Neddy Dick was a resident of Keld and a well-known character in the Dales in the early 20th Century. His real name was Richard Alderson. He was a farmer of many talents, not least among them music. He played the harmonium and had a collection of bells from clocks which he hung from a branch and played.

The story goes that he was out walking by Kisdon Foss when he tripped, dislodging a piece of limestone which went and struck another stone further down. Noticing that there was a sonorous quality to the stone he decided to see if he could get other tones out of stones, so he began the tedious process of scouring the bed of the River Swale for similar stones and then chipping away at them, striking them repeatedly until he got just the note he wanted. In this way he eventually managed to fashion out a complete set.

Once his instrument was finished, he started making appearances at shows and fairs throughout the Dales, to the great curiosity and delight of the local folk who had never seen such a thing. The success of this venture led Neddy Dick to aspire to a wider audience and he began to dream of touring the whole of England with his instrument fixed upon a donkey cart. Unfortunately these dreams were interrupted by a lengthy illness, during which time his stones were left in an old outhouse. Neddy Dick never recovered and died in 1926. After his death a search was made of the outhouse but, to the unknowing eye, all that was found was a mass of rubble. The only evidence of his rock band which survives is a small number of photographs taken of him at the height of his fame. In one such photo, located in the Reeth Folk Museum, he appears outside a house as an old man with a long white beard and holding a wooden hammer next to a row of stones hanging from a frame.

In actual fact Neddy Dick was not the first person to use stones in this way. The instrument he made is classified as a lithophone and these have been used around the world in various shapes for centuries. Not too far away in the Lake District near Skiddaw Peter Crosthwaite in 1785 made his discovery of the musicality of certain rocks and began shaping the flat rocks into different length slabs and laying them horizontally to be struck like a xylophone.

The largest and best known lithophone had a range of 8 octaves and was built by Joseph Richardson who called his instrument a Harmonicon. He toured England extensively, as well as France, Germany and Italy, giving recitals, including one in 1848 for Queen Victoria. Today his instrument is still on view at Keswick Museum. Another Skiddaw lithophone was commissioned by John Ruskin and is housed in the Ruskin Museum in Coniston.

Coming from the same region was Daniel Till of Keswick, who moved to New Jersey with his two sons, James and William, and popularised the instrument there, touring the USA with The Till Family Rock Band. Before he emigrated he also toured England and gave a performance at Crystal Palace in 1881. He is said to have spent 11 years building a 5 octave lithophone, although the Till instrument found in the Metropolitan Museum, made from duplicate stones collected by Daniel Till at the same time, has only 22 stones and may be a touring model for greater mobility.

Sadly Neddy Dick never attained the same fame, his reputation being limited to the Dales. This song is a tribute to him.