" ARMTHORPE! "

I play bodhran, An Irish drum beaten with a single stick.I love it, if they knew what a buzz could be had,they would ban it. I was playing in the street at the Ballina Flaedh, a music festival, some years ago, the town was teaming with people from all over the world.Unplugged , it is hard to hear acoustic music over the background noise in the street, I was grateful for an accommodating archway to amplify my sound.The arch lead from the street to a small courtyard, the seething crowd ,in a high state of merriment, passed by on only one side, an ideal pitch. As I played my drum,a crowd gathered round the entrance to the arch, eventually blocking the street completely. In the last days of the Irish Punt, A lovely coin,a thing with a ring when they threw their money down,and throw it down they did with much enthusiasm. On reaching climactic crescendo, the crowd whooped and cheered. A tidy man in lightweight "holiday tweeds", a silver bearded fellow who had stood in the front row of onlookers fairly inanimately throughout the performance, suddenly bellowed the word, "ARMTHORPE! " I had stopped playing,the street was moving again. I approached him with some curiosity,he stood his ground, not appearing to want to move on,he looked happy enough. I asked him what had caused him to shout "Armthorpe". The man told me he didn't have a clue, I asked if he knew the place at all.To which he remarked that he had until he had shouted out the word, never heard of it ever in his living memory. He had no explanation as to why he was so moved.
Armthorpe is an ex mining village in Yorkshire,England. The colliery, Markham Main once employed my father and until its' closing also employed my youngest brother. I had left the region some thirty odd years previously as a teenager,I was not a happy child during my upbringing there. I had no contact with anyone from there for many years.
Hearing the word came like a thunderbolt. Offering no conclusive judgement on the implications of an otherwise unremarkable incident,the man doffed his hat said happy goodbyes and walked away into the festival crowd.What happened there?My curiosity leads me down many avenues of conjecture,implausable, improbable and impossible.
If anyone out there,reading this has a rational expanation of what may have transpired I would be glad to receive comment.The mystery remains.