Author: Paul Salveson

Who Signed The Book?

A Christmas railway ghost story

Paul Salveson

This was originally published in ASLEF’s Locomotive Journal in December 1985. This is a slightly updated version. Two years of my railway career were at at Astley Bridge Junction signalbox, Bolton, in the 1970s.

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I’ve spent the last 40 years as union branch secretary getting other people out of trouble. I’ve done more disciplinaries than you’ll have had hot dinners – and I’ve had some bloody strange ones. But you want to know the strangest?  I’ll tell you. It happened nearly 40 years ago and there’s enough water flown under the bridge for me to talk about it now. I’m long since retired so there’s not much anyone can do to me. I’ve got my pension.

I must have represented hundreds of my members at what they used to call ‘Form 1 hearings’. Disciplinaries. But this one found me in the hot seat. What led me to getting charged happened in 1983. Up to now the only people who knew anything about it are myself and Jack Bracewell, former Area Manager and he’s been retired even longer than me. He lives out Blackpool way. I promised I’d keep my mouth shut about the affair until Jack had finished and was getting his company pension. As a good union man, I’ve kept my word.

It was Christmas Eve 1983. I was working nights at Astley Bridge Junction; a small cabin just north of Bolton on the steeply-graded line to Blackburn. It’s long gone of course – shut when the branch to Halliwell Goods closed in the late 80s. It was the draughtiest box I’ve ever worked, stuck on top of Tonge Viaduct with only the birds and the circuit telephone to keep you company, apart from the occasional platelayer’s visit, usually Derek begging a brew of tea.

We’d had plenty of rows about it on the LDC – the old ‘Local Departmental Committee’ where we battled things out with management – usually good naturedly. Astley Bridge  was one of the ancient Lancashire and Yorkshire (L&Y) boxes with facilities which could best be called ‘primitive’. Heating was by an old stove that Stephenson probably invented, gas lighting and an outside toilet that froze every winter. And then that bloody draught that blew up from below, through the lever frame. Management kept telling us it was ‘in the programme’ for modernisation, but nothing happened.

It had its compensations. You could look out across Bolton and see the dozens of mill chimneys, mostly still working then; turning north the moors stretched out before you. And it was cosy when you got the fire going, and no-one could say you were killed for work, with just a couple of trains each hour and the occasional goods on and off the branch. Years ago it had been on a through route to Scotland. Lancashire and Yorkshire expresses joined up with The Midland at Hellifield. Well before my time. Or so I thought.

At the time, we were working short-handed. My mate Joe Hepburn had retired three months previous and management were dragging their feet about filling the vacancy. So we were on regular twelve hours, George Ashcroft and myself. Good for the money, but not for your social life; nor, as I began to think, for your sanity.

Have you ever been to a Form 1 hearing? It’s probably different nowadays but back then it probably hadn’t changed since Victorian times. You sat there like a naughty schoolboy, usually accompanied by your union spokesman. If it was serious, the Area Manager would take the case and he’d read out the charge: “You are charged with the under-mentioned irregularity….etc.” A clerk would be sat in the background, taking notes of the ordeal and loving every minute of it, most times.

A good union man will use every argument in the book – and out of it – to get the poor bugger on the charge as good a deal as possible. I had a better success rate than many full-time union officers. I had just one rule: I never told a lie to get a member off the hook. If you pull that one, it might work the first time, but the boss would make it bloody hard for you the next. And that next time you might have had a genuine case.

So can you imagine how I felt, with 30 years’ service, including 20 as branch secretary, when I got that Form 1 addressed to me. But I’d been expecting it. And I thought I’d be the up the road.

The hearing was on a Friday morning in January 1984 at 09.00, in the Area Manager’s Office on Bolton station. Jack Bracewell, the AM, was an old hand whom I knew him from his days on the footplate. He was one of that dying breed of railway manager who’d started off at the bottom – as an engine cleaner at Plodder Lane shed – and worked his way up the ladder.

Ironically, I’d got him off the hook, years ago, by which time he’d got booked as a driver at Bolton. He was driving a loose-coupled coal train from Rose Grove to Salford Docks and I happened to be on duty at Astley Bridge Junction at the time, on relief. I got the’ train on line’ bell

from Bromley Cross box but I had an engine off the branch waiting at my starter to go back to the shed, so I couldn’t give the coal train a road. He’d have to wait at my home signal, just up from the end of the viaduct.

I heard a long piercing wheel then a series of short ‘crows’ – the steam whistle code for a runaway. I saw the train coming down the bank, with one of the old ‘Austerity’ locos, passing the home signal at danger. She was away, no doubt about it. Not going that fast but fast enough to give that light engine a nasty surprise if she caught up with it. Just as the loco passed the box I got ‘line clear’ from Bolton West and I quickly offered the light engine. It was accepted and I was able to clear my starter to get the light engine out of the way. The coal train shuddered to a halt just a few wagon lengths beyond my box.

The driver – Jack Bracewell – was quickly out of his cab and up the cabin steps. “Sorry mate – there was no holding her. Overloaded to start off with – we nearly stuck in Sough Tunnel – and that old wreck’s brake wouldn’t stop a push bike, ne’er mind 40 o’coal. Anyroad, put it in t’book and I’ll answer for passing that home board”.

Now some signalmen I knew would book a driver for not having his hair combed right, but I wasn’t going to get anyone into trouble if I could help it – even if he was an ASLEF man and I was NUR! “Didn’t you see?” I asked, “I pulled off for you to drop down to my starter just as you approached. Forget it.” We exchanged looks and Jack turned to leave. “Thanks mate – if you’re ever stuck, I’ll return the favour.”

I looked out of the cabin window and saw him climb back into the cab of his grimy ‘Austerity’, wheezing steam from everywhere but now looking calm and innocent after her wild descent from Walton’s Siding. I soon got ‘train out of section’ bell from Bolton West for the light engine and was able to pull off for Jack’s train. The wagons shuddered and screeched and he was back on his way to Salford Docks. The guard in the brake van looked a bit ashen-faced after his experience but I got a friendly and slightly relieved-looking wave from him.

That must have been….. what? 1959? Jack had come a long way since then, getting into management somewhere down south then promoted to Area Manager back in Bolton. Poacher turned gamekeeper we used to say. And the battles we had on the LDC! But at least you knew where you were with him. He was a railwayman and knew his job, and everyone else’s. That’s more than you can say for most of today’s management whizz-kids.

That day of the hearing I broke one of my golden rules. Never go into a disciplinary hearing without union representation. We’d fought hard for that right and many genuine cases were lost because someone thought they didn’t need any help. With me, it was more embarrassment than anything. I thought of asking Benny Jones the full-time officer, or some of my old mates on the NEC. But no, none of them would believe my story and I’d look a bloody fool. I went through that door on my tod, feeling very alone: one of the worst moments of my life.

Jack was at his desk, with the young woman clerk, Joyce Williams, sat at his side, pen in hand. She was one of the better ones, and I think she had a TSSA union card.

“Good morning Mr Hartshorn. Please sit down.” Jack was looking more bloody nervous than me. And Christ! I was a nervous wreck. He read the charge:  ”You are charged with the under-mentioned irregularity. That on Wednesday December 24^th 1983 you made incorrect entries in The Train Register Book, contrary to Signalmen’s Instructions and Rule Book Section such-and-such….What have you got to say in your defence?”

I looked across at Mr Jack Bracewell, Area Manager, BR London Midland Region. He’d put on weight since leaving the footplate; his face was a bright red and his hair receding. Maybe down to the hard time I’d given him at LDC meetings.

But today the advantage was firmly his – though you wouldn’t have thought so by the look of him. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, he shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “Joyce” he blurted out…”turn that bloody heating down before we all roast.” The clerk jumped up and obeyed the command. The ball was now in my court.

“Before I give you my explanation Mr Bracewell I just want to remind you that I’ve always been straight when I’ve been representing my members in front of you. And I’m going to be straight with you now – however unbelievable it all might sound.”

“Of course…of course, get on with it.”

“Right. I relieved my mate at 6.00pm, as you know we were on 12 hours. I was sober, you can ask George to verify that if you want. We chatted for a few minutes about what we were doing over the holiday and then George signed off. “Could be a bad ‘un” I remember him saying about the weather; the snow had already started though lucky for him he didn’t live that far away. We wished each other ‘all the best’ and off he went down the cabin steps.

He’d left a good fire; the pot-bellied stove was glowing red. I settled myself down in the easy chair, with a quiet night’s work ahead of me. I saw the last ‘passenger’ through at 21.30h. It’s in the book. The only other scheduled train that night was the empty stock for Newton Heath at about 03.00. After it had gone I had permission to close the cabin early and not re-open until the following Monday, when I was early turn at 06.00.

I made a brew and settled down with my book – a thriller, funnily enough. To be honest I probably dozed off, at least for a few minutes. I was jolted out of my snooze by a ‘call attention’ bell from Bolton West.  I wondered what on earth it could be. I looked at the clock and it showed 23.35. I gave the ‘1’ signal back to Bolton West and they offered me a ‘4’ – the bell code for an express passenger train, as you know, sir. The first thing that came into my mind was that the wires were down on the main line and Control was diverting some trains for Scotland via the Settle-Carlisle Line. It happens quite often, though it was very odd that I hadn’t got a circuit to tell me. Perhaps I’d been in more of a sleep than I thought and had missed the wire. I sent the signal on to Bromley Cross, got ‘line clear’ and pulled off – home board, starter and distant. Five minutes later I received a ‘2’ – train on line from Bolton West. I expected to hear the roar of a diesel engine, but instead I heard the steady, slow puff of a steam locomotive, obviously labouring on the gradient out of Bolton.

All I could think was that it must have been some sort of special working back to the museum at Carnforth, routed by Hellifield. It was a strange time to run it, but what was I to know?  It was snowing very heavily by now, the wind blowing the flakes against the cabin windows so you could hardly see out. The tracks were completely covered.

The headlamps of the engine came into view; she’d slowed down even more and was barely moving though sparks were coming out of the chimney like a firework display.

“Aye the fireman would have the dart in to get the fire going,” said Jack reverting to his old footplate patter, quickly adding “but well, that’s if there was an engine…obviously. Delete that comment, Joyce.”

When the engine was almost level with the cabin the steam was shut off and the train came to a stand. I managed to open the cabin door, pushing the snow back, to get a better view.

Through the blizzard I could see that it wasn’t one of the usual preserved locos you sometimes get – she looked older, but well kept. The paintwork looked jet black and across the tender I could make out the words ‘Lancashire & Yorkshire’.

She looked like one of those ‘Lanky’ Atlantics that some of the older signalmen used to talk about, when I was a train booker in my teens. ‘Highflyers’ they called them, with high-pitched long boilers. Very fast engines. But i couldn’t recall any being saved from the scrapheap.

The coaches looked vintage too, though i couldn’t see much of them through the snow. It was blowing like an arctic gale, and curious though I was, I had to shut the door.

A moment later I heard footsteps coming up to the cabin. There was a rap on the door window. I took off the snack and opened the door to what looked like an oldish man – a gnarled face with a drooping moustache and eyes like red-hot coals. His hands were pitted and scarred. This didn’t look like some middle-class train enthusiast who did the occasional firing turn for the fun of it.

He walked in, shaking the snow off and carefully wiping his boots on the mat. “Short o’steam mate – they’re givin’ us rubbish t’burn wi’t’colliers on strike.”

By now I could get a proper look at him. He was dressed in old fashioned railway overalls which I’d only seen in history books. He had a very dignified appearance, reminding me of some of the old Methodist preachers I knew as a kid.

It was news to me that the miners were on strike, but that didn’t click at first. It took me a few seconds before I could say anything – though I offered him a brew and asked him to sign the Train Register Book, according to rule.

A few moments later more footsteps told me that his mate – the driver – was coming up for a warm as well. He looked about the same age as his fireman, slightly smaller with a long greying beard speckled with snowflakes and coal dust. He had similar overalls to his mate but wore a shirt and tie, with a shiny watch chain disappearing into his waistcoat pocket. He wore the L&Y insignia on his lapel. I remember thinking that if these two lads were steam buffs, they were certainly sticklers for historical accuracy.

The driver said, to no-one in particular, “There’ll be hell to play o’er this. Runnin’ short o’ steam on this job, we’st booath be on th’carpet o’Monday. It’s noan mi mates fault though – it’s that bad coyl they’re givin’ us. Tha cornt wark this sort o’job, wi’ nine bogies an just an hour to geet fro’ Bowton to Hellifield, wi nowt but th’best coyl. Th’bosses durnt give a bugger though – they just put th’blame on th’men.”

I didn’t know what to think. Was I caught up in an elaborate practical joke? Or was I in a time warp? I reminded myself that I hadn’t been drinking. Maybe I was still asleep and this was a very vivid dream. Yes – that was it. I’d soon wake up and get ‘call attention’ for the Newton Heath empties.

But it continued. The fireman went over to the stove to warn his pock-marked hands. “Th’company thinks as it con do what it wants wi’ us. It allus has done. But it’s geet a shock comin’. There’s talk o’one big union for all railwaymen after last year’s strike. Federation ‘ud be a good start. They’ve kept us divided for too long, grade agen grade, men agen men.”

The fireman halted for a while, feeling the heat return to his hands, and then continued “Aw’ve waited for th’day when we’d beat the company for a long time. Aw’ve suffered through bein’ a union man and socialist, like mony another. Moved fro’ shed t’ shed. Tret like dirt. Neaw there’s a change comin’.

The driver explained that his mate had been victimised following his part in the Wakefield strike…I’d never heard of it, even though I’d been a union man myself for 20-odd years. I had read about something kicking off around Wakefield in the union history, but that was way, way back. The bearded driver continued the story, explaining that the strike was broken by the company using fitters to drive the engines, with passenger guards providing the route knowledge. “Usual tale – divide an’ rule!” he added. The leaders were either sacked or transferred and told they’d be married to a shovel for the rest of their working lives.

His fireman finally ended up at Newton Heath shed, after several moves to holes like Bacup, Lees and Colne Lanky. He was still a fireman after 40 years service with no prospect of getting booked as a driver.

But hang on, was I playing a bit part in some union-sponsored costume drama? I could just remember reading about a big strike in 1911, before the NUR was formed. Were these blokes having me on?

“Aye,” said the driver. “There’ll be changes soon, reet enough. Anyroad, Aw’ll goo an’ oil reawnd. Valves are starting to pop so looks like we’ve got steam! Good night mate, and all the best.”

The fireman stayed a few moments longer and stood gazing round the cabin. “All reet these modern cabins, eh? Tha’s a bloody sight better off nor us locomen. Look what we’ve to put up wi’!” pointing outside to the snow-swept cab of his engine. “Still,” he continued, we know the long heawrs you lads have forced on you – sixteen hour days wi’ no overtime pay.” I thought of some of my mates, for whom the idea of working sixteen hours would be heaven – providing they got time and a half.

“Well brother. Aw’ll geet back – she’s blowin’ off neaw. She’ll get us up th’bank to Walton’s. Sooner we’re at Hellifield and relieved bi Midland men, the better. Hellifield lodging house allus does a gradely breakfast. Good neet and thanks for th’brew. Aw con tell a comrade when aw meet one.”

I watched him climb back onto the footplate and start shovelling more coal into the firebox. His mate stood by the long regulator handle, lit up by the glare from the fire. A shrill high-pitched whistle pierced the blizzard and the train began to move, with a powerful exhaust cutting through the snow storm.

I turned to my desk and looked at the Train Register Book. I noticed the fireman’s entry: “Detained within protection of signals. Rule 55.” The signature looked like ‘J.Weatherby’. If they were ghosts, they could sign their name!

I looked out of the cabin window and could just see the tail lamp in the distance. Suddenly it was gone, consumed by the blizzard. I gave a ‘2’ – train entering section – to Bromley Cross and sent the 2-1, train out of section, back to Bolton West. The entries are in the book and they were accurate to the minute. Both were recorded at 23.55.

The phone rang. It was Ernie Woodruff at Bolton West. “What’s that 2-1 tha just sent? Hasta gone daft?”

We nearly had a row. I told him he’d sent me a ‘4’ and the train had been detained at the box. I didn’t tell him what sort of train it was. Ernie denied sending the signal and said there’d been nothing on the block since the last passenger at 21.30. Anyway I thought, the proof would be when the train reaches Bromley Cross. That would show who’s daft, so I thought.

It never reached Bromley Cross. Ten minutes later, the signalman – Jack Seddon – rang to ask where this ‘4’ was. There was no sign of it on his track circuit. I told him he’d been having trouble and had maybe stuck again. It’s not unknown, even in the modern age, on that steeply-graded stretch of line.

We let another ten minutes pass and then decided something was up. As luck would have it, the Newton Heath empties were running early and were approaching Bromley Cross from Blackburn. Jack ‘put back’ his signals and cautioned the driver of the diesel train to inspect the line ahead. The train arrived at my box and the driver came into the box. He reported not having seen anything.

The driver – it was Jim Woods, an ex-Bolton man I’d know for years – asked how I was. I knew what was going through his mind, that I’d had a few Christmas Eve drinks too many before signing on. I said I was OK but I was anything but. At 01.00, as you’ll see in the book, I rang Control and asked for relief. I was no longer sure of my own sanity, and that’s the truth of it. I felt faint and disoriented. Jim made me a strong cup of tea and stayed with me until the block inspector, John Brooks, arrived to relieve me and close the box.

“You’ve heard the lot – make of it what you like Mr Bracewell.”

Jack sat back in his chair – so far he nearly overbalanced. It was a few seconds before he spoke…it seemed like a very long time.

“Joyce, love, go and make us a cup of tea will you. And one for Mr Hartshorn.”

The clerk got up and left the room, leaving us alone. “Right John. This is off the record, just thee an’ me. You’d had a few, right? It was Christmas. Just tell me the truth. I owe you a favour, we’ll get round this somehow. Listen, if anybody else had told me that load of bollocks I’d have had ‘em cleaning out the carriage shed shit house before they could say boo to a bleedin’ goose. Now come on.”

“I’m sorry Jack, I don’t expect you, nor anyone else, to believe it. I wouldn’t myself if someone else I’d been representing had told me all that.

Bracewell was quiet for several minutes. This was the man I knew. Working out a plan, weighing up the options.

“Look, he said at last. “I’ll tell you what. You’d been under strain with all those 12 hour shifts. You’d had a lot of union work on too. Maybe you’d had a few pints before coming on duty and you fell asleep. You’re brain wandered.”

“Sure Jack. But how can anyone explain the entry in the Train Register Book?”

“Easy.  We’ll just say you’d been dreaming and….err….” he dried up.

“Who was it that signed the book Jack? That’s not my signature. It looks like ‘J. Weatherby’. Who was this character that signed the book?”

“Who signed the book….who….” he mumbled and went quiet.

He came up with another ‘solution’. “I know. There’s a platelayer called ‘Weatherall’ isn’t there?”

“Aye, I responded. Dave Johnny Weatherall. He was on snow duty at Bolton East that night as it happens but didn’t came anywhere near Astley Bridge.”

“Never mind that. We can say he came up to check the points and made a balls-up of the entry in to the Train Register Book.”

“Listen Jack. I’m not getting anyone else into bother over this. It’s my problem, no-one else’s.”

“Look you awkward bugger. I owe you a good turn. And I’m going to do you one if I have to get paid up for doing it. Nothing ‘ll happen to Weatherall, I’ll see to that. Trust me.”

I did. I went along with his tale. I got off with a reprimand; I was lucky. Extremely lucky. If it had been that young Assistant AM – fresh out of college – taking the case it might have been dismissal. But it didn’t solve the problem for me. What had happened that night? Had I temporarily gone mad? I could never really trust myself handling traffic again until I was sure, one way or the other.

I took a few days leave that were due to me and then resumed at Astley Bridge Junction. I was on days – we were back to 8 hour shifts. On the first day a group of workmen arrived.

“You’re in luck mate!” the foreman beamed. “You’re getting them mod-cons you’ve been after all these years”. The gang set to work taking out the old fittings, removing the old stove and putting in a gas heater, new toilet, modern block equipment and even new lino for the floor.

It wasn’t until the following day they started work on the last job, stripping out the old linoleum floor covering, that had been polished zealously by generations of signalmen. It was a messy and disruptive job getting it out.

I was trying to complete a member’s  accident claim for head office when one of the lads piped up: “Hey, look at these old newspapers stuffed under the lino. Bet they’re worth a bob or two!”

I went over and picked one of them up. The paper was perished and discoloured. But I could read it well enough. It was the front page of The Bolton Evening News for December 26^th, 1912.

“TERRIBLE CHRISTMAS EVE TRAGEDY –  EXPRESS  CRASHES OVER VIADUCT IN BLIZZARD. MANY KILLED”

I read on. The train was a Scotch extra for the Christmas holidays, routed via Settle. The viaduct had collapsed at about midnight and the train careered into the river below. There was a list of casualties who had been identified so far. The catalogue of men, women and several children made tragic reading.

At the end of the list was “Mr James Weatherby, the fireman of the locomotive”.

The Northern Weekly Salvo

Incorporating  Slaithwaite Review of Books, Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, Tunnel Gazers’ Gazette etc. Descendant of Teddy Ashton’s Northern Weekly and Th’Bowtun Loominary un Tum Fowt Telegraph

Published at 109 Harpers Lane Bolton BL1 6HU email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No. 309 December 14^th 2022            Christmas Extra

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North. Sometimes weekly, usually not; definitely Northern.

It’s that time of year

Welcome to the Christmas Salvo for 2022. This edition has some weighty stuff on things like Gordon Brown’s report on devolution, and a portrait of an extra-ordinary Lancashire radical, Solomon Partington (first published in the Bolton News). There’s also a brand-new Christmas ghost story. You’d probably got sick of reading Who Signed the Book? every year. This tale is set on the same bit of railway, between Bolton

and Blackburn. Hope you enjoy it. I’ll probably do an end of year edition after Christmas, trying to avoid saying a lot of boring things about what is happened in 2022 and regurgitating stuff I’ve already published. We’re well and truly into the festive season now and here in Bolton we’ve had plenty of snow; it still looks very white out there. I love it, but I find myself having to be extra careful walking on the slippery surfaces. Signs of old age ….But anyway, stop it. Have a lovely Christmas! I hope to do a New Year Crank Quiz for issue 310. If you want any last minute Christmas presents I’ve got some of my books going at bargain prices, including Settle-Carlisle Railway (just had a new consignment from the publisher).

Railways in melt down? Fresh thinking required.

The general view of the railways at the moment ranges between ‘awful’ and ‘disastrous’. The combination of industrial action and ongoing problems related to Covid have resulted in cancellations and poor reliability, even when trains are supposed to be running. Interestingly, agreement has been reached on some parts of the network which are not controlled by the Westminster government, which says a lot. It does look increasingly like there is a settlement to be had but the main obstacle is no. 10. When interviewed, Rail Minister Huw Merriman

says that devolved governments who’ve settled with RMT ducked the issue of workplace reform. Maybe he has a point but throwing wholesale ticket office closures and driver-only operation into the bag was never going to result in an agreement. Some reform is needed, there’s no question about that – around Sunday working particularly and more flexible use of Network Rail maintenance teams.  However, blanket closure of ticket offices would be hugely unpopular with the travelling public, even if there are no compulsory redundancies.

There has been talk of ‘re-purposing’ ticket offices but there’s no clarity on what that means. You can’t compare regional rail services with London Underground where ticket offices have disappeared but a staffed presence remains on platforms. It’s not the same kind of railway. People welcome a staffed presence in a ticket office for all sorts of things – not just getting a ticket but general enquiries and a sense of security, even if the person isn’t on the platform. How do we make bettr use of that precious resource?

The Rail Reform Group recently held a well-attended seminar on the future of stations in the appropriate surroundings of the Platform 5 Gallery on Bolton station. Dr Nicola Forsdyke and Alex Warner gave stimulating presentations on ways forward which involve keeping a staffed presence at all or most stations (maybe even some new ones) but doing different things. The debate goes back a long way and it was pointed out that even in BR days more creative use of ticket offices was debated. A full report of the seminar will be available shortly.

Meanwhile, is it time to re-visit local operation of secondary railways? ‘Microfranchising’ was the dog that never barked, but as the railways enter a new era of possible cuts, different ways of operating and managing the more peripheral parts of the network should be explored once more. What a shame Adrian Shooter isn’t around to help with the vision.

Brown’s Report fails to inspire

Labour’s new report A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy has had a mixed reception. The report was the work of the ‘Commission on the UK’s Future’ chaired by Gordon Brown. The SNP described the proposals for Scotland as ‘underwhelming’ and I must say that was my reaction to its ideas for England. It’s a weighty piece of work, without a doubt, running to over 150 pages. It recognises that there is a big problem with our centralised United Kingdom and it’s time for change: “The UK is at a constitutional moment, and needs change comparable to the important shifts in power in the 19th and 20th centuries that widened the franchise,

reformed Parliament or, more recently, introduced devolution. Our economy is faltering. Our democracy has lost the trust of its people, who have repeatedly voted for change. 17.4m people voted for Brexit in 2016 and 1.6m in Scotland voted to leave the UK in 2014. Britain urgently needs a new government.”

