THEY CALL him Woody. But perhaps Rocky would be more apt for a man who spends his weeks at the rock face - and his Saturdays in the back row of the scrum.

This weekend, Peter Wood is keeping his fingers crossed in the hope that he will be picked to face the biggest test of his sporting life: as a member of the Skipton team to meet Leeds Corinthians in the final of the Yorkshire Silver Trophy at the Bradford and Bingley ground on Sunday.

Woody is used to stressful situations. As a driller and shot blaster at Threshfield Quarry, he is the man who with a flick of a switch can bring up to 20,000 tons of high-quality limestone crashing to the ground.

But as cup final fever gripped Skipton rugby union fans this week, he admitted: "The tension is getting to me already. Just to be in the squad will be an honour. To be chosen to play would be one of the great moments of my life."

For a flanker in modern rugby, when back-row players can loom up at 6 feet 5 and weigh almost 20 stones,Woody is on the small side: 5 feet 9 and a few pounds over twelve stones. With his 40th birthday coming up next month, he also admits that he is "getting on a bit."

But anyone who has watched his long career at Sandylands knows that what he lacks in size he makes up in that priceless quality in any contact sport: commitment

He has, above his left eye, a tuft of silver white in a head of hair which was once jet black.In a scrum, a ruck or a maul, when the arms and legs legs are flying, that silver tuft is always in the thick of the action, standing out with the clarity of a cockade on a fusilier's cap.

The opposition may be bigger, and younger, but they discover within the first few minutes of play that Woody is as hard as the rock faces he battles during working hours.

"Since rugby union developed the present league system, the game has become much more competitive," he smiles shyly, for he is clearly embarrassed at talking about himself. "At my age, you just have to give that little bit extra to stay in touch."

Rugby union is, of course, very much part of the Dales way of life (Skipton RFC celebrates its 125th birthday next year). So, too, is quarrying, an activity which can be traced back a thousand years or more. Both, at present, attract more than their fair share of controversy.

At national level, rugby union is in a state of chaos since professionalism was introduced.

And there are many residents of the national park - as well as several London-based conservation groups - who feel that quarrying should be banned.

Woody feels the pressure of both: even in Skipton's Yorkshire League Three, he regularly comes up against professional players, some of them poached from rugby league.

He shrugs that away as part of the modern game. But when it comes to talking about his work, he becomes very single minded.

"There are too many people who fail to understand that quarrying has been a staple part of the Dales economy for centuries," he says. "They look upon the national park as just that - a park - when, in fact, it is a workplace where local folk have the right to make a living.

"I don't deny that quarries can seem an eyesore to visitors who don't understand how important they are to us locals. At Threshfield, we employ more than twenty people but it does not stop there.

"We have contractors who come in from time to time, and they are local firms. When we hire plant and machinery, we hire it from local firms. And we have local builders who come with their vans almost everyday and hand pick bits of stone which they dress themselves, a highly skilled job.

"Those dressed stones are used on virtually all new buildings in the Dales. That means that we are doing out bit to conserve the traditional look of Dales villages. That's a fact that our critics often overlook."

Nor do many outsiders understand the efforts that quarry firms like Tarmac, Woody's employers, take to protect the environment. All worked out areas are landscaped with trees and grass. Water effluent is filtered in case it pollutes local becks.

When Woody is about to fire his gelignite charges, which happens about once a week, a siren sounds to warn local inhabitants that blasting is about to start. And men equipped with walkie-talkie radios patrol the quarry perimeters to ensure that there are no ramblers near the danger zone.

"To qualify as a blaster, I worked for seven years as an assistant, then had a two year training period and finally had to pass a six day written examination," he says. "That shows how seriously quarry people take their work..."

He goes silent. His mind is on Sunday's game. And, of course, Sunday is Mothers' Day. How will that effect the family plans for his wife, Christine, and their two young daughters, who live in a modest house just off Keighley Road, Skipton.

"Oh that's fine," he says with a laugh. "I'm taking them along with me. It will give them a good day out..."

Have an explosive Mothers' Day, Peter Wood.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.