Service Point 93.pdf - CILIP

forth for coming up with the finance and thanks to the staff on the
mobiles: Jill Craven, Gillian Micklethwaite, Dave Marsden, Ann
Gonciarz, Neil Hollingworth, Sue Marfleet, Alan Draisey and Marilyn
Beresford for all their patience and hard work.
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Jowett Mobile Libraries
One of the nicer parts of editing Service Point is the letters and calls,
out of the blue, from people interested in Mobile Libraries. One such
call was from Noel Stokoe, mobile librarian at Whitby in North Yorkshire.
He had been bought a copy of my book at Christmas and amongst the
pictures were a couple of Jowett mobile libraries run by the West Riding
Library service.
Noel is the secretary of the Jowett owners club and finding two previously
unknown pictures of Jowetts is like finding buried treasure. So
he got on to me for permission to put them in the Jowett magazine. He
was more than delighted to find out I actually had more pictures and
soon all five will appear in the magazine, as I was able to call in to see
Noel when I stayed at my sister’s flat in Whitby.
As I had lived next door to one of the Jowett factories, at Howden
Clough, as a child, I had more than a passing interest. The closure of
the works caused a lot of hardship in the little village at the time and of
course, many people in the area ran a Jowett car or van.
The West Riding vans seem to be almost unique and therefore of
more than usual interest to the Jowett fraternity. Unfortunately, Noel
does not know of any survivors. If anyone is interested in Jowetts and
want to contact Noel, I can pass on addresses.
Finally, as mobile driver in Heartbeat country, Noel could tell me many
stories of unusual events in the Dales. My favourite is his story about
sheep. In one small village, he leaves the van and takes books to a
housebound reader. On a very frosty morning, he did this and was
amazed to come back to the van and find it surrounded by sheep. Not
only that, but they were trying to lick the paint off it. A local farmer gave
him the explanation; they were licking off the salt, which had sprayed
onto the vehicle side. Therefore, they were in fact doing a good deed.
Therefore, if your van gets covered in salt you know what to do!
Editor