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The Northern Salvo

Incorporating  Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, and Northern Weekly Salvo

Published at Station House, Kents Bank, Lancashire-North-of-the-Sands, LA11 7BB and at 109 Harpers Lane, Bolton BL1 6HU (Lancashire-South-of-the-Sands)

email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

No.     315     November 2023   

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North.

Railways in turmoil

It has been an interesting few weeks for the railways, despite being overshadowed by the tragic events in the Middle-East. The scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham has been greeted with predictable outrage. In this Salvo we take a more measured view of Sunak’s announcement at Conservative Party Conference, with some very good reader responses. The really good news has been the Government’s U-Turn on ticket office closures. Despite the weasel words from Government suggesting that it was a ‘the train companies’ fault’, this was a plan driven by Government. Don’t forget that the proposals did not extend to Wales, Scotland, Merseyrail or London Overground, where the Department for Transport isn’t responsible for regional railways.

Bizarrely, one of the few stations down to lose its ticket office in Scotland was Glasgow Central! That was because it’s operated by Avanti West Coast, a contract managed by the (London-based) DfT. We should be careful about being too complacent following the U-Turn. The Treasury will still be after ‘savings’ in the rail budget and the Ticket Office victory was down to strong lobbying and political pressure, uniting unions, community groups and transport campaigners. If there had been that sort of united response to the Beeching closures of the 1960s, our railways would look very different today. I won’t labout the HS2 farce in this issue: the comments from readers (‘Top Feedback’) give a good overview of the issues. While I always argued that it was very poor value for money and potentially destructive for the North, siphoning a large chunk of the money saved into roads schemes isn’t the way we should be going.

Small changes at The Salvo,  no need to panic

I’m making some small changes to The Salvo’s production. The main change is that the website hosting The Salvo will change from www.lancashireloominary.co.uk to www.paulsalveson.org.uk

The change should take place with issue no. 316 but I’ll keep you posted. The Lancashire Loominary website will be closed down and I’ll concentrate all my own stuff on www.paulsalveson.org.uk, which is currently devoted to photographs (have a look, there’s some nice stuff there, but a lot of it will be removed). The consolidation is partly driven by having another website to manage now, for the Station Library (see below) as well as realising that the photographic website was not getting much use.

Railways and Music

Links between railways and music go back a long way and the connections have been well-documented. We all love Strauss’s ‘Excursion Train Polka’ and Honegger’s ‘Pacific 231’. But there is also a less recognised tradition, which includes the work of some ‘classical’ composers as well as folk song.

This survey of British music ‘with a railway connection’ does not pretend to be comprehensive and reflects the author’s own tastes. I’ve tried to highlight the contributions of railway men and women to music, mainly as performers, and the contribution of the industry to music. While the focus is very much on Britain, I should mention Julius Beliczay (1838 -1893), a senior engineer with Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) and an accomplished composer. I’ve a CD of his Symphony in D Minor performed by the MÁV  Symphony Orchestra in 1996. The orchestra was formed after the Second World War and was originally composed of working railway employees who mostly performed for railway audiences around major railway centres in Hungary. Today, it is a professional orchestra with an international reputation.

But back to the UK.  There is fascinating history of railway company support and sponsorship for bands, orchestras and choirs. As early as the 1860s there was a Great Northern Railway ‘Glee and Madrigal Society’.  Other companies supported operatic societies and even orchestras. Why did they do it? Undoubtedly it was partly from a sense of encouraging employees to be involved in ‘uplifting’ activities which kept them out of the pub. A form of social control. But there was also a sense of encouraging company pride, as well as what we would recognise today as a form of marketing and promotion.

There are many examples of railway brass bands. The nature of railway work tended to limit the involvement of shift workers, whose hours of work would have made it impossible to co-ordinate a large ensemble. So it’s not surprising that most railway brass bands tended to be based at the larger workshops. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway opened its engineering works at Horwich in the mid-1880s and encouraged recreational activities. The Railway Mechanics’ Institute developed as a cultural as well as a technical centre and the RMI Band became a nationally-respected ensemble, winning the British Championship at Crystal Palace in 1922.

The North Eastern and Great Northern Railways did much to support employees’ recreational activities and H.V. Ivatt, the chief mechanical engineer of the Great Northern between 1895 and 1911, was a well-known music enthusiast. His daughters often gave piano recitals at railway social events.

When the London and North Eastern Railway was formed in 1923 it didn’t take long for an LNER Music Society to be formed, which acted as an umbrella body for a choir and full orchestra. The LNER also sponsored its own Silver Band which performed at events such as the Darlington Railwaymen’s Carnival during the 1920s and 1930s.

Some of the pre-grouping railway music groups merged after 1923 and the formation of ‘The Big Four’ companies. The South Eastern and Chatham Railway had a Military Band and Orchestra while the London and South Western had a Musical Society. They amalgamated in 1925 to form the Southern Railway Musical Society, under the patronage of the General Manager.

Chudley Candish was a professional railwayman and composed The Song of the Jolly Roger. Sebastian Meyer, Assistant General Manager of the Hull and Barnsley wrote A Holiday Reminiscence for the company’s Railway’s Choral Association in 1887. Hubert Bath, a minor English composer, wrote the cantata for men’s voices Men on the Line for the  Great Eastern Railway.

Some larger railway centres had their own bands, including Doncaster, York and Bletchley. The Bletchley Station Band often performed at union events and demonstrations. Generally, the railway unions did not have their own musical bodies though in recent years the RMT union sponsored Easington Band, in Co. Durham, and encouraged the band to play at RMT demonstrations. There was a Doncaster NUR Band in the 1920s but it does not seem to have lasted for very long. The York Railway Institute Band, with a history stretching back to 1883, is a great survivor, along with the institute that supports it. As recently as December last year it gave a performance of Mozart’s Requiem with Skipton Choral Society in Selby Abbey.

Hundreds if not thousands of songs have been written about railways; however, it is not so easy to find many that were written by working railway people. Dave Goulder, a former loco fireman from Kirkby-in-Ashfield, is an exception. He wrote and performed songs about railway life which capture that period around the end of steam. In Requiem for Steam he sang a lament for the end of an era, from the point of view of one of the many who were thrown on the scrap heap:

Well I’ve given me kettle and me old tin can
To a lad for a souvenir
And I’d trade in me shovel for twenty fags
Or the price of a bottle of beer
For the Scotsman has come to the end of his run
And Mallard is cold as the stone
The story is over, the giants are dead
And the jackals are picking the bones

The English ‘Folk Song Revival’ of the 1850s and 60s produced The Ballad of John Axon, written by Ewan McColl and performed with Peggy Seeger. The ‘radio ballad’, one of a new approach to broadcast folk music, was based on the life and sad death of Stockport driver John Axon in February 1957. While driving a Stanier 8F on a heavy goods train from Buxton to Stockport the train ran out of control after the steam brake failed, enshrouding the cab in scalding steam. Axon stayed in the cab after telling his mate to jump for his life. Axon died in the ensuing collision at Chapel-en-le-Frith. The LP (and subsequent CD) The Ballad of John Axon includes some songs that McColl wrote himself but also some he collected as part of his research in the Manchester area. More railway songs appeared on Steam Whistle Ballads including one song he learnt from an old railwayman at Newton Heath depot. Moses of the Mail  is a light-hearted tale of woe about a Lancashire and Yorkshire driver whose journey from Manchester through the Calder Valley to Yorkshire goes sadly wrong. However, McColl was no locomotive expert and he wrote some of the terms down incorrectly. For example one line goes ‘both front fenders failed to work, and the engine wouldn’t steam’ instead of ‘both injectors’ (though sometimes it’s given, more possibly, as ‘sanders’). The error has been perpetuated in countless folk clubs across the North! Here’s how I think it should be sung (first two verses):

It was a dark and stormy night, the snow was falling fast
I stood on Thorpes Bridge Junction where the reckless Moses passed.
His hair was widely waving as through the air he sped;
He’d never had such doings since he started at the shed.

The signals on at Newton Heath – the shed was close at hand
He sent his mate for some more oil and a couple of bags of sand
At Moston’s dreary cutting the struggle was extreme
Both injectors failed to work and the engine wouldn’t steam…..

Another outstanding song about the Beeching era, written by former booking office clerk ‘Stanley Accrington’ was The Last Train. A retired railwayman dreams about his life on Lancashire’s railways before the axe came down, and then wakes:

Down the Rossendale Valley on a sultry warm day
The clanking of wheels echoes on
But it’s all in my mind, when I wake up I find
That the last train from Bacup has gone…….

Stanley himself describes his first gig, in appropriate surroundings, when “he finally plucked up the dutch courage to perform in front of real people in August 1979 at the Buffet Bar at Stalybridge Station, a local live music venue. No one heckled and some applauded, so he knew he was on the right lines, as it were.” He’s still going yet. Stanley performed Last Train on a memorable night on the Penistone Line ‘Folk Train’ some years ago.

What must count as a unique event in the history of railways and music was the collaboration between Northern and the Royal Northern College of Music, on June 22^nd 2008. Part of Newton Heath Train Depot (‘The Parlour’ as it has been known for generations) was converted, for an afternoon only, into a concert hall. Northern Brass – a musical celebration of railways in the community -brought together two brass bands to perform a selection of railway-themed music, including a specially-written piece called Newton Heath Variations, by young composer Lucy Pankhurst.

The finale featured the opening of the shed doors and the appearance of preserved Barclay saddletank May steaming slowly but majestically into the ‘concert hall’, with whistle blowing! It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life and thrilled the audience, drawn from railway families and community rail activists.

The punk band Blyth Power, named after a class 56 diesel loco, perform some great railway songs, including Junction Signal and Signalman White. I’m sure there’s a lot more out there, with bands playing local gigs and promoting a railway message. Nominations welcome, especially if they include working railway people. Surely there’s an opportunity out there for the train companies, or Great British Railways, to nurture the huge talent that exists within Britain’s railway community?  One shining example in recent years was TransPennine Express, whose employee choir delighted audiences for several years before its disbandment.

There’s so much more the industry could do to encourage the talent within its ranks, as well as supporting young people’s musical development and sponsoring bands, orchestras and individual musicians. They’d be following a long and honourable tradition which helps place railways where they should be – at the heart of society.

I am grateful to the work of Philip Scowcoft for some of the background to this article.

A Railway Library on a Railway Station

Following the Government U-Turn on ticket office closures, it’s a good time for creative ideas on what to do with our stations that helps them become community hubs.

Kents Bank, on the Furness Line between Carnforth and Barrow, is an example of what can be done. It’s now home to a library devoted to railways and transport, with an emphasis on the social side of railways. It’s run by Salvo editor and co-owner of the Station House, Prof. Paul Salveson, and is based on his extensive collection of railway books, numbering over 3,000 titles. Over the last few months it has expanded thanks to several donations, including some from railway staff, delivering books from trains!

“We are in the process of setting up a not-for-profit community interest company (CIC) to develop the library,” said Paul. “Once the CIC is established, the collection will be vested in the company, which may become a charity.”

All the collection is now shelved and categorised. A longer-term project is to get every item catalogued. The collection includes a full set of The Railway Magazine from 1897 to 1980, and some rare bound volumes of railway trade union journals going back to the 1890s. A website went live two days ago: www.stationlibrary.org.uk

The library is primarily for reference though there is a small lending section. Visits are by appointment (or pot luck!) but there will also be a monthly open day, on the first Saturday of each month starting in 2024. A preview ‘open day’ was held on Saturday October 21st and attracted over sixty visitors. The only down side was the non-appearance of Bulleid Pacific on a railtour – it slipped to a stand on Dalton Bank, causing widespread disruption to other services. It finally came storming through Kents Bank over two hours late. You just can’t trust these Bulleids. The next event has been organized to avoid any incursions or excursions by Southern locomotives.

“We are holding a pre-Christmas event on Saturday December 9^th, jointly with The Beach Hut Gallery, next door. There will be mince pies, mulled wine and soup,” said Paul. “Our first talk, in the Reading Room, will be about Irish Railways in the 1950s, by Michael Davies. It’s on Tuesday evening December 5^th, starting at 7.30. Admission is free but must be pre-booked by phone or email.”  (see below).

Although use of the library is free and open to all, it is planned to develop a subscription offer where members receive a newsletter, notice of events and talks and discounts on book sales.

The individual subscription will be £25 a year, with a higher corporate subscription. Donations of books are very welcome.

Maybe the next step should be to get a station cat.

Contact details: Paul Salveson on 07795 008691 or info@stationlibrary.org.uk

Postal address: Station House, Kentsford Road, Kents Bank, Grange-over-Sands LA11 7BB

Website: www.stationlibrary.org.uk.

After the U-Turn: can we transform the ‘ticket office’?

The recent announcement that the mass closure of ticket offices, mostly in England, has been abandoned is great news. But let’s not get too complacent: whilst the immediate threat has gone there will be a risk of ‘closure by stealth’ as train companies are encouraged by Government to take a more incremental approach to booking office closures.

Let’s look at some of the issues, and the opportunities this week’s announcement offers. What was singularly lacking in the announcement was any commitment to looking at ways of making more use of our stations. At least RMT, in its announcement welcoming the U-Turn, recognised this.

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, often wrongly, that they get a better deal ‘going on line’. That trend will continue. But we still need that staffed presence, but perhaps doing other things than just selling tickets.

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 sometimes present, without intention, the image of unfriendly officialdom. It’s a system that even most banks have done away with.

For so many journeys involving different options in the kind of ticket purchased, being able to talk to a real live person sat alongside 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 a 6-2 shift? Many stations around the North fall into that category, and the member of staff may only be dealing with  a couple of trains an hour with passengers bunched within a few minutes of the trains’ departure.

“Close them,” the bean counters 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?

One experienced professional told me “a station is the railway’s shop window and is now more than ever a loss-leader like milk in a supermarket. Yes it can sell tickets but can also provide useful information about rail travel, plan journeys, de-mystify tickets types, provide details of onward connections, advise about bus links, be a source of local information  and be that reassuring presence for passengers wary of travelling by train.”

