The tale of the jilted Keighley recluse William Sharp a couple of weeks ago brought to mind one or two more noted eccentrics.

Keighley also produced James 'Pie' Leach (see last column), but if we spread the net a little wider we find that Yorkshire produced one of the great eccentrics of anywhere and any time.

This was Jemmy Hirst, who was animal daft. He rode a bull, tried to train an otter to fish for him (catching the fish wasn't a problem. It was getting the otter to let go that was the hard bit).

He also hunted using pigs instead of dogs as pointers and generally behaved very oddly indeed - so much so that King George III was intrigued enough to invite him to London from his home in Rawcliffe, near Goole, for a meeting.

Like Bill Sharp, Jemmy Hirst's eccentricity began with a disappointment in love. He lost his intended to the smallpox, having earlier rescued her from a flooded river. At first, like Sharp, he took to his bed. And he suffered what was then called a 'brain fever' which made him even odder than he had been before; which was pretty odd.

While at school, Jemmy, who was born to a farmer and his wife in 1738, had a tame jackdaw trained to take the mickey out of schoolmates, teachers and neighbours. He also trained a hedgehog to follow him to school. This was not the sort of behaviour for a lad whose parents fondly hoped would become a parson.

These plans fell through and the young Hirst was apprenticed to a tanner, whose daughter he planned to marry. It was she who died of smallpox, turning Jemmy's head still further. After the brain fever and a period of moping, he took up animal training. His first success was Jupiter, a young bull which he trained to behave like a horse, successfully enough for it to ride to hounds and to pull a carriage. No ordinary carriage, mind - this one looked like an upside-down lampshade, with big wheels and a patent device which was an early form of mileometer.

This conveyance he took with him to Doncaster races where, dressed in a waistcoat of duck feathers, and a lambskin hat with a brim nine feet around the edge, he cut rather a figure.

Jupiter struggled to pull the carriage, so his master had it fitted with sails. This was not an altogether wise move, as on a windy day it crashed though a shop window, earning a ban from the town of Pontefract.

He'd been left a few bob by his father and, eccentric or not, had a social conscience, blowing his hunting horn to summon the poor and the elderly to his house for a free tea.

When he finally married his housekeeper, Jemmy wore a toga and decided the ceremony should be conducted in sign language.

The King heard of Jemmy's exploits and summoned him to London, which bewildered him. He had never met his monarch and, as far as he knew, he didn't owe him any money. But he would go. And go he did, in his carriage. His appearance at court reduced one noble to uncontrollable laughter. The obliging Jemmy pinched his nose and threw a goblet of water in his face - 'because the poor man were 'avin 'ysterics'.

He was pleased to find his king a plain-looking fellow - and astonished the court by saying as much. Then he invited him back to Rawcliffe 'for as much good brandy as tha can sup'. The king, surprisingly, never took up the offer.

Jemmy departed this life in 1829 aged 91. The day of his funeral was declared a public holiday and a firework display took place in the evening. It was only fair, since Jemmy Hirst had brightened the lives of many.

Remarkable exploits of the pieman of Oakworth

When James 'Pie' Leach, aged 76, married his 35-year-old housekeeper in 1891, it was one of the least notable episodes in his life.

Leach, born at Slack, near Oakworth and not a mile from the home of the recumbent recluse Bill Sharp, had earned his nickname as a maker of renowned meat pies. One man, it was said, had spent eighteen pence (7.5p) on them in one night - which means he had probably necked more than a dozen.

In his time Leach had been a weaver, a docker, a publican, a mineworker and a woolcomber. He was a true original.

On the day of his wedding he arrived at the church just as it was closing for the day. So he sent a pal up the tower to stop the clock. The parson, unaware he should have been getting time and a half, conducted the service.

It was his third marriage. His previous two wives and their virtues were the subject of lectures which 'Pie' took on tour, including a visit to London. How well his 'Keethla' accent was understood isn't recorded.

What is recorded, however, is Leach's career as the town's night watchman. It was, he noted, 'a very disordley sic town'. Once poachers with sticks marched up Park Lane and troops and the Riot Act were needed to dispel them.

One Thursday night in December 1850 was memorable. In 'Pie's' words: "Whe was sent for to Abrham Shakelton's the Lord Rodney inn to quash a disturbance betwixt him and his wife and hir children. Abrham got too black eyes and altogether it was a very ruf house."

Another time a licensee was found fighting in the street without a stitch of clothing on him, and about 100 people gathered to watch.

Many more gathered to watch in 1893 when 'Pie' Leach was laid to rest, under a stone which he had designed himself.

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