You can talk about the magical tourist version, but it’s the way of life that matters most here, says Paul Routledge…
North Yorkshire is the best place to grow old, according to new research from care provider Agincare. Octogenarian resident Paul Routledge agrees, saying:
“TEK my word forit: North Yorkshire is the best place to grow old – if you have to, as the fortunate among us do.
I speak from personal experience, some of it bitter (mostly in a pint glass, you understand) of more than twenty years.
And I’m still at it in my eighties, pleased as punch to have survived a virtual lifetime in London to get safely back ‘ome.
Not quite, really. I was raised in a mining town in west Yorkshire, but as a cycling lad I loved the open country of the-then North Riding.
I came back aged 60 in 2004, after my doctor in London’s Elephant and Castle demanded a complete change in my way of life from the fleshpots of Westminster.
Couldn’t wait to get on the train from King’s Cross, and it’s been the making of me. You can talk about the magical tourist Yorkshire: the Dales and the Herriot Country of the Moors, the sea and sand of the Riviera Coast ; Scarborough, Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay.
History is everywhere: the abbeys, the castles, the stately homes, the gardens, the discreet charm of market towns like Skipton, Richmond and Leyburn, the fascination of England’s smallest city, Ripon.
We’ve the most spectacular rail line, the Settle and Carlisle, carving a way through the Pennies, and the best heritage railway, the North Yorkshire Moors, through “Herriot country.”
But it’s the way of life that matters. The low crime rate, the (mostly) affordable housing, an NHS that works for people like me, and the excellent bus services. Nowhere else can Gordon Brown’s bus pass get such stick.
And most of all, it’s the people. Slow, sometimes, to befriend (us “off cum’d ‘uns”) but once in the bosom of the Tyke family, firmly held to heart.
Nowt is too much trouble: getting you to hospital, calling in to make sure you’re “all-reight.” This is one big neighbourhood, the best antidote to loneliness, the scourge of old age.
And in our declining years, where better to meet your Maker, than in God’s Own County?”