Talk:Wakefield

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  • Cite sources
  • Music songs and sport can be combined under a "Culture" heading: we don't need a new section for every paragraph.
  • The introduction section is way too long though, split some of it out into other sections and turn it into a 3 paragraph summary.
  • Geography section that could include situation, transport links, nearby places & physical geography including landscape and geology if relevant.
  • Prose is better than lists.



"Most of the windows at the front of the station are boarded-up, and the pub opposite, "The Wakefield Arms", has stood derelict for over twenty years", I used to goto Jazz Night at the wakefield arms after college, 20 years ago i would have been 10! This pub's not been closed that long.


Is there any evidence that Simon McKelvey was the first man to wrestle a bear. I can find o evidence via Google that this statement is true

Nor can I, not from any source in fact. Removed the Simon Mckelvey bit twice now, the most recent time it was also offensive, "Simon McKelvey - Really did fight bears, you cunt", well, it's offensive or the editor just missed an O out of my name. Countdiso 03:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Another revert due to bear's, removing this "*Robin Hood - Outlaw, his fight with the bear being commemorated in the song "George a Green" ", Countdiso 01:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)



WAYNO_LEGEND fancies Leanne Barnes (the 'fittist girl in town'), but Wayno should be more creative in expressing his affections, maybe learn to spell so he can get a job and woo her more effectively, and note that while editors may like grafitti in some places we don't like it scrawled randomly on our Wikipedia pages - and we will see it and remove it. Visctrix 11:46, 20 September 2005 (UTC)



I think it's a bit simplistic to say "this led to a situation where, by 2004, the council could no longer keep up with the maintenance of the houses and sold them all off to a housing association."

There is quite a lot of history going back to the Thatcher Government at least about how maintenance budgets have been restricted (as well as other local authority budgets). Then more recently the previous Labour administration set a Decent Homes Standard that is impossible to meet without private investment that is denied to local authorities. This is leading many if not most local authorities to transfer their housing stock into one of a range of alternatives including Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs); stock transfer (typically, as in Wakefield, to a newly created Registered Social Landlord - our houses weren't "sold off to a housing association"), or one of two or three other alternatives that I now forget. All these new structures are governed by bodies at least nominally independent of the local authority, and can thus attract private investment.

There should be an article by someone who knows more about this than me, but I would at least suggest that the sentences are changed to something like "Wakefield is distinctive in having had an unusually high amount of council housing, and in 2004 when tenants voted overwhelmingly to transfer the entire housing stock to a new registered social landlord (called Wakefield District Housing) it became the second largest stock transfer in British history." visctrix

  • Made this change today following no response here. Visctrix 14:54, 29 August 2005 (UTC)



Why was this removed? Mr. Jones 22:29, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

<table border=1 cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width=200> <tr><td colspan=2 align=center bgcolor="#ff9999">'''Wakefield''' <br>''shown within [[West Yorkshire]]'' <tr><td colspan=2 align=center>[[Image:WYorks-Wakefield.png]]</td></tr> </table>

Wakefield


shown within West Yorkshire

Image:WYorks-Wakefield.png

This image will have been removed because it shows the metropolitan borough, which is discussed in a seperate article.--NicholasJones 17:27, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Discussion of City & District vs. merged pages

There is currently a discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_Subdivisions, discussing whether it is better to have a single article for, for example Wakefield (the city) and City of Wakefield (the district).

If this issue is of interest to you , please comment on Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Subdivisions.


This is my first post to a wiki comment and I don't know what the form is.

1) In consideration of the etymology in http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/norol-BF-R.html (Old Norse online) the following are defined:


vaka - be awake, stay awake, watch fold - people, world

Give that 'stay awake world' is consistent with Merrie City. Watch field and the I think [pre?] 18th Cent name Wakerfield are consistent with this and the old saying 'up with the watch' meaning up all night revelling. Could I offer this as a postulate.


2) My understanding of the Mulberry bush in Wakefield prison is that it is preserved in memory the poorhouse which preceded the prison on that site and that the rhyme was sung by the children as they danced round it 'on a cold and frosty morning'. In attmpting to understand why this was chanted and remembered consider that in Germany the very sweet and rare eiswein is the product of grapes caught by frost. A former HMP Wakefield prison officer has confirmed that the Mulberry's are sweeter on a frosty day. I think having fruit, sweetend by frost for children who at the time would elsewhere simply be worked and beaten for being the children of the poor would be specially remembered by people. I am an Old Savillian and my imperfect memory tells me that we were taught that the book 'The Vicar of Wakefield' was simply a discussion of the treatment of the poor, it could be that A vicar is also a church area and/or body of teaching and that if put in a temporal context the treatment of the poor was so advanced that it required an entire book to document it. But this is again a postulate.

