Stories to make you smile from across Yorkshire

Every week in Yorkshire we have uplifting stories about people, places and animals across the region - and we like to shout about them.

This week we feature beauteous blossoms, a red squirrel sanctuary looking for a new owner and a man conquering an arduous ultramarathon for a cause very close to his heart.

A gigantic fox wanders through the deserted streets of a town - but all isn't quite what it first appears.

The fox recently swerved the entrance fee and explored Bondville Model Village, near Bridlington, with a video capturing it peering through tiny windows and taking a drink from the harbour.

Bondville, at Sewerby, features more than 200 model buildings, including a castle, pubs and a cricket club.

Glorious pink cherry blossom trees have recently been adding splashes of colour across green spaces in Yorkshire.

They usually flower between March and May, with the window of opportunity to enjoy the displays in their full bloom sometimes as short as a fortnight.

"They're a really tangible sign that winter is over, and complimentary to the rhododendrons, magnolias and other spring plants that we have," says Claire Tatler, garden manager at RHS Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire.

A lost manuscript which had been hidden for more than a century has uncovered a teenage Charlotte Brontë's fascination with "very naughty" Parisian society.

The Journal of a Frenchman was the missing part of a series of The Young Men's Magazine, which Brontë edited and wrote aged just 14.

An expert who recently analysed it says she discovered aspects of Brontë she "hadn't really encountered before".

The magazine was discovered in 2019 and purchased by the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, where the sisters lived and wrote their famous novels.

"You've got this Yorkshire clergyman's daughter, who seems so respectable, but she seems to know all about being drunk and disorderly in Paris in this journal entry," says the University of Chester's Professor Deborah Wynne.

A red squirrel reserve in the Yorkshire Dales is up for sale - but the founders' sons hope its legacy will continue with the new landowners.

Jane and Hugh Kemp's woodland in Snaizeholme became a sanctuary for the squirrels in the 1960s, with the furry residents still thriving in the area.

After his parents died, their children decided to sell the 37-acre site and are keen for it be taken on by a wildlife enthusiast.

There are thought to be fewer than 40,000 red squirrels left in the country, according to Forestry England's squirrel policy advisor.

Linguists have appealed for public help to create a national database of regional swear words.

University of Sheffield experts want to build a UK "swear map" before the words and phrases used locally in 2026 "disappear".

Dr Chris Montgomery, who is leading the project alongside arts project Modern Toss, says: "We're really interested in anything that's rude, that's a bit naughty, that might be counted as a swear word or a phrase."

Researchers say the project is not about promoting offensive language but about recording how people speak across the UK.

A Leeds runner battled all weather conditions last weekend while taking on a mammoth 24-hour ultramarathon in aid of the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association charity after his best friend's mother died from the condition.

Andrew Richardson, 30, ran from Leeds to the Dales on Saturday before tackling Yorkshire's Three Peaks - Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough.

He safely arrived home in Horsforth on Sunday - covering a whopping 108 miles (174km) in total.

Speaking about his friend's mum, he said: "After she passed away, it made me think I have to get out there and try my best and raise whatever I can to help."

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