Merseyrail piloted a pioneering scheme some years ago called ‘M to Go’, with their partner Merseytravel and with union agreement. It was based on experience on Netherlands Railways (NS) – the ‘wizzl shop. This involved some ‘booking offices’ being transformed into convenience stores. Merseyrail staff would sell rail tickets but also a range of other products. From what I’ve heard, the scheme has generally worked well, though it is very location specific –  like any other retail business. Some locations have worked well, others less so.

City-region transport authorities 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, where the location is right. I suspect the train company would be glad to co-operate. Having a substantial public body like TfGM or WMRE taking over responsibility for smaller stations would ensure economies of scale in procuring goods as well as ensuring high customer care standards and staff conditions. Depending on location, there may be scope for extended opening hours and more staff, including use of part-timers.

There is potential for the rail industry working in partnership with convenience store ‘chains’ such as the Co-op, Post Office or others. This has been tried in the past, in the south-east. Again, it’s location, location, location.

There is a ‘community rail’ angle to this. A few stations (e.g. Gobowen and Millom) have staffed booking offices run by a social enterprise. I’m talking about paid staff rather than volunteers.

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 (CRP). There is scope for using new products at stations. Payzone now have a fully functional rail ticketing module which is cheap to operate and also offers all the other Payzone modules such as mobile phone top-up and payment of utility bills.

There are quite a few stations that could develop this way, with the support of an active CRP or ‘station partnership’. I would stress that it is heavily dependent on location and footfall, what else is in the immediate vicinity. It makes neither commercial nor social sense to set up shop in competition with a similar place across the road.

One station in my area (Lostock: a re-opening of the 1980s) has a busy commuter flow as well as leisure trips. It serves what was an old mill village which has been transformed into an attractive place to live with a lot of nearby housing development. Yet there are no facilities. The old corner shop and post office closed when the mill shut, leaving nothing. The under-used ‘booking office’ could provide a much wider range of facilities and services.

In some cases where a station is only partly staffed , as an alternative to de-staffing it and losing an important community asset,  why not hand it over to the community to develop? This is a model that is growing in popularity, with a number of shops and pubs being handed over to community-owned businesses. There is money to help. The Government – sponsored Community Ownership Fund’s objectives include help to:

• acquire a physical community asset at risk, such as land and buildings which deliver a benefit to local people
• renovate, repair or refurbish the asset, only where it is a community asset at risk of closure and where this is critical to saving the asset and making it sustainable for long-term community use
• set up a new community business or buy an existing business in order to save an asset of importance to the community

(https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-ownership-fund-prospectus/community-ownership-fund-prospectus–2)

Could existing employees, working with the local community, set up a community business if there was the right support (finance, training) available?  A CRP could help to get the process off the ground, possibly as a subsidiary business. As president of my community rail partnership (South-East Lancashire) I’d shy away from my CRP taking on the direct running of a station shop, but we could offer support and advice, with help in promotion and marketing (just as we do with our sponsored bus services).

There should be a clear contract on what would be expected and a favourable rent, but outside of mainstream regulation. Grants should be available (as above) to take on the station shop with structural changes made to the lay-out of the building to bring it into line with what we expect from an attractive small shop.

It’s about applying ‘corner-shop economics’ to a small station, where the people running it are part of the community and able to exploit opportunities and develop a valuable range of services.

Using this model, there would be a case for bringing quite a few currently unstaffed stations back to life. In my own neck of the woods, I would nominate stations such as Westhoughton, Mills Hill, Slaithwaite, Marsden and Mirfield.

We should not be deterred by the absence of buildings. There are examples, such as Ludlow and more recently Llandeilo, where a new station building has been provided. There are lessons to be learned from that experience (it wasn’t easy) but the basic concept was right. The cost could be brought down by having a simple but attractive modular design approved by Network Rail/GBR.

To re-cap, we’re talking about four categories of station, viz.,:

• Category 1: Large station, staffed by train company (or GBR possibly), with specialist advisers, including offering one-to-one travel advice (multi-modal), with other retail facilities available within station.
• Category 2: Medium-sized station, possibly with combined ticket sales and some retail, staffed either by the train company or a transport body such as TfGM, WMRE, Merseytravel etc. Could also do bike hire and other services depending on location..
• Category 3: Small station, staffed by employed agents as above, providing a mix of rail tickets and other retail. In tourist areas there is scope for doing a range of tourism-related products and sales. There could be potential for involving a retail partner, e.g. Co-op, Post Office, or similar, in this category.
• 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? Village cafe? Art gallery and shop? The possibilities are endless. It’s about applying ‘corner-shop economics’ to a small station and being at the heart of the community..

The experience so far of independently-run booking offices is mixed and we need to learn from that. If independent station shops are to sell tickets, they need to be properly re-imbursed. They must be disentangled from the red tape that surrounds rail ticket retailing and booking office opening times. There should be public funding (capital for setting up costs and initial revenue support while the business gets established) for staffing smaller stations where there is a demonstrable community benefit. Stations have potential to be community hubs in so many ways and that should be recognised through start-up funding.

There is already quite a lot of thinking about these questions going on in the rail industry behind the scenes; this is a contribution to what should be an ongoing debate informed by some serious research.  Staying as we are is not a long-term, or even medium-term, option.

Salvo Shorts

Dear friends departed

I’m very sorry to have to report the deaths of two good friends. Paul Blackburn, a talented poet, died unexpectedly in his sleep a few weeks ago. His funeral was well attended by friends and comrades going back many decades. Noel Spencer, former shop steward and Bolton councilor (including a stint as mayor) died three weeks ago and his funeral is on November 9^th. I’ve many fond memories of Noel back in the 1980s, campaigning for the people of Farnworth. My love and very best wishes to the families of Paul and Noel: both made a great contribution to Bolton and its culture and politics, although in very different ways.

Station of Sanctuary: wonderful walk Wigan-wards

The development of Bolton as a ‘station of sanctuary’ – a friendly, welcoming place for refugees and asylum seekers, is coming along well. Last Saturday the local City of Sanctuary together with the community rail partnership, station partnership and Friends of Hindley Staion

organized a very well supported walk along the new Community Rail Trail from Westhoughton to Hindley. The walk runs from Bolton to Wigan, via Lostock, Westhoughton, Hindley and into Wigan. Over forty of us took part, the weather was fine and we had an excellent lunch at the Eddington Arms, next to Hindley station, on arrival.

Railway villages

Thanks to everyone who chipped in suggestions following the last Salvo. Malcolm Bulpiit wrote: “Melton Constable on the MGNJR in Norfolk, it lived and died with the railway. Lostwithiel in Cornwall was an ancient town but the Cornwall Railway put their C&W works there and it then became a railway village. Newcastleton on the Waverley Route only existed due to the railway. There are many, many, more. Get scribbling.”

I will! More suggestions welcome. To qualify as a village I suppose it needs a bit more than just a row of houses, and ideally include shops, schools or church. But not necessarily. Some larger places, including cities, have several railway villages within them, including Carlisle, which has at least four examples (Currock, Durranhill, Kingmoor and Upperby) reflecting the different companies presence in the border city. Woodford Halse would qualify, and there’s a good Oakwood Press book about it. There must be lots scattered around London, e.g. perhaps Bricklayer’s Arms, Camden, Kentish Town. Suggestions please!

Birthday treat to Beamish

I know how to have a good time: playing trains, trams and going down t’pit, followed by a pint. Most if not all these pleasures can be enjoyed at Beamish, the wonderful open-air museum near Stanley, Co. Durham. The last time I was there was 1982, not that long after it had opened. My, what a transformation!

It’s fabulous place, and immensely popular.  The basic idea was to re-create a classic Durham mining community, round about 1900. Several buildings, including an entire terraced row of houses, were taken down brick-by-brick and re-built on the large site. There’s a coal mine, railway (well two really), a co-op store, pub and lots more. A more recent development has been the creation of a 1950s community, with modern (for its day) council housing and even a slag heap. The whole thing is connected by tram, performing a circuit around the site, supplemented by heritage buses. Sunday afternoon was spent looking round Bishop Auckland – including a visit to the new Faith Museum and the excellent Museum of Mining Art. A town definitely ‘on the up’. Other treats over the weekend included a visit to Locomotion at Shildon for the model railway exhibition and Ripon Cathedral, where I had the pleasure of meeting up with old railway pal Phil Bustard, now a verger in the cathedral.

And Blackpool

Nice to meet up with another old pal this time in Blackpool. I’m always drawn back to Blackpool, especially this time of year, with ‘Th’Lights’. A nice lunch was had and as we headed back to the station we came across a really interesting place, which I can recommend to visitors and locals alike. It’s called ‘Aunty Social’ and is a shop full of fascinating things, made by local artists and ‘makers’. It has a radical edge to it, and I bought a Walter Crane reproduction poster celebrating ‘The Co-operative Commonwealth’.

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets

More talks are planned on aspects of my new book on Lancashire history and identity. The gg at University of Central Lancashire, in Preston, was very well supported with about 60 people attending, a nice mix of students, academic staff and local people.

The next sessions are:

• Clarion House AGM, Nelson – Unity Hall, 14.00 Saturday November 18^th
• Bolton Socialist Club, Friday November 24^th at 19.30
• Edwin Waugh Dialect Society, Rochdale, January 9^th at 19.30 (switched from Nov. 14^th)

Please contact me if you would like more details.

The book isn’t a ‘conventional’ history and covers different theme sof Lancashire history, including sport, culture, politics, industry and religion. It explores the Lancastrians who left for new lives in America, Canada, Russia and South Africa, as well as the ‘New Lancastrians’ who have settled in the county since the 14^th century. There are about forty ‘potted biographies’ of men and women who have made important (but often neglected) contributions to Lancashire.

It’s available, published 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 book is hardback, price £25. Salvo readers can get a 25% discount by going to the publisher’s website (www.hurstpublishers.com) and enter the code LANCASTRIANS25 at checkout.

Top Feedback: HS2

Some very supportive/intelligent  responses to the last Salvo on HS2 cancellation: thank you. Here’s a selection of comments, which take differing approaches but all have validity:

Mark Barker says:  The Government’s list of goodies needs to be treated with a degree of suspicion:

1. The named rail schemes are uncosted, whereas there are specific sums for road schemes, presumably these are more developed than the rail schemes. So how much of the £36 bn does rail get? This despite the fact that the rail schemes are known about, but unsupported by DfT, such as ‘Restoring Your Railway’, or major upgrades such as Ely remodelling.
2. Over £23bn is allocated to City Region Sustainable Transport or Local Transport funds. Is this ‘new money’ and how will these funds be allocated? Will this be a City Region or DfT decisions?
3. There is a lot of double counting going on, for example, the same ‘pot’ of money being mentioned in different regional sections e.g. £2.2 bn for local transport projects mentioned in East Midlands and West Midlands, and £4.0 bn for linking Northern cities mentioned in Yorks & Humber and North West. Some projects are mentioned twice; eg Leamside line and Leamside new station, Tavistock station and five miles of new line. Yes, there are some worthwhile, even important schemes mentioned eg Ely remodelling, but there are some notable absentees eg Colne-Skipton, the western part of Northern Powerhouse (Liverpool to Manchester Airport), or any freight infill electrification schemes. Above all, nothing at all to address capacity on the WCML north of Handsacre and on the approaches to Manchester

David Horsman: Paul, We have been vindicated though after a terrible waste of money.We told them that HS2 was not going to provide an up to date integrated transport system for the country which we desperately need. So our efforts were not in vain and we were RIGHT !

Malcolm Bulpitt:  HS2 should have been called ‘London’s Crossrail Two’. It was a political vanity project that only existed to bring more people into the capital. Why else would the Westminster Village have approved it? Anyone north of Watford who thought otherwise was soft in the head. Looks like most of the money ‘saved’ is going on political bribes. A sort of 21stC ‘Bread and Circuses’.

John Yellowlees: Sorry, Paul. This is a dark day for rail investment. Costs will now soar as bidders price in uncertainty. You can’t just switch projects in mid-development without huge wastage, and Bradford is simply in the wrong place to be on the Trans Pennine main line. Another huge victory for the roads lobby from a millionaire Prime Minister who has no sympathy for public transport.

Stewart Arnold: It all stems from the lack of regional governance in the North. If the Government had gone to a Yorkshire Parliament at the outset and asked what are your top 10 transport priorities, nowhere would have getting to London 20 minutes quicker appeared. As it was, without a regional structure in place, Westminster decided they knew best and so HS2 was born. The betrayal thing is a bit wearing I agree. It hadn’t been coming to Yorkshire for quite some time now and I don’t remember the same sense of outrage from Labour Mayors. However, the North was promised a part of one of the largest infrastructure projects in recent times and for that to be scrapped feeds into a narrative of indifference when it comes to how Westminster sees the North. I’d get behind a fast direct route from Hull to Manchester Airport though!

Mike Pedler: I agree with you Paul on HS2 but also with Vince Chadwick and maybe with John Yellowlees that this is a victory for the roads lobby. I never believed HS2 had anything to do with that mythical kingdom “The North”, but I struggle to believe that we will get the promised schemes even if Labour adopts the plan. Regarding the Hope Valley line, it has taken us 7 or 8 years just to get rid of some single tracking and build a passing loop. What chance of electrification?

John Kolodziejski: I was against HS2 from the start for the same reasons you have clearly adduced. I think Burnham et al were wrong-headed in backing HS2 unless it was a cunning, far-sighted plan to get what the Tories are now saying they’re offering for Northern Power House Rail. HS2 was a ‘big sell’ offering jam which will only be savoured some 15 to 20 years of tomorrows. Most of today’s keen rail travellers (e.g.myself) are opting reluctantly for the comfort and predictability of our own four rubber wheels. Burnham should have campaigned incessantly for the debottlenecking the obvious distinctive regional obstacles to reliable services ie Castlefield Corridor…..at least i’d have something to look forward to in my lifetime.

Robert Snape: Restoration of the double track of the Manchester to Blackburn route is essential. The railway to Clitheroe and that to Colne depends on a single line for much of its length to connect it to the region’s economic and cultural hub. The extension of a passenger service from Clitheroe to Hellifield would also create a second route to Carlisle. In this case the track is already there and being used by freight traffic. We have been waiting for these things for decades. If we don’t get them in this current plan we’ll probably never get them at all.

