There have been 633 covid infections recorded in the Harrogate district in the last seven days, according to government statistics.

The infection rate has rocketed over the last month and the current seven-day average rate is now 494 people per 100,000.

But there are considerable variations within the district.

The government breaks each district into smaller areas known as middle super output areas, each with a population of about 7,200 people.

According to the latest figures, the middle super output areas with the most current infections are central Harrogate and central Knaresborough.

The more rural Pateley Bridge and Nidd Valley, which has been consistently less affected throughout the pandemic, has the fewest current infections.

Most infections

1 Central Harrogate 76

2 Knaresborough Central 61

3 Harrogate West and Pannal 59

4 Killinghall and Hampsthwaite 53

5 Starbeck 47

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Fewest Infections

1 Pateley Bridge and Nidd Valley 13

2 Hookstone 17

3= Dishthorpe, Baldersby and Markington

3= Spofforth, Burn Bridge and Huby 19

5 Masham, Kirkby Malzeard and North Stainley 21

Ellie Renton wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up and a new wheelchair can help her along the road to achieving that ambition.

Now, villagers in Kirkby Malzeard and the surrounding area are rallying round to make it happen.

The 10-year-old, who is a pupil at Kirkby Malzeard C of E Primary School, has just sat her eleven-plus exam and hopes to follow her older brother William to Ripon Grammar School.

Ellie is keen on sports and competes in the national league as a winger for Middlesbrough Powerchair Football Club.

She is also creative, musical, plays computer games with William and is academic, with art, science and maths among her favourite subjects.

What stands in the way of Ellie making further progress when she goes to secondary school is mobility and the need to be able to take part in lessons at the same desk level as her classmates.

Ellie sits besides the fundraising plant stall run by Pam Collins, of Kirkby in Bloom

She was diagnosed with type 2 spinal muscular atrophy when she was 18-months-old and has been reliant on having a specialist wheelchair throughout her first five years at school.

Ellie has outgrown the chair she currently uses and her parents, Yvonne and Martin, with the support of villagers in Kirkby Malzeard, their family and the wider community, are responding to an appeal for help.

Donations to the Keeping Ellie Mobile appeal, combined with a £5,300 voucher from NHS Wheelchair Services means £11,000 of the £19,000 has been raised towards the purchase of a Permobil F3 electric chair.

Mrs Renton told the Stray Ferret:

“We launched the appeal last November and would like to thank everybody that has helped us so far.

“The covid pandemic has made fundraising difficult, but we are determined to raise the £8,000 we still need as soon as possible.”

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Village support has included the sale of potted plants by Pam Collins, of Kirkby in Bloom, and a further boost came when Ellie’s grandmother, Margaret Renton, who lives in Ripon, sold valuable coins including a gold Krugerrand at auction.

Coin sale

Money from the sale of the coins will take the appeal total to £11,000, giving hope that the chair, which has an adjustable height mechanism allowing Ellie to sit at a desk or table, can be purchased well in advance of next autumn.

She is already looking ahead to university and said:

“I eventually want to study marine biology, because I am worried about the creatures in the oceans and want to be able to do something to help them.”

Further details about Ellie’s wheelchair appeal can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/keeping-ellie-mobile

A campaign to save a historic village pub received a boost when Greg Mulholland, founder of the All-party Parliamentary Group Save the Pub, visited the site this week.

Mr Mulholland, the former Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, visited the disused Henry Jenkins Inn in Kirkby Malzeard on Sunday to help launch a new associate membership scheme. 

Locals are purchasing community shares to buy the inn, which is named after a farm worker and butler who died in 1669, reputedly at the age of 169.

The associate membership scheme allows those unable to buy shares to contribute in other ways, such as by fundraising or doing refurbishment.

So far 180 villagers have raised £210,250 from share pledges towards the £230,000 target to buy and refurbish the inn.

