After three very pleasant days with my cousin Sally and her husband John in Selby, I've moved down to Scholes, where one of my many Yorkshire "e-cousins", John W. lives. John and his wife Betty have made me most kindly welcome and I'm looking forward to visiting another cemetary tomorrow, this time at nearby Kimberworth. The burial grounds around Selby proved disappointing as the one where I think my 3xggf Timothy Rayner Mason was interred has had the stones laid flat and most of them are severely overgrown with moss. I shall try phoning the churchwarden tomorrow to see if there's any chance of a look at the burial register for the 1870s.

Yesterday Sally dropped me at Pontefract Castle for an hour's stone walking. Pontefract has, of course, been an important centre since Roman times and for centuries its castle was impregnable both as fortress and prison. I caught a glimpse of it on a my last visit in 1995 and it gave me the shudders. It is nothing but a crumbling ruin now but it still has what I, in my hippie-chick lingo, would call a Bad Vibe. When Sally told me what the place was I understood my reaction because I knew of the castle's infamy. I was subsequently to learn that several of my ancestors met their ends there, mainly during the Wars of the Roses.

This time, though, it didn't have that eerie effect on me. Rather, the place seemed forlorn, almost as if it were grieving for its past glories. I wish it could be properly excavated, as under the grass and rubble there must lie a huge amount of archealogical material. Time Team, where are you?

Today we visited another site famous for its part in the Yorkist / Lancastrian conflict - the pretty village of Towton. I paid my respects at the ancient memorial to the fallen on both sides that stands on the battle site itself. Sally and I had ancestors both red and white who died on that terrible day.

I am, of course, not doing any writing. There is a wealth of material seeping through to the unconscious, however, and I know much of it will re-surface to help me write the new version of my trilogy. History is in the air here. You can feel it if you can overlook telegraph poles and power lines that crowd the scenery even across the fields and meadows that separate the villages. The landscape, even in rural areas, reminds me of the outskirts of an Australian city. I hope to see some wilder country when I visit the more northerly parts of Yorkshire next weekend.