Neil Hanson's Blog - Posts Tagged "tan-hill"

I'm off up to Tan Hill in the morning, the inn featured in my new book under the soubriquet of "The Inn at the Top" - I changed the names of every person and place both to protect the innocent, and protect myself from law suits! It's been 28 years since we sold it and moved on, and in all that time, I've only ever been back there twice, partly because I felt that chapter of my life was closed and there was no point in going back, and partly perhaps because it was a bittersweet parting from the place for me and I didn't want to see someone else failing - or even worse succeeding! - in my place. I'm over that now though and am back up there for a photo-shoot for the Yorkshire Post to go with an article they're running in the magazine on 21 September, just before the book comes out.
It will be strange to be back up there, though the inn is so transformed from when we ran it that it's almost unrecognisable as the same place. When we took it over it was, as I say in the book, "a wet, windy rat-infested ruin". We began the process of improving it and, if it's still wet and windy, it's neither rat-infested nor ruinous, and has been further improved and much-extended over the years. It still wouldn't win any prizes from Interiors magazine, but it's an unique place and a life-saver - sometimes literally - for walkers plodding up the Pennine Way. I'm not sure if there is still the rich vein of local characters that we knew - I think they "broke the mould" with some of them - but the landlady is certainly doing her personal best to uphold that particular tradition, because she's a very feisty character!

Had a fine Literary Lunch this week, courtesy of the Yorkshire Post, and as well as tooting my own trumpet to promote The Inn at the Top (in a modest and unassuming way, naturally...) I really enjoyed listening to the two other speakers. Mary Sheepshanks was the daughter of an Eton housemaster and a member of the Windsor Castle Girl Guide group that included the Queen and Princess Margaret. She only took up writing at the age of 60 and since then has produced half a dozen novels, five volumes of poetry, and has now written her autobiography. She's definitely the poshest person I've ever shared a platform with, but she's also witty and self-deprecating, has a stock of good anecdotes and definitely has a way with words. Her book's called Wild Writing Granny, if you want to seek it out.
The other speaker, Hilary Heilbron, was equally impressive. She's a QC in her own right, but she's also the daughter of Rose Heilbron, not only the first woman ever to become a Queen's Counsel in Britain, but also the first woman ever to be made a judge, in the process blazing a trail for other women, including her daughter, to follow. Hilary has now  repaid the compliment, if you like, by writing her mother's biography.
All that and a free lunch as well - what's not to like!

The prodigal son's return to The Inn at the Top, aka Tan Hill, was great. Even though I spent three years of my life up there in the late Seventies and Eighties (the decades, not my age...) I had almost forgotten quite how remote the inn is, especially if you approach from the east, via Arkengarthdale. The road - only just about wide enough for two cars to pass, with not a single street light, white line or cat's eye to help motorists after dark - seems to go on twisting, turning and rising - never falling - for ever, with one false summit after another, so that by the time you finally get to the inn, you're certainly ready for a drink.

The surroundings are unchanged of course, a great ocean of wild moorland stretching away unbroken to the horizon under a vast cloudscape. And if the inn itself is much-changed, extended and improved from the "Wild West" days when we ran it, the bar is virtually unaltered with the seats either side of the inglenook fireplace still the most coveted and keenly contested by customers who've braved the often wild wind and weather to get there. The landlady, Tracy Daly, is a great character with a no nonsense approach and a mischievous sense of humour - just what the inn needs, in fact, because people who make it up there expect their visit to be an event, and I suspect they rarely leave disappointed.

If you fancy running it yourself and have a cool £1.3 million or so to spare, Tracy might be willing to sell it to you, she and her partner Mike also have a B&B business in Somerset they're keen to put more time into, but it takes a special kind of person to survive and thrive up there. You may make your mark on the inn, but it'll certainly also leave a mark on you.

If you're within range of Yorkshire over the next few weeks, you may catch me at one of the events to promote my book The Inn at the Top - commercial alert! - published this week by Michael O'Mara Books at £8.99. With my wife and sometime writing partner Lynn, we'll be talking about The Inn at the Top in York, Richmond, Knaresborough, Huddersfield, Morley, Northallerton, Ilkley, Scarborough, Malton, and Ilkley again, with a couple of events still tobe confirmed

The Inn at the Top Events:

Thursday 26 September, 6.45pm, Waterstone’s York, (Tickets/details: 01904 628740 www.waterstones.com )

Friday 27 September, 7.30pm, Richmond Walking and Book Festival at Richmond School Sixth Form Centre, Darlington Road, Richmond, N Yorks, DL10 7BQ (Tickets/details: www.booksandboots.org 01748 824243)

Saturday 28 September, 12noon-2pm, Castlegate Books, 13 Market Place, Knaresborough, HG5 8AL, book signing, (Details: info@castlegatebooks.com 01423 862222)