I think we can all agree on that, and the follow-on which states that “if we are to transform our country, we must change not just who governs us but how we are governed.” Yet this is where the report is weak, ducking out of the chance to transform the structures of UK governance and really energise the regions and nations of the UK. That’s not to say that there’s nothing good about the report – that would be a ridiculous response. Where it is perhaps clearest is on House of Lords reform – proposing to replace it with an elected second chamber – an ‘Assembly of the Regions and Nations’. Yet ironically, while the House of Lords is a very easy target, it probably isn’t the biggest issue facing constitutional reform. As the report says, for all its lack of democratic credibility, the Lords does have a lot of expertise which is put to good use in scrutinising and challenging Governments of the day.

The report scores several good ‘hits’, highlighting the problems of over-centralisation: “Brexit has not delivered the control people were promised. Britain hasn’t taken back control – Westminster and Whitehall have. And our over-centralised system has shown itself to be open to abuse – the conventions of our unwritten constitution ignored; conflicts of interest allowed to fester; the use of patronage intensified, and ethical standards – and advisers on ethics – swept aside, ignored by a conservative political class that has tried to act without constraint. Meanwhile, decisions of vital importance to communities – including the allocation of funds under Levelling Up – are made for increasingly naked party political reasons, further undermining trust. All of this makes the case for a radical devolution of power to locally elected and locally accountable representatives best placed to identify the needs

and opportunities in their own areas, and to unleash the potential that exists everywhere throughout the country. Our aim must be to put power and resources in the hands of communities, towns, cities, regions and nations, to make their own decisions about what will work best for them.”

Yes, absolutely, but the report fails to recognise that the levers at our disposal, particularly in England, are woefully inadequate. The mishmash of poorly-funded local councils, a mix of unitary and two-tier authorities, with ‘combined authorities’ in metropolitan areas, is a very poor structure indeed to be given significant new powers. Yet we’re told that “across England, we recommend that every town and city is given the powers needed to draw together their own economic and social plan and take more control of their economic future. In particular we believe that by empowering Mayors, Combined Authorities and local government in new economic partnerships, we can create and advance a supportive environment for the dynamic new clusters in the digital, medical, environmental and creative industries in a new pro-growth strategy, and make every part of our country more prosperous.”

Really? I don’t think so, and the report’s authors missed a great opportunity to democratise the combined authorities by in effect creating new regional forms of government that would be directly elected. Instead, we’re told that “We cannot turn the clock back to recreate Regional Development Agencies, or still less to impose a system of regional government from the centre on the different parts of England. This gap must be filled by growth from the bottom up.”

Actually we could. It’s what governments do. What we are likely to get is confusing mixture of mostly unelected local bodies or ‘partnerships’ with increasing powers given to mayoral combined authorities which have just one person being subject to direct election. There is a massive democratic deficit with the combined authorities which has excited little comment amongst the political classes – either because they are

outside of London so of little interest, or there are too many vested interests involved in keeping them as they are, overseen by leaders of the relevant constituent authorities. The report does nothing to address this and overall represents a huge missed opportunity to create a ‘New Britain’. There is a model out there already with the directly-elected (by PR) governments in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh. Why not the same for the English regions?

(first published in Chartist magazine)

The report is here: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Commission-on-the-UKs-Future.pdf

Christmas Ghost Story: The First Aid Phantom of Wayoh Sidings

My grandchildren are always meithering me for a ‘ghost story’ this time of year. Well here’s one about a benevolent ghost, or boggart, which featured in something that happened to me a long time ago when I was a young relief signalman in Bolton.

It was December 1966, not long after I’d been promoted from my first signalbox at Bullfield West to a ‘relief’ job, with more money. It involved covering rest days, holidays and sickness at several boxes in the Bolton area, mostly within a mile or so of the station. A couple were more remote; the furthest and most difficult one to reach was Wayoh Sidings, up on the moors between Bolton and Blackburn. The only way you could reach it was by walking up the line from Entwistle, just over a mile. There was no road access and the other relief men didn’t like it – they couldn’t get there by car. I was young and fit back then and would either walk or even cycle up the path along the line, keeping an eye out for passing trains. If it was wet, most drivers – if you asked them nicely – would drop you off outside the box.

Wayoh Sidings was at the summit of the line, the end of a long gruelling climb in both directions. It was a lonely place, with the nearest houses half a mile away near the old quarry on the Roman Road. Beyond the box, going north, the line plunged through a deep cutting and then into the two-mile long Whittlestone Tunnel. In steam days most of the freights would be ‘banked’ by a loco coming up behind the train, from either Bolton or Blackburn. When the train reached Wayoh Sidings the assisting engine would shut off steam and come to a stop by the signalbox, with the signalman changing the points to allow it to drift back to base. If there was nothing else about, the driver and fireman would park their engine outside and come up for a brew.

That was about the only company you’d get, apart from the occasional platelayer. Harold Hodgkiss was the regular man who walked his length every week and would call in to ‘camp’ over a brew of tea.

I was rostered to cover the night turn at Wayoh in the week before Christmas, relieving the regular signalman, Frank Hatton, at 10.00pm. Once you’d got there it was an easy job, just an empty stock for Newton Heath depot about midnight, the Colne ‘papers’ at 4 a.m. and the Heysham – Brindle Heath goods round about six, which was usually banked up from Blackburn.  My relief would take over at 6 and I’d ‘caution’ the first up passenger and get a lift back down to Bolton. You could get away with that sort of thing, back then. After signing the Train Register Book it was a case of putting the kettle on and settling down to a good read, maybe with a brief doze before being disturbed by a ‘call attention’ signal for the Colne papers – express passenger, followed by four beats of the bell.

Some of the other relief signalmen didn’t like the place, claiming it was haunted. Jimmy Blackburn said he’d heard a voice calling to him when he was walking up the track from Entwistle, something like ‘get out of the way’ and ‘look out’.   As a signed-up Marxist revolutionary, I regarded that as a load of superstitious nonsense.

………………………………….

I’d already done a couple of nights that week before ‘the incident’ happened. It was Thursday December 23^rd and it would be the last full night shift before Christmas. Frank, on the afternoon turn, would close the box at 10.00pm Christmas Eve and re-open on the 27^th.

The last train from Bolton that stopped at Entwistle was the 8.30 to Colne. I could’ve asked the driver to drop me off at Wayoh but thought I’d call in at Entwistle box and have a brew with Paddy Hanlon, one of the two regular signalmen there. The box was perched above the two ‘fast lines’. Back then there were four tracks between Entwistle and Wayoh, provided by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to give extra capacity for freight trains. By the 60s there wasn’t much freight, apart from the evening Burnley – Moston on the up line and the Ancoats – Carlisle on the down.

Paddy always welcomed a bit of company and the kettle was usually on the boil. I got off the diesel train and waved a cheerio to the Manchester guard, watching the train trundle away up the last bit of the climb towards Wayoh, the red tail light slowly disappearing from view on what was a fine, clear but bloody freezing night. You could see your breath almost freeze when you breathed out.

I jumped down off the platform and crossed the tracks to get to the signalbox steps. “Now then Paddy!” I shouted, so he wouldn’t think it was any unwanted visitor, such as an over-zealous inspector making an out of hours call.

I walked up the flight of stairs and found the door unlocked. The warmth from the stove hit you like a blanket as soon as you stepped in.

“Come in and sit yourself down lad,” said Paddy. “The kettle’s just boiled, here’s a nice cup of tea for ye.”

Like all the boxes in the area, there was an ‘easy chair’ that was the preserve of the resident signalman. There was usually another chair for visitors, not as comfortable but good enough. Decorum usually meant that the visitor would make do with the hard chair but Paddy was a true gent and offered me the easy chair.

“Thanks Paddy, that’s very kind. And here’s a card for you and the family.”

Paddy lived in one of the old railway cottages just beyond the pub, he and his family had been there for a good thirty years after moving from a box in the Manchester area, Collyhurst I think. He hailed from the west of Ireland and had no end of stories about life in ‘the ould country’. He loved the Lancashire moors and was the only applicant for the vacancy at Entwistle when the previous incumbent, Abraham Holroyd, retired.

“So Paul, are you and your young lady all ready for Christmas?” he asked.

“Oh, I think so. We’re going over to Sheila’s mother’s for Christmas Day but we’ll have a quiet time, see the rest of the family on Boxing Day, get out for a walk and take it easy.”

“Aye, it’s a time for family alright,” Paddy agreed. “They say it might be a white ‘un too, some snow forecast for tonight according to the news.”

“Well, it’s looking clear enough now,” I replied, not wanting to get snowed in at Wayoh Sidings for Christmas. “But anyway, I’d better be getting on, Frank will be wondering where I am.”

“Aye, he’s a stickler for punctuality is Frank, and no harm in that, for a signalman,” responded Paddy. “Be careful how you go and mind you don’t come across any of those Lancashire boggarts on the way!”

“I don’t think there’s any chance of that, Paddy, but if I do I’ve a spare copy of The Morning Star I can give them, to demonstrate they’re just an illusion!”

“On your way lad, and have a grand Christmas…just look out for the Burnley-Moston, not had it yet so it might be on its way.”

I left the cosiness of Paddy’s box and walked down the steps into the old goods yard and felt the first flurries of snow coming down. The clear bright sky had clouded over and there was an eerie light across the tracks.

If I walked briskly I’d be there in twenty minutes. The unfenced path ran alongside the up fast line and had been used by generations of railwaymen, and – unofficially – some of the local farmers and quarrymen too.

It started coming down heavily and within a couple of minutes I could hardly see the tracks, let alone the path. To make it worse, I was walking into the wind, howling down from Whittlestone Head and blowing the snow horizontally. I was struggling to see and the snow felt more like small balls of ice.

I was able to walk forward only by feeling the edge of the ballast to my left, under the rails of the up fast line.

I kept edging forward, stumbling a couple of times, and could just make out the lights of Wayoh Sidings box in the distance, through the blizzard.

Maybe I was getting over-confident; I was getting close when I went over. I hit a bit of redundant rail some dozy platelayer had left lying across the path. All I can recall is falling and striking my head against something hard. Then oblivion.

The next thing I can remember is a loud voice, shouting “come on lad, come on, tha’ cornt lie theer…look out!”

I came back into consciousness and felt a hand tugging at my feet. I became aware of the sound of a steam loco hard at work, and not far away.

It dawned on me that I was lying across the outer rail of the up fast, and the sound I could hear was the late-running Burnley – Moston goods, just passing Wayoh Sidings and a few yards from where I was lying. It was working hard, with the driver probably trying to make up a bit of lost time and get home to Manchester. Up here, he was a long way from Deansgate.

I felt another hard tug at my leg and the next instant the ‘whoosh’ of a heavy steam locomotive rushing by, at very close quarters. I could feel the leaking steam from the engine and the smell of hot oil. Then the clank of wagon after wagon as the train went past, followedby silence. I could also feel a small dog pulling at my trouser leg.

“Are you awreet lad?” a voice asked. “Tha’s just had a close call wi’ destiny!”

I looked up and through the snow, still coming down heavy. I could make out the shape of a large, bearded man in platelayer’s clothes.

“Tha must ha fallen onto th’ rail and knocked thisel  eawt. Lucky aw were tekkin’ th’dog for a walk an’ saw thi. Let’s have a look at thi.”

I had a nasty bump on my head where I’d hit the rail and also felt as though I’d twisted my ankle when I went over.

“Con tha walk?” my rescuer asked.

“I’m not sure I can…but I have to relieve my mate in the box at 10.00.”

“Oh, he can wait a few minutes. Howd on to me an’ we’ll get you into my cabin just up th’line.”

We edged forward through the blizzard, both of us completely white, the snow biting into our faces like small sharp nails.

My rescuer pushed open the door of what looked like a platelayer’s cabin just set back from the track, I’d never seen it before. We entered a warm but dark room lit only by a blazing fire and an oil lamp on the table.

“Sit thiself on this chair,” he said. Let’s tek a look at thi. Wheer’s it hurtin’?

I explained about the bump to my head and what I thought was the sprained ankle from when I’d fallen.

“Let’s tek a look. Tha’s had a bit of bump awreet but it doesn’t look too bad. A sma’ cut but nowt much. We’ll soon fix that. Let’s have a look at that foot.”

He got on his knees in front of me and took hold of my injured left foot.

“Nowt to worry abeawt, but this meyt hurt for a minute lad.”

He got hold of my foot and gave it a good wrench. He was right, it was bloody painful.

“Ow! Bloody hell, what’re you doin’?” I asked.

“Don’t fratch, it’ll be awreet, tha’ll see. Now let’s get that head wound dressed.”

A bandage appeared from what looked like a battered old first aid box and he cut a couple of pieces, laying them on the table. He dabbed some sort of lotion on the bruise, had an odd smell that I can’t describe but quite pungent, then wrapped the bandage around my head, securing it with a knot.

“Tha’s had a nasty bang on th’yed, but tha’ll live. Aw’ve dabbed a bit o’comfrey on that bruise, it’ll heal it gradely weel in a day or two. Grew it in mi own garden. Let’s get thi up to th’box, tha should be fit for duty neaw.”

We went out into the cold night air to find the blizzard had stopped. The clouds had rolled away leaving a clear, starry night with the path up to the box illuminated by a full moon. About six inches of snow had fallen.

We walked in silence up towards the box, the lights getting closer and stronger as we trudged through the undisturbed snow. I held on to my rescuer and hopped along on one foot, not putting pressure on the injured one. The little dog ran by his side.

We got to the steps leading up to the box and I turned to wish my rescuer a hearty thanks, with an invitation to come up for a brew. I hadn’t even had chance to ask his name.

“Aw’ll tek me leave neaw, th’wife’s expectin’ me back. Aw think tha’ll find that yon foot is healed and just give that bruise on thi yead a couple o’days.”

I turned round and there was no sign of him.

But what was most strange was that there were no footprints leading away from the signalbox. Maybe the wind had blown some drifts across the path.

Before I had time to think any further, the signalbox door opened and Frank shouted down to me. “Are you alright Paul? Paddy had told me you were on your way and then that friggin’ blizzard came on. Worried you’d got caught out by that freight.”

“Well I’ve had a strange experience, that’s for sure. Is that kettle on?”

I entered the signalbox; inside it was pretty much the same as Entwistle, a standard L&Y design. The fire was blazing away merrily.

“What’s happened to thi lad? What’s the bandage for?” Frank asked.

I explained to him that I’d tripped on some lineside junk and fallen onto the track, knocking myself out. Someone had pulled me away just in time before the freight passed. Whoever it was, he’d saved my life. And on top of that he’d dressed my wound and my foot was no longer in pain. I realised I could walk on it as normal.

“Sounds like tha’s seen a boggart!” said Frank, a man well versed in Lancashire folklore and daft tales.

“Somebody helped me, that’s for sure. I owe my life to him, but I’ve not a clue who the bloody hell he was – and he just disappeared. A bit of blowing snow probably covered up his footprints but I’ve no idea where he went. He said he was out taking his dog for a walk.”

I described his appearance, as much as I could, to my colleague. Tall and thick set, beard. Wearing what looked like old-fashioned working clothes, railway greatcoat, smelling of tobacco. Spoke broad Lancashire.

“Did he look like that chap, on the photograph over the frame?” Frank pointed to an old black and white photograph amongst a group of pictures of the line and the box, taken in the early 1900s by the look of them. Sure enough, one of the men in a group of platelayers was a spitting image, as much as I could see, of my rescuer. Even his clothes looked the same, with the cap and heavy overcoat. And there was the little dog by his side.

“That’s Bill Horrocks, he was foreman platelayer when there was still a small gang up here. Before the First World War. Bill was prominent in the railway first aid movement – chairman of the Bolton branch. He used to go round giving lectures on railway safety and first aid, won lots of prizes so they say. Swore by herbs, his house was full of all sorts of different lotions and potions. It’s ironic that he was killed in a railway accident, trying to rescue a workmate who’d fallen onto the rails, just down the line from here. He got his injured mate out of the way but didn’t have time to get out of the road himself. His little dog tried to pull him out of the way, so they say, but he was too heavy. Killed outright. They laid out his body in the old platelayer’s cabin just down the line – it’s derelict now, roof’s gone, but you can still see it from the line, if you look carefully. Anyway lad, I’ve arranged with the driver of the Newton Heath empties to give me a lift home and he’s just passed Spring Vale, so I’d better get down to meet him. Merry Christmas, and have an easy shift. Don’t see any more ghosts!”

Frank picked up his bag and disappeared down the steps. I saw the train’s lights as it emerged from Whittlestone Tunnel, slowing down to pick him up. A friendly toot on the horn and the train disappeared into the distance. I replaced my signals to danger and settled down to a quiet night, under the protective gaze of Bill Horrocks.

The Wisdom of Solomon

Solomon Partington is a name that probably doesn’t mean a lot to most Salvo readers. It may ring a bell with those of you who’ve followed the story of the Winter Hill Mass Trespass of 1896, whose 125^th anniversary was celebrated last September. Yet the North owes a lot to him, not least for his campaigning for public rights of way but also for promoting local democracy. Partington was the quintessential Lancastrian, a champion of Lancashire cultural identity.

Bolton writer Allen Clarke described him in his  Moorlands and Memories (1920) in gushing terms: ‘as great  a champion of liberty and justice as ever used a pen on behalf of the robbed and oppressed’. He was one of the key figures in the Winter Hill ‘Trespass’ of 1896, an event celebrated by hundreds of Boltonians last September.  But there’s a lot more to this extraordinary man than that single event, important though it was.

He was born in Alkrington, Middleton, in 1844. At the time, it was an expanding cotton town, famous for being the home of the hero of Peterloo, Samuel Bamford. Handloom weaving was still a common occupation and Middleton was noted as centre of silk weaving. Both Partington’s parents were silk weavers, part of a highly cultured and well-read industrial community which was, by then, beginning to disappear. In 1866 he married Eliza  who was the daughter of a silk weaver, Adam Butterworth.

The young Solomon got a job on the railways as a clerk, then quite a highly regarded position for a working class lad. In 1871, at the young age of 26, he was promoted to station master at Birkdale, near Southport. The family moved from Middleton, probably occupying a railway house provided by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

However, following unfounded accusations of embezzlement, he resigned from the company and got a job as a reporter on the Leigh Journal in 1874. The paper was part of the Tillotson group of publishers whose titles included the Bolton Evening News and Bolton Journal and Guardian.

Partington became involved in local politics as a member of the Liberal party. He had already become active in the co-operative movement in Middleton, and subsequently wrote a history of the society, published in 1900; his commitment to co-operative principles stayed with him all his life. During his time in Leigh, Partington was involved in campaigns for better children’s facilities. In February 1885 he reported in the Leigh Journal on a meeting held at the Co-op Reading Room with influential businessmen and community leaders, to discuss their concerns about Leigh’s children having nowhere to play. The issue was taken up by the local council of the day, Leigh Local Board. They met to discuss the issue in August that year and Partington decided to exert public pressure. Whilst the councillors deliberated in the Town Hall, Solomon Partington led a ‘Thousand Lads of Leigh’ march past the building, with hundreds of lads carrying bats and balls shouting ‘we want a playground’. Amongst their number was Joseph Ashworth, then aged 14 and a little piecer in a local mill. Although the council decided it couldn’t afford a public park, Partington’s campaign finally succeeded. Ashworth stood for council and eventually became mayor; after a wait of nearly thirty years Leigh got its children’s play facilities.

The ‘Thousand Lads of Leigh’ march was an important and largely forgotten event: a rare example of children becoming involved in a local campaign. As a result of Partington’s efforts he became celebrated as ‘The Children’s Friend’ and was presented with a testimonial when he left Leigh in 1887 to work for The Bolton Evening News. He wrote for several Tillotson publications and developed a speciality in local history, using the by-line of ‘Historicus’,

For a while, Partington remained an active member of the Liberal Party, supporting Gladstone’s ‘home rule for Ireland’ campaign. He became increasingly concerned about public rights of way and the growing number of footpaths, walked for generations without obstruction, being closed by landowners. The event which acted as the catalyst for Britain’s biggest-ever rights of way battle was Colonel Richard Ainsworth’s action in closing Coal Pit Road, from Smithills up to Winter Hill, in the summer of 1896. Partington made common cause with local socialists such as Joseph Shufflebotham in organising opposition to Ainsworth’s footpath closure, and a demonstration was organised for Sunday September 6^th 1896, with announcements in the Bolton Journal and Guardian and other local papers that it would set off at 10.00 from the Bottom of Halliwell Road, ‘to test the right of way’. A few hundred gathered at the start of the march, but by the time it reached The Ainsworth Arms, at the top of Halliwell Road, the ranks had swelled to about 10,000. There was a melee at the point where Ainsworth ahd erected a gate to deter walkers, and the gate was unceremoniously destroyed. Further demonstrations followed, with the following Sunday’s being the biggest, with an estimated 12,000 taking part. Partington’s experience with the ‘Thousand Lads’ march in Leigh, over ten years previously, was clearly being put to good effect.

Ainsworth took a number of the organisers, Partington being one of the most prominent, to court. The case was heard at Lancashire Chancery Court, in Manchester, during march 1897. Despite having the support of many local townspeople, and ably represented by Richard Pankhust, husband of the famous suffrage leader Emily, the case went against them. Although nobody was sent to prison, costs totalling £565 were awarded against the protestors and Partington and his friend (and treasurer of the Defence Committee) William Hutchinson found themselves saddled with having to find £600. His erstwhile socialist friends appeared to have abandoned them. Partington mounted an energetic campaign to recover some of the costs; the most generous supporter was William Hesketh Lever (Later Lord Levehulme) who contributed £100. A further £165 was given by local people including the Liberal M.P. George Harwood.

Between 1899 and 1901 he produced a series of six ‘Truth’ pamphlets arguing the case for public rights of way, using ancient records. In 1904 he was elected on to Bolton Council, running on an independent ‘public rights’ platform supported by Clarke and his Northern Weekly. It seems he became frustrated with the lack of support for his campaigns within the local Liberal Party and became more aligned to the local Labour Party. His election agent was Allen Clarke who used the pages of his Teddy Ashton’s Northern Weekly to win support for Partington.

After his victory, Clarke wrote: “We addressed outdoor meetings at the gates of the big iron works, and other places; also on the Town Hall Square. Dozens of Northern Weekly readers also worked quietly for us, in their own streets – and all of these, known or unknown to us, have a share in the great victory.”

He served the people of West Ward (Halliwell and Smithills) until 1911, with a year’s break in 1907. He was a key figure in the Bolton Municipal Reform League, together with his socialist friend Sarah Reddish, with whom he shared a common passion for the principles and practice of co-operation. His history of Middleton and Tonge Co-operative Society was published in 1920. Partington remained in touch with public rights of way campaigners in Bolton and wrote an extended letter to Bolton Housing and Town Planning Committee in 1915, highlighting unresolved footpath issues.

Partington shared Allen Clarke’s love of the Lancashire dialect and was a member of the Lancashire Authors’ Association which Clarke set up in 1909. After his move to Silverdale, and then Grange-over-Sands, Partington devoted himself to historical research though he never completed his intended ‘magnum opus’ – a history of Lancashire dialect writing. His two books on the dialect, The Future of Old English Words and Romance of the Dialect, show what might have been achieved.

He died on August 5^th 1927 and the obituary in The Bolton Evening News paid tribute to “a trenchant and fearless writer who used the Press in full measure, though never unfairly, for the advance of schemes for the public good.” He is buried in Grange-over-Sands.

(first published in the Bolton News)

Harrogate’s Railways

Martin Bairstow has just brought out a new and enlarged edition of Railways Through Harrogate. It’s a must if you live in Harrogate or like trains…or for that matter, if you are interested in that fascinating part of Yorkshire that embraces York, Knaresborough, Harrogate, the Nidd Valley, Otley, Wetherby and the north of Leeds.Martin combinesd a good understanding of railway history with a real feel for the places that the railway served. What a travesty that trains no longer go to Wetherby or Otley! Martin is acerbic in his criticism of the decision to close lines which, had they survived, would have been thriving and part of the electrified network, for certain. There is a fascinating chapter on accidents and the railways’ sometimes reluctant efforts to make their operations safer. The chapter titled ‘Lock, Block and Brake’ pus railway safety in a wider political context, making use of Bairstow’s encyclopedic parliamentary knowledge. There’s an interesting section on the Poppleton Community Railway Nursery, just outside York. I was about to say that there can’t be many garden centres with their own railway but actually there’s quite a few. Poppleton’s claim to fame is that it was an original railway nursery, created by the LNER during the Second World War, and was the very last. I gave a helping hand in rescuing the nursery in my Northern Rail days and it now thrives as a community project.