Andrew Needham: Manchester-Liverpool: Section 33. “We will also invest £12 billion to better connect Manchester to Liverpool. This would allow the delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail as previously planned, including high-speed lines. But we will work with local leaders to agree whether they wish to suggest other ways to achieve the objectives within thatcost envelope.” So it means delivery of what was planned (which included the airport) – but it might not. Phase 2b safeguarding will be amended by summer next year, to allow for any safeguarding needed for Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Alan Burrows: I agree with your comments about HS2. The sad thing is that the government have been in “charge” of the project, the PM complains of the high costs but he was the credit card holder. As a resident of Greater Manchester I feel that the present government are beyond shame, that they can hold a conference in Manchester, and insult the North by stating that “no decision had been made”, when it obviously had (re: film of PM in Downing St.). I would like to know several things:-
1) How was the money spent?
2) How much more money has to be to sub-contractors and other parties for the cancellation of the allocated work for Birmingham to Manchester, the Leeds leg and any other parts of the project that were cancelled along the way?
3) How many of these projects are actuallly new projects?
4) Timescale for delivery of the alternative projects?
5) How is the West coast mainline going to be improved? The line is already in a shocking state. When SkyNews put this question to the Mayor of the Tees Valley (Tory) he did not have an answer apart from he was happy that his area was getting £1 billion (so that is ok then)! With sensible management & less need for speed an intercity and regional rail improvement plan could have been carried out, but frankly, like the first comment I do not hold out much hope.

John Chapman: We can argue about the merits – or otherwise – of abandoning HS2 until the proverbial cows come home but the decision has been made and we will all have to live with it. The important thing now is to ensure that these alternative schemes are all actually implemented – after all, the NHS is still waiting for the £350 million per week ‘Brexit bonus’. We also need to ensure that the road projects are not followed through at the expense of rail investment.

John Nicholson: I was never a great fan of HS2. I could never see how it would inevitably benefit ‘the North’ as its trains would have run in both directions & could just have easily transferred wealth north to south as well as south to north. Moreover I think you have to be suspicious when its supporters change the case for it. As I remember it originally was about cutting journey times (& presumably making it competitive with domestic air travel) which then shifted to connectivity. But now we seem to have got the worst of all worlds – a massively expensive London-Birmingham shuttle! But aren’t the £36b savings going to be poured into more local transport improvements? Don’t you believe it! Consider:
1.  Some of the £36b is going to finance a Metrolink extension to the airport. This has existed since 2014.
2.  85% (by expenditure) of the projects mentioned have already been promised or committed to during the 13 years of Conservative/Conservative-led government.
3. The promises made in ‘Network North’ have proved either ridiculous (quadrupling the number of trains between Leeds & Sheffield – there are already five an hour so are we seriously expected to believe there’s going to be 20 an hour?!) or ephemeral (the Leamside line in Co Durham was promised to be reinstated. 24 hours later this promise was removed).
4. The whole tone of the Network North document was unbelievably casual – Manchester on an accompanying map was placed on the Ribble, in a document meant to be about rail improvements in the North, Holyhead & Plymouth were included as well as improvements to the road between those two heart of the north locations Bognor & Southampton – later scaled back to Littlehampton. But what do we expect from a PM whose default modes of transport are helicopter & private jet?
Anyway let’s rejoice that we won’t have seven bins, a meat tax, compulsory car sharing & local councils telling us when & where we shop. Or is the slaying of these dragons just evidence of Trumpian post-truth, alternative facts, rejection of evidence politics making their unwelcome way across the Atlantic? I pose the question.

Jim Trotman: I always predicted that HS2 was folly and would only ever reach Birmingham (clearly the capital of the North). I once heard it said in the DfT years ago that the line to Birmingham served the North. Perhaps we can now have a doubling of capacity, as promised, on the Lakes Line to Windermere and then electrification – small change compared to billion pound schemes.

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)

Last Train from Blackstock Junction (published by Platform 5 Books). A collection of short stories about railway life in the North of England.

Salvo readers can 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 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 £3 per order for post and packing in UK)

The Northern Salvo

Incorporating  Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, and Northern Weekly Salvo

Published at Station House, Kents Bank, Lancashire-North-of-the-Sands, LA11 7BB and at 109 Harpers Lane, Bolton BL1 6HU (both Lancashire)

email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No.     314     October 2023    HS2 Special

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North.

A special edition of The Northern Salvo, mainly but not entirely about HS2. No photos this time owing to time constraints. Want to get this out to my avid readers……

The Right Decision

Rishi Sunak is still delivering his conference speech as I write but the news we’ve all been waiting for is out. HS2 to Manchester is scrapped, the £36 billion (?) saved will go into regional transport schemes. See the full document (Network North: transforming British transport) at www.gov.uk.

The devil is always in the detail and it was interesting that the loudest applause he got was the announcement of a string of road schemes. Yet there were some intriguing references to electrifying the North Wales Coast main line and upgrading the Cumbrian Coast route – maybe he’s been watching Portillo’s ‘Great Coastal Rail Journeys’. He emphasized east-west links and the building of a new Trans-Pennine route via Bradford. There was also funding for buses and a continuation of the £2 fare. Further details below with a regional breakdown of public transport projects. Some good ones, it must be said, but an awful lot of roads…..

It’s the end of a long saga in which politicians ignored reality and ploughed on with the scheme first mooted by Andrew Adonis in the dying years of the last Labour Government. A lot of money has already been wasted on a scheme that was over-engineered and badly conceived, with very poor connectivity to the existing rail network. There was a always a risk that far from regenerating the North, it would have sucked wealth further to the south-east and London. Major centres like Stockport, Wigan, Warrington and Stoke would have ended up with a poorer service. As more and more money was being ploughed into HS2 it would have strangled many far better regional projects. I realize many will mourn its demise but I won’t be one of them. Here’s a few more snippets about the scheme, recent and in the more distant past.

What should Labour do?

For a start, drop the soundbite politics about ‘Betrayal of the North’. It isn’t. There’s some good things in the announcement but also a lot that should be challenged, including many of the road building schemes. Where the Government announcement is deficient is the lack of an overall strategy for ‘Network North’ – as it is, there’s a lot of piecemeal schemes (some of which are much needed, undoubtedly). Dumping HS2 means there is a gap in terms of overall rail strategy – below we highlight the importance of a new ‘whole route modernisation’ for the West Coast Main Line north of Crewe. This should be part of an overarching Rail Plan for the North which the proposed ‘Network North’ could drive forward. Castlefield Corridor enhancement would transform the North’s rail network.

The Government announcement

This was published earlier this afternoon, October 4th, and fleshes out what ‘Network North’ would – or could – mean. But read carefully, it’s saying that the money ‘could’ be used to fund the named projects, e.g. Metrolink to Bolton…The schemes below are a summary of the announcement, I haven’t included all the road schemes. Each region gets the £2 bus fare extension and funding for smart ticketing. It’s all here in full: –

North West

•  Improving connectivity in all six Northern city areas: Nearly £4 billion to improve connectivity, which could pay for schemes such as the extension of the Manchester Metrolink to Heywood, Bolton, Wigan and Manchester Airport and bus rapid transit corridors in Manchester.
•  New fund to transform rural travel: A brand new £2.5 billion fund to transform local transport for smaller cities, and towns. This new money could pay for new stations, further electrification, bus corridors and new integrated public transport networks.
•  Energy Coast Line between Carlisle, Workington and Barrow upgraded: Improving capacity and journey times, enabling trains every 30 minutes between Carlisle, Workington, and Whitehaven
•  Contactless & smart ticketing: £100 million will be shared across the North and Midlands to support seamless travel by enabling contactless or smartcard payment.
•  £2 bus fare will also be extended: Will run to the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned. This will mean passengers on a bus journey from Lancaster to Kendal will save £12.50 every time they travel.
•  £700 million bus funding package in the North: More buses and more frequent routes, including a new service to Royal Blackburn Hospital, doubling the service between Northwich and Chester and more buses to industrial estates and business parks.
•  £1.5bn for Greater Manchester: Comes from the City Regional Sustainable Transport Settlement 2 budget
•  Nearly £1bn for Liverpool City Region: Comes from City Regional Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) 2 budget, plus a further £600 million on top – funded from HS2.

North East

•  Reopening stations: Communities in the North East will be reconnected, including a new station at Ferryhill, Co Durham. The Leamside line, closed in 1964, will also be reopened.
•  Funding for contactless and smart ticketing: Supporting seamless travel by enabling contactless or smartcard payment.
•  £1.8 bn for the North East from the City Regional Sustainable Transport Settlement 2 and HS2 funding.
•  £1 bn for Tees Valley.

Yorkshire & Humber

•  £2.5 billion West Yorkshire mass-transit system: Better connections to Bradford and Wakefield. Leeds will no longer be the biggest European city without a mass-transit system, with up to seven lines potentially created as part of a transformed network, eventually linking Leeds to Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, and Wakefield.
•  Hull brought into Northern Powerhouse Rail network: Reducing journey time to Leeds from 58 minutes to just 48. The number of trains between Hull and Sheffield. Journeys from Hull to Manchester will drop from 107 to 84 minutes, enabling two fast trains to Leeds.
•  Sheffield-Leeds line  electrified and upgraded:  Giving passengers a choice of three to four fast trains an hour with journey times cut from 40 to 30 minutes. A new mainline station for Rotherham will also be added to the route, boosting capacity by 300 per cent.
•  Hope Valley Line between Manchester and Sheffield electrified and upgraded: Cutting journey times from 51 to 42 minutes, and increasing the number of fast trains on the route from two to three per hour, doubling capacity.
•  Reopening train lines: Communities will be reconnected, including through the restoration of the Don Valley Line between Stocksbridge and Sheffield Victoria, and new stations at Haxby Station, near York, Waverley, near Rotherham, and the Don Valley Line from Sheffield to Stocksbridge.
• Nearly £4 billion to better connect all six Northern city areas: This could pay for schemes such as bus rapid transit corridors in Bradford and Leeds.
• £2.5 billion fund to transform local transport in 14 rural counties: This new money could finance projects like more electric buses in Harrogate and better bus-rail interchange in Scarborough.
• £1.4 bn for South Yorkshire from savings from HS2 and the City Regional Sustainable Settlement.
• £1.3 bn for West Yorkshire. This includes a £500m downpayment for the West Yorkshire Mass Transit.

West Midlands

• Reopening closed Beeching lines: including the Stoke to Leek line and the Oswestry to Gobowen line, with a new stop at Park Hall. A new station will be built at Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, on the existing Crewe to Derby line,
• £2.2 billion fund to transform local transport: Rural counties such as Shropshire, smaller cities like Leicester and towns such as Evesham will receive funding which could pay for smaller, more demand-driven buses in rural areas as well as funding the refurbishment of Kidsgrove and Longport stations, near Stoke-on-Trent.
• £230 million for more bus services: Increased  frequency of bus services in the Midlands, which could be spent on new bus stops around Telford and park and ride upgrades elsewhere in Shropshire and new bus lanes in Herefordshire.
•  £1 billion more for local transport funding in West Midlands:  This includes £100 million to deal with ongoing metro and Arden Cross cost pressures, £250 million to accelerate local transport projects over the next five years.

East Midlands

• Increased rail capacity: The number of trains between Leicester and Birmingham will be doubled from two to four per hour.
• £1.5 billion for East Midlands City Region Mayor: Transforming transport for 2.2 million people living in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. This is an average of almost £1000 for everyone in the two counties. The new Combined Authority could use the funding to extend the Nottingham Tram system to serve Gedling and Clifton South and connect Derby to East Midlands Parkway with a Bus Rapid Transit System.
• Reopening Beeching Line stations: Including the Ivanhoe Line between Leicester and Burton, connecting 250,000 people across South Derbyshire and North West Leicestershire, with new stations en route.
• Funding for the Barrow Hill Line: Between Chesterfield and Sheffield Victoria, with a new station at Staveley in Derbyshire.
• Fixing two major pinch points on the A5: Funding a stretch of road between Hinckley and Tamworth, linking the M1 and M6, that serves more than one million people. Funding will also be provided for improvements to the A50/500 corridor between Stoke and Derby, cutting congestion for the 90,000 drivers who use the road each day and ensuring smoother journeys for drivers and freight around Rolls Royce, Toyota, Magna Park, and other major local employers.
• £2.2 billion fund to transform local transport: Available in every part of the Midlands outside the mayoral combined authority areas and the new East Midlands combined authority – rural counties such as Shropshire, smaller cities like Leicester and towns such as Evesham.
• £230 million for more bus services: Increasing frequency throughout the Midlands and the popular £2 bus fare will also be extended until the end of December 2024 instead of rising to £2.50 as planned.
• The East Midlands will get a brand new the City Regional Sustainable Transport settlement of over £1.5 billion as it embarks its new status as a Combined Authority next year.

Rail Reform Group prepares a vision

The last few weeks has seen some serious thinking within the Rail Reform Group (an independent network of rail professionals) looking at ideas for how a post-HS2 vision could look like. A very pertinent comment was:

“The key challenge is not to over-analyze but to deliver – to make good use of the massive sunk costs in HS2 but improve local services as well.  HS2 was very good at arguing that it needed its own route to avoid impacting on the current network – but there are massive direct impacts on the current network at Euston, Old Oak Common, Handsacre, Crewe and lots of other areas which they claim is not their problem – Manchester approaches, West Coast Main Line North  …”

The West Coast Main Line north of Crewe is life expired after the BR ‘total modernisation’ in the early 1970s – and is a massive constraint on freight and passenger services now as well as slow for modern passenger use. Work is happening now, based on renewals, but the vision needs to be wider with both capacity and line speed increases. It must be all the way to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

A key focus must be on Manchester – particularly the Castlefield Corridor, with quadrupling between Deansgate and Piccadilly and similar enhancement south of Stockport, where there is insufficient capacity for the current services and planned HS2 services over the existing infrastructure.

What was wrong from the start?

• Over specified – speed was too high at 400 kph, trains will only be 360kph, while most high-speed railways in other countries manage with much lower top speeds. This is important –it makes it really difficult to fit the railway into our crowded environment and reduce impact on people and places.  This has resulted in miles of tunnels which are there for environmental purposes rather than to get through the topography – with massive costs
• Over engineered – all the tunnels – the parallel access road, slab track, platform doors…station design  was similarly over-ambitious.
• Not integrated into the existing network – with its expensive terminal stations (Leeds, Piccadilly, Birmingham Curzon Street) which did not link into the existing networks. And not connected to HS1 (an early casualty of the project).