Thursday 3 October, 7.30pm, Herbert's Bar, 30 Cross Church Street, Huddersfield, HD1 2PT, (Details: Waterstones 01484 430701 / Herberts 01484 434888)

Tuesday 8 October, 7.30pm, Morley Literature Festival, Gildersome Conservative Club, Street Lane, Gildersome, Morley, Leeds, LS27 7HX, Includes "Pie and pea supper" (Tickets/details: Morley Library or Lesley Gettings on 0113 253 9763)

Wednesday 9 October, 12 noon-2pm, Waterstone's, 102 High Street, Northallerton, DL7 8PP (Details: 0843 2908515)

Wednesday 9 October, 7.30pm, Betty’s Cafe Tea Rooms, Ilkley, (Ilkley Literature Festival event). Includes “Delicious two course supper followed by tea and coffee”. (Tickets/details: Betty’s Cafe Tea Rooms, Ilkley, 01943 608029)

Saturday 12 October, 11am-2pm, Waterstones, 98 Westborough, Scarborough, YO11 1UQ, (Details: 01723 500414 enquiries@scarborough.waterstones.com)

Saturday 19 October, 10.30am, Ryedale Book Festival, The Milton Rooms Studio, Market Square, Malton, YO17 7LX (Tickets/details: www.ryedalebookfestival.com)

Thursday 14 November, 7pm, Grove Bookshop, 10 The Grove, Ilkley, LS29 9EG, (Tickets/details: 01943 609335)

After not visiting The Inn at the Top for getting on for 28 years, I've now been back there twice in two weeks, this time to drop off some copies of my just-published, eponymous new book. What was most touching about the visit - and I've had similar experiences at every promotional event that I've done for the new book was meeting people who'd made a  special journey to meet me, purely because of their own treasured memories about the inn. When I arrived there the other day, an old gentleman was waiting for me. He'd been alerted to my book (The Inn at the Top - did I mention that?!) by an article in the Daily Express and when he contacted the inn, the landlady told him that I'd be there on Friday afternoon. He then drove all the way up there from Preston - a round trip of some 150 miles - just to buy a couple of copies of the book one for himself and one for his best friend - and tell me his tales of the inn.
He'd first gone up there as a boy in 1947, riding his rattletrap bike up the steep, endless-seeming hills to the inn. He'd been back many times since then, but after he got too old to ride his  bike there, he stopped going and, like me just recently, it was his first return visit in many years. We chatted for a while - not long enough - but I had to be back in Richmond (the North Yorkshire one) for an event that night, and then, after a last lingering look at the spectacular landscape that surrounds the inn, he set off to drive home before the light began to fade. It was humbling to meet him, as it has been to meet many people as I've travelled around these last few weeks, and it was another reminder that The Inn at the Top isn't just any old pub; to many people it's avery special place and they cherish their memories of it - as I do - for the rest of their lives.
The old gentleman had picked a perfect day to make his pilgrimage up there, for it was one of the handful of days in any year when the sun was shining and the wind wasn't blowing - not even the slightest breeze - and the views went on for ever, almost to the sea.
If I needed proof that my feelings about the inn are shared by many others, the attendances for the events would provide it. We've had near-capacity audiences for all but one of the events we've done so far (I know, another toot on the world's smallest trumpet...) and two of the ones next week are also sold out, but don't despair! If you're within range of Yorkshire, you can still catch us ("us" because my wife and sometime writing partner, Lynn Russell, is doing them with me) at some of the ones below including a couple that are even in pubs - and if you've got a good story of your own about the Inn at theTop, I might even buy you a drink!
The Inn at the Top Events
Thursday 3 October, 7.30pm, Herbert’s Bar, 30 Cross Church Street, Huddersfield, HD1 2PT, (Details: Waterstones 01484 430701 / Herberts 01484 434888)
Tuesday 8 October, 7.30pm, Morley Literature Festival, Gildersome Conservative Club, Street Lane, Gildersome, Morley, Leeds, LS27 7HX, SOLD OUT
Wednesday 9 October, 12 noon-2pm, Waterstone’s, 102 High Street, Northallerton, DL7 8PP (Details: 0843 2908515)
Wednesday 9 October, 7.30pm, Betty’s Cafe Tea Rooms, Ilkley. SOLD OUT
Thursday 10 October, 7.30pm, Betty’s Cafe Tea Rooms, Ilkley, including two course supper and tea or coffee”. (Tickets £29.95  from Betty’s Cafe Tea Rooms, Ilkley,  01943 608029)
Saturday 12 October, 11am-2pm, Waterstones, 98 Westborough, Scarborough, YO11 1UQ, (Details: 01723 500414)
Saturday 19 October, 10.30am, Ryedale Book Festival, The Milton Rooms Studio, Market Square, Malton, YO17 7LX  (Tickets/details: www.ryedalebookfestival.com)
Thursday 14 November, 7pm, The Flying Duck, 16 Church Street, Ilkley LS29 9DS, (Tickets/details: 01943 609335)

There's a feature on The Inn at the Top (revealing it's real name, if you haven't already identified it) on Look North on BBC TV (North-East England and Cumbria) tonight. Take a look on Twitter @phillipchapman7 (the guy who made the film). It may also appear on the Yorkshire version of the programme at some point this week. If you're not lucky enough to be living in the North of England, you should be able to catch it on i-player or Sky, etc. Here's the iplayer link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/...

