At the height of the coronavirus crisis, Helen Flynn, co-chair of Nidderdale Plus, vowed that nobody in Nidderdale or the Washburn Valley would go without help.
The community hub based in Pateley Bridge has been playing a key administrative role in marshalling an army of volunteers.
Among the 600 people to come forward was a team from Bewerley Park Outdoor Learning Centre – itself temporarily closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The centre’s instructors Ian Coates and Heather Tuffs, along with trainees Byrony Hart and Rowan Bonney rallied to the call.
Over four months, they walked, cycled and drove thousands of miles, making free deliveries of vital items to people stuck in their homes.
Jenny and Frank Braithwaite, who were among the hundreds of people in Nidderdale to receive home deliveries during the coronavirus lockdown
Help for people in self-isolation continues, but is not as intensive as it was at the outset, when the team worked six days a week.
Over the period, a close working relationship grew between the Bewerley team and the Chandler family, whose Spar Shop, at the foot of Pateley Bridge High Street, became a centre for handling telephone orders and assembling and distributing boxes and bags containing food, drink, prescriptions, pet supplies and other essential items.
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The goods were supplied by the Spar shop and a host of other retailers in the town.
While making her deliveries on a bicycle with a trailer provided by Bewerley Park’s former head, Sam Cook, Heather Tuffs was also collecting stories, messages of thanks, photographs, anecdotes, poems and hand-drawn pictures for a book which she has called Lockdown 2020.
Heather told the Stray Ferret:
“I was inspired by the way in which the Chandlers were going the extra mile to help people and thought it needed to be recorded and recognised that, at a time of need in Nidderdale, they rose to the occasion.”
She added:
“It was also a way for me to say thank you for being able to meet so many lovely people in parts of Nidderdale I’d hadn’t previously been to.”
After hard days of pedal-powered deliveries – some of them involving the steep climb up Greenhow Hill – Heather wrote, designed and published her book, paying for it from donations made by the people who appear in it.
Its 160 pages capture the community’s response to the coronavirus crisis.
Retailers such as Kendall’s and Weatherhead butchers, fishmonger Fish With a Twist, Pateley Bridge Pharmacy, Park View Stores, Dales Market Corner, the Sandwich Box, worked in collaboration with the Chandler Spar Shop, Nidderdale Plus, The Rev Daryl Hall and countless volunteers.
The publication, which includes a touching reference to husband, father and grandfather Colin Chandler, who died in November 2007, came as a complete surprise to the family.
Speaking on behalf of them, Lee Chandler, said:
“We already know that Heather is a very special, kind and caring person and her book, which brings both smiles and tears, is something that we will treasure for the rest of our lives. We’re sure Dad would have been proud.”
