A Glendale Life - Yvette Hope

A Glendale Life...A Glendale Life...A Glendale Life

A ‘southerner’ who’s helped keep the Glendale community ticking over

Yvette Hope - in panto mode

If you think the lady who helps run Mike Hope's garage in Wooler has a different accent it's not entirely surprising.

Yvette Hope was actually born in Newcastle, but moved to Australia at the age of six when her dad got a job in the early days of the computer industry. Six years later the family moved again – this time to Papua New Guinea. And at the age of 16 she returned to England. “I keep getting asked if my accent is southern. I just reply that it's probably from a lot further south than they think.” She spent ten years in Alnwick (becoming Alnwick Fair Queen one year) then moved to Wooler in 1986 and married Mike Hope a year later. He had a garage in the Market

Place, behind what is now Trotters. “I remember a small fire starting there,” says Yvette. “We called the fire brigade who stopped in the narrow entrance to the garage and then tried to open their doors. Oops – not enough room!”

Yvette and Mike's two children, Nichola and Jamie, arrived in the late 1980s and when they started at Glendale playgroup Yvette joined the committee.

Thus began a long and very varied 'career' of community activities in Wooler. She became chairman of the playgroup and when the children moved to First School she joined the

Yvette as Alnwick Fair Queen

“During that time we had bought the old Middle School cookery and metalwork building and converted it into a garage and a house which we lived in.”

The Hopes outgrew that garage and decided to build a new one – but where?

There was a small plot next to their house and they did a barter deal with the local farmer: they got the plot, the farmer got a Yamaha ATV.

“That sort of thing doesn't happen these days – unfortunately,” says Yvette.

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The speedway days, with husband Mike, far left

The garage was a successful business and once again they outgrew the premises. They asked Robert Croall of Croall Bryson's garage (who owned a plot next to their garage) if he would sell it to them. “He just said 'I think we'd better talk', and after a few meetings held in the congenial atmosphere of the Blue Bell at Cornhill we ended up not just buying the plot but their whole garage on South Road where we are now,” says Yvette. But the Hope family aren't just interested in garages. Yvette's husband and her brother Graeme were regular visitors at Berwick Speedway and enjoyed their Saturday night trips. “One morning I opened the Gazette to find Mike had joined a conglomerate and bought the club! I had no idea till then,” she says. So Yvette found herself involved in the day to day running of a Speedway operation along with helping run the garage – and two young children. “I had a very busy life and I loved it. The kids' teachers used to tell me they loved reading their diaries as they were all about their travels with the speedway and they wondered where they'd be the

next week.” Yvette was also involved in the ‘mammoth task’ in 1996 of moving the speedway operation back to its original home at Shielfield Stadium in Berwick. “Running a meeting for 3,000 people was a bit daunting but we had a great group of fans behind us. We left the speedway a couple of years later – and a lot lighter in the pockets!”

Yvette joined the Wooler Carnival committee for a few years and was then persuaded to join a group that was resurrecting the Wooler Panto.

She'd been involved with other productions when she was in Alnwick. “So I jumped at the chance to take part in what was to become ten years of great fun with some amazing people.”

Husband and brother Graeme helped out with the sound – and some of the sketches.

David Wilson, the panto's director, was ill one year and the cast asked Yvette to organise a show. “I'm no director – I can't control them the

way David could. Thank goodness

On stage at panto time

Yvette - Looking forward to ‘granny’ duties

he was well enough a few weeks before to pull it all together.”

Yvette's next project was the Fountain restoration project.

Six years of hard work followed and while it proved impossible to achieve their initial goal - a replica of the original fountain - they have created “a lovely addition to the market place,” says Yvette, adding: “That's finally finished and I find I'm now just concentrating on the garage and my beautiful grandchildren.” Frank Mansfield