UK - Smut on the Settle and Carlisle?

[John Ashworth]

Four candles and some ‘Oh!’s, as the Two Ronnies might have said!
9:30am Friday 19th December 2008
Craven Herald & Pioneer

Rail travellers of a sensitive disposition who have cause to dally at Settle Station are being advised to avert their eyes from the designs on the waiting room windows.

For, when the fabric panels – made to look like stained glass – were unveiled on Saturday they caused quite a flutter among the elderly women who had gathered to admire their handiwork.

As they looked at their Christmassy depiction of four large candles, they realised the design might be construed as something entirely different. We hesitate to spell out what, but there’s simply no mistaking the anatomical resemblance.

Far from blushing, though, the ladies who comprise the Flagmakers of Settle and who made the glass-like window covers, think it’s hilarious.

And, ever enterprising, the group has already produced flag key rings – on sale at the station shop – to the same somewhat indelicate design. And word is spreading, bringing scores of curious sightseers to the station.

Flagmakers organiser Margaret Holgate, 68, from Rathmell, who could barely stop laughing when we spoke to her, said: “When the first candle in the window was completed it did cross my mind what it looked like, but no one said anything so I thought I had better keep my mouth shut and so we sewed away merrily.

“When the display went up in the station window, though, it was obvious. It’s so funny, it’s made my year.

“We are a group of women whose average age is 70 and our oldest member is 80 and yet we’re causing such a stir. It’s good fun and it’s up to people the way they choose to interpret it.”

Designer Barbara Rigby said it was difficult to draw a stylised candle without it looking suggestive. “But I’m not Giggleswick’s answer to the Kama Sutra you know,” she said. “I’m a pensioner with three grandchildren. Everyone is talking about the candles of Settle.

“People would have to be very narrow-minded not to see the funny side.”

Chairman of the Friends of the Settle to Carlisle Line, Mark Rand, said he thought the candles would add an extra dimension to festive visits to the station.

“Hopefully, people will travel on the Settle-to-Carlisle line to see the latest attraction on what is England’s most spectacular rail journey,” said Mark.

Next year marks the 20th anniversary since campaigners succeeded in keeping the line open.

Station staff said rail passengers had joined in with the joke this week and that no one had taken offence. “We have not pointed it out, we just leave it up to people’s imagination,” said a spokesman.

The Flagmakers of Settle were set up around eight years ago in an imaginative bid to put the town on the map.

Their “stained glass” fabric window displays, made with painstaking detail, can be seen around the town, with a nativity scene in the former photographer’s and pictures from the 12 days of Christmas dotted around shops.

Margaret said: “Our members keep dying off so we have tried to simplify our designs so that we can attract new people to the group.”