TAKE WHAT YOU WANT - THE LANDSCAPE OF WINIFRED HOLTBY

Memorial plaque to Winifred Holtby in Rudston church, East Riding of Yorkshire, the village where she was born and is buried.

This poem was written after a tour of the Yorkshire Wolds and Holderness, visiting the landscapes that, like me, Winifred Holtby grew up in and which inspired her writing, especially South Riding and Anderby Wold. The first stanza of the poem is the favourite quote of Sarah Burton in South Riding and informs the whole novel.

Take what you want – the landscape of Winifred Holtby

Take what you want,

said God.

Take it and pay for it. 

Take broad, straight-sided valleys,

chalk-strewn Wolds

and massive, open skies,

and across this landscape, wide and clear,

stretch your imagination. 

Take clay of fragile, sea-gnawed cliffs

and reclaimed river mud,

and mould from them a land

of breath-held liminality -

a strange, forgotten corner 

on England’s furthest edge. 

Take those who live here

and, like God himself,

create a world

that shows, in contrasts too-long hidden,

the strengths of women

and the weaknesses of men. 

But, most of all,

take compassion and equality

as your guides

and spread the words to even those

who do not choose to listen. 

Take all of this – and pay for it,

said God. 

Pay for it with a life cut short,

like all those brave young men 

with whom you went to war. 

Pay with the love of generations

that you won’t live to know. 

Pay for it at a price
that is, perhaps, too high,

but a spiritual bargain

you fully understand. 

Then, even though your work is incomplete,

take your rest in that same place

where you first saw the day,

and where, on summer mornings 

when the sun climbs orange from the sea

and a skein of wild geese splits the sky,

the shadow of the timeless Stone

pays out across the graves.

Rudston church and monolith - the Stone.

A typical view across the Wolds.

Dowthorpe Hall, the inspiration for Maythorpe in South Riding, currently the home of John Holtby, descendant of Robert Holtby, Winifred's uncle, who inspired the character, Robert Carne.