Railways Through Harrogate is priced at £17.95 and should be in everyone’s Christmas stocking.

Fellowship is Life!

It’s very heartening to see Denis Pye’s superb book on the Clarion Cycling Club appear in a new edition. Denis was a great friend and a much-loved part of the Lancashire libertarian socialist scene. He played a major role in keeping the Bolton Socialist Club going when the outlook was very bleak. The new edition has a lovely foreword by his widow, Wendy, The book has a new introduction which brings the story of the remarkable Clarion up to date. It was formed as the cycling auxiliary of the Clarion newspaper, edited by Robert Blatchford, in the years before the First World War, which in many ways were the socialist movement’s years of innocence. The Clarion Cycling Club was formed in 1894 and put down deep roots in the North of England, enjoying close links with the Independent Labour Party and a plethora of local socialist organizations. In parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire members created ‘Clarion club houses’ which acted as workers’ holiday resorts – you could call in for lunch during a  ride, or you could stay for a few weeks and enjoy a game of tennis, read uplifting books and argue socialism, anarchism and liberalism with fellow guests. One survives, the Clarion House at Roughlee, near Nelson. It was visited by Michael Portillo in his ‘Great Railway Journeys’ and in true Lancashire socialist style he was given a warm, friendly welcome.

This is a lovely book and can be heartily recommended. Fellowship is Life: The Story of the National Clarion Cycling Club, by Denis Pye is published by National Clarion 1895 Publishing and costs £10. It is available on Amazon but why not take a ride or walk to Clarion House (only open Sundays) and get a copy from them?

Lancastrians: at a gradely book shop near you soon

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets is being published next year by the highly-respected publishers Hurst whose catalogue is well worth a look at it. See https://www.hurstpublishers.com/catalogues/spring-summer-2023/. The page on Lancastrians says: “This long-overdue popular history explores the cultural heritage and identity of Lancashire. Paul Salveson traces to the thirteenth century the origins of a distinct county stretching from the Mersey to the Lake District—‘Lancashire North of the Sands’. From a relatively backward place in terms of industry and learning, Lancashire would become the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution: the creation of a self-confident bourgeoisie drove economic growth, and industrialists had a strong commitment to the arts, endowing galleries and museums and producing a diverse culture encompassing science, technology, music and literature. Lancashire developed a distinct business culture, its shrine being the Manchester Cotton Exchange, but this was also the birthplace of the world co-operative movement, and the heart of campaigns for democracy including Chartism and women’s suffrage. Lancashire has generally welcomed incomers, who have long helped to inform its distinctive identity: fourteenth-century Flemish weavers; nineteenth-century Irish immigrants and Jewish refugees; and, more recently, New Lancastrians from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The book explores what has become of Lancastrian culture, following modern upheavals and Lancashire’s fragmentation compared with its old rival Yorkshire. What is the future for the 6 million people of this rich historic region?”

The book will be published in June 2023 in hardback, price £25.

Last Train from Blackstock Junction

My new book comprising 12 short stories about railway life in the North is now available. Last Train from Blackstock Junction includes a very appropriate tale about the last train from somewhere called ‘Blackstock Junction’ on November 5^th 1966, when a group of kids succeeded in stopping the Glasgow – Manchester express which they mistakenly thought was the last stopping train from their local station. Oops.What very naughty boys. Don’t try this on your local railway.

The book has a very kind foreword by Sir Peter Hendy, chairman of Network Rail, who said “As you read these stories, you’ll find some history, some romance, some politics, a little prejudice – sadly – and some humour; you will in fact be in the world of railway men and women. I hope you find them as absorbing as I did when I read Paul’s manuscript. Please enjoy his work!”

Writer and environmentalist Colin Speakman said “it is an amazing collection – powerful, moving, and what I would call ‘faction’ which tells truths even though the details may be fantasy, ‘Hillary Mantel school of history’ perhaps. Director of Platform 5 Publishing, Andrew Dyson, said “Paul’s  stories provide a fascinating insight into what life

was really like for thousands of railway workers.”

The tales also include a ghost story set in a lonely signalbox in Bolton, in 1900 (‘Who Signed The Book?’) while other stories are about life on today’s railway, including ‘From Marxist to Managing Director’ – the story of a young female political activist who ends up running a train company. Some are set in the ‘age of steam’ and life on the footplate as well as the rise of the trades unions on the railways and the rise of the Labour movement.

Salvo readers will get the book at a specially discounted price, courtesy of Platform 5 Publishing. Go to https://www.platform5.com/Catalogue/New-Titles. Enter LAST22 in the promotional code box at the basket and this will reduce the unit price from £12.95 to £10.95.

Talks, walks and wanderings

Following the ‘official’ end of the Pandemic, I’ve been getting a number of invitations to give talks on various topics. Recent talks have included ‘The Social History of Lancashire’s Railways’ for Preston Historical Society, ‘Allen Clarke’s Bolton’ for Friends of Smithills Hall and Bolton U3A, ‘Railways and Railwaymen of Turton’ for Turton LHS, ‘Moorlands, Memories and Reflections’ for What’s Your Story, Chorley?  and ‘Railways and Communities: Blackrod and Horwich’, for Blackrod LHS.  Next Tuesday evening I’m talking to Chorley Archaeological Society on ‘The Lost Railways of Lancashire’. I’m speaking on ‘Railways in the North’ for the Stephenson Locomotive Society in Manchester on November 5^th. The following Saturday I’m at Shap Wells talking to the Cumbrian Railway Association on the Settle-Carlisle Railway. Other topics are:

• The Lancashire Dialect Writing tradition
• The Railways of the North: yesterday, today and tomorrow
• Allen Clarke (1863-1935) Lancashire’s Romantic Radical
• The Winter Hill Mass Trespass of 1896
• The Rise of Socialism and Co-operation in the North
• The Clarion Cycling Clubs and their Club Houses
• Walt Whitman and his Lancashire Friends
• Forgotten Railways of Lancashire
• Banishing Beeching: The Community Rail Movement
• Railways, Railwaymen and Literature

I charge fees that are affordable to the organisation concerned, to fit their budget – so by negotiation. My preferred geographical location is within 25 miles of Bolton, ideally by train/bus or bike. With sufficient notice I can go further afield.

READERS’ LETTERS: HS2, Ian Jack, trains to Heywood (lack of)

Malcolm Bulpitt says: “Thank you for your good critique on HS2. A long time ago many transport professionals, whose living did not come from the project, were pointing out that in reality it was nothing more than London’s Crossrail 3. All it will really serve is to enable a lot of homes to be built on land that is cheaper than in the SE, and give their purchasers a swift commute into London, and their households access to the Capital’s multitude of commercial, cultural and retail facilities. Basically it is being built to enable Metroland to be reborn 100 years on. This political vanity project has inevitably become a financial black hole that Mr Hunt would be wise to kill off ASAP. That action alone would probably balance the nation’s budgetary woes.”

David Spaven writes : “That was a most fitting tribute to Ian Jack, one of the finest journalists Scotland (and Bolton – ed.) has ever produced. His spirit of enquiry, and fascination with the details of everyday life – and how they connected with the bigger picture – have perhaps only been emulated in modern times by one other Scotsman, the late Kenneth Roy. Not as well known as he should have been, Roy – who memorably and movingly described the approach of his death in ‘In Case of Any News: Diary of Living and Dying’ – uses rural railways as a metaphor to explore the very point of our existence: ‘Branch lines matter. They have all gone as physical artefacts – grassed over and eroded by rain and gravity as completely as any Roman road or earthworks. But they can still exist in our imagination. The main line proceeds at speed to a predictable and deadly terminus. On a main line, the light at the end of the tunnel is that of the incoming train. Choose instead the gentle and meandering branch line of unorthodox thought and feeling.”

Richard Stewart Greenwood says: corrects John Davies on Bury – Rochdale closure: “The rail service to Heywood was not removed as a result of Beeching. Beeching’s plan was for the Rochdale-Heywoodf-Bury-Bolton-Wigan line to be retained. Closure of Heywood station and the line Castleton to Bolton did not happen until December 1966.
Why does no-one criticize the lack of through running on Preston to Liverpool and Wigan Wallgate to Liverpool?

John replies: “Thanks, Richard Greenwood, for your correction. I have accused others over time of attributing every 60’s closure to Beeching so ‘mea culpa’! It would be interesting to know why Rochdale to Bolton was closed if Beeching had suggested retention. For good measure, why was Bury to Accrington closed; and something that puzzled me when I worked in Yorkshire for a short time in mid/late’60’s, why lines such as the Spen Valley (heavily populated with an interval dmu service) closed? One thing I remember was a Yorkshire Post headline in 1967 announcing the impending closure of the Settle and Carlisle line on a nominated date in 1970; and look what that started!”

Jim Trotmansays of Salvo 308: “Thanks Paul – many good points about HS2 and the preoccupation with very high speed. Thanks too for the mention of Oxenholme – Windermere. I fear that has been stalled as it is not in a Tory constituency. I’m also sure that there was no intention by Truss to put any time or money into implementing HS3 – just a headline followed by future condemnation of another government for not doing it.

New Projects

Lancastrians has kept me busy for most of the year and will be published by Hurst (who recently brought out the fascinating Northumbrians) next year. See above. I’m contemplating writing ‘a people’s history of Farnworth’, using the structure of Lancastrians (work, play, politics, culture, sport, individual profiles etc.).

Still in Print (at special prices!)

ALLEN CLARKE: Lancashire’s Romantic Radical £6.99 (normally £18.99)

Moorlands, Memories and Reflections £15.00 (£21.00)

The Works (novel set in Horwich Loco Works) £6 (£12.99)

With Walt Whitman in Bolton £6  (£9.99)

The Settle-Carlisle Railway (published by Crowood £24) – can do it for Salvo readers at £12

See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk for full details of the books (ignore the prices shown and use the above – add total of £4 per order for post and packing in UK)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Ghost Story: The First Aid Phantom of Wayoh Sidings

My grandchildren are always meithering me for a ‘ghost story’ this time of year. Well here’s one about a benevolent ghost, or boggart, which featured in something that happened to me a long time ago when I was a young relief signalman in Bolton.

It was December 1966, not long after I’d been promoted from my first signalbox at Bullfield West to a ‘relief’ job, with more money. It involved covering rest days, holidays and sickness at several boxes in the Bolton area, mostly within a mile or so of the station. A couple were more remote; the furthest and most difficult one to reach was Wayoh Sidings, up on the moors between Bolton and Blackburn. The only way you could reach it was by walking up the line from Entwistle, just over a mile. There was no road access and the other relief men didn’t like it – they couldn’t get there by car. I was young and fit back then and would either walk or even cycle up the path along the line, keeping an eye out for passing trains. If it was wet, most drivers – if you asked them nicely – would drop you off outside the box.

Wayoh Sidings was at the summit of the line, the end of a long gruelling climb in both directions. It was a lonely place, with the nearest houses half a mile away near the old quarry on the Roman Road. Beyond the box, going north, the line plunged through a deep cutting and then into the two-mile long Whittlestone Tunnel. In steam days most of the freights would be ‘banked’ by a loco coming up behind the train, from either Bolton or Blackburn. When the train reached Wayoh Sidings the assisting engine would shut off steam and come to a stop by the signalbox, with the signalman changing the points to allow it to drift back to base. If there was nothing else about, the driver and fireman would park their engine outside and come up for a brew.

That was about the only company you’d get, apart from the occasional platelayer. Harold Hodgkiss was the regular man who walked his length every week and would call in to ‘camp’ over a brew of tea.

I was rostered to cover the night turn at Wayoh in the week before Christmas, relieving the regular signalman, Frank Hatton, at 10.00pm. Once you’d got there it was an easy job, just an empty stock for Newton Heath depot about midnight, the Colne ‘papers’ at 4 a.m. and the Heysham – Brindle Heath goods round about six, which was usually banked up from Blackburn.  My relief would take over at 6 and I’d ‘caution’ the first up passenger and get a lift back down to Bolton. You could get away with that sort of thing, back then. After signing the Train Register Book it was a case of putting the kettle on and settling down to a good read, maybe with a brief doze before being disturbed by a ‘call attention’ signal for the Colne papers – express passenger, followed by four beats of the bell.

Some of the other relief signalmen didn’t like the place, claiming it was haunted. Jimmy Blackburn said he’d heard a voice calling to him when he was walking up the track from Entwistle, something like ‘get out of the way’ and ‘look out’.   As a signed-up Marxist revolutionary, I regarded that as a load of superstitious nonsense.

………………………………….

I’d already done a couple of nights that week before ‘the incident’ happened. It was Thursday December 23^rd and it would be the last full night shift before Christmas. Frank, on the afternoon turn, would close the box at 10.00pm Christmas Eve and re-open on the 27^th.

The last train from Bolton that stopped at Entwistle was the 8.30 to Colne. I could’ve asked the driver to drop me off at Wayoh but thought I’d call in at Entwistle box and have a brew with Paddy Hanlon, one of the two regular signalmen there. The box was perched above the two ‘fast lines’. Back then there were four tracks between Entwistle and Wayoh, provided by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to give extra capacity for freight trains. By the 60s there wasn’t much freight, apart from the evening Burnley – Moston on the up line and the Ancoats – Carlisle on the down.

Paddy always welcomed a bit of company and the kettle was usually on the boil. I got off the diesel train and waved a cheerio to the Manchester guard, watching the train trundle away up the last bit of the climb towards Wayoh, the red tail light slowly disappearing from view on what was a fine, clear but bloody freezing night. You could see your breath almost freeze when you breathed out.

I jumped down off the platform and crossed the tracks to get to the signalbox steps. “Now then Paddy!” I shouted, so he wouldn’t think it was any unwanted visitor, such as an over-zealous inspector making an out of hours call.

I walked up the flight of stairs and found the door unlocked. The warmth from the stove hit you like a blanket as soon as you stepped in.

“Come in and sit yourself down lad,” said Paddy. “The kettle’s just boiled, here’s a nice cup of tea for ye.”

Like all the boxes in the area, there was an ‘easy chair’ that was the preserve of the resident signalman. There was usually another chair for visitors, not as comfortable but good enough. Decorum usually meant that the visitor would make do with the hard chair but Paddy was a true gent and offered me the easy chair.

“Thanks Paddy, that’s very kind. And here’s a card for you and the family.”

Paddy lived in one of the old railway cottages just beyond the pub, he and his family had been there for a good thirty years after moving from a box in the Manchester area, Collyhurst I think. He hailed from the west of Ireland and had no end of stories about life in ‘the ould country’. He loved the Lancashire moors and was the only applicant for the vacancy at Entwistle when the previous incumbent, Abraham Holroyd, retired.

“So Paul, are you and your young lady all ready for Christmas?” he asked.

“Oh, I think so. We’re going over to Sheila’s mother’s for Christmas Day but we’ll have a quiet time, see the rest of the family on Boxing Day, get out for a walk and take it easy.”

“Aye, it’s a time for family alright,” Paddy agreed. “They say it might be a white ‘un too, some snow forecast for tonight according to the news.”

“Well, it’s looking clear enough now,” I replied, not wanting to get snowed in at Wayoh Sidings for Christmas. “But anyway, I’d better be getting on, Frank will be wondering where I am.”

“Aye, he’s a stickler for punctuality is Frank, and no harm in that, for a signalman,” responded Paddy. “Be careful how you go and mind you don’t come across any of those Lancashire boggarts on the way!”

“I don’t think there’s any chance of that, Paddy, but if I do I’ve a spare copy of The Morning Star I can give them, to demonstrate they’re just an illusion!”

“On your way lad, and have a grand Christmas…just look out for the Burnley-Moston, not had it yet so it might be on its way.”

I left the cosiness of Paddy’s box and walked down the steps into the old goods yard and felt the first flurries of snow coming down. The clear bright sky had clouded over and there was an eerie light across the tracks.

If I walked briskly I’d be there in twenty minutes. The unfenced path ran alongside the up fast line and had been used by generations of railwaymen, and – unofficially – some of the local farmers and quarrymen too.

It started coming down heavily and within a couple of minutes I could hardly see the tracks, let alone the path. To make it worse, I was walking into the wind, howling down from Whittlestone Head and blowing the snow horizontally. I was struggling to see and the snow felt more like small balls of ice.

I was able to walk forward only by feeling the edge of the ballast to my left, under the rails of the up fast line.

I kept edging forward, stumbling a couple of times, and could just make out the lights of Wayoh Sidings box in the distance, through the blizzard.

Maybe I was getting over-confident; I was getting close when I went over. I hit a bit of redundant rail some dozy platelayer had left lying across the path. All I can recall is falling and striking my head against something hard. Then oblivion.

The next thing I can remember is a loud voice, shouting “come on lad, come on, tha’ cornt lie theer…look out!”

I came back into consciousness and felt a hand tugging at my feet. I became aware of the sound of a steam loco hard at work, and not far away.

It dawned on me that I was lying across the outer rail of the up fast, and the sound I could hear was the late-running Burnley – Moston goods, just passing Wayoh Sidings and a few yards from where I was lying. It was working hard, with the driver probably trying to make up a bit of lost time and get home to Manchester. Up here, he was a long way from Deansgate.

I felt another hard tug at my leg and the next instant the ‘whoosh’ of a heavy steam locomotive rushing by, at very close quarters. I could feel the leaking steam from the engine and the smell of hot oil. Then the clank of wagon after wagon as the train went past, followedby silence. I could also feel a small dog pulling at my trouser leg.

“Are you awreet lad?” a voice asked. “Tha’s just had a close call wi’ destiny!”

I looked up and through the snow, still coming down heavy. I could make out the shape of a large, bearded man in platelayer’s clothes.

“Tha must ha fallen onto th’ rail and knocked thisel  eawt. Lucky aw were tekkin’ th’dog for a walk an’ saw thi. Let’s have a look at thi.”

I had a nasty bump on my head where I’d hit the rail and also felt as though I’d twisted my ankle when I went over.

“Con tha walk?” my rescuer asked.

“I’m not sure I can…but I have to relieve my mate in the box at 10.00.”

“Oh, he can wait a few minutes. Howd on to me an’ we’ll get you into my cabin just up th’line.”

We edged forward through the blizzard, both of us completely white, the snow biting into our faces like small sharp nails.

My rescuer pushed open the door of what looked like a platelayer’s cabin just set back from the track, I’d never seen it before. We entered a warm but dark room lit only by a blazing fire and an oil lamp on the table.

“Sit thiself on this chair,” he said. Let’s tek a look at thi. Wheer’s it hurtin’?

I explained about the bump to my head and what I thought was the sprained ankle from when I’d fallen.

“Let’s tek a look. Tha’s had a bit of bump awreet but it doesn’t look too bad. A sma’ cut but nowt much. We’ll soon fix that. Let’s have a look at that foot.”

He got on his knees in front of me and took hold of my injured left foot.

“Nowt to worry abeawt, but this meyt hurt for a minute lad.”

He got hold of my foot and gave it a good wrench. He was right, it was bloody painful.

“Ow! Bloody hell, what’re you doin’?” I asked.

“Don’t fratch, it’ll be awreet, tha’ll see. Now let’s get that head wound dressed.”

A bandage appeared from what looked like a battered old first aid box and he cut a couple of pieces, laying them on the table. He dabbed some sort of lotion on the bruise, had an odd smell that I can’t describe but quite pungent, then wrapped the bandage around my head, securing it with a knot.

“Tha’s had a nasty bang on th’yed, but tha’ll live. Aw’ve dabbed a bit o’comfrey on that bruise, it’ll heal it gradely weel in a day or two. Grew it in mi own garden. Let’s get thi up to th’box, tha should be fit for duty neaw.”

We went out into the cold night air to find the blizzard had stopped. The clouds had rolled away leaving a clear, starry night with the path up to the box illuminated by a full moon. About six inches of snow had fallen.

We walked in silence up towards the box, the lights getting closer and stronger as we trudged through the undisturbed snow. I held on to my rescuer and hopped along on one foot, not putting pressure on the injured one. The little dog ran by his side.

We got to the steps leading up to the box and I turned to wish my rescuer a hearty thanks, with an invitation to come up for a brew. I hadn’t even had chance to ask his name.

“Aw’ll tek me leave neaw, th’wife’s expectin’ me back. Aw think tha’ll find that yon foot is healed and just give that bruise on thi yead a couple o’days.”

I turned round and there was no sign of him.

But what was most strange was that there were no footprints leading away from the signalbox. Maybe the wind had blown some drifts across the path.

Before I had time to think any further, the signalbox door opened and Frank shouted down to me. “Are you alright Paul? Paddy had told me you were on your way and then that friggin’ blizzard came on. Worried you’d got caught out by that freight.”

“Well I’ve had a strange experience, that’s for sure. Is that kettle on?”

I entered the signalbox; inside it was pretty much the same as Entwistle, a standard L&Y design. The fire was blazing away merrily.

“What’s happened to thi lad? What’s the bandage for?” Frank asked.

I explained to him that I’d tripped on some lineside junk and fallen onto the track, knocking myself out. Someone had pulled me away just in time before the freight passed. Whoever it was, he’d saved my life. And on top of that he’d dressed my wound and my foot was no longer in pain. I realised I could walk on it as normal.

“Sounds like tha’s seen a boggart!” said Frank, a man well versed in Lancashire folklore and daft tales.

“Somebody helped me, that’s for sure. I owe my life to him, but I’ve not a clue who the bloody hell he was – and he just disappeared. A bit of blowing snow probably covered up his footprints but I’ve no idea where he went. He said he was out taking his dog for a walk.”

I described his appearance, as much as I could, to my colleague. Tall and thick set, beard. Wearing what looked like old-fashioned working clothes, railway greatcoat, smelling of tobacco. Spoke broad Lancashire.

“Did he look like that chap, on the photograph over the frame?” Frank pointed to an old black and white photograph amongst a group of pictures of the line and the box, taken in the early 1900s by the look of them. Sure enough, one of the men in a group of platelayers was a spitting image, as much as I could see, of my rescuer. Even his clothes looked the same, with the cap and heavy overcoat. And there was the little dog by his side.

“That’s Bill Horrocks, he was foreman platelayer when there was still a small gang up here. Before the First World War. Bill was prominent in the railway first aid movement – chairman of the Bolton branch. He used to go round giving lectures on railway safety and first aid, won lots of prizes so they say. Swore by herbs, his house was full of all sorts of different lotions and potions. It’s ironic that he was killed in a railway accident, trying to rescue a workmate who’d fallen onto the rails, just down the line from here. He got his injured mate out of the way but didn’t have time to get out of the road himself. His little dog tried to pull him out of the way, so they say, but he was too heavy. Killed outright. They laid out his body in the old platelayer’s cabin just down the line – it’s derelict now, roof’s gone, but you can still see it from the line, if you look carefully. Anyway lad, I’ve arranged with the driver of the Newton Heath empties to give me a lift home and he’s just passed Spring Vale, so I’d better get down to meet him. Merry Christmas, and have an easy shift. Don’t see any more ghosts!”

Frank picked up his bag and disappeared down the steps. I saw the train’s lights as it emerged from Whittlestone Tunnel, slowing down to pick him up. A friendly toot on the horn and the train disappeared into the distance. I replaced my signals to danger and settled down to a quiet night, under the protective gaze of Bill Horrocks.

 

Developing a ‘Lancashire Sensibility’: thoughts for Lancashire Day, 2022

Paul Salveson

Over the last year I’ve been working on a book about Lancashire history, identity and culture. Lancastrians – Mills, Mines and Minarets will appear next summer. A central part of its argument is that we need to revive a ‘Lancashire Sensibility’ which is forward-looking and inclusive – and takes in the whole of ‘historic Lancashire’. To do that, we need to go back before we can go forward and look at how a ‘Lancashire Sensibility’ emerged in the past.

It was a central part of a regional identity that took in speech, dress, manners, diet – pretty much every aspect of how we lived. In 1951 the (Labour) Minister of Education, George Tomlinson, wrote the foreword to the journal of the newly-established Lancashire Dialect Society:

“I have a feeling that we cannot afford to lose the characteristic features of our County, which are bound up in no small degree with the accents of its people and our own particular dialect… for since I became a Minister of the Crown, in every part of the country people have come to me at the end of a meeting, shaken me by the hand and said, ‘I too come from Lancashire,’ and it was grand to hear the accent again.”

The ‘Lancashire sensibility’ was very much a part of the social and intellectual make-up of most sections of society by the middle of the nineteenth century. It included much of the aspiring middle class, sections of the aristocracy and some ‘respectable’ working men. Women were part of it; the leader of the women’s suffrage movement Emmeline Pankhurst was always fond of stressing her ‘Lancashire’ roots.

