"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
idual.net...
Both are of course only supposed to be used by residents of the
appropiate county. Stuff that, we live in Cumbria (just) but go to
Hexham (Northumberland) far more than anywhere else in Cumbria, guess
which HWRC we use...

We used to live near Malton, and the North Yorkshire tip in Malton and the
York City tip in Strensall were more or less equidistant so I used both...
until York started checking for ID and I was turned away because I wasn't a
resident of York City "county". As an aside, even many locals cannot get
their brains around the concept of York being in a county of its own, and
not being part of North, West or East Yorkshire or the three Ridings that
preceded those 1974 counties.

It is interesting how some tips have staff who are far more willing to help
unload cars than at other tips. When I used to live in Oxfordshire, the
staff, especially at Redbridge, wouldn't lift a finger to help, and were
there only to try to catch people out who were putting things in the wrong
skips (*). In North Yorkshire, Malton, Thornton-le-Dale and Wombleton (**)
usually leave people to manage on their own, though more recently they are
willing to help if you ask them. Leyburn, the nearest tip to where we live
at the moment, are very willing to help: sometimes I've barely reversed up
to the skips when the boot is opened and one of the cheery staff is starting
to empty my trugs of garden waste. On one occasion I had to stop him from
taking something that *I* knew was not to be thrown away, but happened to be
in the boot; I should have anticipated what would happen and put in on the
back seat instead...


(*) I once asked "Where do I put this?" and was greeted with a shrug and a
grunt, so I said "Thank you for being so helpful" and put it in the most
sensible one. At that point, he yelled at me for putting it in the wrong
one - he kept going on and on, repeating himself many times over. I pointed
out that I'd asked him and he hadn't deigned to give me a sensible answer.
"You should have known" was his answer.

(**) I kid you not: I love the idea of Wombles of Wombleton collecting
"things that everyday folk leave behind" ;-)