> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Words are not enough - URL: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/words-are-not-enough/ - Published: 2023-02-18T15:53:00.000Z - Updated: 2025-06-28T07:33:37.000Z - Description: Memory, place and continuity in the Yorkshire Dales - Author: Andy Marshall - Tags: place writing, yorkshire dales, yorkshire, pen-y-ghent, words are not enough **Sam and Em, my grandad spoke of Pen-y-ghent.** He pronounced it softly, phonetically - the tip of his tongue protruding slightly, padding the sharpness of the 't' with deep northern undertones. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-173.jpg) Peny-y-ghent from Horton-in-Ribblesdale I'm frightened I might not pass this on, might lose it - this memory from a loved one - its potency derived from days he spent within the dales that I do not know, but am kindred to. I'm walking here to connect with him, this place an affordance for envisioning him. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-179.jpg) The path to Pen-y-ghent I see him in the gnarled stone and creaking gates, the tumbled compote of moss and lime and the battered walls crumbling over time. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-176.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-183.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-172.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-177.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-180.jpg) The day I visit - the clouds are low and bilious - like the tobacco borealis that hung around his living room chair - amidst the sound of Cowboys and Indians chasing horses. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-181.jpg) The sign-posts here are returning to nature - not that he would have seen - he couldn't read. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-184.jpg) This man whose hands were deft at fixing things and wringing chickens necks, never knew the might of the pen with which I write. I could never comprehend that ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-175.jpg) Yet, within the moment I felt him most, with the looming limestone ossuary of Pen-y-Ghent behind me, he showed me the frivolity of words, in the presence of the spindled light breaking through the dale. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-178.jpg) --- ## Grandad ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/IMG_9609.jpeg) **Grandad was always busy. He had big gnarled hands and he cleaned them with swarfega. When we washed our hands together, he'd give me a dollop of the green stuff, and I'd watch it miraculously clear the grime from my hands. This kind of thing was Grandad's superpower: passing on his wisdom.** He wasn't a complete saint - once, when he was teaching me how to drive in his VW Beetle - it broke down. Dad came to give us a tow and grandad let me stay behind the wheel. The engine was switched off, and when dad started to pull us away from the kerb, the steering wheel locked and I couldn't control the direction of the car, whilst being pulled forward onto a dual carriageway. And grandad? He jumped out of the side door. In his prime he fixed steam engines - not the toy ones, but the big beam engines down at Chadwicks. He could fix an engine as much as a leaky roof on a chicken coop. He built his own greenhouse and glazed it. He could eat a raw onion. Most of my memories revolve around his actions in the garden: standing at the greenhouse, watering the tomatoes, pulling up wads of carrots. I also remember walking by his side, along the lane at Stakehill on a hot summer's day, with the sound of the skylark accompanying us. Once, on the rare occasion that I stayed over at Grandad's (with my brother), I awoke and headed down stairs towards the crackle of an open fire - but before I did - I caught a glimpse of grandad through the crack in the open door of the bathroom - he was stood there in front of a mirror in his shorts and vest. His hair (which was usually immaculately greased down) was long, loose and unkempt. It is a memory I have alway kept with me because, to me, it showed his vulnerability. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/IMG_6350-PhotoRoom.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/02/original-171-1.jpg) Horton-in-Ribblesdale from the path to Pen-y-ghent