It linked with the idea of a ‘Lancashire Patriotism’ which emerged in the 1880s. Speaking in the middle of the First World War, Rossendale Liberal politician and historian Samuel Compston said that “if patriotism is a virtue, especially in these days, surely county clanship, in no narrow sense, is a virtue also.” The socialist writer Allen Clarke was one of the foremost proponents of a Lancashire sensibility, through his stories, poems and songs. Many Conservative figures such as the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres were proud of their Lancashire roots and supported bodies which promoted Lancashire culture.

Lancashire speech – from ‘accent’ to full-blown dialect, or ‘broad Lancashire’, formed an important part of Lancashire identity and sensibility. Debates over its use, among Lancastrians over the last hundreds years and more, highlight some of the wider issues around Lancashire identity. During the late 1920s and early 1930s there was an on-going debate about whether dialect speech should be encouraged, or allowed to die. The Bury dialect writer T. Thompson, who had a regular column in that sadly departed champion of all things Lancashire, The Manchester Guardian, spoke in defence of dialect speech at a meeting of the Manchester Literary Club in 1938. He argued against attempts to ‘standardise’ English and stressed that “language is a living thing, always changing, and if they standardised it, it became a

dead thing.” Allen Clarke commented on Lancastrians’ ability to ‘switch’ from standard English to dialect, as the occasion required it: “Just as in Wales, they talk both Welsh and English, what’s wrong about Lancashire using its dialect as well the English language? As it is not so much the tool as the man who uses it…so it is not the mere words but the thoughts and sentiments that make the power and beauty of a language. While the Lancashire dialect is equal to any other language in pathos, is fundamental characteristic is its humour, mostly cheery and kindly, and in that respect it is first and foremost in the world.”

An essential part of the creation of a ‘Lancashire sensibility’ was the emergence of a distinctive ‘intelligentsia’ which provided a network of influential figures.  The Manchester Literary Club was central to this. It was founded in 1862 and its aims were to “encourage the pursuit of literature and art; to promote research in the several departments of intellectual work and to protect the interests of authors in Lancashire; to publish from time to time works illustrating or elucidating the literature and history of the county…”

A typical member was Samuel Barlow, a partner in a bleach works at Stakehill near Middleton. As well as being an active member of the Manchester Literary Club he was a founder of the city’s Arts Club, an artist and botanist and had a strong interest in Lancashire dialect. William E.A. Axon was another prominent member with wide interests. He became a central figure in Manchester – and Lancashire – intellectual circles towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1874 he joined the staff of The Manchester Guardian as its librarian. He had already been writing for the Guardian, and used his pen in support of the anti-slavery cause during the American Civil War.

Lancashire developed a number of cultural associations which provided a network for the county’s intellectual communities. The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire was founded in Liverpool in 1848. The Lancashire Authors’ Association (for ‘writers and lovers of Lancashire literature’) was established in 1909 on the initiative of Allen Clarke. Its Library was created in 1921 from members’ donations and is now the largest collection of regional literature in the UK. It is housed as a special collection in the University of Bolton Library.

The Manchester Section of the Society of Chemical Industry seems an unlikely body to take a broad view of culture in Lancashire. However, in 1928 the Society was instrumental in commissioning The Soul of

Manchester, to mark the Society’s Manchester meeting the following year. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (also vice-president of the Lancashire Authors’ Association) contributed the introductory essay on ‘The Soul of Cities’ in which Manchester is clearly positioned as the county ‘capital’ but very much a part of Lancashire.

The Co-operative Movement came closest to providing an intellectual framework for working class men and women in the years between the 1850s and 1960s. It was a network of local, independent, societies. The larger ones had substantial libraries, reading rooms and lecture theatres, with frequent lectures by eminent speakers, often on aspects of Lancashire history and culture.

The post-war years saw the coming of mass entertainment, particularly television – which was less suited to a more regional culture. Was it, finally, the beginning of the end that had been forecast for so long?

Actually, no. Go to schools in many parts of Oldham, Rochdale or Bolton and you will hear young Asian as well as white English children speaking ‘broad Lanky’. After its demise being forecast for many decades, it refuses to die, and with it that broader sense of ‘being Lancashire’.

We need a revived Lancashire sensibility that is about more than just dialect and speech, embracing culture in a general sense. We already have Friends of Real Lancashire and the Lancashire Society flying the

red rose. We need to up our game and tap into people’s continuing sense of identity which is at risk of being subsumed into the amorphous city-regions. A campaign to re-unite and re-imagine Lancashire needs a higher profile and cross-party support.

A reformed Lancashire within its historic boundaries makes sense as a regional economic unit but also chimes with people’s identities – in a way that artificial ‘city regions’ never will. An alternative is the idea of the ‘county region’ which forms an organic whole without one centre becoming over-dominant. People in Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and other towns don’t want to become mere commuter suburbs of Manchester. Nearly 50 years on from the creation of ‘Greater Manchester’ the so-called ‘city region’ still has little legitimacy. If there was a referendum tomorrow on being part of Lancashire or ‘Greater Manchester’ I have little doubt about the result. There is an alternative – a greater ‘Lancastria’ that celebrates all of our county, not just the main cities. A starting point must be the re-creation of a new ‘Lancashire Sensibility’ which was so much a part of life in the 19^th and early 20th century but celebrates a modern county identity. That’s why we should celebrate our Lancashire Day – and make it something that everyone living and working in Lancashire can celebrate.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets will be published by Hurst in June 2023. See www.hurstpublishers.com

This article is was first published in The Lancastrian, the magazine of Friends of Real Lancashire in September 2022. See www.forl.org.uk

My biography of Allen Clarke (‘Lancashire’s Romantic Radical’) is available at a special price of £10 including postage. Email me on paul.salveson@myphone.coop for details

 

 

 

 

The Northern Weekly Salvo

Incorporating  Slaithwaite Review of Books, Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, Tunnel Gazers’ Gazette etc. Descendant of Teddy Ashton’s Northern Weekly and Th’Bowtun Loominary un Tum Fowt Telegraph

Published at 109 Harpers Lane Bolton BL1 6HU email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No. 308 November 4^th    2022  

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North. Sometimes weekly, usually not; definitely Northern.

Just muddling through

A relatively short interval since the last Salvo: there’s quite a lot going on and I’ve a bit of time before getting into a busy November. Politics dominate. Maybe the last Salvo was too kind on the Tories; I’d hoped, against my better judgement, that if Sunak became leader he would at least restore some basic decency to Government. Instead we’ve seen the ill-judged re-appointment of Suella Bravermann, intent on pursuing a dangerous anti-immigrant policy, a reluctance to attend COP 27, and God knows what awaits in terms of spending cuts in the November 17^th Budget. It looks fairly certain that the poor will bear the brunt. As far as transport goes, we’ve yet another secretary of state, Mark Harper. His constituency is Forest of Dean, which has a station (Lydney) and a very nice heritage railway. Let’s see what he makes of his brief: like sorting out the rail industry’s industrial relations woes, HS2, future structure of the industry and lots more. Lucky chap. He will need to make a strong case for continued investment in infrastructure and hopefully he will have an ally in Michael Gove, a welcome re-appointment as Levelling-up secretary (yes, I did say that…). As I’ve argued previously, HS2 will actually do more to ‘level down’ the North and is very poor value for money. Apart from some rail enthusiasts and too many politicians with little understanding of railways or regional economics, it has little support in the North; if it goes ahead will suck investment away from far more worthwhile schemes. See below for The Salvo Plan.

Who’s Anti-High Speed Rail?

Well not me, but I am anti-HS2. It’s become a bit like Brexit, with views polarised between supporters and opponents and an unwillingness to listen to ‘the other side’. I’ve thought long and hard about HS2 but I simply can’t accept the arguments for it on so many different levels. I don’t agree that it will do that much to relieve capacity and provide freight paths (see the work of Tony Berkeley on this). In some places it could make things worse, and definitely will during its long and disruptive construction. It will leave many large towns and cities isolated with poorer services and will very directly take investment away from much-needed local and regional schemes. More generally it will contribute towards a further shift in economic power away from the North towards London and the south-east. Why have a regional office in Manchester, Leeds or Preston if you can travel up to meetings in less time than it takes to get to the office on the tube? High-speed rail for Britain must recognise the specific characertasitics of our country which are very different from France, Spain, Germany, China or Japan. It’s very densely populated in parts and high-speed rail should connect all the main cities, from the central belt of Scotland and south Wales to the Midlands London and the Channel Tunnel. A line speed of 140 mph would offer a strong alternative to both roads and air and consume less energy than ‘very high-speed’. The logic of very high-speed rail is that you miss out some cities which really need good rail links, creating a small number of ‘super cities’ whilst allowing other towns and cities to wither and die. Cities, large and smaller towns need a rail network which connects them with a  hierarchy of intercity, interregional and local trains conencting in to light rail and buses.

The imminent announcement by Jeremy Hunt could be very bad news indeed for rail. It’s old-fashioned, discredited politics (and economics) to scale back on the right sort of investment when times are bad. The North in particular needs investment to provide essential infrastructure for economic development and also to provide jobs in the construction phases. HS2 will do little for the North in either sense. Covid has led to long-term changes in travel patterns and people are travelling to work (short and long distance) less. Any new building work will create jobs, regardless of whether what is being built has any point. Yet even on that basis HS2 doesn’t do a lot for the North as it will be many years before we see boots on the ground north of Crewe. HS2 is a monumental folly whose costs are rising by the second. If it goes ahead it will inevitably mean that other rail projects bite the dust; there isn’t a limitless amount of funding for rail and HS2 will soak up much of it. The same goes for the ill-conceived ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’ which seems largely designed to keep politicians in West Yorkshire, and tunneling contractors,  happy. The less glamorous but more useful – and deliverable – Bradford CrossRail is a far better alternative.

The SALVO PLAN: What railways (and people) in the North need

OK, seeing as you asked. A development strategy for rail in the North should be clear on what it’s trying to achieve. Addressing the climate emergency and promoting economic regeneration should go hand in hand, and rail investment ticks both (and other) boxes. It’s always tempting (and great fun) to look at rail re-openings as ‘the answer’ but

in fact re-openings and new railways are often of marginal benefit and take a very long time to complete. There are some exceptions which I’ll mention later. I’ll be necessarily brief, maybe there will be scope for doing a longer piece later (especially if this heavy cold continues).

The greatest benefits to the North’s rail network would come from improving on what we’ve already got and addressing major bottlenecks and capacity issues. Top priority must be sorting out Manchester, in particular the Castlefield Corridor; it impacts on the whole of the North’s rail network. You can play around with any number of ‘innovative alternatives’ but the hard reality is that it needs shed loads of money being spent to double capacity. Get that done and it opens up enormous opportunities for extending services. It’s not just Piccadilly to Deansgate, but also sorting out the congested network south of Piccadilly, with grade separation of tracks to Guide Bridge and the Airport.

The Railway Industry Association in the North of England (RIA North) has just produced an interesting report on electrification, which has been ably dissected by Phil Haigh in RAIL. As Phil says, it’s oddly constructed but has some valuable insights. Personally, I’d say that the North needs a rolling programme of electrification for routes which are pretty obvious: we’ve got the TransPennine Upgrade agreed (I hope!) which will see wiring from Manchester via Huddersfield to Leeds and York. The complementary Calder Valley route from Manchester via Hebden Bridge to Bradford and Leeds is a no-brainer but also (as RIA North argues) do the ‘old L&Y main line’ from Sowerby Bridge via Mirfield to Wakefield, Castleford and York. Hope Valley (Manchester – Sheffield) is the other obvious route that urgently needs wiring, and nobody would say it will be easy with three long tunnels. Get Midland Main Line electrification completed to Sheffield, Leeds and Doncaster. We need to be careful about trying to do too much: those projects would keep electrification teams busy for a few years and not cost the earth. An easy-to-do extra would be Oxenholme to Windermere.

RIA North suggest that some more rural routes would be best served by battery or hydrogen, which makes sense. Battery seems a more tried and tested, and affordable, option. Routes like Cumbrian Coast, Whitby, Durham Coast and Scottish and Welsh rural lines would be appropriate; look at more bi-modes for the Merseyrail network – extending to Preston, Wigan and Wrexham. Some of Northern’s other inter-regional routes should, in an ideal world, be electrified: Newcastle – Carlisle, the Copy Pit route between Burnley and Todmorden (used by Blackpool – York services) and the Furness Line beyond Carnforth and Leeds/Sheffield to Hull and up the coast. If Skipton – Colne was to re-open (see below) it would make sense to electrify west of Colne and also Blackburn – Bolton. New bi-mode trains may be the short to medium-term answer, with quality on a par, or better, than a 331 electric train. I’m told that it is relatively easy to retrofit existing trains to be battery powered, so maybe that would make sense for the still-new 331s. That said, bi-mode, let alone tri-mode, pushes up costs. Only do it when there is no sensible alternative (i.e. full electrification).

Re-openings and new railways?  Some make sense but there needs to be a very clear, demonstrable benefit in economic, environmental and social terms. The proposed HS2 north of Birmingham scores badly on all counts. Drop it – and sort out bottlenecks on the West Coast Main Line, at least for now. Some relatively short additions to the network would bring benefits: the Burscough curves would improve connectivity across West Lancashire. the Liverpool – Burscough – Preston corridor has huge potential, including freight from the Liverpool docks heading north. Bradford Cross-Rail, linking the historically separate routes to Forster Square and Bradford Interchange, would transform the rail network not just in West Yorkshire but beyond.

Forget ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’ which is a soundbite politician’s dream and a rail planner’s nightmare. Improve what we’ve got, with better capacity across all existing Trans-Pennine routes and full electrification. Another re-opening that would enhance the regional network and tick all the boxes is Skipton to Colne. Further north, the Leamside Line makes much sense but I’d put other schemes into the ‘nice to do but not just yet’ box, assuming Ashington, Blyth and Tyne is in the bag and going ahead. Woodhead? I like the suggestion of High Speed UK that this should form the core of an east-west ‘freight super highway’ from the Mersey to the Humber, including use of the re-opened line from Warrington to Manchester via Lymm, which has been ear-marked for ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’. This makes more sense and could include a Trans-Pennine ‘lorry shuttle’ from the Manchester suburbs to Sheffield taking pressure off the M62 and narrow roads, as High Speed UK advocates.

These enhancements could be delivered relatively quickly, compared with HS2. They would bring immediate benefits and provide a significant number of jobs, in construction and in operation. Even better if the new trains that would be needed for a growing network could be built in the North (Widnes, Newton Aycliffe?). The suggested enhancements would offer opportunities for freight development and ensure that heavy, long-distance trains don’t have to be diesel-hauled.

A key issue in promoting a long-term strategy is ‘who delivers it?’ Transport for the North is the obvious lead body but it needs a massive injection of resources and expertise, bringing together teams in the combined authorities with Network Rail planners. It also needs strong leadership. But that’s a topic for another article.

Don’t waste good food on art

The latest tactic of some climate change protesters is really a bit silly. I refer to the practice of throwing tins of soup at works of art, and similar disruptive behaviour. The argument goes that peaceful protest has got nowhere so it’s time to shake the pubic out of their complacency by ‘non-violent direct action’. It’s pointed out that the women’s suffrage campaigners only made progress when they started

blowing up post boxes and damaging buildings, throwing yourself under horses or in the case of Leverhulme’s house, burning it down. Well, I’m not so sure about that. I think what won the vote for women was a combination of mass popular action, with women across the social spectrum organising together, together with the First World War which led to male politicians (perhaps reluctantly) recognising women’s role and conceding a limited extension of the franchise in 1918. It’s arguable whether the violent tactics (and setting off bombs is violent even if nobody was killed) helped or hindered the cause.  The tactics of some present-day campaigners may have similarly negative effects. Blocking roads antagonises people and has already led to physical confrontations. If you’re late for work or a hospital appointment, still less you’re rushing a sick child to hospital, I don’t think being held up for an hour will make you re-think your views on the climate. You’ll be extremely pissed off. Similarly, defacing works of art is not only childish but deeply offensive to many, reminiscent of the Nazis attacks on ‘degenerate art’ in the 30s. I really don’t want to be lectured by some kid (usually from obviously middle or upper class backgrounds) that ‘works of art’ are unimportant compared with the destruction of the planet. The most dangerous phrase in radical politics is ‘the end justifies the means’; it seldom does.

Going for dramatic acts of vandalism is bad politics even if it gets you media exposure. It’s elitist and divisive. Instead of bringing people with you, it turns them against you. It’s a substitute for serious politics which involves a hard long-term slog, where you win people over by argument and persuasion. And yes, action on the streets that’s inclusive, not divisive; it can be joyous. The work of ‘Rock Against Racism’ in the 70s is worth re-visiting, when thousands of young people were won to the anti-racist cause through the power of music.

Making the countryside open to all

It’s a longstanding aim of countryside bodies to make rural Britain ‘accessible to all’. Who could disagree with that? The traditional image of the countryside walker has been a middle-aged going on elderly white chap, typically middle-class and well-heeled or booted. Now before you get ou your twelve-bore and fire a salvo in my direction, let me say the stereotype has never been true. Walking the Pennines, Dales and Peak District has, for generations, been a very working class pastime, for both men and women. The Kinder Scout ‘trespassers’ were working class socialists and communists from Manchester. The (much larger) Winter Hill marchers were mill workers from Bolton. That said, in more recent times, you wouldn’t see that many people from BAME communities out for a walk on the moors, though it’s starting to change. One note of caution: not everyone, whatever their ethnicity, actually likes the idea of going for a walk in the country and that’s their prerogative. But it’s clear that people from BAME communities are disproportionately under-represented amongst country walkers and that needs thinking about. Personally I’m not too keen on the concept of ‘safe spaces’ where people retreat into a cocoon against a real or imagined ‘threat’. And there’s a risk we manufacture a fear that walking in the outdoors is somehow dangerous and threatening. It isn’t. It’s a lot safer than walking down Bradshagate on a Friday night.

Should there be segregated groups for different ethnic communities to encourage more country-going? A group has been formed for Black women in the Manchester area to get out into the countryside. Why does it make me feel a bit uneasy? If someone set up a ‘White Walking Group’ there would be understandable outrage. Should there not be similar concern about any leisure group that is racially segregated?

BBC’s Countryfile,  presented by Anita Rani recently ran a feature about the ‘Black Girls Hike’ group and  interviewed Rhiane Fatinikun, founder of the group. It was launched in Manchester in 2019, and has spread to the Midlands and London – with members encouraged to try a string of new activities, including climbing and paving. Speaking about their walking sessions, Anita asked why there are so few Black and Asian people in the countryside – sharing a statistic that memebrs were ‘half as likely’ to take part in hiking and mountain walking. “There’s loads of reasons for it really,” Rhiane replied. “I think it’s where we live. A lot of us tend to live in cities, for example. “None of my family does any hiking. We did do sports and we’re utilising outdoor spaces but just not the countryside. I just think it’s really important for us to have that safe space where we can explore the outdoors together, but also in a group where we actually share the same experiences.”

There was a predictable backlash to the Countryfile story and before we write the objectors off as crusty racists, maybe we need to think it through a bit more? It’s understandable that some black people feel that the subliminal message from many countryside groups is that “this place isn’t for the likes of you”, which is pretty much what was said, often very directly by force majeure by stick-wielding bailiffs to working class walkers back in the late 19^th century. They challenged it, and that’s really what Black Girls Hike is doing. Maybe it should spur bodies like the Ramblers to do more to open up their activities to a more diverse bunch? Some would say “our walks are open to everyone and we do our best to make everyone feel welcome,” which is no doubt true. But unless you go out and engage with BAME communities you’ll get the same old people, folk like me. So groups like Black Girls Hike should be welcomed if they introduce more people to the pleasures of the countryside. But how about BGH being invited to participate in joint walks with existing mixed (but yes, mainly White) walking groups? There is a huge amount of knowledge about the countryside and its history amongst members of existing walking groups; I think they’d love to share it.

Lancastrians: at a book shop near you soon

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets is being published next year by the highly-respected publishers Hurst whose catalogue is well worth a look at it. See https://www.hurstpublishers.com/catalogues/spring-summer-2023/. The page on Lancastrians says: “This long-overdue popular history explores the cultural heritage and identity of Lancashire. Paul Salveson traces to the thirteenth century the origins of a distinct county stretching from the Mersey to the Lake District—‘Lancashire North of the Sands’. From a relatively backward place in terms of industry and learning, Lancashire would become the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution: the creation of a self-confident bourgeoisie drove economic growth, and industrialists had a strong commitment to the arts, endowing galleries and museums and producing a diverse culture encompassing science, technology, music and literature. Lancashire developed a distinct business culture, its shrine being the Manchester Cotton Exchange, but this was also the birthplace of the world co-operative movement, and the heart of campaigns for democracy including Chartism and women’s suffrage. Lancashire has generally welcomed incomers, who have long helped to inform its distinctive identity: fourteenth-century Flemish weavers; nineteenth-century Irish immigrants and Jewish refugees; and, more recently, New Lancastrians from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The book explores what has become of Lancastrian culture, following modern upheavals and Lancashire’s fragmentation compared with its old rival Yorkshire. What is the future for the 6 million people of this rich historic region?”

The book will be published in June 2023 in hardback, price £25.

Let’s go to…Darwen

The latest destination for my Salvo’s Lancashire Tours was Darwen, or ‘Darrun’. Like many Lancashire towns, it has its own identity. Darwen folk were traditionally referred to as ‘Darrun Salmon’, possibly because they had a liking for smoked salmon, or maybe because salmon used to be found in the River Darwen. I’m starting to talk like Cunk (aka Diane Morgan).Whatever, the reason, it’s a pleasant little town, situated

beneath the moors, topped by the Jubilee Tower. It was completed in 1899 to mark Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee but also ‘the freeing of the moors’. I went last week, on a Wednesday when the market hall is open. I got the Clitheroe train from Bolton, passing many old haunts – the site of Astley Bridge Junction (featured in my new book of short stories), Bromley Cross, Turton Tower and Entwistle. Was that the ghost of Signalman Frank Carroll who waved to me as we entered Sough Tunnel?

Darwen is a very different place to Bolton. They talk differently to start with, perhaps a more melodious accent, different again to Blackburn, a place that many Darruners are not too keen on. It didn’t go down well when Darwen was lumped in with Blackburn to create a ‘Blackburn with Darwen Council’ in 1974, which Blackburn would inevitably dominate simply on size.

Darwen Corporation was formed in 1878 and was one of the most progressive local authorities in the North. It pioneered public libraries, parks (it has three, all of which magnificent) and ran its own public

transport which included trams and later buses. For a Bolton traveller, you can do a very nice round trip going out by train and walking from the (rather dismal) station into the town centre and when you’ve had a good explore, catch the frequent number 1 Talking Bus back to Bolton (see below). You’ll pass the fine Carnegie library and I’d recommend calling in to have a look round and see what current exhibitions are taking place. To your left is what must be Lancashire’s finest Wethespoon’s pub, The Old Chapel. I realise some Salvo readers won’t have anything to do with the pro-Brexit business and regard its owner as the devil incarnate. Quite frankly life’s too short to be so purist. Good on ‘Spoons for saving many historic buildings from demolition and usually having a good eye for local heritage (just wish they’d put steak pudding back on the menu). The pub is located in a 19^th century Methodist chapel which dates back to 1866. Unlike some of the more austere places of nonconformist worship, this one was built on a grand scale, designed by Lancashire architect Edward Bates who was also responsible for the nearby India Mill, which we’ll get to shortly. It has been brought back to life for a use that may well have horrified the tee-total Wesleyans but I think they’d accept Tim Martin did a good job.

A short distance further on is the superb Market Hall set in the newly-refurbished Market Square. I think Darruners should, perhaps grudgingly, recognise that Blackburn with Darwen Council (BwD) has much to be thanked for with this nicely-executed project. The Market Hall itself has some very good stalls and I would particularly commend the cheese stall. You can also get tripe, if you’re so inclined. On the outside of the Market Hall is an excellent Italian cafe and deli. Continue by the bus station and head up the traffic-free Bridge Street. There’s a very good chippy, a health food shop, a friendly charity store and some good pubs. Hopstar Brewery’s Number 39 is a popular live music venue which, obviously, does real ale. Go back down Bridge Street to The Circus, the epi-centre of Darwen and a place of many exciting performances over the years. Across the road are two very pretty domed buildings which were once connected to Darwen Corporation’s tram system – welcome correction here but I think one was a waiting room and the other was a ticket office. Just across from there is the site of the former wallpaper and paint works which Darwen became synonymous with. Instead of heading up Bolton Rod, I went up the hill towards Bold Ventre Park, through some very attractive stone terraced streets. The park is one of Darwen’s three gems, the

others being Whitehall (further up Bolton Road) and Sunnyhurst, back towards Blackburn. I’ve always liked Bold Venture for its mix of late Victorian elegance which leaks out into a wilder more untamed woodland before you enter onto open moors. Darwen Tower is a bit further up and worth visiting the recently restored monument to open access (and royalty).