Deadline looming - help! But if any Kindle-equipped readers out there have so far failed to buy a copy of The Inn at the Top, for some unaccountable reason, this may be the moment to remedy that shocking defect, as in a fit of seasonal generosity, the publishers, Michael O'Mara Books, have dropped the price on amazon to a mere 99 pence (UK) during January. Enjoy! Normal blogging activity will resume once the deadline has passed and the manuscript is delivered (with luck simultaneously)

Manuscript finally delivered, stress frown turned upside down, I’m back in the game!

For those who’ve read The Inn at the Top - and with apologies to those who haven’t - I wanted to take a moment to answer a couple of queries raised by some of the many Amazon reviewers there have been.

The first is why the book is called “The Inn At The Top” and is never given its real name in the book, when anyone who knows the Yorkshire Dales or, indeed has read any of the reviews or articles about it, will know at once that the inn is Tan Hill, the highest inn in Britain at 1732 feet above sea level, on top of the Pennines to the north of Swaledale.

The reason is that, at the time I was writing the book, my Baldrick-style cunning plan was not to identify the inn in the hope of generating a bit of “buzz” among readers speculating about its identity and wondering if their favourite Dales pub could be the one featured. This still seems to me to have been a reasonable plan and indeed, The Dalesman reported a bit of exactly that sort of buzz from readers, when the serialisation began in that magazine.
However, my publishers, Michael O’Mara Books, felt there was greater publicity mileage to be gained from identifying it as Tan Hill, and since they were paying the piper, it seemed only fair to let them call the tune. So that’s what we did and the sales figures suggest they may well been right, but by then the book had already been printed, so The Inn At The Top it stayed.

The second often-voiced query or complaint is why - present company excepted - none of the characters in the book are identified by their real names. Quite a few people have suggested that I did it to dodge potential libel writs but, while that’s always a potential concern among nervous writers, my principal reason was to protect the privacy of those I was writing about. Many are now dead, of course - the book is about the inn in the late 1970s - but many others are still living and even those who have died often have children still living in the area. It did not seem fair to me to subject them to potential intrusions into their lives by well-meaning but not necessarily welcome outsiders. If they recognise themselves and want to identify themselves, they can of course do so, but that will be by their choice, not mine.

For similar reasons, none of the locations are identified by name either. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the name of the small Cumbrian town with an annual horse fair, but once you start naming names, they lead on to others, and some of the places are so small, that to name the village would render pointless any attempt to disguise the identity of the individuals who live there.

Whether I’ll continue the same policy in the follow-up, provisionally titled - spoiler alert! - “Return To The Top” which I’m working on at the moment, remains to be seen but you know what they say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

In the unlikely event that there is anyone out there who, for some unaccountable reason, has yet to purchase a copy of The Inn At The Top, March could be the month to do so, particularly if you are the proud possessor of a Kindle. Supermarket giant Sainsbury's are trying to boost their ebook sales and among other bargains, have The Inn at the Top on discount for the month at the bargain price of 99p (UK£0.99). Amazon.co.uk, as is their wont, have come close to matching that promotion, by offering it at £1.49. Feel free to fill your boots!

