A SON and his 93-year-old mother have published a book.

Cobbled Together features the poetry of Dorothy Nixon, who was born in Haworth and has lived there virtually all her life.

And her son, Ashley, has provided photos that he’s taken over the years around the village and in the surrounding landscape.

He said: “As a young girl my mother was given the opportunity to take piano lessons and she used those musical skills for many years as a local dance class and pantomime pianist.

“She was also a poet, although many folks – until now – didn’t know it!

“Her earliest known poem was discovered in a drawer in her family home on West Lane after her mother died. It was a dedication “To Mam and Dad” written on her 21st birthday, in 1949.

“In the 1980s, my mum’s writing grew from personal rhymes for friends and family to stories about local people and places.

“Among these places was Lower Laithe, one of many reservoirs in the Pennines which was completed – in 1925 – through the efforts of her dad, grandfather and others in a large gang of local navvies.

“She wrote about Top Withens, the farmhouse described in Emily Bronte’s classic novel Wuthering Heights. There was a poem about the windmills that began to appear on the moors around Haworth in the 1990s.

“She would often write poetry, like Summat an’ Nowt, in the West Riding of Yorkshire dialect and usually find something funny to say – such as in The Octopus, her last gathered poem, written in 2008.

“Over the years my mum’s poems, such as The Navvies and Rabbit Hill, inspired me to photograph some of the places she mentioned.

“Cobbled Together features these and other images, captured during visits to Haworth between 1985 and 2016.

“They were selected to fit in with her words, relate visually to my childhood roots and connect with the family.”

Dorothy was born at Hird Street, Haworth, in 1928.

She then lived at Park Street and later West Lane, before moving into Bronte Park Care Home in the village, in 2015.

Two years later she went to Park View Care Home at Bradford, where she is still a resident.

“She used to work at Airedale Hospital and to mark her retirement she wrote a poem – Hiya Dortha – on February 23, 1989, to describe her life thus far in 28 lines!” said Ashley.

Ashley was born at the former St John’s Hospital in Keighley but grew-up in Haworth and lived in the village for more than two decades.

The photographer, filmmaker, writer and university lecturer has lived in Calgary, Alberta, Canada since 2001.

He has a PhD in ecology from Coventry University and is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.

He teaches sustainability and writing about images at Mount Royal University, in Calgary.

Ashley already has a diverse range of publications under his belt – from a university textbook on environmental assessment to books about women’s ice hockey!

For more details about Cobbled Together, visit blurb.ca/b/10554499-cobbled-together or Ashley’s website at jashleynixon.com/index.

* One of Dorothy’s poems, The Octopus:

There was a little octopus

Of tentacles he had eight,

Sometimes they were curly

And sometimes they were straight.

He lived in an aquarium

In water by the gallon

All day he was stared at

By Tom, Dick and Alan.

Oh, what a word will rhyme with octopus?

You have set me quite a task,

Could it be omnibus or syllabus?

Or Oedipus I ask?

But I’ll sleep on it tonight

(Don’t want to make a fuss)

Then tomorrow I’ll find a word

Which will rhyme with octopus!