I did a loop round the park and then headed back down towards Bolton Road, getting some great views of India Mill and its stunning chimney, designed by Mr Bates and one of Lancashire’s many wonders. (I’ve never counted them but maybe I should – would make a great book). India Mill was built by the firm of Eccles Shorrock and fully opened in 1871. Mr Shorrock was clearly fond of ‘big statements’ and supposedly invited some of his workers  to a gala dinner on the top of the chimney when the job was finished. Definitely an unmissable event if you were lucky enough to be on the invitation list. However, there is some doubt whether the dinner was fact or fiction. Alan Duckworth, who has written an excellent novel which features the mill, said: “What about the dinner held on top of the chimney when it was completed? It is further said that a band played up there while they ate. Certainly there was a dinner held at ground level in the Crown Inn on December 12th 1868 for the 52 men responsible for building the chimney, but had they earlier dined at the top of the chimney? It’s a good story and deserves to be true and the men must have eaten their meals up there when they were working on it, but there’s a difference between a bacon buttie gulped down in the teeth of the wind and a sit down meal with table linen and a band accompaniment.”

Outside the mill is a ‘preserved’ mill engine. I’m not entirely sure it works to eb honest, painted in rather gaudy colours when really the brasswork was what made these machines so special. Better kept inside in my view. There are other bits of Darwen history further up the road, including similarly ‘preserved’ paper machines and also the tram terminus by Whitehall Park. The nearby Tram Cafe is recommended, so too the Whitehall Coffee Emporium which has a better range of coffee than anything I can get in Bolton. If I’d got more time I’d have had a look at Spring Vale Garden Village, which Gandhi visited during his visit to Darwen in 1931.

I took the no. 1 bus, operated by The Blackburn Bus Company (owned by Transdev) back to Bolton. It’s a frequent service with friendly drivers. And the buses talk to you! Not in some plummy southern voice but with proper local accents. The bus says things like ‘Gerrof ‘ere for th’Cross Guns pub, Egerton’. I love it. I’m not sure if any of the buses have, in the interests of diversity, some female or local Asian accents. I need to travel more on the No. 1 to find out. Incidentally, Darwen has a very interesting rural network operated by ‘Travel Assist’, a social enterprise. You need to check your dates and times but it takes you to all sorts of interesting places including Whittlestone Head, and Morrison’s in Harwood.

I only wish the No. 1 bus would condescend to stop somewhere handy for Earnsdale Reservoir, a popular visitor attraction with a bus whizzing past three times an hour but nowhere to alight (or gerroff). There’s a two mile gap from the Chinese restaurant to the Cross Guns, the only places you can gerroff. Please Transdev and BwD Council, can you at least provide one bus stop so it isn’t just motorists who can access the walks around Earnsdale. It would make for a great walk along the water to Entwistle, quick pint in the Strawbury Duck, then train back to Bolton. Unfortunately the conversation from Northern’s class 150 trains is relatively dull and uninteresting compared with the No. 1 bus.  How about having Kathleen Ferrier singing a short song followed by her saying “The train is now approaching Entwistle. Gerroff ‘ere for th’ Strawbury Duck pub which does a great pint an’ good food. There are some gradely walks an’ all, like round bi Entwistle Reservoir, along the path under th’viaduct, an’ then by Wayoh Reservoir to Th’ Black Bull pub at Edgworth, or th’ nearby Barlow Institute.” By which time you’ll have missed your stop (and it is a ‘request stop’ so you have to make sure you tell the guard…).

For an excellent read about all things Darwen, I recommend Darren and Darreners, People and Places, by Harold Heys.

Ian Jack

I was saddened to hear of the death of Ian Jack. I knew Ian reasonably well and he was a regular Salvo reader, sometimes commenting on my railway goings-on. The Guardian obituary said “Jack was a gifted writer, a brilliant and imaginative editor and a mentor to younger journalists. His last piece for The Guardian marked the centenary of the BBC, “one of the world’s great cultural projects”. He wrote: “It looks unlikely that Britain will ever again invent anything so admired and influential; we have been lucky to have it.” He was taken ill on the Isle of Bute, where he spent much of his time and died in Paisley. Ian was born in Lancashire – at Townley’s, Farnworth, and was brought up in Farnworth where he developed his interest in train-spotting. He was a frequent visitor to Crescent Road loco sheds in the 1950s. My friend Peter Kirkham sent him a photo of the shed (which iw as on) and Ian replied:

“What a splendid array of Black Fives in your picture! You may be interested to know that I was taken round the same loco shed a few times by my elder brother in 1951/52. I was a six-year-old, he was 16. They must have been a tolerant lot at Bolton shed in those days – we just seemed to wander in and out as we pleased. I can also remember taking the train from Plodder Lane to Manchester and Bolton Great Moor Street – and another loco shed on the edge of Plodder Lane fields.  Then our parents took us back to Scotland and I didn’t see Bolton again for many years.”

His parents returned to North Queensferry when he was seven. He started work as a trainee journalist at the Glasgow Herald in 1965. In 1970, he moved to London to join the Sunday Times, then in its heyday under the editorship of Harold Evans. He was a section editor and then a foreign correspondent, specialising in India. He wrote for the Observer and Vanity Fair before joining the team that created the Independent on Sunday, which he edited from 1991 to 1995. From there he moved to edit the literary magazine Granta, where he remained until 2007. For the past 15 years, Jack had been a columnist for the Guardian.  The writer and former Observer foreign correspondent Neal Ascherson said: “We have lost one of our great journalists, a writer of enchanting imagination and at the same time a reporter rigidly scrupulous in his insistence on fact. “In Scotland, Bengal and industrial England, he mourned the slow loss of faith in the value of work, skill and community. He honoured the certainty of a Glasgow-forged piston driving the wheel of a steam locomotive across Indian plains and of the family man coming home from the mill in a secure profession with a decent wage packet.”

I was privileged to have known Ian and met him a couple of times, enjoying a coffee on a sunny afternoon in Islington some years ago. I’ll miss him.

Last Train from Blackstock Junction has just gone in a puff of smoke

My new book comprising 12 short stories about railway life in the North is now available. Last Train from Blackstock Junction includes a very appropriate tale about the last train from somewhere called ‘Blackstock Junction’ on November 5^th 1966, when a group of kids succeeded in stopping the Glasgow – Manchester express which they mistakenly thought was the last stopping train from their local station. Oops.What very naughty boys. Don’t try this on your local railway.

The book has a very kind foreword by Sir Peter Hendy, chairman of Network Rail, who said “As you read these stories, you’ll find some history, some romance, some politics, a little prejudice – sadly – and some humour; you will in fact be in the world of railway men and women. I hope you find them as absorbing as I did when I read Paul’s manuscript. Please enjoy his work!”

Writer and environmentalist Colin Speakman said “it is an amazing collection – powerful, moving, and what I would call ‘faction’ which tells truths even though the details may be fantasy, ‘Hillary Mantel school of history’ perhaps. Director of Platform 5 Publishing, Andrew Dyson, said “Paul’s  stories provide a fascinating insight into what life was really like for thousands of railway workers.”

The tales also include a ghost story set in a lonely signalbox in Bolton, in 1900 while other stories are about life on today’s railway, including ‘From Marxist to Managing Director’ – the story of a young female political activist who ends up running a train company. Some are set in the ‘age of steam’ and life on the footplate as well as the rise of the trades unions on the railways and the rise of the Labour movement.

Salvo readers will get the book at a specially discounted price, courtesy of Platform 5 Publishing. Go to https://www.platform5.com/Catalogue/New-Titles. Enter LAST22 in the promotional code box at the basket and this will reduce the unit price from £12.95 to £10.95.

Talks, walks and wanderings

Following the ‘official’ end of the Pandemic, I’ve been getting a number of invitations to give talks on various topics. Recent talks have included ‘The Social History of Lancashire’s Railways’ for Preston Historical Society, ‘Allen Clarke’s Bolton’ for Friends of Smithills Hall and Bolton U3A, ‘Railways and Railwaymen of Turton’ for Turton LHS, ‘Moorlands, Memories and Reflections’ for What’s Your Story, Chorley?  and ‘Railways and Communities: Blackrod and Horwich’, for Blackrod LHS.  Next Tuesday evening I’m talking to Chorley Archaeological Society on ‘The Lost Railways of Lancashire’. I’m speaking on ‘Railways in the North’ for the Stephenson Locomotive Society in Manchester on November 5th. Unfortunately very few trains will be running in the North. The following Saturday I’m at Shap Wells talking to the Cumbrian Railway Association on the Settle-Carlisle Railway. Other topics are:

• The Lancashire Dialect Writing tradition
• The Railways of the North: yesterday, today and tomorrow
• Allen Clarke (1863-1935) Lancashire’s Romantic Radical
• The Winter Hill Mass Trespass of 1896
• The Rise of Socialism and Co-operation in the North
• The Clarion Cycling Clubs and their Club Houses
• Walt Whitman and his Lancashire Friends
• Forgotten Railways of Lancashire
• Banishing Beeching: The Community Rail Movement
• Railways, Railwaymen and Literature

I charge fees that are affordable to the organisation concerned, to fit their budget – so by negotiation. My preferred geographical location is within 25 miles of Bolton, ideally by train/bus or bike. With sufficient notice I can go further afield.

READERS’ LETTERS: Coffee, rolls, Lancashire cheese, Boris and more

Walter Rothschild comments on stations and retail facilities: “Just a brief note that in many European countries the local station’s ticket office also sells coffee, rolls, snacks and so forth or, alternatively, a local store selling coffee, rolls, snacks etc. also has a sideline in serving rail tickets to the purchasing public. A postal counter as mentioned also makes a lot of sense, not to mention Tourist Information in places that deserve this! The logic is obvious – there is already ‘footfall’ and also people departing who may be forced to linger for longer than they intended due to delays, cancellations etc. and those arriving need a place to get information and maybe refreshments. . How many petrol stations these days sell only petrol?

John Davies on Heywood and a much-needed railway: “I read your piece on Heywood with interest. I’ve only seen the place twice, first on a Southport-Rochdale train in 1962 (one of the daftest Beeching closures ever!) and in 1990 by car. I had been driving around Lancs & Yorks photographing the mill heritage when my car engine emitted a lot of steam and hot air in Heywood at 4.30pm on a wet dark Friday. A kindly car mechanic worked a couple of hours overtime that evening and saved damage to the engine; I gave him a generous tip before heading back to South Wales starting with the nightmare of crowded motorways in torrential rain before reaching the safety of the A449 south of Warrington and the oasis of a Little Chef (remember them!).

Mark Alread suggests that “Best place to get good Lancashire (and Stilton and pickles and chutneys and all things cheese) is Pat’s cheese stall on Chorley market

John Nicolson fires a salvo at Boris: “Can’t agree that ‘Johnson’s reign (sic) wasn’t all completely bad’. Apart from a damagingly hard Brexit (still not done) what was there? Levelling up might have fooled some people but was never much more than a slogan. But what do you expect from a serial liar/serial adulterer who was a lazy & incompetent Foreign Secretary (I wonder what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe thought of him in this role)? Just a small selection of names & facts to remind readers of what Johnson is – Darius Guppy, Jennifer Arcuri, Petronella Wyatt, Anna Fazakerly, Dominic Cummings, Owen Paterson, Chris Pincher, skiving off 5 Cobra meetings in the early days of the Pandemic, ‘let the bodies pile high’, Partygate. I could go on but I rest my case.”

Roger Smith quotes Salvo 307 “The starting point for building a dynamic local and regional transport system…is having the right structures in place. The most sensible approach is to extend the existing ‘combined authorities’ beyond their current boundaries to create a system of English regional government, which have elected authorities (rather than just elected mayors) in control” and asks: “So where would that leave the sub-national transport authorities such as Transport for the North?

Steve Brown asks “just two questions relating to rail company ownership: 1. Is it right that profits are going abroad subsidising improvements in rail systems in other countries?  2. Have the foreign owned companies brought anything positive to the table? I am a bit surprised such an avid supporter of the co-operative movement would be in favour of the current ownership model!” Salvo reply: Not sure how Steve has come to the conclusion that I am a supporter of the current system. Over the years I’ve argued for a socially-owned railway, but not one controlled by a centralised state body. My favourite form of ownership would be a co-operative, owned by the workers and users. We don’t need a single train operator and there is much to be said for a mix of regional and longer-distance intercity operators, with a single ‘guiding mind’ which owns the infrastructure – but doesn’t have to be responsible for day to maintenance and renewal which could be done by the operator. See various things on the Rail Reform Group website www.railreformgroup.org.uk

New Projects

Lancastrians has kept me busy for most of the year and will be published by Hurst (who recently brought out the fascinating Northumbrians) next year. See above. I’m contemplating writing ‘a people’s history of Farnworth’, using the structure of Lancastrians (work, play, politics, culture, sport, individual profiles etc.). There’s another ‘infrastructure project’ further north (but still in Lancashire) which I’ll say more about in the next Salvo.

Still in Print (at special prices!)

ALLEN CLARKE: Lancashire’s Romantic Radical £9.99 (normally £18.99)

Moorlands, Memories and Reflections £15.00 (£21.00)

The Works (novel set in Horwich Loco Works) £6 (£12.99)

With Walt Whitman in Bolton £6  (9.99)

The Settle-Carlisle Railway (published by Crowood £24) – can do it for Salvo readers at £16

See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk for full details of the books (ignore the prices shown and use the above – add total of £4 per order for post and packing in UK)

The Northern Weekly Salvo

Incorporating  Slaithwaite Review of Books, Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, Tunnel Gazers’ Gazette etc. Descendant of Teddy Ashton’s Northern Weekly and Th’Bowtun Loominary un Tum Fowt Telegraph

Published at 109 Harpers Lane Bolton BL1 6HU email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No. 307 October 23rd  2022      

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North. Sometimes weekly, usually not; definitely Northern.

Dear, oh dear….

Can anything more be said about the current political mess? Probably not and The Salvo always sticks to its firm principles of unbiased objectivity in its relentless pursuit of truth. I have to say I always thought it would end badly for Truss, though nobody could have foreseen things reaching such a pass quite so quickly. Watching the disintegration of what was once (love them or loathe them) a major political party with a seemingly unassailable grip on power makes for a fascinating spectator sport. But never underestimate the Tories’ ability to recover.Writing on an appropriately damp and dismal Sunday afternoon, it’s sounding like we’ll have a new Prime Minister by next Friday. Maybe it’s some kind of elaborate joke but it looks like Boris Johnson will stand. Have the Tories really gone completely insane? Looking back on Johnson’s reign as PM it wasn’t all completely bad (he was actually pro-rail and pro-cycling) but he went because he had lost trust of his own party and the country as a whole and laid the ground for something far worse. To have him back would be an astonishing act of collective suicide by the Tories (go on, make my day…).As I’ve said before, if I was a Tory I’d want Sunak as leader. He might just pull them back from the abyss and present a credible, but fatally weakened, alternative to Labour in 2024. Penny Mordaunt might do it – she performed well in PM’s Questions when Liz Truss was hiding somewhere. Labour will be piling on the pressure to hold a General Election, and that’s fair enough. But it isn’t going to happen until it has to. In the meantime, we’re stuck with whoever the Tory party membership think is a ‘suitable’ leader, which is a chilling thought.

Coming back to reality, this issue of The Salvo includes some thoughts on Labour and its transport policies, reflections on regional sensibilities, as well as various trips and events.

Transport policy: back to the 70s?

Every aspect of government policy is in a state of chaos and transport is no exception. Truss was already proving to be a disaster for transport, pursuing a pro-roads policy that was threatening to take us back to the 70s. What will emerge from the current shambles is anyone’s guess though one potentially positive outcome might be the scrapping of HS2 in its current form, at least north of Birmingham (see below). What I’d like to focus on here are the opportunities for Labour in crafting an intelligent transport policy which is both deliverable and goes beyond the simplicities of ownership. We’ve had the experience of several train companies and it’s debatable whether their performance has been that much better than the private operators. Success, failure or just mediocre performance is not reducible to whether a company is publicly owned or not.

Labour is already doing some quite exciting things on transport, in Wales and the Labour-controlled ‘combined authorities’ across England, particularly Liverpool, Greater Manchester, South and West Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear. West Midlands is an interesting case – a combined authority with a Tory mayor who is doing many of the

things you’d expect a Labour authority to do. What the combined authorities and the devolved nations demonstrate is that any future UK-wide  transport policy must recognise the complex and diverse world which we’re now in, with mayoral combined authorities getting on and doing positive things with scope for doing more if they had the powers. Greater Manchester has already taken control of the bus network, reduced fares and wants to take control of stations. Labour has got to learn from these achievements and avoid the danger of going for a centralised approach in which the regions are side-lined.

This means ceding power to regional bodies within England (which Scotland and Wales already have). It doesn’t make sense for local transport to benefit from strong combined authorities while neighbouring shire counties or poorly-resourced unitary authorities struggle on as best they can. The starting point for building a dynamic local and regional transport system, making the most of rail, bus and light rail, is having the right structures in place. The most sensible approach is to extend the existing ‘combined authorities’ beyond their current boundaries to create a system of English regional government, which have elected authorities (rather than just elected mayors) in control.  For example, the existing Greater Manchester authority should extend northwards to include what remains of ‘Lancashire’ – and perhaps re-christen it ‘Lancastria’. Neighbouring Liverpool city region could take in a wider area.

If the right structure is in place, the regions could make a big difference. Experience has already shown that some good things can happen even with existing relatively limited powers. Whilst Greater Manchester has majored on bus policy, neighbouring Liverpool has gone out and bought a whole fleet of new trains to operate on its Merseyrail network. This has resulted in getting trains that are one third cheaper than if the authority had relied on ‘the market’, i.e. the rolling stock leasing companies. They have also got new trains that are more passenger-friendly, the result of detailed consultation with passengers.

The next step is fairly obvious, and again Liverpool and Wales already offer a model, being directly responsible for the local rail network.

Liverpool has long had responsibilities for franchising local services on the Merseyrail network but has only been able to contract with a private operator (Serco and Abellio). Wales, however, has taken its domestic passenger services in-house with a train operator owned by the Welsh Government. So has Scotland under its SNP government.

A Labour secretary of state for transport needs to support these initiatives and resist the temptation to re-create ‘British Rail’. There needs to be a national network with a publicly-owned system operator which controls the network and sets timetable parameters. It makes sense for Network Rail to continue in this role, whatever it’s called (and it looks like ‘Great British Railways’ has been consigned to the sidings). Try experiments in vertical integration: in some areas Network Rail could partner with a train operator to provide a more unified rail operation which avoids some of the costs of duplication. It could work in regions such as Merseyside and West Midlands.

With longer distance InterCity services there is scope for looking at a range of social ownership options, ranging from state – owned route-based companies, such as we already have with LNER on the East Coast Main Line, to co-operative structures, e.g. for Great Western or the troubled West Coast Main Line, with employee and passenger ownership options. An incoming Labour government could do these things quite quickly and ensure long-term stability and investment which is what the railways desperately need. Leave freight alone, other than incentivising the operators through continuing low track access charges and capital grants for wagons and terminals which could be managed (or owned and sub-let) by local authorities.

Compared with rail, buses are easy and offer perhaps the biggest immediate gains. Franchise local networks but encourage social and

municipal ownership – a few bus companies are still owned by local authorities and are doing very well. Finally, the big overarching issue must be reducing dependence on the car, if we’re serious about really addressing climate change and making our towns, cities and countryside more liveable places. Again, it’s at the local and regional level where the big difference can be made.

This article is based on my ‘Points and Crossings’ piece in the forthcoming issue of Chartist magazine – see www.chartist.org.uk

HS2: For or against?

I’ve made no secret of my opposition to HS2 as it is currently conceived, and nothing has happened to make me change my mind. I’m not against ‘high-speed rail’ as such and would like to see a ‘high-speed’ network including London to the Midlands, North-West, North-East and the central-belt of Scotland, with a fast west-east route. It doesn’t have to be very high-speed and must be fully connected with the existing network. There’s every likelihood that HS2 will stop dead in its Curzon Street tracks (i.e  Birmingham), a victim of Hunt’s spending cuts. Labour needs to commit to a fundamental review of high-speed rail as part of a wider review of future rail development. With that, the currently ‘stopped’ Great British Railways project should be revived, maybe with a less naff title, but acting as ‘guiding mind’, system operator and more.

Lancastrians: coming out next year!

Over the last year I’ve been working on a big project: a social and cultural history of Lancashire – the ‘historic Lancashire’ not the butchered remnants of what it is today. Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets is being published by the highly-respected publishers Hurst whose catalogue for next year is well worth a look at it. See https://www.hurstpublishers.com/catalogues/spring-summer-2023/. The page on Lancastrians says: “This long-overdue popular history explores the cultural heritage and identity of Lancashire. Paul Salveson

traces to the thirteenth century the origins of a distinct county stretching from the Mersey to the Lake District—‘Lancashire North of the Sands’. From a relatively backward place in terms of industry and learning, Lancashire would become the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution: the creation of a self-confident bourgeoisie drove economic growth, and industrialists had a strong commitment to the arts, endowing galleries and museums and producing a diverse culture encompassing science, technology, music and literature. Lancashire developed a distinct business culture, its shrine being the Manchester Cotton Exchange, but this was also the birthplace of the world co-operative movement, and the heart of campaigns for democracy including Chartism and women’s suffrage. Lancashire has generally welcomed incomers, who have long helped to inform its distinctive identity: fourteenth-century Flemish weavers; nineteenth-century Irish immigrants and Jewish refugees; and, more recently, New Lancastrians from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The book explores what has become of Lancastrian culture, following modern upheavals and Lancashire’s fragmentation compared with its old rival Yorkshire. What is the future for the 6 million people of this rich historic region?”

The book will be published in June 2023 in hardback, price £25.

Developing a ‘Lancashire Sensibility’

A central part of the book’s argument is that we need to revive a ‘Lancashire Sensibility’ which is forward-looking and inclusive – and takes in the whole of ‘historic Lancashire’. To do that, we need to go back before we can go forward and look at how a ‘Lancashire sensibility’ emerged in the past. It was a central part of regional identity and took in speech, dress, manners, diet – pretty much every aspect of how we lived. In 1951 the (Labour) Minister of Education, George Tomlinson, wrote the foreword to the journal of the newly-established Lancashire Dialect Society:”I have a feeling that we cannot afford to lose the characteristic features of our County, which are bound up in no small degree with the accents of its people and our own particular dialect… for since I became a Minister of the Crown, in every part of the country people have come to me at the end of a meeting, shaken me by the hand and said, ‘I too come from Lancashire,’ and it was grand to hear the accent again.

The ‘Lancashire sensibility’ was very much a part of the social and intellectual make-up of most sections of society by the middle of the

nineteenth century. It included much of the aspiring middle class, sections of the aristocracy and some ‘respectable’ working men. Women were included, and the leader of the women’s suffrage movement Emmeline Pankhurst was always fond of stressing her ‘Lancashire’ roots.

It linked with the idea of a ‘Lancashire Patriotism’ which emerged in the 1880s. Speaking in the middle of the First World War, Rossendale Liberal politician and historian Samuel Compston said that “if patriotism is a virtue, especially in these days, surely county clanship, in no narrow sense, is a virtue also.”

An essential part of the ‘Lancashire sensibility’ was the emergence of a distinctive ‘intelligentsia’ which provided a network of influential figures.  The Manchester Literary Club, founded in 1862, was central to this. Its aims were to “encourage the pursuit of literature and art; to promote research in the several departments of intellectual work and to protect the interests of authors in Lancashire; to publish from time to time works illustrating or elucidating the literature and history of the county…”

A typical member was Samuel Barlow, a partner in a bleach works at Stakehill near Middleton. As well as being an active member of the Manchester Literary Club he was a founder of the city’s Arts Club, an artist and botanist and had a strong interest in Lancashire dialect. William E.A. Axon was another prominent member with wide interests. He became a central figure in Manchester – and Lancashire – intellectual circles towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1874 he joined the staff of The Manchester Guardian as its librarian. He had already been writing for the Guardian, and used his pen in support of the anti-slavery cause during the American Civil War.

Lancashire developed a number of cultural associations which provided a network for the county’s intellectual communities. The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire was founded in Liverpool in 1848. The Lancashire Authors’ Association (for ‘writers and lovers of Lancashire literature’) was established in 1909 on the initiative of Allen Clarke. Its Library was created in 1921 from members’ donations and is now the largest collection of regional literature in the UK. It is housed as a special collection in the University of Bolton Library.

The Manchester Section of the Society of Chemical Industry seems an unlikely body to take a broad view of culture in Lancashire. However, in 1928 the Society was instrumental in commissioning The Soul of Manchester, to mark the Society’s Manchester meeting the following year. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (also vice-president of the Lancashire Authors’ Association) contributed the introductory essay on ‘The Soul of Cities’ in which Manchester is clearly positioned as the county ‘capital’ but very much a part of Lancashire.