Looking back, five years ago…

This article was written for Chartist and published in April 2018

Fast line to failure? The HS2 Conundrum

The traditional left likes big infrastructure projects. They create jobs and provide long-term infrastructure for the nation. So whether it’s a new motorway, airport (or new runway), railway (slow speed or high-speed), they are almost by definition ‘a good thing’. In addition, it’s often asserted that major infrastructure projects can assist economically disadvantaged areas. Environmental campaigners tend to be inherently distrustful – wary of extra pollution through car or air traffic, as well as opposed to the environmental damage which new roads or railways cause. The new high-speed railway from London to Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester – HS2 – exemplifies the divisions. Labour and the unions seem broadly in favour of the scheme, with local authorities in the main cities seeing it as a tool of urban regeneration. Most environmental campaigners are against it.

But what of the influential but fragmented ‘rail lobby’, comprising the industry and its suppliers but also the large number of campaigning groups who have succeeded in shifting much Government policy towards a much more pro-rail stance, compared with the road-obsessed approach of the 60s and 70s? It’s very divided. Unsurprisingly, rail industry suppliers are all in favour, with the prospect of multi-billion pound contracts for rolling stock, signalling equipment and actual construction. Some rail campaigners are in support, seeing any rail investment as automatically positive. Yet a large number of experienced industry professionals, as well as lay campaigners, think the whole thing is ill-conceived. This is an interesting group: knowledgeable and pro-rail and not instinctively against ‘high-speed rail’ as seen in mainland Europe, China and Japan. I include myself amongst their number.

So what’s wrong with HS2? The scheme is for a 400 km/h railway starting at Euston and running via west London then out through the Chilterns to a major interchange south of Birmingham. The route then splits, with a branch terminating at a new station at Birmingham (Curzon Street). Phase 2a continues to Crewe and will eventually continue joining the existing West Coast Main Line near Wigan with trains continuing north to Scotland. In Phase 2b there will be branches to Manchester and another line heading to Leeds and the East Coast main Line, with a line joining up with the existing East Coast main Line near York. As with Birmingham, both Leeds and Manchester stations will be dead-ends. There is also serious consideration being given to a Northern east-west route – HS3 or ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’ linking Merseyside, Manchester, Leeds and the east coast.

There are a number of big issues with HS2 as it’s currently conceived which should make Labour MPs and local authorities pause for thought. Above all, it’s a hugely London-centric scheme which will benefit the economy of London and the expense of other regions, particularly the North. It will suck wealth further into London, with only some localised regeneration benefits in the areas around the three termini (Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester). At £56 billion (a very conservative estimate and challenged by several commentators, including internal government sources) it’s a very high price to pay to bring a few more jobs to cities which are already doing pretty well. The benefits to large towns which are currently struggling are minimal. And it won’t link to HS1, allowing through trains to mainland Europe, and neither will it serve Heathrow which would help reduce the number of highly polluting domestic flights.

The maximum speed that the line is engineered for is very high – at 250 mph it is much more than European high-speed operation and has consequences for where it goes and places it serves. It is engineered to get from A to B as quickly as possible and misses out large towns and cities in pursuit of the very high-speed holy grail (which is hugely environmentally damaging, both in terms of route and energy consumption). Ironically, it doesn’t do what any sensible high-speed rail project should do and serve the country as a whole, including more distant cities which currently tend to use aviation rather than rail. Above all, this means Glasgow and Edinburgh, but Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea should be included in a strategic approach to a British high-speed network, which is fully integrated with the conventional network. HS2 is neither. Interestingly, the new trains for HS2 which are compatible with the conventional network can only go at a maximum speed of 115 mph, unlike the existing Pendolinos and ageing HST fleet which can run at 125 mph (in the case of Pendolinos they have a design speed of 140 mph but existing signalling limits them to 125). So new ‘high-speed trains’ post 2033 (that’s the target) will actually be slower from Preston northwards.

The new route south of Birmingham will free up capacity on existing routes, though mainly for longer-distance suburban services into London. It will do nothing to provide extra capacity into the major northern or Midlands cities. It won’t help the rail freight industry, whose main spokespersons (including Labour peer Tony Berkeley) are strongly opposed to the current scheme.

I haven’t dwelt much on cost. Even the official estimate is very high and likely to be exceeded. A final figure of around £100bn isn’t unrealistic. You could get an awful lot of good quality conventional railway for that, with money left over for schools and hospitals. There’s still time to reconsider.

What were the true costs?

Michael Byng, an experienced railway engineer, has made the following comments in a letter to the BBC recently, following a discussion between Sir John Armitt and Lord Berkeley:

For those who heard the discussion involving Sir John Armitt and Lord Berkeley this morning on the programme, I regret that your Interviewer failed to establish the base date for the costs being cited. Sir John Armitt inferred that the £180 bn (£182.10 bn actually) was at 4^th Quarter 2019 prices, where it is at 2^nd Quarter 2023 prices. The estimate of cost at 4^th Quarter 2019 prices was £125.52 bn, from independent assessment and supported by ‘Whistleblowers’, within HS2 Limited and its supply chain.

Inflation, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) “All Construction Index”, between 4Q 2019 and 2Q 2023 is 20.33%, which adds £25.51 bn to the estimate before the events in the last 4 years, see below, are considered. In the last 4 (four) years, additional costs arising from the problems at Euston caused by the suspension of the works, Contractor’s claims for Loss and expense arising from Extensions of Time to the original 2017 – 2026 programme and advice from “Whistleblowers” about the “sunk costs” for property acquired and design work done on the, now abandoned, East Midlands to Leeds section, increase the cost to £182.10 bn

Lord Berkeley quoted the current estimated cost correctly, £180 billion at current, 2^nd Quarter 2023 prices (my emphasis – ed.).

In August 2018, Sir John Armitt said that “the extra £43bn is needed to prevent “inadequate transport links” for those using public transport in cities across the country, not just those on the HS2 route.” Applying ONS Index to that figure, the further cost, over and above £182.10 bn, of additional connectivity, is £53.13bn. There was no mention of these additional costs in the discussion today.

If Sir John Armitt’s statement made in August 2018 is accepted and taken into included, the cost of the whole connected project is now £235.23 billion!

My comments are in my own area of expertise, construction costs. I understand from railway managers that HS2’s revenue, for whatever extent of reduced system is built, are at least as dubious as the misquoted cost figures. They ask, what is this actually all for?”

Rest of the Salvo……………………

The Community Railway Library and Reading Room make progress

The last issue of The Salvo mentioned some embryonic ideas for the railway library at Kents Bank. Things have moved on a bit and the idea of a publicly-accessible resource, specializing in local/community rail, is coming along. It will be initially based on my own collection, which comprises around 3,000 titles, though I’ve never got round to counting them. It is now shelved at Station House, Kents Bank.

The various categories are being refined but will include sections on railway social history, the unions, railway literature (including poetry), children’s railway books, engineering (civil and mechanical), railway policy and politics, narrow-gauge and miniature, international…and more. There will be space for books on other forms of transport including cycling, trams, buses and shipping.

A community interest company is being formed, with charitable objectives (eventually it may become a registered charity). The collection will be bequeathed to it. It will also be open to other donations. We’ve already had several offers of books from Salvo readers – thank you!

An informal preview of the library will take place on Saturday October 21^st, from 13.00h but ‘open house’ for the afternoon, with light refreshments available. All Salvo readers welcome (and donations very much welcome!). The Beach Hut Gallery, next door, has plenty of good stuff on view, and is open Thursday to Sunday 11.00 to 16.00h, so will be open on the 21^st.

Plans for a monthly meeting with a guest speaker are also coming along but no date fixed for the first session yet. If you want to be on a dedicated mailing list for the library and ‘railway book club’ events/talks, let me know.

Railway Pigs, Donkeys and other Animals

This idea seems to have got legs (ouch). In the last Salvo I mentioned an embryonic idea to write something about local branch lines that have survived in the popular imagination – like The Pilling Pig, Delph Donkey and Burton Dick, and have their own local name. Things have moved on and those nice people at Platform 5 Publishing in Sheffield have agreed to publish an A4-format book for next summer.

I’d like to get a good geographical coverage across Britain. The key criteria is that the particular line must have evidence of it being remembered today. It could be a photos in the local pub or village hall, a memorial plaque, or even an occasional event. It would be good to get some lines that are still open, such as The Marlow Donkey. The aim is to get about fifteen lines covered So please send your nominations, but remember there must be some present-day evidence that the line still has some local visibility, in whatever way.

Salvo Shorts

To Workington and Millom

Our mini Autumn Holiday took us to places such as Bassenthwaite Lake to sample the excellent station restaurant, housed in the film set for the Orient Express. We had a pleasant ride up the Cumbrian Coast Line to Millom before heading back to Workington. Millom impressed – a town that has gone through hard times but seemed to be on the up. The new art gallery and museum was taking shape down by the harbor and the temporary location had plenty to see. The station itself has some great displays about the town’s history, particularly its Roman past. What tempted us to visit Workington was the excellent artwork on the station which we noticed on our way up. “Let’s see what Workington has to offer!” we decided. The answer is, once you’ve visited the station, not a lot. Yet the historical displays at the station are brilliant and well worth a visit. The town itself has seen better days though the 1920s bus station is worth a visit.B eyond that, I’d struggle…but maybe we missed something. We also stopped off for a drink at the 1970s-heritage Railway Club next to the station which was warm and welcoming.

…and Barrow Hill

It’s a while since I visited Barrow Hill Roundhouse at Staveley, near Chesterfield – so I was looking forward to my trip last Saturday. There was a very practical purpose: to collect garden railway loco 99.6001 following extensive repairs at Nottingham Works, and to collect an antique bell. The bell is intended for Station House, replacing a similar one that disappeared in the late 19^th century.  Not sure of exactly where it will go, but working on it. Does anyone know of any other surviving station bells? Barrow Hill is a classic railway community (see below) complete with an ‘Allport Street’ and ‘Midland Terraces’. I’d love to go back and explore further. As it is the Roundhouse is wonderful, and nice to see the Midland Compound no. 1000, GC ‘Director’ Butler Henderson’ and other fibne machines including the three Deltics in the adjacent shed.

Railway villages

Another idea taking shape in my head is a book on ‘railway villages’. No, I don’t mean railway towns, like Crewe, Doncaster or even Horwich. I mean smaller settlements, villages, Barrow Hill being a great example. To qualify as a village I suppose it needs a bit more than just a row of houses, and ideally include shops, schools or church. But not necessarily. Some larger places, including cities, have several railway villages within them, including Carlisle, which has at least four examples (Currock, Durranhill, Kingmoor and Upperby) reflecting the different companies presence in the border city. Woodford Halse would qualify, and there’s a good Oakwood Press book about it. There must be lots scattered around London, e.g. perhaps Bricklayer’s Arms, Camden, Kentish Town. Suggestions please!

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets

My book on Lancashire history and identity seems to be doing pretty well. I;ve done half a dozen talks on the book so far and always had good audiences. The next one is at Bolton Family History Society, followed by Grange Photographic Society. More to follow in Preston, Rochdale and Nelson. It isn’t a ‘conventional’ history and covers different theme sof Lancashire history, including sport, culture, politics, industry and religion. It explores the Lancastrians who left for new lives in America, Canada, Russia and South Africa, as well as the ‘New Lancastrians’ who have settled in the county since the 14^th century. There are about forty ‘potted biographies’ of men and women who have made important (but often neglected) contributions to Lancashire.

It’s available, published 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 book is hardback, price £25. Salvo readers can get a 25% discount by going to the publisher’s website (www.hurstpublishers.com) and enter the code LANCASTRIANS25 at checkout.

Book Talks

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)

Last Train from Blackstock Junction (published by Platform 5 Books). A collection of short stories about railway life in the North of England. Salvo readers can 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 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 £3 per order for post and packing in UK)

The Northern Salvo

Incorporating  Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, and Northern Weekly Salvo

Published at Station House, Kents Bank, Lancashire-North-of-the-Sands, LA11 7BB and at 109 Harpers Lane, Bolton BL1 6HU (both Lancashire)

email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No.     313     September/October  2023

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North.

September sunshine…..

Cor, what a scorcher! Nice to have some late summer sunshine, with time to get out into the garden and do some trackwork. I had hoped to spend some time on the ‘Railway Library’ at Kents Bank but it’s not quite the weather to be stuck in a cellar. But good to have a choice.

In this Salvo I mention my next book project, on the cultural and social impact of local branch lines – some long gone (but not forgotten) and some still thumping along. My latest book Lancastrians – Mills, Mines and Minarets. A New History, is published by Hurst. It covers questions of identity and several themes often neglected by more conventional histories. The ‘launches’ have all gone well with more talks in the offing (see below). Salvo readers can get a 25% discount by entering LANCASTRIANS 25 at the checkout on Hurst’s website www.hurstpublishers.com

I’m sad to have to record the deaths of two outstanding people. David Mackereth, of Stretford, a very active champion of Urmston station adoption and ‘community rail’ generally, passed on recently after a fairly short illness. David was very active in a wide range of activities and he will be sadly missed.  The superb displays at Urmston station are just part of his legacy. In Bolton the diminutive figure of Malcolm Pittock was a well known in a wide range of campaigns, particularly the peace movement. Though small of stature he was a very big man in every other way. His death at the age of 94 has been widely mourned. We shall not see his like again.

Very best wishes to the Rev. John McKegney, former chairman of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland and a great example of the fine tradition of Liberal Protestantism in Ireland. He has been struggling with a serious illness for some time and his condition has recently deteriorated. Our hopes and prayers are with you John.

Booking Offices: a people’s revolt

The announcement in early July that hundreds of station booking offices were to close (mostly in England) was greeted with a storm of opposition. The (extended) deadline for comments on this ill-thought proposal was September 1^st, and an amazing 680,000 submissions have been made. I suspect most will be against. There is still time to sign the parliamentary petition which opposes the plans. At the last count there was well over the 100,000 required to trigger a parliamentary debate. But worth keeping on the pressure and if you haven’t signed yet, please do…It’s below, in the accompanying article that recently appeared in Chartist magazine (www.charist.org.uk):

Stop this Beeching of the Booking Offices

The last couple of months have seen an unparalleled explosion of passenger anger over the Government’s plans to close down hundreds of station ticket offices. It is being presented as a proposal by the train companies, who manage most station ticket offices, but there is no question that this is Government -inspired.