3) Again from school 'Its thought that Wakefield was once the capital of West Yorkshire' Does anyone know if that is because of or in fact an assertion that should be cross referenced with the existence of Sandal Castle.

4) Does the Amphitheatre 'bank' that was in Thornes now Clarence Park still exist? And was it ever/has it ever been dated? It wo uld be ammusing if it was really as one drunk local history scholar said 'tested and got wrong because results were too old' Given the age of Yorkshire's Wapetakes and the need for a meeting place for a 'Thing' (and perhaps 3) above).

5) I heard that despite the publicity claims neither of the groups The Brotherhood of Man or Lieutenant Pigeon were actually Wakefield or Five Towns - It would be nice to relieve ourselves of association with 'Save all your kissess for me.' and of course as its always call 'That B****y Agado.'

6) Peter Storey author of 'The Sporting Life' was an Old Savillian and possibly a Wakefield resident. Last I heard he was at the BBC and practising his writing. I would expect not all his work has been published under his name. Check.

7) I don't know at what level you list 'notables' of Wakefield by perhaps Adrian (Ada) Wilson - Journalist, Editor [et. al Tubthumping: New Writing from Yorkshire], Author [Like a Dog to Its Vomit], Inventor, and Musician of Sandal is an Old Savillian and contemporary of myself deserves listing. See Amazon for the novels (I can't find his earlier ones) and edited books. I'm led to believe he has invention[s] in high tech fabrics and was until recently editor of a Textile Month based in Bradford.

As a Musician he was a founder member of the Wakefield British Powerpop (a type of 1st generation punk) band Strangeways . If you want to listen to their music then you should get the 2004 album made from their late 70's session tapes called 'Powerpop'. Their singles are collectable Joey Ramone produced 'Wasting Time' can fetch in excess of 100GBP from a dealer and a number of other tracks were recorded at Abbey Road, the singles are 70's mod revival classics. One 'Chose Sauvage' a literal translation of 'Wild Thing' into french is sung by their then pre-Pretenders Chrissie Hind.

I have heard her (Chrissie, comtemporaneously on Radio 1) credit him with inspiring the line and title to The Pretenders british No. 1 'Brass in Pocket.' It went like in this 'Somebody brought a pair of flares [anathema to a 1st generation punk] in to the dressing room and asked whose they were. Ada said 'If there's brass int' pocket they're mine.' Obviously as an American she didn't hear the t' because in Wakefield at the time it was said as a differentiated 'n' sound and as documented elsewhere in the wiki these distinctions cannot be heard until you've been in Yorkshire for a number of years. Secondly she didn't know that brass int' pocket means money in the pocket and assumed it was some kind of magical property. Given that its said that in the 90s she also credited him with being her lover (they were in other apparently stable relationships at the time) the remainder of the lyrics may also be attributable to her feelings for him.

Subsequently Ada went 'solo' and recorded under a number of names like 'Ada Wilson and ...'. The self-financed "In the Quiet of My Room' was listed and Number 2 in the Sounds (a national music paper) chart for 1 week. As far as I'm aware 'Tattoo Hosts Vision On' was his only album, recordings featured Ian Nelson (Bill Nelson's younger brother) a number of times.

Notice that he is an ARTIST practicing his craft.

8) Bill Nelson is the same, if you consider the success of Bill Nelson's Red Noise (No 2 in the Album Chart) the fact that that it was considered punk yet Bill is not of that generation. Further Drastic Plastic (Be Bop Deluxe) contains 'musical phrase quotes' from early punk records. And yet more that faux faux pomp rock band (Justin/Julian someone as lead) and Elastica's second album quote his Be Bop guitar licks.

Sounding the Ritual Echo was released with Quit Dreaming and Get on With the Bean, I can beleive the assertion that he worked with Fripp and Eno on some [private?] recordings.

Look at the composition date and actual release date of track on Whimsy... is he waiting for others to catch up?

He too practices his craft and art as a musician.

9) It might be polite to enquire of WGHS if their statement 'she went to WGHS' of Lady Stella Rimington is more that just public school politeness but in fact an indication that she too is an Old Savillian.

Regards - Andrew Miles "Leny" Lindley

Andrew - please timestamp your comments on talk pages by putting 4 tildes at the end, like so: ~~~~
Regarding your comments, 1 and 2 sound like original research, which is to say they can be included only if you can back them up with an external source/references.
Point 3 is more or less correct though; Wakefield was once the county town of the West Riding of Yorkshire, or so says the Wakefield Historical Society, and they'd seem to be the ones to know. Spiral Wave 02:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)