The Co-operative Movement came closest to providing an intellectual framework for working class men and women in the years between the 1850s and 1960s. It was a network of local, independent, societies. The larger ones had substantial libraries, reading rooms and lecture theatres, with frequent lectures by eminent speakers, often on aspects of Lancashire history and culture.

The post-war years saw the coming of mass entertainment, particularly television – which was less suited to a more regional culture. Was it, finally, the beginning of the end that had been forecast for so long? Actually, no. Go to schools in many parts of Oldham, Rochdale or Bolton and you will hear young Asian as well as white English children speaking ‘broad Lanky’. After its demise being forecast for many decades, it refuses to die, and with it that broader sense of ‘being Lancashire’. We need a revived Lancashire sensibility that is about more than just dialect and speech, embracing culture in a general sense. We already have Friends of Real Lancashire and the Lancashire Society flying the flag of the red rose. We need to up our game and tap into people’s continuing sense of identity which is at risk of being subsumed into the amorphous city-regions. A campaign to re-unite and re-imagine Lancashire needs a higher profile and cross-party support.

A reformed Lancashire within its historic boundaries makes sense as a regional economic unit but also chimes with people’s identities – in a way that artificial ‘city regions’ never will. People in Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and other towns don’t want to become mere commuter suburbs of Manchester. Nearly 50 years on from the creation of ‘Greater Manchester’ the ‘city region’ still has little legitimacy and if there was a referendum tomorrow on being part of Lancashire or ‘Greater Manchester’ I have little doubt about the result. There is an alternative – a greater ‘Lancastria’ that celebrates all our county, not just the main cities. A starting point must be the re-creation of that ‘Lancashire Sensibility’ which was so much a part of life in the last century.

This article is based on a similar piece which will appear in The Lancastrian, the magazine of Friends of Real Lancashire. See www.forl.org.uk

Let’s go to….Heywood

Heywood is not on most people’s tourist maps but there is more to it than you might think. It is a former cotton town and had its own local government before 1974, when it was absorbed into Rochdale. It’s known as ‘Monkey Town’ for obscure reasons. Its most obvious attraction is the East Lancashire Railway, whose line from Bury terminates on the edge of town. A good itinerary, when services are operating, is to walk down from the station into the town centre and

have a look at the excellent Carnegie Library, which has displays on the town’s history and the library itself. Nearby is the covered market with a selection of small businesses including a cheese shop, selling delicious Lancashire cheese (which Marks and Spencer’s in Bolton don’t!). The town has close links with the Rochdale Pioneers. One of its leading figures, Charles Howarth, was born in Heywood and is buried there. Like many small towns, Heywood had its own co-operative society which possessed a highly-acclaimed library. Like most co-op libraries, the society donated its collection to the new municipal library when it opened in 1906.

Heywood Corporation was rightly proud of Queen’s Park which opened to great acclaim in 1879 and was subsequently extended. It remains a popular place to wander round with a fine lake and woodland walks, with a cafe. The opening celebrations, on August 2^nd 1879, were

impressive. The participants represented a cross-section of Heywood society, probably at the height of its prosperity. About 10,000 people took part in the procession, led by six companies of the 8th Lancashire Rifle Volunteers and their band, followed by local Sunday Schools, with flags, banners and more bands. There were 4,000 marchers in the ‘Noncomformist’ section alone and large contingents from other schools. Behind the children were dignitaries in carriages, including the High Sheriff and Colonel Thomas E. Taylor, M.P. and ‘Chancellor of Her Majesty’s Duchy and County Palatine’, accompanied by a troop of the Duke of Lancaster’s Yeomanry. As the representative of the Queen, Taylor was responsible for handing over the keys of the park to the Local Board.  Serving and former members of the Heywood Local Board were next in the parade, in private carriages, followed by the ‘friendly and trade societies’. The Heywood Handbell Ringers ‘rang out a merry tune as they went along’ and the Waterworks Department followed with their float drawn by six horses. Behind them were several horses carrying specimens of coal from various local collieries. There followed floats displaying industrial machinery of local manufacturers, including steam boilers, carding engines and woollen looms. There were also wagonloads of flour, limestone, ‘bleached waste’, brushes, freshly-butchered pigs, and tinplate. At the rear was a ‘mounted masquerade, representing Henry the Eighth, Charles the Second, a courtier, a jester, a brigand, and a Russian bear. (Report in The Heywood Advertiser).

The real glory of Heywood is its industrial heritage, particularly the surviving Mutual Mills, close to Queen’s Park. The name reflects the democratic ownership of many of the great Lancashire spinning companies. The four buildings are lying semi-derelict but represent probably the finest group of cotton

spinning mills in Lancashire (and Heywood is in Lancashire!). There have been plans to convert them into apartments but nothing seems to be happening at present, but happy to be proved wrong. If you walk away from the mill gates towards the main road you’ll come to another gem – the Engineer’s Arms. The pub is currently empty and available for lease. It is the only pub I’ve ever come across which has a trade union emblem for its sign, from the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. The signage outside is superb and I very much hope whatever becomes of the pub its heritage features will be protected.

Crimble Mill is another really interesting survivor, nicely situated on the River Roch. Makes for a nice walk from Queen’s Park returning via Mutual Mills. It’s currently semi-derelict but there are plans to revive it, so I’m told.

The last place of note is another pub. ‘The Edwin Waugh’ is in the centre of town and celebrates Lancashire’s great dialect writer who spent much of his life in nearby Rochdale, and was fond of a pint himself. It’s a Wetherspoon’s and there’s plenty inside about the life and writings of ‘The Lancashire Burns’. Heywood is served by the 471 bus (Bolton – Bury – Rochdale) and the 163 (Bury – Middleton – Manchester). But how I miss the train that ran from Rochdale via Heywood, Bury and Radcliffe to Bolton. You can still get steam haulage on the East Lancs, and who would have thought in 2022 you’d be able to travel behind a Southern Pacific or an LNER A4 from Heywood to Bury?

There are aspirations for a more modern rail service, led by Rossendale Council. It’s highly contentious with the East Lancashire Railway management but involves using ELR infrastructure to run a commuter service from Rawtenstall via Ramsbottom, Bury and Heywood to Manchester. Personally (and I’m a member of the preservation society) I’d like to see it happen, and I’m sure it could with goodwill and give-and-take on all sides.

Last Train from Blackstock Junction has now arrived

It’s out – my new book comprising 12 short stories about railway life in the North. Last Train from Blackstock Junction has a very kind foreword by Sir Peter Hendy, chairman of Network Rail, who said “As you read these stories, you’ll find some history, some romance, some politics, a little prejudice – sadly – and some humour; you will in fact be in the world of railway men and women. I hope you find them as absorbing as I did when I read Paul’s manuscript. Please enjoy his work!”

Writer and environmentalist Colin Speakman said “it is an amazing collection – powerful, moving, and what I would call ‘faction’ which tells truths even though the details may be fantasy, ‘Hillary Mantel school of history’ perhaps. Director of Platform 5 Publishing, Andrew Dyson, said “Paul’s  stories provide a fascinating insight into what life was really like for thousands of railway workers.”

The tales include a ghost story set in a lonely signalbox in Bolton, in 1900, which some Salvo readers may remember from Christmas’s past. Other stories are about life on today’s railway, including ‘From Marxist to Managing Director’ – the story of a young female political activist who ends up running a train company. Some are set in the ‘age of steam’ and life on the footplate as well as the rise of the trades unions on the railways and the rise of the Labour movement. The title story, ‘Last Train from Blackstock Junction’, is set at the time of the Beeching cuts in the 60s and is about the attempts of a group of young boys (no names, at least real ones, mentioned)  to save their local station.

Salvo readers will get the book at a specially discounted price, courtesy of Platform 5 Publishing. Go to https://www.platform5.com/Catalogue/New-Titles. Enter LAST22 in the promotional code box at the basket and this will reduce the unit price from £12.95 to £10.95.

The three launches (Elsecar, Bolton and Carnforth) all went well and I’m giving talks to a number of other groups over the next few weeks.

Dave Burnham

It’s with great sadness that I have to report the death of writer and historian Dave Burnham at the age of 71.  Dave did much to popualrise Bolton’s history, in particular the contribution of novelist Bill Naughton.His most recent book was Bolton A – Z. My condolences to Linda and all of Dave’s family and friends.

Small Salvoes

• Bolton and the South-East Lancs Community Rail Partnership had a good night at the annual Community Rail Awards, held at Manchester Central on October 6th. The ghost of ‘Seahorse’ must have been there, ready to depart on the fabled 17.22 to Buxton, as guests took their seats. Great to see Julie Levy getting the award for ‘outstanding volunteer contribution’ and Richard Watts of Community Rail Lancashire receiving the lifetime achievemnt award. SEL CRP won a first proze for its Wigan Mural project, led by Steph Dermot and Julie Levy. Also great to see Kents Bank and its Friends winning second-prize in the station adoption category. The full list of awards is at www.communityrail.org
• Lest readers think The Salvo is too heavily weighted towards the sunny side of the North of England, here’s a further plug for Colin Speakman’s esxcellent Yorkshire – Ancient Nation, Future Province, published by Gritstone. See www.gritstonecoop.co.uk
• A recent expedition to Fleetwood featured a visit to the excellent community-run museum which has a fibne display of artefacts and information about the the town’s fishing indusrtry. There’s a superb banner from the local Women’s Co-operative Guild featuring a trawler out at sea. The cafe is recomemnded (try the crumpets with Lancashire cheese) and the second-hand bookshop next door has a good selection of fiction and non-fiction. All proceeds go to helping the museum. Roll on bringing back the railway!

Talks, walks and wanderings

Following the ‘official’ end of the Pandemic, I’ve been getting a number of invitations to give talks on various topics. Recent talks have included ‘The Social History of Lancashire’s Railways’ for Preston Historical Society, ‘Allen Clarke’s Bolton’ for Friends of Smithills Hall and Bolton U3A, ‘Railways and Railwaymen of Turton’ for Turton LHS, ‘Moorlands, Memories and Reflections’ for What’s Your Story, Chorley?  and ‘Railways and Communities: Blackrod and Horwich’, for Blackrod LHS.  I’m speaking on  ‘Railways in the North’ for the Stephenson Locomotive Society in Manchester on November 5^th. The following Saturday I’m at Shap Wells talking to the Cumbrian Railway Association on the Settle-Carlisle Railway. Other topics are:

• The Lancashire Dialect Writing tradition
• The Railways of the North: yesterday, today and tomorrow
• Allen Clarke (1863-1935) Lancashire’s Romantic Radical
• The Winter Hill Mass Trespass of 1896
• The Rise of Socialism and Co-operation in the North
• The Clarion Cycling Clubs and their Club Houses
• Walt Whitman and his Lancashire Friends
• Forgotten Railways of Lancashire
• Banishing Beeching: The Community Rail Movement
• Railways, Railwaymen and Literature

I charge fees that are affordable to the organisation concerned, to fit their budget – so by negotiation. My preferred geographical location is within 25 miles of Bolton, ideally by train/bus or bike. With sufficient notice I can go further afield.

New books: The Lost Mills of Turton

My friend Dick Horrocks has just published a fascinating account of the cotton industry in the Turton area. Not much remains of the surprisingly large number of spinning, weaving, bleaching and printing mills which once made the area very much an industrial community. Dick was brought up in the area and knows it intimately, bringing a lot of local colour and human interest to the story. The book includes an appendix with an eight mile walking tour of ‘lost mill’ sites which I intend to have a go at soon. The walk is accessible from Entwistle station and you can enjoy a drink or lunch at several pubs on the way, or in the splendid Barlow Institute.

The Lost Textile Mills of Turton and Edgworth (1774 – 2000) by Richard Horrocks is available on Amazon but can also be purchased at Turton Tower visitor centre.

READERS’ LETTERS: Kings, queens, post offices

Geoff Kerr writes from sunny Devon: Writing from not very sunny Devon (in fact) to say keep up the good work, Paul. I agree with your comments about the monarchy. I had a wave from the then Prince Charles from the footplate of Britannia a few years ago so you must be right about his railway interest, and he also plays the cello!  Interesting comments about ticket offices and let’s hope some of the ideas appeal to the rail industry and DfT.

Allan Dare says: One problem with using a station booking office as a convenience shop is that it will probably take trade away from existing local stores, which are having a hard enough time as it is. Also, the (often listed) station buildings may be unsuited to fitting out with, say, freezer/chiller cabinets.
However there is line of business which requires a very similar staff skill set and facilities to a ticket office, namely a post office. Moreover following years of ill-thought-out cutbacks enforced by Post Office Counters Ltd, many towns are now very badly served. By way of example, Bradford on Avon (pop 10000, or 15000 with adjacent villages) has just one postal counter, in the local co-op, which is totally inadequate in terms of both space and staffing. Combining rail and postal facilities could be a win-win.

And a couple more comments on the monarchy. Steve Brown says “The inability to acknowledge anyone as my ‘better’ simply by birthright means I am a republican by implication, I would shake hands with the monarch as an equal, but that is as far as it goes. I wish the “Empire” awards could be changed to remove that imperial connotation, which is a subtle slap in the face for those recipients whose heritage is in one of the former colonies. It is a matter of personal conscience like so many things. The only saving grace of a constitutional monarchy is that we will never end up with Boris Johnson as president.” Whilst Rachel Francis, also in dull Devon, writes “I agree with your comments about the Queen. I watched with mum and we were admiring the flowers on the coffin … later learned that they are all from the palace/ castle gardens including rosemary for remembrance and oak for strength. No plastic. King Charles insisted.”

New Projects

Lancastrians has kept me busy for most of the year and will be published by Hurst (who recently brought out the fascinating Northumbrians) next year. See above. I’m contemplating writing ‘a people’s history of Farnworth’, using the structure of Lancastrians (work, play, politics, culture, sport, individual profiles etc.). There’s another ‘infrastructure project’ further north (but still in Lancashire) which I’ll say more about in the next Salvo.

Still in Print (at special prices!)

ALLEN CLARKE: Lancashire’s Romantic Radical £9.99 (normally £18.99)

Moorlands, Memories and Reflections £15.00 (was £21.00)

The Works (novel set in Horwich Loco Works) £6 (was £12.99)

With Walt Whitman in Bolton £6  (was 9.99)

See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk for full details of the books (ignore the prices shown and use the above – add total of £4 per order for post and packing in UK)

THE LANCASHIRE LOOMINARY

An occasional update   No. 10     October 2022

Here’s the latest ‘Loominary’, with updates on publications, news of book launches and this and that. There’s a link to my latest ‘Northern Weekly Salvo’ if you don’t already get it. I’ve just finished the first draft of a major writing project which I’ll say more about in a few weeks. I started writing it at the beginning of the year. All being well it will appear next June.

Last Train from Blackstock Junction has arrived ….but you can still get it.

My new collection of short stories, set on and around the railways of the North of England, is now available. ‘Last Train from Blackstock Junction’ is the title story for a collection of 12 tales of life on the lines, set variously between 1900 and 2022. It’s produced by Platform 5 Publishing, who also publish Today’s Railways.

‘The Station Clock’ is set on the Furness Line today and is a bit of a supernatural fantasy, which brings in the days of the Barrow Blitz of 1941. ‘Who Signed the Book?’ is a ghost story, set in Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway days and in the 1980s, in my old signalbox, Astley Bridge Junction.  The stories deal with difficult issues of racism and sexism, the early days of the labour movement and trade unionism on the railways. The stories aim to be readable and enjoyable, but sometimes challenging. Not just for a railway readership!  Sir Peter Hendy, chair of Network Rail, has written a very complimentary foreword.

It sells at £12.95 but subscribers to Today’s Railways get a reduced rate. Readers of Lancashire Loominary will also get a discount if you buy online – please enter LAST22 in the promotional code box at the basket and the unit price will change from £12.95 to £10.95. Go to www.platform5.com

We’ve done three launches – at Elsecar Heritage Centre, near Barnsley, the Platform 5 Gallery at Bolton Station and in Carnforth Station

Heritage Centre. All went well, Bolton had most people present but it’s not really about numbers. Thanks to all who came and special thanks to Elsecar Heritage Centre, Platform 5 Gallery and Chris Jackson of Northern who spoke at Bolton and to Furness Line Action group and Carnforth Heritage Centre. I’m happy to do further talks on the book and the background to the stories.

Book fairs around the North

I love a good book fair. Last Saturday’s in the Village Institute at Hornby, had all the right ingredients: a good range of stalls, some bargains, and some home-made cakes with tea and coffee to relax in between book searching and chat. It’s also in a lovely part of Lancashire. I made several purchases, justifying it (as if I needed to) as it’s nearly my birthday. Probably the best find was Charles Rowley’s Fifty years of Work Without Wages, about his campaigning and artistic work in Manchester and Ancoats in particular. It includes a lot about his friendship with the socialist artist Walter Crane and also his meetings with Peter Kropotkin, the Russian anarchist who lived in Manchester for a while. I’d lost my copy of CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary so I picked up a copy on Bob Jones’s Northern Herald stall. As a recent visitor to Blackpool (see below) it was nice to find a copy of John Walton’s Riding on Rainbows: Blackpool Pleasure Beach and its Place in British Popular Culture.  The history of the co-operative movement in the North is patchy (my forthcoming book has a chapter on it). I hadn’t seen Robin Martakies’ Co-operative Societies in North Lancashire and Cumbria 1860 – 2011, so another addition to the collection. There were several stalls with railway material, including some lovely handbills and posters; I resisted the temptation.

There are several book fairs coming up: Saturday October 8^th at Barton Village Hall, Clapham on October 16^th and Central Library Lancaster November 26^th. Last of the year is at Gargrave Village Hall on December 3rd. For details and a subscription to North West Bookfairs Newsletter contact Gerry Cotter  –  gerrycotterbooks@gmail.com

Wet night in Blackpool

I persist in maintaining hallowed tradition of my yearly trip to Blackpool, round about this time of year, to see the Illuminations. I missed a few in recent years because of covid but managed to honour tradition last week, on the way back from Carnforth. It wasn’t a resounding success, I have to say. After a stunning sunset over Wyresdale, and a pleasant stop at The Stork, Conder Green, the weather ‘set in’. The rain was cold, wet and that sort of horizontal rain that you only get at the seaside. We did manage to get a tram ride, from Little Bispham to Pleasure Beach, then back up to North Pier to seek out a fish and chip restaurant. Our recommended choice, Papa’s, had just stopped serving so we went to Harry Ramsden’s, nearby. It’s a nice atmosphere with friendly staff; the fish was excellent but it lost points on the chips. Other recommendations for the next trip are welcome.

Afternoon at Hest Bank in search of T.H. Mawson

Before the ill-fated trip to Blackpool we called in at Hest Bank, a favourite spot of mine going back to watching steam in the 60s. A great place to watch ‘Brits’ pounding through on their way north, and also watch locos taking water from the troughs just north of the level crossing. The crossing, and the 1960s style signalbox that controls the gates, are still there. We spent several minutes waiting at the barriers to let various trains, passenger and freight, fly past, allowing time to admire a timeless scene ‘watching the trains go by’. Part of the reason for the visit was to find the former home of Thomas Hayton Mawson, the landscape architect and collaborator with William Hesketh Lever, later ‘Lord Leverhulme.’ Here’s a potted biography.

He was born near Garstang and left school at age 12. His father worked in a cotton mill and later set up a building business. He started work in the building trade in Lancaster, then worked at a London  nursery where he developed his skills as a landscape gardener. he moved back north and won several commissions at houses around the Lake District.  From the 1890s he became a well-known landscape designer, doing work in the Lake District but also in Wales. In 1908 he was commissioned to design Barrow’s municipal park. In 1900 he wrote The Art and Craft of Garden Making.

His first project for William Lever was the garden at The Hill, in Hampstead; it was the beginning of a long-lasting but sometimes tetchy relationship.  He went on to design Rivington gardens and Lever Park  for Lever and his home at Thornton, Cheshire. He was commissioned by Lever to produce a radical plan for Bolton which was published in 1916 as Bolton As It Is and As It Might Be, following on from a series of lectures he gave to Bolton Housing and Town Planning Association. In 1923 he became president of the Town Planning Institute (now the RTPI) and in 1929 the first president of the Institute of Landscape Architects.  He died, at the age of 72, at Applegarth, the house he designed at Hest Bank, next to the West Coast Main Line. He is buried at Bowness Cemetery, overloong Lake Windermere.

So there you go. I had the impression that ‘Applegarth’ was on the foreshore, along the track from the level crossing. I couldn’t find any sign of it; can anyone point me to where Mawson’s home was?

Lancashire’s Taj Mahal and the Man who Made It

Let’s maintain the ‘north Lancashire’ theme and look at and interesting aspect of Lancaster history. The city had a flourishing linoleum industry in the nineteenth century, developed by James Williamson, who subsequently became ‘Lord Ashton’.  He built Williamson Park and the associated monument, known as the Lancashire Taj Mahal.

There was a related business in fabric and sail cloth which was owned by the Storey family’; and therein hangs a tale.Storey worked for Williamson for a short time before the two parted company, with William Storey starting his own company, Storey Brothers. They became sworn rivals of the Williamsons, latter day Montagues and Capulets. It was economic, political, and, it seems, very personal.

By 1894, Williamson was employing 2,500 men and Storey about 1,000. Both saw themselves as philanthropists though in the case of Lord Ashton it came at a price. In 1909 the Independent Labour Party put up a candidate against him in Skerton ward and came very close to winning. Two years later, at another municipal election in the same ward, there was a tied vote between the ILP and Lord Ashton’s Liberal nominee, John Turvey. The Mayor, as the returning officer, gave the casting vote to Turvey. Less than a week later, notices were posted at the works, saying that advances in wages that had been agreed would not now take place. The notice also stated that: “in future employees would not be kept on at times of coal or railway strikes… (and) …that when times were bad, only men loyal to the firm, would be kept on and we shall not, as in the past, keep those who are bereft of all sense of what is due not only to their employer, but to themselves.” So there!

Lord Ashton also declined to make any further contributions to local charities, buildings or public events. When I was a student at Lancaster I remember being told by an elderly former employee that Ashton gave his employees a celebratory tin of chocolate on some special occasion. Some of the workers scoffed the chocolates and then defecated in the tins which they then threw over the wall of his lordship’s residence.

The Storey family has a less controversial history. They helped to fund several projects around Lancaster including the Westfield Memorial Village, for First World War veterans. Thomas Storey provided the funding for the Storey Institute, opened in 1891 for ‘the promotion of art, science, literature, and technical instruction’. It continues to the present day as a lively and progressive arts venue, in the ownership of Lancaster City Council.

The latest Salvo no. 306

Here’s the latest Salvo, published online a few days ago. It features thoughts on the monarchy and the new king, levelling-up, or down, and a fascinating piece on a radical imitative of the 1790s – The Manchester Thinking Club. It’s here: http://lancashireloominary.co.uk/index.html/northern-weekly-salvo-306

Lancashire humour

Lancashire’s once dominant industry, cotton, spawned its own extensive genre of comedy. A particular butt of hundreds of jokes was ‘the tackler’, or ‘overlooker’ – the man (for it always was) who maintained and repaired the looms, mostly operated by women weavers. Penny pamphlets of ‘Tackler’s Tales’ were sold in their thousands in the early years of the twentieth century. I’ve a much-thumbed copy of Tacklers’ Yarns – fun from the weaving shed which indicates it being ‘third edition – thirtieth thousand’. The stories were collected by ‘Owd Shuttle’ and it was priced fourpence.

Papers such as The Cotton Factory Times published many of them. It carried a regular feature, ‘Mirth in the Mill’, with stories submitted by readers and illustrated by dialect writer and cartoonist Sam Fitton. They often had a Labour or trade union message, or against poor working conditions. Many of them have been brought together in Alan Fowler and Terry Wykes’ Mirth in the Mill: The Gradely World of Sam Fitton.The humour behind ‘Tacklers’ Tales’ was based on worpklace stereotypes of the dim-witted but often big-headed tackler. ‘Enough Said’ is a reflection on the low standards of hygiene of some of the profession:

Two tacklers were taking a  bathe at Blackpool, When they enterered the water one said to the other: “I’ll thi wad, Bill, tha did’d hawve want a weysh.”

“Did I?” remarked Bill, looking unconvernedly at his grimy body. “But dornd forget I’m three year owder ner thee!”

Nature notes

After an exceptionally good season for blackberries and apples it’s now ‘conker time’ and I’ve collected several excellent specimens around Moss Bank Park. Only trouble is I’ve nobody to fight with. When I was nine or ten we’d pickle them in vinegar  so’s to make them extra strong, thread a piece of string through the middle and aim to whack your opponent’s conker into destruction. Anyway, it’s probably unbecoming of a person my age to be indulging in such childish (not to say aggressive) activities. Anyway, I’m working my way through the blackberry and apple ‘compőte’ that I’ve made. Very nice with porridge and cereal. Interesting fact: ‘conker’ in Hungarian is gesztenye.