Pub champion Greg Mulholland (centre), of Campaign for Pubs, with supporters of the Henry Jenkins community pub initiative outside the Henry Jenkins in Kirkby Malzeard

Mr Mulholland, who is also campaign director for Campaign to Pubs, said: 

“In these extraordinary times it is more important than ever that we save pubs in rural communities and the Campaign for Pubs fully supports the campaign to save the Henry Jenkins Inn.

“The community in Kirkby Malzeard has been heroic in its campaign and fundraising to save this important historic village pub and preserve a part of local history and heritage.”

The Henry Jenkins Community Pub Ltd has had four offers to buy the pub rejected by the owner, who would prefer to sell it for housing.

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• ‘Very few’ covid infections in North Yorkshire pubs
• Plan to convert Little Ouseburn pub into housing

Campaign for Pubs is lobbying for a change in the law so that no historic pub can be demolished or converted when a group or individual is prepared to buy it as a pub at the independently assessed value.

Dave Robinson, chairman of the Henry Jenkins Community Pub Ltd, said:

“We’re delighted to have Greg’s support and we look forward to working with Campaign for Pubs to help secure the future of the Henry Jenkins and other much-loved pubs in Yorkshire and beyond.”

The coronavirus crisis meant that streets in the city of Ripon and towns and villages in the surrounding rural areas remained largely empty, as people respected the government’s call to maintain social distancing.

However, celebration of the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe was still in evidence in red, white and blue window displays and bunting.

Ripon City Council which had planned three days’ of events involving celebration and commemoration, followed its own advice, when Town Clerk Paula Benson put a red, white and blue display in the Ripon Town Hall Windows.

In Masham, the window of insurance brokers R.F. Broadley, featured a rare collector’s item copy of the Northen Echo, dated Tuesday 8th May 2020 declaring ‘Today is VE Day’.

Just down the street, off Market Place, a private house (pictured above) had its V for Victory salute made out of Union Jacks. while two large Union Jacks and garden bunting decorated another private house in Main Street, Kirkby Malzeard.

The rural community of Kirkby Malzeard has a population of 872, three shops, a church, a pub and a primary school.

Around a third of its population are aged over 60 and most have followed government guidance and are self-isolating. The younger ones have speedily made arrangements for the continuing education of their children and finding the best way to support their parents. Kirkby Malzeard’s nearest town is Masham and the city of Ripon is more than 6 miles south.

St Andrew’s Church Kirkby Malzeard

Amanda and her partner Gianni, run Kirkby Fisheries, have five children and moved to the village from Middlesbrough three years ago.The practicalities of shopping, filling the car up with fuel, budgeting to run a business and a family and the question of who looks after their children have dominated their thoughts.

Amanda, who looks after the books for the business as well as her pre-school children, Louka,11 months, and  3 year old twins, Georgio and Georgia, now has another child to think about:

“I will have Amelia  (aged 6) at home from Monday and will be teaching her, using the teaching pack that the school has provided.”

A worry for Amanda and Gianni is the fall off in custom among village regulars, a number of whom have self-isolated and have stopped coming to the fisheries for the time being. They have taken the financial gamble of launching a free home delivery service and hiring local drivers, in the hope that self-isolaters and other customers further afield, will continue to buy fish and chips and other hot food.

On the Kirkby Fisheries’ FaceBook they posted. ‘We helped feed the nation through two World Wars, we’ll do our best to feed you through this.’

Amanda Parry (left) and Donna Crouch with their children

Donna Crouch moved to Kirkby a couple of years ago from Ripon. She has three children and is a care worker. The private company Donna works for looks after elderly people across Ripon and its surrounding rural communities. She is due to return to work on Monday after an operation.

“I’m waiting to see if my job classes me as a key worker. If it does, my older children who go to Nidderdale High School and Outwood Academy will be looked after, but I’m concerned about who can look after my three-year-old daughter, Madison.”

For Donna and Amanda and many other like them living in the district the dilemma of how to juggle all these many aspects of life is something that will dominate their lives in the weeks to come.