Tall tales and true: of Yorkshire moors and the byways of Surrey: Slow travel in vintage Yorkshire

We took our time today. We drove inland and high into Wold country, our last chance to do so before leaving. We passed one of the prettiest Yorkshire villages, Thornton le Dale, with its thatched cottage, built in the 17th century, but maintained perfectly over the years, sitting to one side of Thornton Beck as if ready to be etched onto a chocolate box painting. The village is all stone and aged charm with its village green, wooden stocks and pretty bridges begging to be photographed. Seventeenth century stone almshouses line one street and are pretty as a picture, built with part of Lady Lumley's endowment to the village way back then. Funds she bequeathed also built a school. Today, locals who are seniors have access to the almshouses as homes. The funding continues.

Pickering was our next stop, and was a hive of particular activity as it was setting up for one of the biggest events in its busy year. This event to remember World War 11. This weekend and into next week, they are in the throes of planning parades of current and historic armed forces vehicles, reenactments of many world war events along with street dancing and band music from the 1940s where participants and locals, shopkeepers and visitors dress up in vintage gear to honour the period. The Charity Shops in town were chock filled with period clothes, furs, army, navy and airforce gear, shoes, feathers, gloves and scarves of the era. And sellers were chaotically busy. Visitors were in and out hunting down collectibles, costumes and mementoes. Many shops were dressed up for the period with windows blackened out, and tape securely criss-crossing the window glass (to prevent them wildly shattering during bombing, we were told, with a laugh).

We chatted to many folk and were informed that the town expected some ten thousand visitors to this tiny place, many from Europe and abroad in the coming days, with stalls lining every street and green surface, they said. Pubs, too, were advertising vintage bands, musical events and stars as attractions, and even today we could hear Vera Lynn's voice resounding tinnily across town. Folk were excited, enlivened, and busy. This is a yearly event which seems to ensure that everyone in town preparing for it is in a great mood. It was fun to witness.

We then headed up onto a high road back through Sledmere and other pretty hamlets with wold views. We said farewell to beautifully folded wolds, newly flushed in green, after being stripped of their hay for this season. Life here, for the most part, is still slow and simple and flows with the season. You feel the need to allow speed to slip away as you go. We passed a young fellow with horse and buggy clip-clopping along at horse speed. He tipped his hat to us as we acknowledged the beauty of his means of slow travel.

We passed some of our favourite Farm Shops for the last time. Today one was displaying a stack of seasonal pumpkins as we have often seen in America at this time of the year, for Hallowe'en. The farm shop folk had set up a crooked pumpkin lined path to their pumkin stack, and were allowing guests to choose their own pumpkin from the orange maze. It was not just the kids who loved this. Adults were wandering through smiling, holding hands. Today was vintage Yorkshire.