Walk – and ride – in the park

Good to see the Moss Bank Park Miniature Railway operating once more. After the attack by metal thieves the railway’s appeal has proved successful and the track is gradually being re-laid. Not quite there yet but the railway is able to operate an ‘out and back’ service, for donations.

Lancashire’s Romantic Radical – special offer

Allen Clarke was many things – socialist, spiritualist, dialect writer, philosopher, historian and comic. The new and updated edition of my biography of him  – Allen Clarke – Teddy Ashton – Lancashire’s Romantic Radical – is now available at a special price to Loominaries for £10 plus £3 post (or free personal delivery if local). The book is substantially up-dated from the 2009 edition and has a lot of new material in it, including an entirely new chapter on Clarke’s railway writings. You can download an order form from my website, below, or there’s one at the back of this newsletter: http://lancashireloominary.co.uk/index.html/order-form. It is available on kindle price £8.99

Moorlands, Memories and Reflections

2020 was the centenary of the publication of Allen Clarke’s Moorlands and Memories, sub-titled ‘rambles and rides in the fair places of Steam-Engine Land’. It’s a lovely book, very readable and entertaining, even if he sometimes got his historical facts slightly wrong. It was set in the area which is now described as ‘The West Pennine Moors’ It also included some fascinating accounts of life in Bolton itself in the years between 1870 and the First World War, with accounts of the great engineers’ strike of 1887, the growth of the co-operative movement and the many characters whom Clarke knew as a boy or young man.

My book is a centenary tribute to Clarke’s classic – Moorlands, Memories and Reflections. It isn’t a ‘then and now’ sort of thing though I do make some historical comparisons, and speculate what Clarke would have thought of certain aspects of his beloved Lancashire today. There are 28 chapters, covering locations and subjects which Clarke wrote about in the original book, with a few additions. It includes the Winter Hill rights-of-way battle of 1896 and Darwen’s ‘freeing of the moors’;  a few additional snippets about the Bolton ‘Whitmanites’, handloom-weaving, railway reminiscences, the remarkable story of ‘The Larks of Dean’ and Lancashire’s honourable tradition of supporting refugees (including the much-loved Pedro of Halliwell Road). The story of Lancashire children’s practical support for the locked-out quarryworkers of Snowdonia in 1900-3 is covered in some detail, including the remarkable ‘Teddy Ashton Picnic’ of 1901 in Barrowbridge, which attracted 10,000 people. It is well illustrated. Available for Loominaries reading this at £15, with £4 post and packing. Go to http://lancashireloominary.co.uk/index.html/order-form or use order form below

I can do free delivery locally (within about 6 miles of Bolton).

The Works: a tale of love, lust, labour and locomotives (2020): I’ve had a steady flow of orders for The Works, my novel set mostly in Horwich Loco Works in the 1970s and 1980s, but bringing the tale up to date and beyond – a fictional story of a workers’ occupation, Labour politics, a ‘people’s franchise’ and Chinese investment in UK rail.  I’ve had lots of good reactions to it, with some people reading it in one session. The Morning Star hated it. If you want a copy I can offer it for £5 plus £2.50 postage to those of you on this mailing list. Please make cheques payable to ‘Paul Salveson’ and post to my Bolton address above or send the money by bank transfer (a/c Dr PS Salveson 23448954 sort code 53-61-07 and email me with your address). If you are local I can do free delivery by e-bike (so just a tenner). There is a kindle version available price £4.99 and you can also buy it off Amazon. See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk . The Works is available in a range of outlets  – please support them, and see www.lancashireloominary for details of their location, ranging from Bolton and Horwich to Carnforth, Barrowford, Machynlleth and Bo’ness.  If you know of any local shop which might like to take my books please let me know. I do a third discount, sale or return. (only a few copies left).

The Settle-Carlisle Railway (2019) published by Crowood and available in reputable, and possibly some disreputable, bookshops price £24. I have a few which I can offer with £4 postage.  It’s a general history of the railway, bringing it up to date. It includes a chapter on the author’s time as a goods guard on the line, when he was based at Blackburn in the 1970s. It includes a guide to the line, from Leeds to Carlisle. Some previously-unused sources helped to give the book a stronger ‘social’ dimension, including the columns of the LMS staff magazine in the 1920s. ISBN 978-1-78500-637-1

With Walt Whitman in Bolton – Lancashire’s Links to Walt Whitman. This charts the remarkable story of Bolton’s long-lasting links to America’s great poet. Normal price £10.00, now selling for £6.00. Bolton’s links with the great American poet Walt Whitman make up one of the most fascinating footnotes in literary history. From the 1880s a small group of Boltonians began a correspondence with Whitman and two (John Johnston and J W Wallace) visited the poet in America. Each year on Whitman’s birthday (May 31) the Bolton group threw a party to celebrate his memory, with poems, lectures and passing round a loving cup of spiced claret. Each wore a sprig of lilac in Whitman’s memory.  The group was close to the founders of the ILP – Keir Hardie, Bruce and Katharine Bruce Glasier and Robert Blatchford. The links with Whitman lovers in the USA continue to this day. Later this summer (see above) I’ll be bringing out an expanded version which has more on the wider political context – Unlikely Pioneers: Walt Whitman, The Bolton Boys and Northern Socialism.

Ordering:

http://lancashireloominary.co.uk/index.html/order-form or see over….

Other titles still available:

Socialism with a Northern Accent (Lawrence and Wishart)

This was my take on a progressive Northern regionalism, with a foreword by the much-maligned but admirable guy, John Prescott. Time for a new edition – working on it

Railpolitik: bringing railways back to communities (Lawrence and Wishart)

109 Harpers Lane BOLTON BL1 6HU

Phone: 07795 008691 email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

ORDER FORM 2022 (including Special Offers)

Name………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Delivery Address……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………Post code…………………….

Phone…………………………………………………………………………….email………………………………………………

Quantity	Title	Price ( + delivery)
	The Works (special offer)	5.00 + £3
	Allen Clarke/Teddy Ashton:  Lancashire’s Romantic Radical (new edition) (normal price £18.99)	10.00 + £3
	With Walt Whitman in Bolton (special offer)	6.00 + £3
	Moorlands, Memories and Reflections	15.00 + £4
	The Settle-Carlisle Railway	24.00 + £4
	Total

Bundles by negotiation! If ordering more than 1 book postage is £4 in UK. Local delivery is by Bolton Bicycling Bookshop, otherwise Royal Mail. Enquire for overseas rates.

Send cheque for total amount made to ‘Paul Salveson’ to 109 Harpers Lane, Bolton BL1 6HU.

If paying by BACS the account details are:

Dr P S Salveson (it’s a personal account) sort code 53-61-07 A/C no. 23448954. Email me with your order details and put your name and book e.g. ‘MMR’ or ‘Works’ as the reference when paying.

I’m happy to sign books, but please let me know (and to whom, if you want a specific dedication).

Many thanks for your support.   Paul

The Northern Weekly Salvo

Incorporating  Slaithwaite Review of Books, Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, Tunnel Gazers’ Gazette etc. Descendant of Teddy Ashton’s Northern Weekly and Th’Bowtun Loominary un Tum Fowt Telegraph

Published at 109 Harpers Lane Bolton BL1 6HU email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No. 306 September 19^th  2022

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North. Sometimes weekly, usually not; definitely Northern.

The King and I

The editorial team at The Salvo sends its hearty greetings to King Charles III and wishes him well as our new monarch. He’ll have a very hard act to follow. Even republicans should admit to an admiration for the late Queen and for the unifying role she has played over the 70 years of her reign, but particularly in the last twenty. I’m privileged to have met her, when I received my MBE back in 2008; I remember back then being hugely impressed by how hard she worked during what was a very long day. I’d single out her visit to Ireland in May 2011 as being a particularly brave and hugely positive act, which included going off her prepared script and saying a few words in Irish.

The visit was welcomed by Gerry Adams; a year later Martin McGuiness shook hands with Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Belfast. Alex Maskey, Northern Ireland Assembly speaker and Sinn Fein AM, twice interned during the 1970s, said recently: “Queen Elizabeth showed that a small but significant gesture – a visit, a handshake, crossing the street or saying a few words in Irish – can make a huge difference in changing attitudes and building relationship.”

If she was good enough for the Shinners, she’s good enough for me, not forgetting her carefully crafted approach towards Europe and Brexit. As for Charles – a decent man with a passion for the environment. I remember hearing him speak at an event in Clarence House many years ago and was stuck by his honesty and genuine concern over environmental issues. A bit of a rail crank too, which is no bad thing. Maybe we’ll get a new ‘King’ to add on to Collett’s mighty 4-6-0s. Those readers who are not great fans of monarchy should grit their teeth over the next few weeks and recognise the humanity of the late Queen Elizabeth and wish the new incumbent well; and let us hope that it will be an opportunity to move on from some of the more archaic trappings of royalty and bring it into the 21^st century, following the example of the Netherlands and Spain but doing it in our own way. In the meantime, we have a new monarch who, unlike ‘his’ government, has a real concern over the number 1 issue facing not just our country, but the world – the effects of climate change.

Last Train from Blackstock Junction has now arrived

It’s out – my new book comprising 12 short stories about railway life in the North. Last Train from Blackstock Junction has a very kind foreword by Sir Peter Hendy, chairman of Network Rail, who said “As you read these stories, you’ll find some history, some romance, some politics, a little prejudice – sadly – and some humour; you will in fact be in the world of railway men and women. I hope you find them as absorbing as I did when I read Paul’s manuscript. Please enjoy his work!”

Writer and environmentalist Colin Speakman said “it is an amazing collection – powerful, moving, and what I would call ‘faction’ which tells truths even though the details may be fantasy, ‘Hillary Mantel school of history’ perhaps. Director of Platform 5 Publishing, Andrew Dyson, said “Paul’s  stories provide a fascinating insight into what life was really like for thousands of railway workers.”

The tales include a ghost story set in a lonely signalbox in Bolton on Christmas Eve 1910. Some Salvo readers may remember it from Christmas’s past. There’s a new spooky tale set on the Furness Line. Other stories are about life on today’s railway, including ‘From Marxist to Managing Director’ – the story of a young female political activist who ends up running a train company. Some are set in the ‘age of steam’ and life on the footplate as well as the rise of the trades unions on the railways and the rise of the Labour movement. The title story, ‘Last Train from Blackstock Junction’, is set at the time of the Beeching cuts in the 60s and is about the attempts of a group of young boys (no names mentioned)  to save their local station.

Salvo readers will get the book at a specially discounted price, courtesy of Platform 5 Publishing. Go to https://www.platform5.com/Catalogue/New-Titles. Enter LAST22 in the promotional code box at the basket and this will reduce the unit price from £12.95 to £10.95.

Three launches have been planned; the first, at Elsecar Heritage Centre, was last week. The next is at the Platform 5 Gallery, Bolton Station, on Wednesday September 21^st at 18.00h. That’s followed on Wednesday September 28^th  at  Carnforth Station Heritage Centre from 14.30h. The event is kindly hosted by Furness Line Action Group (FLAG). Salvo readers are very welcome to both but let me know if you’re coming. I’m happy to give talks about the book and its stories to other groups, by arrangement.

Are you proper Lancashire?

I’m in the middle of writing a book about Lancashire history, culture and identity. It will be called Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets and will be published by Hurst next year (see www.hurst.com). It covers a vast range of subjects including work, play, housing and health, education, art and literature, music, religion and politics.  It includes the

Lancashire émigrés (to Russia, America, Australia etc.) and also the ‘new Lancastrians’ who have settled here in the last 250 years. By ‘Lancashire’ I mean the historic county, pre-1974 boundary changes. I have a concluding chapter looking at the future of Lancashire and whether the idea of a ‘Lancashire identity’ remains strong, including in places that were ‘taken out’ in 1974: Greater Manchester, Merseyside and ‘Lancashire north of the sands’. I want to get a feel for what people living in Lancashire (or those who have left) think about Lancashire identity. I’ve devised a short questionnaire which you can download from my website – please give it a go and try and get it back to me by the beginning of next week. It’s here:

Are you Lancastrian: a questionnaire

Has ‘Levelling-Up’ been flattened? Regions need real power, not favours

There are growing concerns ‘up North’ that the Government’s ‘Levelling-Up’ agenda will be abandoned, following Liz Truss’s victory in the Tory leadership contest (not that Sunak would have been any better). Several Northern newspapers published a joint statement last month addressed to Truss and Sunak calling them to commit themselves to continuing with the policy, which has seen some new investment going into projects ‘north of Watford’.  They asked:

• What will you do to make sure the commitments made to the North by your predecessors as prime minister are kept?
• The average worker in the North is 50 per cent less productive than one in London, what will you do to address this widening gap?
• What will you do to address spiralling rates of child poverty in parts of Northern England?
• How far will you go to give Northern leaders control over education and skills, transport and health budgets currently held by Westminster, and will you give them more powers to raise or lower taxes to boost local economies?
• Will you retain a government department responsible for tackling regional inequalities with a Cabinet-level Minister for whom this is their main job?

The two contenders responded quickly and reassuringly. How could they not do? Yet the questions reflect growing unease across the North

among business leaders, local authorities and even Tory MPs that the ‘levelling-up’ agenda was going to be a casualty of the leadership change. Things were not helped by Michael Gove having ministerial responsibility for ‘levelling-up’. For some reason, nobody seems to like him. Maybe I was a partial exception; he had a brain, and little wonder that he had no expectation of getting a job in Truss’s cabinet.

In a recent Guardian article John Harris highlighted the new Government’s disinterest in ‘levelling-up’, with the new PM not mentioning the term once in her first speech outside 10 Downing Street. The hopes, maybe not high ones, that many Northern local authorities had about getting a bit more out of central government following the loss of EU support, looks like being dashed. Instead, we have a PM whose priority is tax cuts and removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses. Oh yes, and taking on the unions with further restrictions on the right to strike.

What all this demonstrates is how ‘regional re-balancing’ will never work if it is just about top-down largesse from central government that can be given, and just as quickly taken away, on a political whim. Truss said during the leadership election campaign that she wanted to see more powers devolved to cities and communities. But what is she planning to devolve to?   In England we do not have functioning regional government. What we have got is a half-baked system of mayoral authorities in which one person is elected, with precious little accountability. This contrasts with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which have well-established devolved governments elected by PR. Until the English regions have something like this, devolution is meaningless.

Clearly, there are big opportunities for Labour here. Party conference is in Liverpool next week and the groundswell for a clear commitment to voting reform is very strong. As the party edges closer to an accommodation with the Liberal Democrats, who traditionally have been far more open to democratic devolution than Labour, perhaps there is a possibility that change might be on the agenda. I’m not holding my breath. If Starmer thinks that all he needs to do is hand a bit more money and power to Andy Burnham and other city mayors, he is much mistaken. What is needed is a much more deep-seated shift from our centralised state and an under-funded mish-mash that is local government to a new regionalism that can work with empowered local government. It needs new regional assemblies that build on the city regions but take in a wider area, with members elected on a proportional system. If we took Greater Manchester as an example, it could extend northwards to include Lancashire and west to Warrington. Call it ‘Lancastria’ – regionalism should reflect people’s historic identities rather than a planners’ idea of what works. A region the size of ‘Lancastria’ makes sense in terms of a viable regional economy and a sustainable transport network.

A Lancashire beauty spot

A few Salvo readers from the Rochdale area will need no lectures from a Boltonian about the beauties of Healy Dell. But some from further afield may not be familiar with this most beautiful of spots, of great interest to the railway historian, art lover, foodie and walker. The towering glory of Healey Dell is the viaduct, on the former Rochdale – Bacup Line which closed to passengers in 1947 and to freight in 1967 (though the line beyond Whitworth had shut completely in 1963). The Locomotive Club of Great Britain ran a special train in April 1967 comprising four guards’ brake vans hauled by L&Y ‘Pug’ 51218 – which is still very much alive and well.

The special ran as far as Whitworth, doing three round trips. There are some delightful walks through the Dell, allowing you to admire the viaduct from below; you can also walk and cycle over it. In the valley bottom, by Spodden Brook, are the remains of Th’Owd Mill i’th’Thrutch. There’s also the Fairy Grotto which we visited on Sunday; being a bank holiday weekend the fairies were not around.

If you carry on along the narrow lane you reach a group of buildings, some of which are derelict but others are put to very good use. Some slightly ramshackle buildings are home to Phyllis Hargreaves’ studio; she is a very talented artist with a great love for the area. Almost next door is Healey Dell Heritage Centre and Tea Rooms. The buildings were the former mill offices and have been very well restored. A welcome addition is an outside conservatory which overlooks the brook. The young staff are very pleasant and helpful and I look forward to going back to try the home-made meat and potato pie (with mushy peas and red cabbage). If the scones are anything to go by, it should be a most tasty dish.

Manchester’s ‘Thinking Club’ – worth a thought

Here’s an idea that could work wherever freedom of speech is under attack – Hong Kong, Russia, China…..In 1796 a group of radicals came together  to form ‘The Manchester Thinking Club’. Historian William Axon quoted from a contemporary newspaper account:

On Monday evening (28^th December 1796), the members of The Manchester Thinking Club commenced their first mental operation by beginning to think, or in other words, submitting themselves like a good subjects to a constitutional numbness. The number of thinkers

was not less than 300, and many of the thoughtful actually came from Liverpool, Stockport, and other remote places to witness this novel spectacle. The members were all muzzled, and such an imposing silence prevailed for one hour as would have done honour to the best thinks that ever adorned assemblies of a more dignified nature….the word ‘Mum’ appeared in large characters on every muzzle..

The article went on to inform readers that “the members of this truly constitutional society continue to meet for the intellectual purpose of silent contemplation every Thursday evening, at the Coopers Arms, Cateaton Street, where strong constitutional muzzles are provided at the door by Citizen Avery, a tailor to the swinish multitude.”

The ‘Thinking Club’ was a clever piece of political theatre, poking fun at repression and intolerance. What became of the club is not recorded, but many of its members would have coalesced into the networks, mostly operating in the shadows of legality, which developed into the great reform movements of the 1820s and 1830s.

Talks, walks and wanderings

Following the ‘official’ end of the Pandemic, I’ve been getting a number of invitations to give talks on various topics. Recent talks have included ‘Allen Clarke’s Bolton’ for Friends of Smithills Hall and Bolton U3A, ‘Railways and Railwaymen of Turton’ for Turton LHS, ‘Moorlands, Memories and Reflections’ for What’s Your Story, Chorley?  and ‘Railways and Communities: Blackrod and Horwich’, for Blackrod LHS.  On October 4^th I’m talking about ‘The Social History of Lancashire’s Railways in Preston and ‘Railways in the North’ for the Stephenson Locomotive Society in Manchester on November 5^th. The following Saturday I’m at Shap Wells talking to the Cumbrian Railway Association on the Settle-Carlisle Railway. Other topics are:

• The Lancashire Dialect Writing tradition
• The Railways of the North: yesterday, today and tomorrow
• Allen Clarke (1863-1935) Lancashire’s Romantic Radical
• The Winter Hill Mass Trespass of 1896
• The Rise of Socialism and Co-operation in the North
• The Clarion Cycling Clubs and their Club Houses
• Walt Whitman and his Lancashire Friends
• Forgotten Railways of Lancashire
• Banishing Beeching: The Community Rail Movement
• Railways, Railwaymen and Literature

I charge fees that are affordable to the organisation concerned, to fit their budget – so by negotiation. My preferred geographical location is within 25 miles of Bolton, ideally by train/bus or bike. With sufficient notice I can go further afield.

Railway Reform: re-inventing the station booking office

My piece on station booking offices in the last Salvo (and in RAIL 364) generally got a good response, though I was accused by some readers of being ‘anti-union’.  I’m not – and have supported trade unionism all my life. The proposals for developing booking offices (or station shops) would increase the number of jobs available and hopefully those new employees would see the benefits of joining a union. However,

things cannot stay as they are – the choice is between the axe falling on dozens booking offices with staff being displaced or made redundant, or re-inventing what the role of the traditional booking office is. In some cases there may be scope for new, staffed, facilities at some stations based on social enterprises running new businesses which might include ticket sales. The Rail Reform Group is planning to organise a seminar looking at new ideas for station booking offices; look out for further details. Meanwhile, I had a very good crop of readers’ letters on the subject, particularly the successful Swiss experience. See below:

READERS’ LETTERS:

regarding railway booking offices

Malcolm Bulpitt writes: “Some 15 years ago Swiss Federal Railways, together with a food retailer, set up a company called AVEC and began converting many of their remaining station ticket offices to small convenience stores that also sold (very efficiently in my experience) the whole range of rail/travel tickets. These have proved to be a great success, to the extent that their take away coffee and food offerings have seen the demise of on-train catering trollies. For the traveller, you win some, you lose some!

“Philip Lockwood echoes Malcolm’s points: “Paul I found your comments regarding booking offices with possible additional uses very interesting. To quote a small station in Filisur Switzerland on the Rhb. This station used to have a manned booking office but now has a ticket machine. The difference now is that it also has a small coffee shop with the option of take away food. Good for people who don’t want to use the ticket machine the staff will also sell you tickets for rail use. This is proving very popular not only with travellers but also a nice place for a chat and enjoy a coffee.”

Vince Chadwick adds: “Yes, all stations need a station cat. Regarding booking offices, I tried to buy tickets for my wife and I to travel Wilmslow to Truro via Newport, Wales, as that is the cheapest route by far. I found what I wanted on the National Rail website and hit the ‘buy now’ button, whereupon it decanted me to the TfW site to buy the tickets. But it had not given the TfW site any information about my journey, so I had to start from scratch to find the required tickets on that site. There was no sign of them. There were plenty of tickets at much higher prices than the NR site had given me, however. At this point I went down to Wilmslow station booking office and within a few minutes had purchased the tickets I wanted at the price shown on the NR site.

I’m not citing this as an argument for retaining station booking offices, but as an argument for simpler rail ticketing and – most importantly – supported by a simple and robust ‘one shot’ (not chucking you over the fence to another web site to start again) on-line system for booking and purchasing tickets.”

A senior chap in DfT commented: “As ever Paul, found this a great read and further insight into some of the possibilities for alternative lenses to see problems through. Liked the piece on booking offices and will think about this. Also agreed very much with the letter from Cynthia Dereli. The railways should be a treated economically as not just a ‘public good’ but ‘an economic good’.”

New Projects

Much of my time this year will be devoted to work on one of my biggest projects – a cultural and social history of Lancashire. Lancastrians will be published by Hurst (who recently brought out the fascinating Northumbrians) next year. See above.

Still in Print (at special prices!)

ALLEN CLARKE: Lancashire’s Romantic Radical £9.99 (normally £18.99)

Moorlands, Memories and Reflections £15.00 (£21.00)

The Works (novel set in Horwich Loco Works) £6 (£12.99)

With Walt Whitman in Bolton £6  (9.99)

See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk for full details of the books (ignore the prices shown and use the above – add total of £4 per order for post and packing in UK)

Are you Lancastrian? A Questionnaire

I’m in the middle of writing a book about Lancashire history, culture and identity. It will be called Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets and will be published by Hurst next year (see www.hurst.com). It covers a vast range of subjects including work, play, housing and health, education, art and literature, music, religion and politics.  It includes the Lancashire émigrés (Russia, America, Australia etc.) and also the ‘new Lancastrians’ who have settled here in the last 250 years. By ‘Lancashire’ I mean the historic county, pre-1974 boundary changes. I have a concluding chapter looking at the future of Lancashire and whether the idea of a ‘Lancashire identity’ remains strong, including in places that were ‘taken out’ in 1974: Greater Manchester, Merseyside and ‘Lancashire north of the sands’. If you could take a few minutes to fill in this questionnaire I’d be really grateful. I will ‘anonymise’ any references to individuals so if quoting I’ll say ‘Andrew from Darwen said..’ or ‘Sunita from Bolton said…’ etc, unless you are happy for me to quote your full name.  Give it a go – and I’ll need responses by September 27^th please. It’s a word document you can continue over the page.

The Questions……

1. Your name (first name only if preferred) and age  (if poss.)………………………………………………………….
2. Where were you born?…………………………………………………..
3. Where do you live now?…………………………………………………
4. Do you regard yourself as Lancastrian? YES/NO
5. If not, what is your prime identity, e.g. English, Mancunian, European, Northern etc?:
6. Whom would you say are the five greatest Lancastrians? (feel free to say why!)
7. Do you think ‘Lancashire’ should be re-created as a single administrative unit? YES/NO If YES, what areas should be included………………………
8. Should more political power be devolved to Lancashire/The North? YES/NO
9. Yorkshire has its own political party (The Yorkshire Party yorkshireparty.org.uk). Should have Lancashire have something similar? YES/NO. If YES, feel free to say what its objectives should be:
10. Any further general comments:

 

Your name and address (not for publication, ditto the following)

Email

Phone

Many thanks for your help. I will keep you updated on progress with the book. If you don’t want to receive further emails, please say here………………………

Please email this back as a word document to paul.salveson@myphone.coop (preferred) or print out and post to: 109 Harpers Lane, Bolton BL1 6HU, Lancashire

The Northern Weekly Salvo

Incorporating  Slaithwaite Review of Books, Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, Tunnel Gazers’ Gazette etc. Descendant of Teddy Ashton’s Northern Weekly and Th’Bowtun Loominary un Tum Fowt Telegraph

Published at 109 Harpers Lane Bolton BL1 6HU email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No. 305 July 11^th  2022   

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North. Sometimes weekly, usually not; definitely Northern.