It has been spectacularly badly managed. The original consultation period offered just over three weeks for people to respond to what is one of the biggest changes proposed for the railways since the Beeching cuts of the 1960s. Whilst Beeching was far worse, cutting thousands of miles of track, the attitude demonstrated by the cuts has much in common. It is a sledgehammer approach with no analysis of particular stations, still less any consideration of how ticket offices could widen their scope to take in other retail activities. Groups like the Rail Reform Group have proposed re-purposing the traditional ticket office to offer a wider range of services and goods, whilst retaining ticket sales.

It is being foisted on train operating companies by a Government which is desperate to save money on the railways, following Covid and as well as the on-going strikes. There is an element of political spite in all of it, as a way of attacking the unions and cutting staff.

It makes no sense in terms of passenger convenience, despite the hype that we will somehow get a better service. While a lot has been said, rightly, about how elderly and disabled people will be particularly hit, it cuts across most rail users. Ticket machines can be OK if you’re making a simple journey, but you may well need help if the trip involves several changes, route options and possibly starting from a different station. Tourists from abroad using the rail network need help from a friendly face, not trying to work out a route by machine – and often paying too much.

Much has been made of the figure of ‘only’ 12% of ticket sales coming through staffed ticket offices. Yet that masks large variation across the network and we are not told what percentage of revenue is taken by the different methods. My suspicion is that ticket offices take much more than 12% of revenue, as opposed to numerical sales, because people tend to use staffed offices for longer and usually more costly journeys.

Lest anyone thinks I’m being too easy on the train companies, let’s just spell it out. This is an English, Tory Government project. There are no plans to close ticket offices where there is devolved government, including Scotland, Wales, Merseyside and Greater London where TfL control stations through their London Overground operator. In Scotland there will be the ludicrous situation of some of the busiest stations, such as Glasgow Central, having no ticket office while small local stations, run by ScotRail (owned by the Scottish Government) will keep there’s. Liverpool Lime Street, operated by Avanti, loses its ticket office but all local stations run by Merseyrail will remain open.

It’s surprising that none of the main parties have made much of the ticket office issue. There’s a pool of public anger out there that the opposition parties could capitalize on.

The proposals say that no station currently with a ticket office will be left unstaffed yet these are weasel words. At most locations there will be ‘flexible’ staff who provide assistance to passengers, but their hours of attendance will typically be no more than a couple of hours per day.

The unions have fought back with petitions, marches, demonstrations, posters, leaflets and social media initiatives. The consultation process was extended to September 1^st as a result of public pressure, which suggests the Government is already on the back foot.  There is a Parliamentary Petition that is still open and has already attracted over 100,000 signatures. It is worded ‘require train operators keep ticket offices and platform staff at train stations’. Should the petition exceed 100,000 signatures before the deadline on18th October (which it already has) it will be considered for a parliamentary debate. The weblink to sign the petition is here:  https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636542 .

If train companies (and their Government bosses) are determined to close some of the smaller ticket offices, then offer them rent-free to social enterprises, with suitable training and assistance in purchasing equipment (much of which could be redundant if the plans go through). This model already works at stations like Gobowen and Millom, which will not of course be closed. Irlam (left) is a great example of what can be done at a small station that was once a derelict shell.

The ‘Beeching of the Booking Offices’ can be reversed. It is part of an attempt to ‘dehumanise’ public transport at a time when people need people for all sorts of reasons – safety and security, information, reassurance. It’s time to make a stand: To the barriers, comrades!

The Politics Bit

I wish I could feel more positive about the political scene. John Nicolson’s letter (see below, Reader’s Write) says it all. If someone who regards himself as being on the right of Labour thinks he is likely to get expelled for admitting to voting tactically, what hope is there? We currently have the unedifying spectacle of Labour and the Lib Dems squalling about who is best to win Nadine Dorries’ former seat of Mid-Bedfordshire. I suspect the answer might be the Tories given a split vote between Labour and Lib Dem. But maybe common sense will kick in and voters themselves will plump for who they see as the best option. I suspect it may be the Lib Dem, with Labour holding sway at Tamworth. It’s OK Labour saying they came second in Mid-Beds last time but the key is getting thousands of former Toru voters to switch – and that might be best done to the Lib Dems in this leafy Home Counties seat.

Meanwhle the Greens continue to suffer from our outdated voting system. Next year’s General Election will seem them squeezed between Labour and Lib Dem as voters decide which is best placed to get rid of Sunak and his awful bunch. I’d dearly love to vote Green – more than any of the existing parties they are far the closest to my views. But…I don’t live in Brighton or Norwich, nor even Bristol. So I’ll grit my teeth and vote for a party (Labour) which I have less and less faith in at national level.

The same ‘squeeze’ will happen to the small regionalist parties, like The Yorkshire Party, who are doing well at a local level. I’m currently reading Alec  Niven’s excellent The North Will Rise Again, but I suspect that a real Northern Renaissance will come from an alliance of progressive regionalist parties getting together and attacking Labour in its former ‘heartlands’. Anyone for a Lancashire Party?

The Community Railway Library and Reading Room make progress

The last issue of The Salvo mentioned some embryonic ideas for a railway library at Station House, Kents Bank Things have moved on a bit and the idea of a publicly-accessible resource, specializing in local/community rail, is coming along. It will be initially based on my

own collection, which comprises around 3,000 titles, though I’ve never got round to counting them…In due course a charitable trust will be formed and the collection bequeathed to it. It will also be open to other donations.

My own  railway collection is now at Station House and there is sufficient shelf space to accommodate everything. There’s also room for small meetings and individual study/reading. If everything goes to plan there will be n informal preview of the library on Saturday October 21^st, from 13.00h but ‘open house’ for the afternoon, with light refreshments available. It’s dependent on trains running so check in advance please. But all Salvo readers welcome (and donations very much welcome!). The Beach Hut Gallery, next door, has plenty of good stuff on view, and is open Thursday to Sunday 11.00 to 16.00h, so will be open on the 21^st.

Plans for a monthly meeting with a guest speaker are also coming along but no date for the first session fixed as yet. If you want to be on a dedicated mailing list for the library and ‘railway book club’ events/talks, let me know.

Railway Pigs, Donkeys and other Rattlers

Another follow-up from the last Salvo. I mentioned an embryonic idea to write something about local branch lines that have survived in the popular imagination – like The Pilling Pig, Delph Donkey and Burton Dick, and have their own local name. Things have moved on and those nice people at Platform 5 Publishing in Sheffield have agreed to publish an A4-format book for next summer. So I’d better get cracking. At this stage, ideas are very welcome. I’d like to get a good

geographical coverage across Britain. The key criteria is that the particular line must have evidence of it being remembered today. It could be a photos in the local pub or village hall, a memorial plaque, or even an occasional event. It would be good to get some lines that are still open, such as The Marlow Donkey. The aim is to get about fifteen lines covered, and there’s still a few empty spaces! So please send your nominations, but remember there must be some present-day evidence that the line still has some local visibility, in whatever way (see Stuart Parkes’ letter re ‘The Marsden Rattler’ below.

Salvo Shorts

To Nottingham: Not to see the Sheriff or Robin Hood….essential railway business took me to Nottingham recently (collection of two 1908 bound volumes of Railway Magazine and return of repaired ‘Feldbahn’ loco, Lottie). I had time to wander round this fascinating city, served by frequent trams from the station. I walked up to the north end of the city centre  to the Oxfam Bookshop to collect the magazines and then call in at the excellent Five Leaves Bookshop next to the City Hall. It’s one of England’s few surviving radical bookshops and is always well worth a visit. The shop has its own publishing arm

specializing in local titles. I picked up a book on Nottinghamshire writers which I’m looking forward to reading. The city centre is much changed since I last walked up from the station, through the hideous 1970s shopping centre. It’s gone! Work is in progress to rebuild the centre, be interesting to see what emerges. The city has lots of excellent pubs, cafes and independent shops. Somehow it has managed to avoid the curse of the corporate giants. The train journey was enjoyable (managing to dodge chaos in Sheffield due to a points failure). I like the Erewash Valley.  One of these days I’ll get off at Langley Mill an explore DH Lawrence country, and walk over Bennerley Viaduct. If that Portillo character can do it, I can.

…and Glazebrook: Glazebrook and Irlam stations celebrated their 150th birthdays on September 2^nd with some great community events. The Hamilton Davies Trust, responsible for the stunning restoration of Irlam station, organized a ‘flat cap walk’ from Irlam to Glazebrook which attracted over 50 behatted strollers. At Glazebrook itself over a hundred local people took part in events at the station and in the

nearby Methodist Hall, where entertainment included a Ukelete Band. Friends of Glazebrook Station is a relatively new adoption group but if last Saturday is anything to go by, they’ll make rapid progress. They’ve a lot to go at – the station building is mostly empty but has huge potential. Well done Julie, Alison and the Friends and all the best of luck in your endeavours.

Atlas shrugged and puffed: Bolton’s Atlas Mills were once amongst the biggest in the world. Part of the complex is now the Bolton Steam Museum – containing a great collection of working mill engines. The bank holiday weekend saw one of the occasional steaming days and attracted a good crowd. There’s always a good second-hand book stall and I came away with some nice prizes.

A good year for blackberries: After a generally poor summer, a positive spin-off seems to have been the exceptionally good crop of blackberries in late August and early September. I’ve got a few from my garden but the best patch by far is just off Forest Road. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you, though most have gone now….  However, I probably don’t need to worry, there was little sign of anyone else being out picking. I find it odd that so few people go out and collect these delicious berries nowadays. Why? Are we so obsessed with supermarket shopping that we can’t make the most of what’s there – and free! It’s also a very therapeutic activity. So get out there and start picking! They can be very nice just as they are though I have to confess I usually boil them up with a bit of sugar and use as a compȏte on my cereal. Yummy.

Railway Benefit Fund: I was recently invited to give a talk to the Railway Benefit Fund in Crewe, where the national charity is based. The Fund offers help to railway people who may be going through hard times but is also looking to develop new activities aimed at retired railway people. I came along with a couple of mates to talk about the Settle-Carlisle Line and my years working over the line as a goods guard. It happened to be Jo Kaye’s first day as CEO of the organization and she very kindly popped down to the Health Shield offices to say hello. Many will remember Jo from her time at Network Rail. A great railwaywoman who will be a huge asset to the organization. Thanks for calling in and here’s wishing you every success in the new role. See www.railwaybenefitfund.org.uk

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets – a new history

It’s now available, published 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 publisher’s blurb says 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 has chapters covering culture, politics, sport, leisure, industry, religion as well as a ‘Cook’s Tour’ of the county (mostly by train). It explores the Lancastrians who left for new lives in America, Canada, Russia and South Africa, as well as the ‘New Lancastrians’ who have settled in the county since the 14^th century. There are about forty ‘potted biographies’ of men and women who have made important (but often neglected) contributions to Lancashire.

The book is hardback, price £25. Salvo readers can get a 25% discount by going to the publisher’s website (www.hurstpublishers.com) and enter the code LANCASTRIANS25 at checkout.

Readers’ Write…

A good crop of readers’ letters – many thanks, keep them coming….

Walter Rothschild offers some fascinating insights: To named trains – a classic one is ‘Bulliver’ used for the branch train Totnes to Ashburton. many years ago I used to belong to the Dart Valley Railway and read their newsletter, also called ‘Bulliver’. Nobody knew the origin of the name. Then years after that I was reading an ancient 1890’s or so issue of the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly at a library in Jerusalem and came across an article about Phoenician remains in Devon and Cornwall (some place names are well known in this connection, e.g. Marazion) and lo and behold there was an item on ancient Phoenician temples and altars found on the top of a hill near Totnes to ‘The God of Fire: Baal Iver’. Which means some folk memory of this name for something fiery and smoking must have survived somehow for two thousand years or so……

Three things from John Nicholson…..Ticket offices – we keep hearing that ticket office staff will be ‘redeployed’ (not heard that word for a bit – reminds me of the alleged benefits of the 1966 Selective Employment Tax) to interact with passengers on the concourse and platforms. But just how will they advertise themselves, especially on huge stations? We know where ticket office staff actually are but how easy will it be to spot them in their new ‘I’m here to help’ role where they could be anywhere? Actually I very much doubt that the new role will materialise.  Secondly:  Labour – I’m pretty much on the right of the party, which I joined when I started work in 1971, but am anticipating expulsion given my admission of voting Lib Dem in the 2019 local elections. If it can happen to Alastair Campbell, no one is safe!! We MUST vote TACTICALLY to get rid of the party that gave us the lies & scandals of Johnson, the chaos of Truss & the cynicism of Sunak.  It’s ironic that Sunak is appearing as the motorists’ friend when his own default mode of transport is helicopter or private jet. I just hope the people who benefit from low traffic networks, 20 mph zones, ULEZ etc will remember when they cast their votes next year – provided they have the necessary ID of course.

Malcolm Bulpitt adds: Railway Names. Is/was there a local line in the country that did not have its own special name, either for the line or a local train/engine/working? The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway here in Kent was known as the ‘Crab and Winkle’ from its Day 1 in 1830, partly as it brought fresh seafood into the City. In Suffolk the short-lived Mid-Suffolk Light Railway was always ‘The Middy’, as its small preservation operation still is. Most names were friendly, but some reflected the operation’s shortcomings. In Norfolk the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway earned the soubriquet ‘Muddle and Get (K)Nowhere’ due to its erratic service. (always liked the MSJ&A – Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Rly – or ‘Many Short Jerks – and Away!’ -ed.)

Martin Arthur sends a helpful correction: I think predictive text gave the wrong name for the 15 in gauge line near Coleford – it should be Perrygrove not Perrivale ()done! – ed.) I made a visit to the Forest in October 1967 , unfortunately just after closure of the GWR branch to Coleford in July of that year, but the ex Severn and Wye line to Parkend was still open with tracks in place to Coleford.
A fascinating place indeed with remnants of early tramroads and industries as well as coal mining.

