MY father was a Yorkshireman and that is perhaps why my trips over the Pennines always seem especially enjoyable.

There is something about the blunt and pessimistic nature of the true natives that never fails to amuse me.

When I was but a lad, the two spinster sisters who lived next door thought my blond hair and moderately angelic looks - I expect to get some stick for this - qualified me for a place in the local church choir.

Dad thought about it for a fraction of a second and, totally unconcerned about my sensitive nature, told them: "Aye, but you've not heard him sing."

That was that. I never sang in the choir.

This memory was revived when my wife and I, spending a weekend in a small village a few miles away, used our new national bus passes to visit Scarborough.

At one point I came across a chaotic and cluttered bookshop that had the fusty, musty and dusty atmosphere traditional in establishments of that nature.

I love places like that.

Hundreds and maybe thousands of secondhand volumes, hardbacks and paperbacks, filled every available space and I was aware that the owner was sitting at the back of the shop regarding me with a suspicion developed over many years.

His look seemed to imply that I was the latest in a long line of time-wasters who would inspect the titles and then leave without buying anything.

Genuinely filled with wide-eyed wonder, I asked brightly: "How long did it take you to acquire all these?"

Without missing a beat, he replied: "Not as long as it's tekkin' to get rid."

Faced with such heartfelt emotion, I somehow felt compelled to make a £2 purchase and, not knowing when to give up, told him I hoped he had not sold all his stock by the time I called again.

"The cellar's full an' all," he sighed.

The following day, a chap from Leeds filled me in on the likely response in those parts if anybody dared to suggest that the weather was brightening up: "There's time for it to get bad again."

To round this piece off, I cannot resist recounting the tale about a Yorkshire concert by American country music legend Dolly Parton.

She apparently introduced a song about patchwork clothes with an account of her poor upbringing in the mountains. "You were lucky," came the voice from the back of the hall.