bag of bread, he’ll hop on and kick off down the road. Always gives me a bit of a smile, just seems exceptionally simple.

I’ll tell you something private. I’ve always said I’ll do one term on the town council. Just to make it official. Not just to sit in the beautiful Mouseman chairs in that poor rotting council chamber (which I’ve sat in a thousand times to write my journal). I’d do it to remind people that this place exists because people look after it. It doesn’t stay alive on its own, and it certainly doesn’t do it with the “help” of certain local politicians and North Yorkshire councilmen and women, continuously siphoning off its money and land.

The second thing is less private; I’ll tell anyone. One day I’m going to buy Skipton Castle. I don't know how I’m going to get there, I’m about 7.5 million short, but that’s the plan. Shoot for the stars and you might get to the moon, it’s one of the things that drives my need for success. I don't want it because I think it’s a money spinner, I want it because it’s stunning. It’s something my brother and I have joked about for years. When people ask where we see Raven Forge in 5 or 10 years, we always say "In Skipton Castle". We would have to sweet-talk the Clifford-Fattorinis and somehow take it on from a family that’s owned it since it was rebuilt in 1310. Don't worry, ill figure it out, and if I don't, its in the right hands, and I can live with that.

I remember the sad day we digitised the archives and they sent me, in a battered old white van, to dispose of hundreds of heavy, leather-bound handwritten books, ledgers, registers and more. I kept them in my van for three days past the deadline, honestly, i thought someone must want them. I took them to the museum, to the library and to the new archive store - no one wanted them. Destroying them was a shit thing to have to do, but I did it. I felt if anyone should put them down, it should have been someone who cared that they had value.

I own a bit of Skipton nowadays - something central, something I put great care, love and attention into. My wife also teaches yoga in Skipton, in her beautiful studio 'The loft'. We also recently found the cash flow to buy the old Methodist churches in the centre of town. Not to turn them into flats or hairdressers, but to keep the spirit alive. One for the community restored and reopened as a bookable community centre - and one for my own lot at Raven Forge - storage, work and maybe even a place for people to sit, have a mead and remember that Skipton’s got its roots deep in history. It would have been glorious.

We didn’t manage to pull it off - too much red tape with the old church building, organs that needed correct humidity, floors that couldn’t be changed. The deal fell through before it got properly going. I was gutted.

I don’t know… I do know that my story with Skipton is far from over. I know I’m destined to do something for it - something that makes its soul happy. We’re connected by something - maybe it’s just hard work and history.

I've heard people badmouth the nightlife, the coaches of old folk who love it so much and the events. But It's alive! In every sense of the word. It's a lesson in duality. Old people roam the streets in the day, in search of a new dog bed or a new nightie, young folk ruling the streets at night. I can't think of it as poetic.

God, I love it.

So, if you see me pacing the High Street or standing under the old town hall looking up, don’t worry. I’m just checking on my town. Because it is mine - the building, the history, the canal, the benches, the bread bikes and all. And remember, if you love Skipton, if you care for it, if you walk its streets and feel the same connection to this place as I do, then it's just as much yours as it is mine.

My town.

Our town.

Skipton.

Skipton - My Town

Barefoot Path

Skipton - My Town

Old trees and culinary crimes

Barefoot Path

Barefoot Path