'Nay, lad," said the old dalesman, "what does ta want wi' pokin' about in t'deeard past?"

I had quizzed him about the time he was a farmer's boy, earning "next to nowt" and being just able to afford a new pair of fustian breeches in spring.

He, like Henry Ford, thought history was bunk but in this run-up to the Millennium celebrations, there will be many a backward glance. At the year end, I did the usual mental stock-taking and recalled, in particular, a visit to Shipley and a long conversation with Frank Woodall, who has long been fascinated by old industries like lead-mining.

Frank not only "pokes about in t'past" but revives it by making working models of processes involved in turning mineralised tracts of the Pennines inside out. You may see his work in the Museum of Lead Mining at Earby. He told me he also had models of pumping engines on display in Cornwall. Others are to be found in his workroom at home.

Frank's love affair with the Dales began in the 1914-18 war when he continued a family tradition of holidaymaking at Redmire in Wensleydale. That custom began when an uncle was a member of a Bradford cycling club. A fellow member was fond of talking about "up yonder", where his grandfather lived.

So they went "up yonder", using an excursion train from Bradford to Aysgarth in Wensleydale, and walking to Redmire. This became a regular destination for Woodall family holidays. They had a variety of accommodation, ranging from cottage to farmhouse. Frank continued the custom until 1945, after which he visited Redmire spasmodically.

Those were the days when donkeys were used to carry laden milk cans from the summer pastures where cows were milked. Frank remembers men walking to the pasture and shouting: "Coo, coo, coo" to the cattle, which ambled down to a corner of a field for milking.

Each donkey would carry two back-cans, the sort of milk container which was normally worn with straps, like a rucksack. The tinsmith at Bolton Castle reckoned that, if pushed, he could make a back-can in a day. Milk was despatched by a train that left Redmire at 7.15 in the evening, en route for Northallerton and Finsbury Park.

"People used to take their milk to the station in horses and traps. Sometimes it was like the chariot race in the film Ben Hur. It wasn't so bad if they could be milking at Redmire in the evening and the milk was on the doorsteps of houses in London next morning."

Frank's life-long interest in mining and mineralogy was stimulated by talks he had with old Kit Peacock, "the last man living who had worked in the local lead-mines." Young Frank Woodall had seen some stones on a Redmire window-sill.

When he asked what they were, he was directed to Kit, a little chap, steady-going, unexcitable, who had always lived by himself. He was an enthusiast for t'Owd Man's world where shafts and adits were used to reach the fickle veins of lead. The stones were from the mines.

"There was no horror about working underground. It was all about breaking into crystalline chambers or finding piles of ore, and things of that sort."

Later, when Frank was in his early 1920s, he saw a pumping engine and wanted to go to Cornwall. So the two things were amalgamated. "I got interested in Cornish engineering and Dales mining." When the war broke out and he could not go to Cornwall, he spent more time in the Dales.

In 1941, he established a link between Cornwall and the Dales when he went for a long walk from Redmire and found himself on Fremington Edge, above Reeth, where chert was being quarried. He climbed to the workings and found the workmen having their snack and playing "halfpenny nap". One man had migrated from Cornwall to Hurst, in Swaledale, in 1918, to mine lead, but his venture failed.

The chert he was now seeking was underground. Frank was invited to explore the working. "Now this is the strange thing. It was a brilliantly sunny day but for some reason I had a tin of photographic flashpowder in my rucksack. I was able to take some underground pictures."

Chert, when ground, was being used in the production of pottery. The high cost of transport from Swaledale to Staffordshire meant it was economical to send only large pieces, which would have plenty of wear in them.

The chert workings on Fremington Edge so fascinated Frank Woodall that he returned for one day in each of the following wartime summers. His last visit was in 1953. He went on to research grinding mills and found that a Cornish friend's ancestors had sent china stone to Thwaites Mill at Leeds, which also ground chert.

Archie Rule, the Cornishman who worked in the Dales, returned to Camborne, in his native county. "I think a daughter of his preferred to stay in Reeth."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.