There's a new grave in Thirkleby churchyard. Under the relaid turves and flowers, freshly turned earth glistens: the black riches of topsoil mixing with the orange clay forked up from a fathom. Shaken but unstirred by the east wind, the snowdrops wave their banners. Nearly 100 years ago, Hilda was born within a blackbird’s flight of this acre of wild blooms and trees, and yesterday they brought her back. Not that she went far in life, farming the land with husband Rowlie round Byland Abbey barely half a dozen miles from here, and then even closer at Osgodby. Her life was as hard as most women’s lives were then: water drawn from a well on the hill, fire ranges to be lit and kept happy, produce to be prepared and stored, food to be made for family and the men who worked on the f