Gearing up for the launch of my new book Pigs Might Fly on Monday, the first self-published one I've been involved in, after more than fifty titles put out by the big trade publishers. It's been a steepish learning curve and has involved a lot of man-hours that may or may not pay off - only time and what's left of the book trade will tell... As any small- or self-publisher will tell you, distribution is always a major issue. Some feel they can distribute their books themselves and that does work if you don't mind doing some serious legwork and your book is specific to a particular region - "Inns of the Yorkshire Dales" or whatever. But if you're hoping for a national sale, you really do need a national distributor and you'll have to give up 60% or more of your cover price plus another 3% or so for wastage - lost or damaged copies in their warehouse. You'll also have to pay to deliver the books to that warehouse and pay for collection or destruction of any returns or overstocks, and they'll only pay you at least 30 days after they actually ship and invoice the books to retailers, so you might be waiting two or three months - or more - before you see any cold hard cash. However if you're a tiny publisher and you want to sell to Waterstones https://www.waterstones.com/, say, you'll have to do it through a distributor because, though shop managers have some discretion to buy local books, Waterstones nationally will only deal with major publishers and distributors and if you're tiny, that aint you. The choice is yours: there's Gardners www.gardners.com/, Bertrams https://www.bertrams.com/, and a score of others who will handle anything from straight distribution, through to sale and fulfilment including invoicing... but all of it comes at a price. Which you choose and how much of your potential workload you want to hive off to them is up to you, but - obviously - the more they do for you, the less of each book's sale price will find its way to your pocket. I've given my book to Gardners to distribute through the book trade, with a separate wholesaler supplying the gift trade, other than the network of small, non-book trade outlets around the Dales that I've built up myself over the past two years since The Inn at the Top was published. These tourist attractions, gift shops, Post Offices, cafes, pubs, B&Bs, camp-sites, etc, etc, stock signed copies of The Inn at the Top and Now Pigs Might Fly and sell pleasingly large numbers of them... only commercial confidentiality prevents me from telling you how many! Best of all, I get to spend a couple of days every month wandering round the Dales doing my delivery runs, and catching up with old friends from the days when I was running the famous (or should that be infamous?) inn there - what's not to like?

If you're out and about in Yorkshire over the next few weeks and want to know more about Pigs Might Fly or The Inn At The Top, you'll find me at the following venues, on the following dates.

PIGS MIGHT FLY EVENTS:
Monday 17 August, 7.30pm. Talk, Q&A and book signing. Knaresborough feva, Knaresborough Library, Market Place, Knaresborough, HG5 8AG, Tickets £5 from Knaresborough Tourist Information Centre or www.feva.info
 
Saturday 5 September, 11am-1pm. Book signing. White Rose Book Cafe, 79-81 Market Place, Thirsk, YO7 1ET. Tel: 01845 524353
 
Wednesday 9 September, 12.30pm-2pm. Book signing. Waterstones, 102 High Street, Northallerton, DL7 8PP. Tel: 01609 761987
 
Thursday 10 September, 2.30pm-4.30pm. Book signing., J R Nicholls Bookseller & Publisher, 347b Wakefield Road, Denby Dale, HD8 8RT. Tel: 01484 866413
 
Saturday 12 September, 11am-2pm. Book signing. The Guisborough Bookshop Ltd, 4 Chaloner Street, Guisborough, TS14 6QD. Tel:01287 610179 books@guisboroughbookshop.com
 
Tuesday 15 September, 7.00pm. Talk, Q&A and book signing. Waterstone’s, 15 Coney Street, York YO1 9QL. Tel: 01904 620784. Tickets £2 available in store
 
Friday 18 September, 7.30pm. Talk, Q&A and book signing. Ripon Spa Hotel, Park Street, Ripon, HG4 2BU. Ripon International Festival event in association with the Little Ripon Bookshop. Tickets £8 (students £5) www.riponinternationalfestival.com Tel: 01765 603994
 
Saturday 19 September, 12 noon-2pm. Book signing. Castlegate Books, 13 Market Place, Knaresborough, HG5 8AL. info@castlegatebooks.com  Tel: 01423 862222
 
Friday 25 September, 7.30pm. Talk, Q&A and book signing. Richmond School Sixth Form Centre, Darlington Road, Richmond, N Yorks, DL10 7BQ. Richmond Walking and Book Festival event. Bar and Bookstall. Tickets £8 from Castle Hill Bookshop. Tel: 01748 824243 or www.booksandboots.org/book.html 
 
Saturday 26 September, 11am-1pm. Book signing. Philip Howard Books Ltd, 47 Street Lane, Leeds, LS8 1AP. Tel: 0113 2259797
 
Sunday 11 October, 7.00pm. “The Yorkshire Shepherdess and Flying Pigs” (joint event with Amanda Owen). Ryedale Book Festival, Milton Rooms, Market Place, Malton, YO17 7LX. Tickets £10 from http://ryedalebookfestival.com/whats-...

Wednesday 14 October, 7.30pm. Talk, Q&A, signing, Betty’s Café Tea Rooms, 32 The Grove, Ilkley, LS29 9EE (Ilkley Literature Festival Event).Tickets £35, including a two- course set meal and tea/coffee, from Bettys Café Tea Rooms. Tel: Ilkley 01943 608029

Friday 13th November, 7pm. Talk, Q&A and book signing. Wheatley Arms, Ben Rhydding, Ilkley, LS29 8PP. Tel: 01943 816496. In association with the Grove Bookshop.
 
Friday May 20th 2016, 7.30pm. Talk, Q&A and book signing. Dales Countryside Museum Station Yard Hawes DL8 3NT. Tickets/details: 01969 666210 hawes@yorkshiredales.org.uk dcm@yorkshiredales.org.uk