Malcolm Bulpitt also offers some ideas from the Swiss: Booking Offices. Like you I have been saying for a long time that the obvious route for them is to be transformed/incorporated into retail outlets on their respective stations. This has been the case on the SBB/CFF in Switzerland for decades and this type of operation is also common with other operators across Europe. This would both preserve a service to the travelling public and, in the majority of cases, let the current railway staff keep their jobs. The sticking point from Mick Lynch and his hardliners point of view is that they would no longer probably feel the need to be part of ‘his’ Union and hence his salary base. It is this overtly personal agenda of the RMT top brass that is causing the disruption by unnecessary strike action over the long-overdue reorganisations that are needed in the area of railway operations.

Allen Dare writes: Re ticket office closures, it’s good you’re majoring on the potential revenue loss (even at my small local station the ticket office takings must be several hundred thousand pounds p.a.). The idea that complex enquires and transactions can be handled on a noisy, rainswept platform just as well as in a quiet, dry ticket office is ludicrous. No sensible business would risk over £1bn p.a. nationally, but this idea has DafT’s fingerprints all over it. As to train names. WCML commuters of a certain age will recall the “Master Cobbler” from/to Northampton, and “The Sandman” which also called at Leighton Buzzard. The typical formation was an 86 + 12 Mk1s, and the ECS for the evening trains was backed down Camden Bank into Euston – quite a sight.

John Davies says: I’m so pleased to be living in Wales where our much-maligned Transport for Wales concluded wage agreements with the unions over a year ago and will have nothing to do with the ‘stations idiocy’ – yet nothing is heard about this outside Wales. I understand TfW have been developing a ‘PayPoint’ solution to smaller ticket offices as general retail outlets and even bringing back ticket facilities to places that lost them years ago. It’s such a shame that rolling stock issues and staff training is impacting on services (and rail’s reputation).

Stuart Parkes nominated: ‘The Marsden Rattler’, which now gives its name to a restaurant, served surprisingly enough, the Marsden area of South Shields. A fiend of mine gave the afternoon parcels train from Leeds to Heysham which was usually very short the esoteric name ‘The Futile Flyer’. If we can go beyond Britain two of the east German narrow gauge lines have nicknames. The Puttbus- Göhren line on the island of Rügen is ‘Der Rasende Roland’ (raging Roland) and on the mainland the Bad Doberan- Kühlungsborn line is ‘Molli’ for some reason.

Book Talks

I’ve done several  talks about my new book ‘Lancastrians’, including events in Bolton, Blackrod, Preston, Stretford and Grange-over-Sands.

Future events include Lancaster on September 9^th, for Friends of Real Lancashire, followed by Eccles Local History Society on the 13^th, Working Class Museum Library on the 15^th, Turton Local History Society on the 28^th, Bolton Family History Society on October 4^th and Grange-over-Sands Photographic Society on the 16^th. Last one currently scheduled is in Rochdale for TheEdwin Waugh Dialect Society on November 14^th

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)

Last Train from Blackstock Junction (published by Platform 5 Books). A collection of short stories about railway life in the North of England. Salvo readers can 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 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 £3 per order for post and packing in UK)

The Northern Salvo

Incorporating  Weekly Notices, Lancashire Loominary, Sectional Appendices, and Northern Weekly Salvo

Published at Station House, Kents Bank, Lancashire-North-of-the-Sands, LA11 7BB and at 109 Harpers Lane, Bolton BL1 6HU (Lancashire-South-of-the-Sands)

email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No.     312     August 2023

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North.

Going monthly….

Greetings on August 1^st, Yorkshire Day. Over here in Lancashire it’s a wet miserable morning, ‘siling down’ as my late Huddersfield friend and colleague Philip Jenkinson would have said. This is the first ‘combined volume’ of The Salvo and Lancashire Loominary, with the aim of coming out roughly every month. Hopefully there’ll be summat for everyone. Comments are always welcome, either by email or in the ‘comments’ section on the website. If you find you’re getting two copies, let me know and I’ll take one off.

It has been a time of changes, the loss of several good friends and also some major decisions with REPTA, a much-loved railway institution dating back to 1893.

It was set up as ‘The Railway Employees’ Privilege Ticket Association’ and more recently became ‘The Railway Employees’ Passenger Transport Association. In its heyday, around the 1960s, it had about 60,000 members. I was honoured to be REPTA’s patron from 2006. The organisation held its 123rd AGM at  Bath AGM last weekend, when some major strategic decisions were made; further announcements will be made later this year.

I’ve been pleased with the response to my new book Lancastrians – Mills, Mines and Minarets. A New History, published by Hurst. More on it below; a few local launches are in the offing (Barrow, Eccles, Salford, Rochdale). It costs £25 (hardback) but Salvo readers can get a 25% discount by entering LANCASTRIANS 25 at the checkout on Hurst’s website www.hurstpublishers.com

Booking Offices: need for a re-think all round

The announcement in early July that hundreds of station booking offices were to close (mostly in England) was greeted with a storm of opposition. There has been a partial retreat, with a longer period being given for responses to what is an ill-thought through proposal, reminiscent of the mass closures of the Beeching years in the 1960. Tens of thousands of submissions have already been made and numerous petitions circulated which oppose the closures. A lot of attention has focused on the problems it would cause for elderly and disabled people. However it goes well beyond that and I’d say that a lot of people value the help and advice from a trained railway person when they are making complex journeys. If it takes about four weeks to train a railway employee to become competent in ticket retailing, how can we expect members of the public to get the best deal just by ‘going on the internet’. I suspect that thousands of people get ripped off every week by selecting a more expensive ticket for their journeys. Perhaps intending rail passengers should be sent on a compulsory training course.

The closures do not make much sense from a commercial perspective as well as a social one. Railway companies will lose revenue as a result of people not making their journey by rail and using the car instead. We have been bombarded with a figure of 12% of ticket sales being done through booking offices (the figure is more like 20% on Northern) but what would be interesting to know is that is the percentage of revenue taken through booking offices? I suspect it will be higher as people use booking offices for longer and more complex journey rather than using the platform TVM.

My own position (and that of the Rail Reform Group, see www.railreformgroup.org.uk) has been clear for a long time. Whilst accepting that the current traditional model of a station booking office is no longer appropriate in many places, with a very limited range of ‘products’ being on offer, that should lead to what has been called a ‘re-purposing’ rather than blanket closure of booking offices. Where the location is right, stations could become retail centres with the traditional ticket sales (and information) service complemented by other activities. It really isn’t ‘rocket science’. When did you see a petrol station that only sold fuel?

If someone is sat behind a window selling tickets for say four trains an hour, that will, in some cases, allow time for doing other things which add value to the booking office’s function. In the case of smaller stations with less frequent trains, more innovative approaches should be tried including offering them (with financial help) to displaced staff who might want to develop their own businesses. OK, perhaps there wouldn’t be many but I know some who would make excellent ‘station entrepreneurs’. Offering booking offices, rent-free, to small businesses including social enterprises, with training given on ticket issuing, is an approach that could work in some places.

The closures should be halted and time given to explore a range of options which may be appropriate in different locations. In the meantime, if you haven’t objected yet, please do so. The standard format is TicketOffice.Northern (or whichever operator)@transportfocus.org.uk (see poster image above).

Fiddling while Rome burns

It has been hot out there, in that far-away land called ‘Europe’. Soaring temperatures have caused chaos and the continent has been cut off from mellower climes, like Bolton’s. Perhaps that of Uxbridge too. The recent  by-elections were expected to lead to a triple Tory defeat. The fact they hung on, very narrowly, to Uxbridge has been put down to public opposition to the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) proposals being put through by the Greater London mayor, Sadiq Khan. Keir Starmer was upset at not winning the seat and urged Khan to ‘reflect’ on his ULEZ proposals. It seems that the mayor has made suitable reflections and is continuing with his proposals.

The impact of Uxbridge has been very significant and the Tories, always good to spot a bandwagon to jump on, are calling for measures such as ULEZ to be scaled back. Not that they’re against ‘doing something on Climate Change’, mind,  just that ‘we need to exercise a bit of caution’. Which is all quite predictable.

The Tories have always tried to paint themselves as ‘the motorists’ friend’, but it would be good to see more of a fightback from Labour. I mean getting really dirty and accusing the Tories of complicity in 500 child deaths each year through air pollution in Greater London. As an aside, some friends from Heywood visited London recently and were struck by the palpable smell of polluted air, even in more suburban south London – and not that Heywood is an unpolluted nirvana! Sunak has made his lack of interest in ‘the environment’ (other than in opposing relatively modest measures to do something) but where is Starmer in all this? It’s hard not to detect a similar lack of interest in all this ‘green nonsense’. The party line is very clearly trying to appear moderate in all things and let the Tories dig their own political grave. So when devolved mayors like Khan (and Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram up North) do something that’s a bit more radical, it sends off warning bells in Labour HQ. Lisa Nandy is now saying that the mayors won’t get tax-raising powers which makes a joke of real devolution.

There’s been a lot in social media saying that Starmer is just a closet Tory (dredging up the ghost of Tony Blair). Actually, he isn’t. Starmer is part of a long right-wing Labour tendency that’s statist, centralist and authoritarian. It isn’t the only Labour tradition: there is an alternative approach stretching back to the Independent Labour Party which is decentralist, inclusive and open. Yet it has become a minority trend within Labour, ceding more and more political ground to the Greens and the left-of-centre nationalist parties such as Plaid and the beleaguered SNP. Principled socialists like Neal Lawson who advocate such dangerous notions as PR and working with other progressive parties, are threatened with expulsion.

Come next year’s General Election we’ll be told to hunker down, bite our tongues and vote Labour, as the best way to get the Tories out. Yet I have to say that a Starmer-led majority Labour Government doesn’t hold out much attraction to me, much as I want to see the back of this awful lot. I’d be far happier with a minority Labour administration which depends on Lib Dem, Green and other support (and it’s about time Sinn Fein dropped their abstentionist policy). A condition for the Lib Dems’ backing should be the introduction of radical measures to address The Climate Emergency, a fair voting system and democratic regional government (at least).

Station House progress: A Railway Reading Room?

The renovation work on Station House at Kents Bank is pretty much complete. A few ideas have been swishing around regarding the cellar (actually a nice, dry place). It lends itself well as a library and space for small meetings for up to about ten people. I’m planning to move most of my railway book collection up to Kents Bank, keeping the

Lancashire and general items in Bolton. One option with the railway material is to develop a modest library with an emphasis on rural and community railways. It could include a ‘railway book club’ which meets occasionally and facilities for researchers to use the collection. Early days but watch this space. Meanwhile, The Beach Hut Gallery, next door, has plenty of good stuff on view, and is open Thursday to Sunday 11.00 to 16.00h.

Eminent Northerners

One of the things I tried to do in my ‘Lancastrians’ book was to highlight some men and women who have made important, but neglected, contributions to Northern politics and culture. Two that stand out are Mary Higgs and Solomon Parrington. Both have railway connections. Mary Higgs set up the ‘Beautiful Oldham Society’ in the early 1900s and badgered the railway companies to let the society develop bits of unused  railway land to grow vegetables. Sound familiar?  Very much a forerunner of the ‘incredible edible’ movement. Some companies were more receptive than others. Mary went on to initiate the ‘garden suburb’ project in Oldham, with houses built along co-operative lines. She figures in Allen Clarke’s novel ‘The Red Flag’, with a fictionalized re-working of her adventures when she went ‘on the tramp’ to examine conditions in women’s lodging houses.

Not far from Oldham lies Middleton, birthplace of Solomon Partington in 1844. Some readers will know of him through the Winter Hill mass Trespass of 1896. He came from a family of silk weavers which was an important local industry. His early professional life was spent with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. He was employed as a station master, probably at Middleton, before moving to Birkdale. He left the railways after being wrongly accused of swindling the company and became a journalist on The Leigh Journal, owned by the Bolton-based Tillotson Group. He was involved in local radical politics through the Liberal party and organized ‘the March of The Thousand Lads’ to campaign for better leisure facilities for working class boys and girls. After moving to Bolton he played a leading part in the 1896 Winter Hill Trespass and later stood as an independent candidate for West  Ward, getting elected. His final years were spent in Grange-over-Sands writing a history of Lancashire dialect. He died in 1927 and is buried in Grange Cemetery. 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.”

Bath time

We headed down to Bath for the REPTA AGM last weekend (see above). We had a long journey down by car, owing to strikes on the Saturday. We stopped off at The Saracen’s Head at Symonds Yat East, a beautiful spot on the Wye. Just down from the pub is the site of the old station on the Monmouth – Ross-on-Wye line which closed in 1959.

Pleasingly, the pub had some photos the ‘last day’ on January 4^th, when GW Pannier 6412 was specially turned out  for the occasion. What a great line that must have been, and what a loss. The only public transport remaining is the ferry which plies its way across the river from outside the pub, permitting a visit to the Old Ferrie Inn just a bit further up. You need to make sure you don’t miss the last ferry as it’s a long way round.

Bath is one of those places I generally try to avoid, preferring less well-visited places. However, I must say I was impressed with the place. I had time to visit Green Park Station, where I caught a train to Templecombe down the old Somerset and Dorset in summer 1965, about six months before closure. It was hauled by a BR standard tank

80044 if you want to know. Today, the station is nicely preserved and had a thriving antiques market in full flow. We were staying at The Doubletree Hilton on Walcot Street which is adjacent to the bohemian part of the city with some great little shops, cafes and pubs,

We returned via Monmouth and Hereford, making a special stop at Junction Railwayana in Tintern where certain items were purchased. If the weather hadn’t been so awful we’d have stopped longer to look at the magnificent abbey and have lunch in the old station tea rooms.