General gossips

Twenty-one days is a long time in politics (when the last Salvo was issued).Way back then, the position of Boris Johnson seemed relatively secure. Things change so quickly, don’t they? The next few weeks should offer plenty of summer entertainment, taking our minds off things like Ukraine, rail strikes and rocketing energy prices. When people ask me whom I’d like as leader, it’s difficult. I want them to lose in a General Election, so my top choice would be for Johnson to stay on.

That’s not going to happen now, sadly, so maybe some complete fruitcake like Nadine Dorries would do the job? Grant Shapps could be a possibility too. Maybe this is a selfish view and not really the best for the country. On the other hand, putting myself in the hard-to-imagine position of being a Conservative supporter who actually wants them to win, Sunak is the obvious choice.

Meanwhile, Labour will lumber on with a less-than-inspiring leader who  struggles to find policies which differentiate them from the Tories, and in some cases are even more reactionary (e.g. saying he would actively campaign against Irish unification, which is a clear breach of the Good Friday agreement). ‘He said he’d make Brexit work’ could be the words etched onto his political tombstone after the 2024 General Election, perhaps with a slimmer Tory majority and Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. Still, these things can change very quickly, as we have seen.

Durham Constabulary has done its bit to ensure that Labour will remain an uninspiring bunch. Speaking of the police, have you been watching ‘Sherwood’? It was very well done, though I found the short-sighted single-manned train driver (who got his facts wrong about the Settle-Carlisle line) a bit weird.

Goodbye to ‘Ye Olde Booking Office’? corner-shop economics applied to rail

My last Salvo about the rail strikes got a muted response from readers, with most who responded saying they generally agreed with me. In summary, nobody begrudges rail workers a decent wage, but bringing the rail network to a standstill at a time when the recovery is fragile to say the least, might not be a good idea. We could end up with a smaller railway employing much fewer railway staff.

One of the worrying messages coming from rail industry leaders is that the days of the staffed ‘booking office’ are numbered. OK, on one level it needs to change. Even the archaic name ‘booking office’ reeks of Victorian ways of running a railway. Let’s look at the issues.

Firstly, there is no doubt that more and more rail passengers are buying tickets on line. This is in the face of persistent advice from me (mainly to my daughters) who think, usually wrongly, that they get a better deal ‘going on line’. That trend will continue. What we offer ‘customers’ at staffed stations is often a less-than-ideal experience, having to communicate with someone stuck behind a window who can present, without intention, the image of unfriendly officialdom. It’s a system that even banks have done away with. I think for many journeys

involving different options with the kind of ticket purchased, being able to talk to a real live person sat alongside or in front of you is important. For larger stations, we need to keep a decent number of highly trained and well-motivated staff, with good language and inter-personal skills.

But what of the small station which might have a footfall of around 200,000 passengers a year and may offer nothing more than a single person doing say a 6-2 shift? Many stations around the North fall into that category, and the staff may only be dealing with passengers using a couple of trains an hour, or less. ‘Close them,’ the unimaginative rail manager will say. But there are other ways. Think about it, how barmy is it that someone is sat there in a ‘booking office’ selling only one product (i.e. rail tickets). Can you imagine a petrol station selling nothing other than petrol?

Merseyrail piloted an interesting scheme some years ago called ‘M to Go’, with their partner Merseytravel. This involved some ‘booking offices’ being transformed into convenience stores. Rail staff would sell train tickets but also a range of other products. As far as I’ve heard, the scheme has worked though it is very location specific (like any other retail business).

It seems a very sensible alternative to closing a booking office, leaving smaller stations unstaffed and more threatening places to use the train.

In some areas, bodies such as Transport for Greater Manchester or West Midlands Rail Executive could take over the running of smaller stations and develop them along the ‘M to Go’ lines. I suspect the train company, who currently is responsible for the staffing and operation of these smaller stations, would be glad to see them go. Having a large body like TfGM or WMRE taking over responsibility for smaller stations would ensure economies of scale in procuring materials (the usual convenience store items) as well as ensuring high customer care standards and staff training. Potentially, again depending on location, there may be scope for extended opening hours and more staff, including use of part-timers.

There is a ‘community rail’ angle to this as well. One or two stations (e.g. Gobowen) have staffed booking offices run by a social enterprise. That could work in several locations, including stations outside the larger combinations without the benefit of a regional transport body like TfGM but possibly with an active community rail partnership. There are quite a few stations that could develop this way, with the support of an active CRP or ‘station partnership’. It would be wrong to set hares racing by mentioning particular stations but many readers would know the sort of place I mean. In some cases there may be scope for bringing a currently unstaffed station back to life. In other cases, as an alternative to de-staffing a station and losing an important community asset, hand it over to the community.

If there are enthusiastic station staff at a small ‘at risk’ station, offer it to them with first refusal, with a clear contract on what would be expected and a favourable rent, but outside of mainstream regulation. So essentially we’re talking about several categories of station, viz.,:

Category 1: Large station, staffed by train company, with specialist advisers, including offering one to one travel advice (multi-modal), with other retail available within station.

Category 2: Medium-sized station, possibly with combined retail and ticket sales, staffed either by the train company or a transport body such as TfGM, WMRE, Merseytravel etc. Could also do bike hire etc.

Category 3: Small station, staffed by employed agents providing a mix of rail tickets and ‘convenience store’ goods. In tourist areas scope for doing a range of tourism-related products and sales.

Category 4: ‘Community Station’ run independently by a social enterprise, small business or similar, offering perhaps a limited range of rail tickets and advice, plus ‘local shop’ functions and other goods depending on location. Local post office?

Category 4 is about applying ‘corner-shop economics’ to a small station. If anyone has a better idea for how they might survive without being a drain on the railway, let me know.

Another World Should Be Possible

Geoff Mulgan is one of the most interesting political writers around today, writing fom a left-of-centre position. His work is relevant to anyone with a political brain who isn’t stuck in old certainties of right and left. His latest book, Another World is Possible – How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination – couldn’t be more timely, for reasons I hardly need to stress. The argument is really quite simple. For whatever reason/s we have lost the ability to look to the future and imagine a different (obviously, better) world. As Mulgan asks: “how could we become better at imagining the society in which we might like to live a generation or two from now?”

The Conservative Right’s idea of ‘the future’ has always tended to be backward-looking. Leaving Europe has been the latest ‘big idea’, but the idea of a future Britain is very much about going back to how it was, in a world before the EU and – for many – before immigrants. Is the Left any better? Our ‘golden age’ was the time of post-war Austerity and the Labour Government of Clem Attlee. It was a highly statist politics, which was probably what was needed to recover from the horrors and destruction of the Second World War. Yet there are quite a few who still think that political and economic model is what the country needs today. You can summarise it as ‘Corbynism’. A pity he didn’t listen more to his pal John McDonnell who did have some good, radical, ideas on the economy.

A key part of Mulgan’s argument is that ideas don’t often just ‘pop up’ from nowhere, the brainchild of some great man or woman: “Individuals and teams flourish best in a vibrant milieu that brings together comment and criticism, competition with peers, and the feedback of an informed audience.” (p.132).

Mulgan was a key figure in the ‘New Labour’ experiment under Tony Blair; he headed up the Number 10 Policy Unit so knows a bit about how Government works and how policies are shaped. Incidentally, it’s a reflection on the paucity of political thinking on today’s Left that mentioning Mulgan’s role under the Blair Government would instantly damn him for all eternity.

He is highly critical of contemporary social democracy, with an agenda lacking in the imagination he promotes, limited to modest (and getting more and more modest by the day) policies. “Tepid oppositionism blames everything possible on capitalism or neoliberalism, a comfortable space which requires no serious self-criticism. Timid incrementalism advocates keeping everything as it is but with a few modest tweaks; this is a comfortable space in another sense, in that it requires so little change. Historic defensiveness protects the interests of particular groups – those with influence in the parties – against any changes that could weaken them, for example a group of workers resisting any use of new technology that could educe their numbers.” (p.182)

Keir Starmer, and the Labour Party as a whole, need to read and reflect on what he is saying. The sort of imagination he advocates is light years away from that timid politics based on what London politicians imagine northern working class voters are thinking at any particular moment in time.

There is one small problem I have with the book, the age old challenge (posed by Mao-Tse-Tung I seem to remember) about ‘where correct ideas come from?’, or what are the networks and institutions that can encourage the sort of progressive imaginative thinking he advocates? It’s a particular issue for the North of England, where we have become used to policies being dumped on us by politicians based in Westminster and civil servants in Whitehall. Whilst Scotland and Wales have developed alternative intellectual bases, the North of England (bigger than Scotland and Wales combined, though it isn’t about size) has very little. IPPR North does a good job but its’ influence is limited. The Hannah Mitchell Foundation, which had much potential, is running out of puff. The universities are an obvious source of imaginative thinking but too often a university can be an island of ideas, not connecting with the world around it. Imagine the potential for a progressive local authority linking up with its university and local business and voluntary sector to work out how their town or city could look in twenty years? Or even a group of universities collaborating with regional partners on a shared vision for their region? Mulgan, rightly, isn’t prescriptive on what his ‘competing political imaginaries’ might be, but does toss a few ideas out. But it’s more the process of thinking through a desirable future that he stresses.

Another World is Possible is published by Hurst (2022)

Skirl o’the pipes heard in Leigh

I had planned to join the annual walk to Waugh’s Well, with the Edwin Waugh Dialect Society. It’s allus a gradely do and they had fine sunny weather. Unfortunately, my left foot was far from jannock and I had to send reluctant apologies. I’d been planning to have a trip to Leigh to look at their Local Studies Centre so that seemed a good alternative, not  involving much walking. I made a good connection from the 526 onto the 582 Leigh bus at Bolton Interchange and headed through Atherton and past the superb miners’ cottages at Howe Bridge, built as showpieces by the Fletcher Burrows company. If only all miners’ housing had been built like that. All was going well until we reached the edge of the town centre, with ‘diversion’ signs directing us onto a convoluted route round the back of town. Yes, I know, I should have got off when the diversion started but stayed on, for another 20 minutes as it turned out. The diversion was on account of various festivities taking place around the 2022 European Women’s Football Championship, some matches being played in Leigh (I think England v Portugal). A ‘fan party’ was taking places in the Market Square, hence the diversions (actually, I’m not really sure why they had to close the road, but anyway…).Leigh Archives are located in the town hall which was in the ‘secure area’ where the fan party was taking place, so I dutifully showed the security staff the contents of my bag (flask, cheese sandwich, wagon wheel and note book) and was allowed in. The archives weren’t open because of all the other goings-on but I had a good look round the local history museum, which is excellent. Two of my favourite ‘Leythers’, Tom Burke and Mary Thomason, were prominently featured. You could press a button and hear Tom singing one of his arias, and another to listen to Mary reciting a dialect poem. The effect of pushing both at once, as some children insisted in doing, was slightly odd (it was a day of odd, but enjoyable, things) but nice all the same to hear Tom Burke singing, in Leigh. Part of my quest in going to the Leigh Archives was to look at copies of The Leigh Co-operative Record, which Mary wrote for in the 1920s.

The highly-regarded Turnpike Gallery is in the library building, just across the square, so I thought I’d pop across and see what was going on, before heading back to Bolton. There was a bit of a commotion going on in the library foyer but I was told I’d be OK to squeeze through the assembled throng. The said throng comprised a large number of young Asian lads dressed in regimental Highland costume, wielding an assortment of pipes and drums. It was the Shree Muktajeevan Swamibapa Pipe Band, all the way from Bolton. They made an impressive sight as they emerged from the Library foyer to perform around the Market Place, and an even more impressive sound. The band uniform includes a black bonnet with white and red feather, black doublet, blue tartan kilt, sporran, and a blue tartan plaid. Some of the members were young lads, clearly enjoying themselves, as were the spectators. The whole scene was made even more surreal (difficult, I know) by the two giant fairies who were swirling around to the music. After the performance was over I had a look at the open-air exhibition on women’s football. It’s not a sport I’ve had much interest in but the exhibition highlighted interesting aspects of local women’s football, including their fundraising efforts during the 1921 Miners’ Lockout. So the there you are, learn summat new every day, eh?

My retreat from Leigh proved even more difficult than my arrival. Without so much as a by your leave, the buses had decided to take a completely different route out of Leigh. After waiting at a bus stop for 25 minutes I decided to head up Bolton Road and see if anything turned up. So much for my good intentions of not doing any walking; it was only after I’d passed a sign saying ‘Welcome to Atherton’ that a bus came into view. It was a  516 so (I realise this is perhaps unnecessary detail for some readers) I opted to take that to Atherton and chance my luck from there. Yeas, I had so many choices including staying on the 516 to Westhoughton, or even Horwich. But I was glad I alighted, or alit, in Atherton and had a look at the street market, which was nice. I resisted the temptation to catch the V2 (not a Green Arrow but a Purple Bus) to Tyldesley or Swinton and hold out for a 582. My patience was rewarded , with two coming along in convoy. You can imagine the comments from my fellow passengers who had been waiting at the bus stop for some 25 minutes. Bring back the Bolton and Leigh Railway, that’s what I say. Sadly, it closed to passengers in 1954. But, phew, an eventful and interesting day, featuring Tom Burke, Mary Thomason and the splendid SMS Pipe Band of Bolton.

Miniature Railway trashed by thieves is rising again!

Thanks to everyone who responded to the story in Salvo 304 about the attack on Moss Bank Park Miniature Railway recently. OK, compared to some of the things going on in the world it’s small beer, but it is at least something we can do summat abeawt. To recap: Moss Bank Park, Bolton, is one of the many municipal parks around the country which benefits from a miniature railway. It was set up in 1986 but closed some years ago, well before the Pandemic, as the previous operator pulled out. It slowly came back to life a couple of years ago with a small group of enthusiasts taking over. They fettled the track and remaining locomotives and started operating a few months back. Then disaster struck. On the night of June 2^nd a team of metal thieves attacked the railway, causing a huge amount of damage. Most of the track was stolen. The group is determined to re-build and has been busy going round the area appealing for support. We held a very well-attended garden party here at 109 Harpers Lane, with the Halliwell Garden Railway operating, and a plentiful supply of cakes and teas. Over £500 was raised, but there’s a long way to go yet. Ribble Valley Steamers held an event at their base in Clitheroe (Edisford Bridge) to help with the fundraising and it was nice to see main-line steam man Mick Kelly with his (troublesome) A Class 5” gauge model. What a beauty (the engine, obv.).

If you would like to contribute, bank details for the Railway Society are here:

Mossbank Park Model Engineers Society  Sort code 30-98-97 account number 64512562

Clogs R Us

The last few days have had a strong ‘clog’ theme. My next feature for The Bolton News features this fine but sadly disappearing piece of Lancashrie footwear. During my visit to Clitheroe (see above) I had a look round Clitheroe Market and made two purchases from the antique stall. One was a ‘Brown Betty’ tea pot and the other was a pair of clogs. I tried to haggle on a combined price for the two but the stern lady on the stall was having none of it. So I came away the proud owner of a pair of size 3 clogs (complete with irons) and my ‘Brown Betty’ teapot, which I’ve yet to use, but will do, soon.  That was Clog Experience Pt. 1. The next was a visit to Mytholmroyd, mainly to see Sue and Geoff Mitchell with new CRP Officer Karen. We inspected the work going on to bring the historic station building back to life, and then – special treat – a visit to Walkley’s Clogs. What a delightful treat. Very friendly people, Sue and Alan are clearly clog cranks par excellence and delighted showing me round the shop.

The last bit of the ‘clog saga’ is a piece for The Bolton News, part of which will be used in my forthcoming book Lancastrians. I put a post on facebook asking for stories and anecdotes about clogs and at the last count I had 130 comments. I’ve used a small number for the article, here’s a few, with thanks:

Marjorie Hill recalled: “My brothers wore clogs with steel on the soles which they could make spark by kicking the ground. As the youngest, and only girl I only had one pair with rubber on the bottom. My local cobbler would allow me to watch him make clogs. I still remember the smell of the rubber, glue and polish as I sang to him while he worked. My mother and her friends always wore headscarves when they went out and in the mill wore them as ‘turbans’ to protect their hair from the grease and dangerous machinery. Indoors they always wore wrap-around pinnies, (aprons) with pockets, to keep their clothes clean. This was in the days before washing machines when clothes were scrubbed on a washboard, rinsed in the sink and put through the mangle before being pegged on the line or hung on the hoisted dryer which hung near the fireplace.”

Linda Carroll-Bentley was born in 1953 and lived in Bolton. “I remember having red clogs made for me up to about the age of 4 yrs. Stopped wearing them once I went to school. I remember being taught, by an older child, how to get sparks off the pavement with them! Many of my relatives and friends wore them at that time. I remember a lot of the mill workers wearing them.”

Carole Rimmer Settle: “My brother sent me these Lancashire clogs. We live in Michigan USA. Just love them and hopefully one day to open an antique shop. Named ‘The Lancashire Clog’”

Geoff Proctor is a clog dancer, who is a member of the Britannia Coconut Dancers. He comes from a family of cloggers: “The red clogs were made for my mum about 80yrs ago by her father Jim Butterworth of Smallbridge, Rochdale. He was the president of the association and his tools are in York museum. They were given to me on my first birthday and I still cherish them. I wore clogs up to first year in high school but they got banned after sliding a cross the parquet floor in the hall (irons)! My current ones are ‘Sunday Best’ made by Walkleys, which I use for dancing in regularly these days. They’re shod with homemade stainless irons for longevity.”

Denise Hamer recalls: “My Mum wore clogs in the mill and I had a pair when I was young, my husband had a pair to strengthen his ankle when he was young. They had clogs for work and a different style of clog for best.”

Liz Coburn: “This post gives a little more history apropos of the last posting of the video of the cotton mills in Lancashire. These small (5.5 inches) clogs belonged to someone in my grandfather Patrick Hillan’s family. All of his sisters worked in the cotton mills in Bolton, Lancashire, England. The Hillan family was Irish. Many of the Irish settled in the industrial towns of England to find work. These particular clogs are stamped “Lee 1904”. Edwin Lee was a shoe maker whose shop was on 17 Church Bank, Bolton, Lancashire, England. Clogs were worn by the workers in the cotton mills to keep their feet warm and dry. Here comes the interesting part! To alleviate boredom and to warm up, the workers started “Clog Dancing” which involved heavy steps which kept time (clog is Gaelic for ‘time’), and along with striking one shoe with the other, created rhythms and sounds to imitate those made by the milling machinery! Clog Dancing originated as a way of relieving the monotonous labour and physical repetition without being overpowered by the industrial machine.”

Elaine Brooks said “I wore clogs when I first went to school in 1946, mine were black. They had a strap over my instep to fasten them. In winter when walking to school in the snow it built up in between the irons and made you much taller.”

Richard Hoyle: Jack Crawshaw on Miller Barn Lane Waterfoot. Made clogs for the Britannia Coconutters, I think. He used to repair shoes as well and the aroma in his shop of fresh leather was wonderful. “They’ll be ready Tuesday.” was the usual mantra.

Susan Wardle: I am seventy, grew up.in Great Lever. My great uncle worked in Swan Lane Mill until the mid sixties and he wore clogs at work every day

Karen Martindale: I wore clogs to school (born 1959) no one else did. My mum was a good Lancashire girl and took us to get them at a little stall in a market….I think it may have been Bury. Mine were black with bright yellow eyelets they laced up, littler children had red leather ones. They make you walk with a rocking motion because of the rigid sole. The men on the fish market always wore them right up until I left Bolton for Uni. Still got some somewhere.”

Talks, walks and wanderings

Following the ‘official’ end of the Pandemic, I’ve been getting a number of invitations to give talks on various topics. Recent talks have included ‘Allen Clarke’s Bolton’ for Friends of Smithills Hall, ‘Railways and Railwaymen of Turton’ for Turton LHS, ‘Moorlands, Memories and Reflections’ for What’s Your Story, Chorley?  and ‘Railways and Communities: Blackrod and Horwich’, for Blackrod LHS.  Other topics are:

• The Lancashire Dialect Writing tradition
• The Railways of the North: yesterday, today and tomorrow
• Allen Clarke (1863-1935) Lancashire’s Romantic Radical
• The Winter Hill Mass Trespass of 1896
• The Rise of Socialism and Co-operation in the North
• The Clarion Cycling Clubs and their Club Houses
• Walt Whitman and his Lancashire Friends
• Forgotten Railways of Lancashire
• Banishing Beeching: The Community Rail Movement
• Railways, Railwaymen and Literature

I charge fees that are affordable to the organisation concerned, to fit their budget – so by negotiation. An average fee is in the region of £40-£50, all in.

My preferred geographical location is within 25 miles of Bolton, ideally by train/bus or bike. However, with sufficient notice I can go further afield.

CRANK QUIZ: This week’s Crank Quiz

Clogs were the footwear of choice for many industrial occupations. What distinctive/unusual apparel was worn in the railway industry?

Last Quiz, inspired by Rainford Junction, asked “List station or (actual) signalbox names with ‘Junction’ in their title, which are no longer junctions….Not a huge number of responses but here are nominations from John Yellowlees, of Riccarton Junction: St Helens Jn, Burscough Jn, Dalston Jn, Loughborough Jn no longer operate as junction stations.

READERS’ LETTERS

From Malcolm Bulpitt: Nice summary of ideas on how local rail lines could be made better for both the communities they serve and those who operate them. In it you mention the need for job flexibility to improve efficiency by those who run them. Although I am no supporter of Bozo Boris and his Cabinet of Clowns at least they are outlining the need for the arcane restrictive practices that the operators are currently stuck with must go. Shapps got it wrong though when he referred to ‘Spanish Practices’. Across Europe my fellow transportation professionals refer to similar issues on their systems as the ‘English Way’! Swiss local services have been One-Person-Operated for some 40 years. Ticket offices disappeared on German ‘S-bahn’ & ‘U-bahn’ stations over 30 years ago. Even in the DDR they were going before the Nation went! Many Metro systems across Europe, and the World, are now fully automated. All of these locations have similar good safety records as here. The main reason for the RMT calling the strikes is not to benefit their members, or to give a ‘safer railway’s travellers, but to protect the jobs of the union hierarchy. Reduced staff numbers would result in less members, resulting in less income for the union, and hence less money to furnish the excessive salaries and lifestyles of those at the top. Yes, a pay rise for the members is probably due but here again Boris and Co. have again, surprisingly, got it right. Inflation busting pay rises just fuel inflation. Keep up firing the Salvoes.

Cynthia Dereli writes: Good to hear support for our railways, but perhaps there is a broader context needed for such a discussion now? The climate crisis is not some fairy tale to bring out into conversation for ‘occasions’. It is the reality and should surely be underpinning every argument about how we want to see our society into the future.
So I am not querying the details of your discussion but the lack of urgency and also lack of vision of a better world – where renewable sources are providing the energy for all transport modes and where public transport – transport for the many that is good clean and affordable – plays a major role in delivering a good life for all with no-one left behind while reaching those climate goals to ensure that ‘no-one left behind’ has a global dimension.

New projects

My collection of railway-themed short stories  – Last Train from Blackstock Junction – is being published by Platform , this Autumn. It features 12 stories of railway life in the North of England, and has a foreword by Sir Peter Hendy, Chair of Network Rail. More details soon.

Much of my time this year will be devoted to work on one of my biggest projects – a cultural and social history of Lancashire. Lancastrians will be published by Hurst (who recently brought out the fascinating Northumbrians) next year.

Still in Print (at special prices!)

ALLEN CLARKE: Lancashire’s Romantic Radical £9.99 (normally £18.99)

Moorlands, Memories and Reflections £15.00 (£21.00)

The Works (novel set in Horwich Loco Works) £6 (£12.99)

With Walt Whitman in Bolton £6 (9.99)

See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk for full details of the books (ignore the prices shown and use the above – add total of £4 per order for post and packing in UK)

Stuff happening

The Bolton Station Summer Fair is back on Saturday August 13th, at The Interchange. From 11.00 to mid afternoon; stalls, hopefully a bit of music too.

The Hive Gallery in The Market Place, Bolton, is open Friday and Saturday afternoons from 13.00. Currently showing an excellent exhibition of Andy Smith’s work, called ‘Post Modem’ (see pic on left)

Speaking of bees, we launch our Beehive Project in Wigan this Saturday, behind The Swan and Railway pub.