Into the Forest

After our stop at Symonds Yat we had some time to explore the Forest of Dean, a fascinating place which is unlike anywhere else. It still has small-scale coal extraction, hewn by the ‘free miners’ of Dean. We called in at Hopewell Colliery which has an exhibition about mining in the Forest, with underground tours. We had a look at the Dean Forest Railway which was operating with ‘Pannier’ haulage. We reached Dean

Heritage Centre, located in an old tannery, by a roundabout route – but it was worth the visit. Amongst many industrial artefacts there’s a great display about Dennis Potter who came from the area and wrote extensively about it, including parts of ‘The Singing Detective’. The towns and villages have more a feel of the industrial North rather than rural Gloucestershire. The mining tradition encouraged a flourishing socialist culture which I suspect may still be active today. I used to subscribe to The Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Clarion, edited by Alistair Graham who died last year. The area was criss-crossed by colliery railways, many of which are now cycle trails. At Coleford there’s a railway museum in the old station yard with a miniature railway operated Saturday afternoons. Sadly we missed it. Just down the road there’s the Perrygrove Railway, a miniature railway operating along the course of the old line.

Railway Pigs, Donkeys and other Animals

Visiting Pilling the other day, for Harold Elletson’s funeral, reminded me of the old Garstang and Knot End Railway, traces of which are still visible. It was a standard gauge light railway that ran from Garstang and Catterall station, on the main line, through small settlements out to Knott End (the railway never bothered with the extra  ‘t’ in the name).

One of the early locomotives had a very shrill whistle which sounded a bit like a pig squealing. hence the name. The title ‘Pilling Pig’ broadened to include any  loco that operated the line. Although the line closed well before Beeching, the ‘Pilling Pig’ is still remembered. There’s even a plinthed Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 saddletank at Stake Pool which celebrates the steamy porker. Should be said that the loco never worked the line and spent most of its time on the NCB colliery system in Mountain Ash, where I photographed it hauling a heavy coal train.

Inspired by the ‘Pig’ I asked around my facebook friends for other colloquial train names and it’s a long list, including (so far) three ‘Donkeys’ (Delph, Marlow and Dursley), The Spratt and Winkle (West Croydon – Wimbledon), The Dudley Dodger (from Snow Hill to Dudley), The Burton Dick (Huddersfield – Kirkburton), The Kendal Tommy (Kendal to Garnge-over-Sands) and several more. Please keep them coming! I’m particularly interested to hear about surviving ‘named’ trains. On the Furness Line the last train of the day to Barrow from the south is still called ‘The Whip’. Why? The last train on a Saturday night up the Rhondda Valley was called ‘The Rodney’. Again, why? Who he? The evening Newcastle-Chathill train was called ‘The Rattler’, when it was Pacer-operated. Is it still rattling? More suggestions please!

Salvo Shorts

Angina Monologues I was diagnosed with ‘stable angina’ a few months ago, following chest pains. I have to say the service from the NHS has been pretty good, though slightly ‘fits and starts’. After initial worries they don’t seem to think it’s anything too serious though I’m being sent off to Bolton Royal Hospital  for an ‘angiogram’ shortly. A great pity that I can’t get there by train – the Bolton Great Moor Street to Manchester Exchange ran right past the hospital. Maybe one day we’ll get a tram but well after my clogs have popped I suspect.

Harold Elletson My friend Harold Elletson died a few weeks ago, at the young age of 62. His funeral was in the impressive St John’s Church in Pilling, attended by a very large group of friends and family. I got to know Harold through our ‘radical devolution’ project. He set up the Northern Party and stood as candidate in 2015, but got what could best be called a modest vote. He had previously been Consrvative MP for Blackpool North and became disillusioned with the Tories’ anti-European stance (amongst other things). He was a proud Lancastrian and had many strings to his bow. We shall not see his like again.

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets – a new history  It’s now available, published 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 publisher’s blurb says 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 has chapters covering culture, politics, sport, leisure, industry, religion as well as a ‘Cook’s Tour’ of the county (mostly by train). It explores the Lancastrians who left for new lives in America, Canada, Russia and South Africa, as well as the ‘New Lancastrians’ who have settled in the county since the 14^th century. There are about forty ‘potted biographies’ of men and women who have made important (but often neglected) contributions to Lancashire.

The book is hardback, price £25. Salvo readers can get a 25% discount by going to the publisher’s website (www.hurstpublishers.com) and enter the code LANCASTRIANS25 at checkout.

Book Talks

I’ve done several  talks about my new book ‘Lancastrians’, including events in Bolton, Blackrod, Preston, Stretford and Grange-over-Sands. Future events include Barrow Public Library on August 17^th at 14.00 and September 13^th at Eccles Local History Society. Friday September 15^th I’m at the Working Class History Museum, close to Salford Crescent station, 14.00. Then Bolton Family History Society on October 4^th , Grange Photographic Society October 16^th and Rochdale (Edwin Waugh Dialect Society) on November 14^th.

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)

Last Train from Blackstock Junction (published by Platform 5 Books). A collection of short stories about railway life in the North of England. Salvo readers can 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 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 £3 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.

 In association with The Lancashire and North Lonsdale Loominary

Published at Station House, Kents Bank, Lancashire-North-of-the-Sands, LA11 7BB email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop

Publications website: www.lancashireloominary.co.uk

No. 311 June 30^th  2023       SUMMER SATURDAY RELIEF

Salveson’s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North. Not really weekly, definitely Northern.

After a long gap….

Here’s your Summer Salvo….after a long gap here’s a bumper ‘Bolton Holidays’ special. The usual varied focus including a look at the current state of things within the railway industry, a fascinating new novel set in Farnworth and Hindley, arguments for ‘The Parish Commune’ and some recent trips to places of interest across the North.

My latest book Lancastrians – mills, mines and minarets is now available. It’s a rather unconventional history of an unconventional place. We can’t even agree where it actually is (I cover ‘real Lancashire from the Mersey to the Lakes). It’s about culture, identity and the rise, fall and maybe the rise again of a great county-region. More details elsewhere in The Salvo – events are being planned in Blackburn, Bolton, Barrow, Blackrod and other places not beginning with ‘B’ including Grange-over-Sands (July 12th). Open to invitations for talks elsewhere.

It has been a bad time for friends passing on. Keen Salvo reader, ace reciter, model engineer and surgeon John Brandrick died suddenly a few weeks ago. Harold Elletson, former Tory MP, naked gardener and subsequent champion of Northern devolution, died in Berlin a few days ago (see Times and Daily Telegraph obituaries June 29^th). David Tomlinson, who did outstanding work around drug rehabilitation, died in London recently. Condolences to their families and friends.

Holiday Time!

Today (Saturday June 30^th) would have been the start of Bolton Holidays – always the last Friday of June, for a fortnight. Everywhere shut. Looking back, the two weeks had an almost surreal air, with normal life totally changed. I suppose you could say it was as though a huge pandemic had hit Lancashire and everyone had died. In fact they were enjoying themselves in Blackpool, Rhyl, Newquay or Scarborough. The same process had been repeated in Oldham a week earlier, and the other cotton towns through July.

The tradition of the Lancashire ‘Wakes Weeks’ (we never called it ‘Wakes’ in Bolton) goes back to medieval times and local religious ceremonies. Farnworth still had its own ‘Wakes’ in the early 1900s, which was more of a fair. Bolton holiday week was  just called ‘Bolton Holidays’.

During the 19^th century the combination of rapid population growth and the development of the railways allowed the possibility for working class people taking a holiday. Whitsun was the main holiday period, with a mass exodus from Bolton and other ‘cotton towns’ on Whit Friday. However, it was only in the late 19^th century that workers were given a full week off, and that was without pay.

By the end of the 19^th century the cotton industry was a highly organised industry, with the owners combined in powerful trade associations; their counterparts were the cotton unions, equally well organised and influential. The employers decided between themselves which town would have its’ week holiday. Oldham went first, followed by Bolton the week after at the end of June. Burnley, Bury and Wigan had their holidays in early July followed by Blackburn and the North-East Lancashire towns at the end of the month. The week’s shutdown, only lengthened to a fortnight after the Second World War, enabled the mill engines and machinery such as looms and spinning mules to be overhauled and given a thorough clean. Paid holidays didn’t come until 1941, so it was only after the war that the holiday ‘boom’ really took off. A further week was added in September.

The ‘staggered’ holidays were helpful for the railway companies who would have been overwhelmed if every town had its ‘wakes week’ around the same time. As it was, the railways struggled to cope with the huge demand for ‘specials’ taking families to Blackpool, Southport, Morecambe and further afield including North Wales and the West Country.

Most trains left from Trinity Street, though some – particularly the North Wales trains – went from Great Moor Street, a tradition which continued for sevral years after the station had officially closed in 1954. I was on one of the last, in 1958.

During the inter-war years families would save up all year for their week’s holiday. Thousands were members of savings clubs, known locally as ‘Diddle ‘em clubs’ because of the frequency of the collectors running off with the takings! The safest option was to save with the Co-op, which also organised holidays, including transport by train or ‘charabanc’. Some companies, such as Walker’s, ran their own ‘holiday fund’ which employees paid into each week.

In those days it was normal for families to take their own food in tin containers  – the landlady would cook the food for them, though there was the more expensive option of having meals made for you. In many guest houses families would invite neighbours or other members of the extended family to join them for their tea!

So for one week in every year, popular destinations such as Blackpool and Rhyl became ‘Bolton by the sea’. The Bolton Evening News was on sale along the sea front and the paper sent staff . Probably the high point of Bolton Holidays for the railways was the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The 1962 holidays saw 31 special trains leaving Trinity Street, 13 on the Friday evening and 18 on the Saturday. Destinations on Friday night included Newquay, Heysham (for the boat to Northern Ireland), Bournemouth, London (St Pancras), Paignton, Plymouth, Yarmouth, Holyhead, Eastbourne and Portsmouth. On the Saturday, the rush started with a train to Penychain, for Butlin’s, via the now closed route from Bangor and Caernarfon. There were further North Wales trains to places including Llandudno, Bangor, Rhyl and Caernarfon. Other destinations included Filey Holiday Camp, Liverpool (for the Isle of Man), Skegness and of course Blackpool.

Additional locos were drafted to Crescent Road sheds and Bolton drivers and firemen had a rare chance to widen their horizons, with some working trains through to North Wales. The coaching stock was assembled at Horwich, Lostock Junction, Moses Gate and other locations. The 7.00 special to Llandudno used ‘borrowed’ Jubilee class express loco ‘Manitoba’ and was worked by Bolton driver Jack Ritson and fireman Tommy Bustard throughout. An Oldham – Blackpool ‘Wakes Week

Jack Hartley and fireman Cliff Edge worked a later special all the way to Bangor with another borrowed ‘Jubilee’ from Patricroft depot.

Life in Bolton, especially for the first week, was completely different from usual. It became like a ghost town. The factory chimneys stopped smoking and you could see the Welsh mountains from the top of Smithills Dean Road. Most shops closed, including newsagents. Children set up ‘pop up’ paper shops on the pavements, sometimes earning a bit of extra pocket money but not always.

The decline of ‘Bolton Holidays’ happened almost imperceptibly. As the mills and engineering factories went into decline there wasn’t the same co-ordinated ‘shutdown’ at the end of June; the mills had shut for good. If there can be said to be an ‘end’ it was in 1992, when schools went over to a standardised national pattern of summer holidays. By then, Bolton had changed dramatically and people’s leisure habits had as well. Cheap foreign holidays by air became normal, though some people maintained the old traditions of Blackpool or the North Wales Coast.

(this is based on a longer piece in The Bolton News last year. Many thanks to Steve Leyland for additional notes on loco movements.)

Railpolitics

There’s been a lot happening in the railway world recently. The news that TransPennine Express was to be nationalised (see elsewhere in this Salvo) didn’t come as a big surprise and hopefully will provide an opportunity to re-set relationships with the unions. It was a good move to appoint Northern’s Chris Jackson as interim MD (and, equally, for Craig Harrop to step into his shoes as Regional Director at Northern, also ‘interim.’) My very best wishes to both, but also to the TPE team who have copped for a lot of blame, unfairly.

ASLEF has ended its ban on overtime and rest day working at TPE so hopefully things will start to change quite quickly. However, the wider dispute over pay and conditions shows little sign of being resolved any time soon. The continuing dispute is massively damaging to the railways and to its customers. If, as the unions claim, progress is being held back by UK Government interference, Sunak needs to let the unions and management get on with negotiating a settlement that’s in everyone’s interest. It has already happened in Scotland and Wales. Now, there’s a coincidence – no UK Government sticking its oar in.

Meanwhile lots of friends enjoyed watching Ben Elton’s Channel 4 piece on ‘The Great British Railway Disaster’ recently. It was entertaining stuff but other than telling us what we already knew, it was short on analysis.

Why has TransPennine Express been so awful? Maybe a chat with the unions might have helped. No single reason explains it all, but the ban on overtime (now relaxed) was probably the biggest cause of the misery at TPE. As I’ve argued repeatedly, ownership on its own is not a panacea. You can have an absolutely awful operation run by the state and some good private train companies (Chiltern, Merseyrail to name but two). Many on The Left have this touching faith in the power of the (capitalist) state whilst The Right thinks private ownership will as if by magic run a better rail service. The reality is we now have a railway that is mainly state-controlled, with ownership of infrastructure in the hands of the state (Network Rail) and about a quarter of train services run by (UK) state-owned companies. The rest are, to a large extent, told what to do by the Government. Are there alternatives? Yes, most definitely…read on!

TransPennine Express – a suitably socialised case for devolution?

The news that TransPennine Express (TPE) was to be transferred into the public sector, stripping First Group of its contract, came as little surprise. Despite new trains and a major recruitment programme, the company struggled to run a reliable service leaving thousands of passengers angry and frustrated.  TPE is a major player in the UK transport scene, providing services across the North of England and into Scotland, under contract to the Department for Transport.

So what happens now? The Government has stressed that TPE’s transfer to the public sector, under the wing of the ‘Operator of Last Resort’ (OLR) was a temporary measure before the company was returned to the private sector. It joins South-Eastern, LNER and Northern as part of OLR’s expanding portfolio. There remain difficult issues around industrial relations, as well as major infrastructure works forming part of the TransPennine route upgrade between Manchester and Leeds, which includes long-awaited electrification. However, the news that Aslef is ending its ban on overtime is very welcome. It lays the basis for recovery, with scope to make TPE a showpiece for what a good quality railway company should look like, both as a service to passengers and as an employer. That needs TPE’s new management team being given the sort of freedom that their LNER colleagues enjoy.

There a need for some longer-term thinking about how TPE should fit into the bigger picture. Currently, railways in the UK are rudderless, lacking any sort of ‘guiding mind’ to bring coherence and direction to the industry. Rumours are rife that the proposed  ‘Great British Railways’ has been sidelined though the recent announcement that Sir Peter Hendy has been re-appointed as chair of Network Rail (effectively ‘GBR in waiting’) is very welcome and suggests there gossip could be misplaced. Had Hendy not been reappointed that would have sent a very clear message that GBR was dead. So let’s see. But whether GBR happens or not, there’s plenty that can be done, sooner rather than later.

The current situation in the North of England, with both TPE and Northern being in the state sector, offers opportunities for fresh thinking which Labour should seize on, instead of repeating glib mantras about nationalisation (25% of all train operators are now in the state sector and infrastructure is controlled by state-run Network Rail).

The last thing either TPE or Northern need is a return to the private sector, though a long period of uncertainty and ‘interim’ management won’t be helpful either.  The most straightforward approach would be to keep the two operators under state ownership. However, there is a growing appetite amongst Northern politicians to get control of their rail network; taking on responsibilities for the two Northern operators would be quite an attractive proposition.

The most obvious vehicle would be Transport for the North (TfN), a sub-national transport body run by a consortium of local authorities but without the powers enjoyed by Transport for London. That should change, with more resources and expertise given to TfN. The Department for Transport has the power to transfer responsibility for both contracts to a body such as TfN if it chose to do so.

If that happened, Transport for the North could, if it wanted to be more radical, set up the two operations as social enterprises. There are business models out there to guide them, including the experience of Welsh Water and other larger businesses. An arms-length mutual approach, in which any surplus is ploughed back into the business, is the sort of innovative approach which Labour should be looking it. A significant amount of worker and passenger involvement could form part of the structure.

A new, socially-owned TransPennine Express, working closely with Northern, could pick up the threads that have been lost over the last couple of years and contribute towards the creation of a railway of which the North could be truly proud.

That begs a bigger question about the accountability of TfN. In Scotland and Wales the transport bodies (Transport Scotland, Transport for Wales) are overseen by a democratically elected parliaments with ministers holding transport responsibilities. It’s difficult to work out where the accountability of TfN lies. Its chair, Sir Patrick McLoughlin, is well respected and it could be said that his accountability is to the TfN board which comprises politicians from across the North. That’s OK as far as it goes but the North needs its own directly-elected parliament – just like Wales and Scotland –which could drive TfN forward and ensure it has the resources and expertise that bodies like Transport for London enjoy. Maybe regional parliaments for Yorkshire, the North-West and North-east collaborating in pan-Northern bodies like TfN would work, but the present arrangements ensure not only a lack of democratic legitimacy but a body which lacks real clout and is constantly at risk of cuts or even abolition by central Government.

(This is based on a longer article article which appears in the current issue of RAIL).

Moving – and remaining

The best laid plans, as they say…after announcing my complete move to Station House at Kents Bank in the last Salvo (seems a long time ago), things have changed a bit. After trying to sell my house in Bolton and not doing very well with it, I’ve decided to be a true Lancashire cosmopolite and hop between Kents Bank and Bolton. We’re now comfortably ensconced in our former Furness Railway residence and getting to know the local community; Station House will be much

more than a ‘holiday home’. How much I’ll divide my time between Bolton and Kents Bank remains to be seen; it will vary. I’ll have the best of both Bolton and magnificent Morecambe Bay. It means that difficult decisions about what to do with the garden railway and my book collection can be avoided. However, a branch of the Halliwell Light Railway has appeared in the yard of Station House and will be home to visiting engines from the parent depot. Real-life human visitors to Station House are very welcome – say hello if there’s any sign of life (give a ‘one’ on the signalbox bell by the front door, to call attention.)

Blue Labour and radical local democracy

I’ve always liked Maurice Glasman’s political writings and his willingness to speak the sometimes unspeakable. At a time when the Left in England is pretty much devoid of fresh ideas (Compass is a welcome exception to the rule – see below) Glasman keeps pushing radical ideas which ought to command a wider audience than they do. Part of the problem is the ‘Blue Labour’ name: it puts off a lot of people are Labour because they think it’s a Tory incursion, and may alienate others who just see it as relevant to the Labour Party. Actually, the ideas in his latest book – Blue Labour: the Politics of the Common Good – are relevant to a broad audience who find the simplicities of Left as well as Right. Much of his think reflects the influence of Catholic Social Teaching, which has quite a lot to offer, whatever your religious views. What I found particularly interesting in the book was Glasman’s ideas for very local democracy and the potential for the much-derided ‘parish council. He also stands up for the return of ‘the ceremonial county’ as a unit of self-government, reflecting people’s continuing strong sense of identity with ‘their’ county. He says:

“There should be a redistribution of power to the smallest unit of self-government. The parish is an elemental aspect of our polity, ecclesiastical and temporal. The parish, the country, the town and the city remain the fundamental units of affection, attachment and affiliation.” (p. 116)

Glasman argues for a strengthening of local democracy and the need to learn from the brave experiments in popular participation by the Kurdish People’s Defence Units (YPG) in the Rojava area which did so much to defeat ISIS,  suggesting the revitalizing of local democracy through ‘parish communes’ inspired by their politics of the common good.

He counterposes ‘the ideology of globalization’ based on ‘the centrality of the internet, of online shopping and Netflix’ with active citizenship and says: ‘Unlike the parish council, which has very limited powers, the parish commune would be a direct democracy in which issues of immediate concern to residents could be addressed and voted upon….’

I’d say that there is scope to build on the work of some existing parish and town councils to develop his ideas for ‘parish communes (I keep putting in ‘Paris Commune’ which was quite a different and much bloodier  thing). The ‘Flatpack Democracy’ ideas developed by the ‘Independents for Frome’ have shown that what was a dreary and inactive parish council can be transformed. If Maurice hasn’t visited Frome, I’d suggest he hops on a GWR train and meets up with some of the Flatpack democrats: it would be a very productive conversation.

Finding my political Compass

After a slight reluctance (too many meetings in one day) I was persuaded by our CRP treasurer to attend the Compass open meeting in Manchester a few weeks’ ago to launch its ‘Winning as One’ campaign. Compass is a great organization, lobbying hard for greater democracy and a ‘politics of the common good’. A central focus is the need for voting reform, and getting proportional representation. Compass is ‘of the Left’ but provides welcome space for Greens, Lib Dems and nonaligned radicals (self included) as well as Labour types. Neal Lawson, founder of Compass and a great ‘bringer together’ of people, is currently under threat of expulsion from the Labour Party for advocating cross-party working , which is further reason why I’m less and less likely to vote Labour at a General Election.

The Manchester event included Andy Burnham, who spoke well, and passionately, on the need for PR and a more inclusive form of politics. It was held at the Night and Day Café in central Manchester and included some amazing street music from ‘Mr Wilson’s Second Levelers’. Compass described the evening:

The Greater Manchester Mayor joined Compass Deputy Director Frances Foley in conversation to discuss how progressives can build their collective power across the North ahead of the next general election. He called on the Labour Party to ‘lose its ambivalence to devolution’ and reflected on the mistakes New Labour made in leaving this programme of democratic renewal unfinished, warning that without electoral reform and a rewiring of our political system, we could be looking at ‘another Tory-dominated century.’ He said proportional representation could bring about a ‘massive switch of power to the people over the vested interests’, adding: “We have a parliament that doesn’t represent all people and all places equally. How can that possibly be acceptable to anybody in 2023?”

They added that “Winning As One means that instead of working against each other, progressives will campaign and fight together – not just against the Conservatives, but for a different, more collaborative kind of politics….at the last election, there was a higher concentration of ‘progressive tragedy’ seats in Greater Manchester than anywhere else in the country. These are seats where support for progressive parties outnumbered support for the Conservatives at the last general election, but the Tories still won because the progressive vote was split. Over half a million voters in Greater Manchester are represented by a Conservative who benefitted from this progressive division. We can’t let this happen again.”

A Lancashire Story

I’m enjoying Ged Melia’s latest novel – A Lancashire Story. It is initially set in a working class (Irish Catholic) family from Farnworth though we follow the fortunes of the family from as Austin progresses his career is an engineer – initially in a local colliery, then in the cotton industry. The novel features Allen Clarke’s ‘Teddy Ashton’ stories and also the Winter Hill Trespass of 1896. Ged has done his homework and it represents a realistic picture of working class life in south Lancashire at the end of the 19^th century. I’m half way through so looking forward to reading how the family fortunes end. A Lancashire Story is available on Amazon.

The Parbold Bottle

It was very nice to get an email from retired medic Ken Hampden, about a mysterious monument about our political history – The Parbold Bottle (thanks to being touch through the People’s History Museum). The ‘Parbold Bottle’ (see pic on the left with Ken) was erected in the 1830s following the passing of the 1832 Reform Act and is sited on the top of Parbold Hill, close to the Beacon. It looks across the Lancashire Plan and out to the Irish Sea.  The monument was originally sited a bit higher up but was relocated on a nearby spot in the 1950s. The monument poses many questions: who erected it and why there? The local landowner doesn’t appear to have been even moderately radical and Parbold wasn’t notable for its revolutionary zeal, though there were several local pits in the area. Why would the landowner have permitted the monument on his land? The 1832 was of course something of a damp squib, and disappointed working class hopes for at least make suffrage. The Chartist Movement emerged in the late 1830s to demand a much wider suffrage but the process took decades, with full adult suffrage taking nearly a century to achieve. It was interesting talking to Ken about the need for a modern day ‘Reform Act’ that would include proportional representation and regional devolution.  For now, the Parbold Bottle remains an enigma. It’s easy to locate: either walk up from the village or park at the top of Parbold Hill (ice cream van on hand) and walk down a short distance and a path goes off to the left. The monument is well looked after by the local and has some information about its history, as much as we know,

Salvo Shorts

Pear Mill

I’m a great fan of old mill buildings, particularly where they are being put to good modern-day uses. Yorkshire has probably more than we have over here, not least Salt’s Mill at Saltaire and the amazing mill complex in Halifax. However, there are some good examples around, particularly (as you’d expect) Manchester but also in East Lancs, Preston and Rochdale. Bolton continues to allow its mill heritage to be torn down. It was really interesting to visit Stockport recently and have a look round Pear Mill.

It is amazingly well-preserved and was one of the later examples of spinning mill, completed in 1912. There s a very good ‘antiques market’ with a café, and also a shop selling oatcakes (the Derbyshire version but very nice).  Nearby Vernon Mill has some galleries but we didn’t get chance to look: a good reason for a return visit. Very much welcome for other good examples of mill conversions/exciting uses for former mills or other industrial buildings.

Bradford-by-the-Sea: days out in Morecambe

Is Morecambe finally on the up? It looks so, following the granting of the half the cost of the new Eden Project, which will be located very close to what remains of Morecambe station. I’ve been a couple of times recently and liked the feel of the town. It isn’t as lively as when I lived there in 1971 when I was in my first year at Lancaster, but has gone through difficult times since. The Midland Hotel has made a huge difference to the town and I like the public art, mostly featuring birds and poetry, on view around the place. Heysham (by the way, pronounced ‘Hee-shum’) is a delightful spot and I found a place that still settles Nettle Beer (though not produced in the village any more). St Patrick’s church is one of the most lovely places anywhere, with fabulous views out to Morecambe Bay and (if you’ve good eyesight) Station House at Kents Bank. It’s a very pleasant walk from Heysham village back into Morecambe past ’The Battery’. Highly recommended is  Atkinson’s  fish restaurant on Albert Road.

I hope the train service improves. The community rail partnership for the Bentham Line (Leeds- Lancaster-Morecambe’) has been doing a grand job and has promoted the route as Britain’s first ‘dementia friendly line’.  Bare Lane, next station up the line, is a great example of station adoption. But Morecambe needs a better rail service including electrification (only a couple of miles required) and direct trains to Manchester and Liverpool.

Bradford itsel: JB Priestley celebrated in his home city

I was very impressed by Bradford’s Literature Festival which took place last week. I only managed to get to one event, but it was well worth the trip over from Accrington. The event was ‘Inspired by JB Priestley’s English Journey’ and was hosted by my pal Lindsay Sutton, who is also chair of the JB Priestley Society. Lindsay was born and bred in Bradford and had the good sense to move to Lancashire in his later years, probably trying to instill a bit of sense in us Lancs. (sorry Lindsay, couldn’t resist that). The panel discussion was introduced by Lindsay who had the pleasure of meeting Priestley in his later years and challenged him about why he travelled around the country for English Journey in a chauffeur-driven car! The panelists were John Higgs and Kathryn Walchester who both contributed fascinating aspects of Priestley’s work.  After that we adjourned to the Midland Hotel, which is always a delight. Maybe Priestley’s ghost was lurking in the bar enjoying a glass of Taylor’s bitter.

Kents Bank in Party Mode

Friends of Kents Bak Station and Foreshore held a very jolly Station Garden Party in May. There were plenty of stalls (the Plant Stall proved particularly popular) as well as an excellent local band (The Sands Band, see pic). There was a visiting mini traction engine and (thanks to Community rail Network) a special bus operating between the station, Allithwaite and Cartmel. The weather was lovely and it was great to see visiting station friends from as far afield as Mytholmroyd, Reddish South, Marple, Settle, Bolton and Littleboorugh. Thanks to Northern for their support.

Local MP Tim Farron visited the station recently and was impressed with the great work being done by the station volunteers. Meanwhile, the Beach Hut Gallery at the station has a new exhibition for the summer period. Well worth popping in, there’s some great stuff (open Thursday to Sunday 11.00 to 16.00)

Platform 5 Gallery

The P5 Gallery at Bolton Station has been hosting a great exhibition by students at Woodbridge College, following on from the success of their show last year. ‘True Colours’ is running for a few more weeks.

Explore Rivington by Bus – for Nowt!

The popular country park at Rivington is usually only accessible by car (or bike). However, for the third time running, South East Lancashire CRP has organised a Sundays/Bank Holidays bus service to serve the area. It’s the 125R and this year is operated by Stagecoach. It runs every hour from 10.40 to 16.40, from Horwich Parkway station via

Middlebrook and Horwich. It returns from Rivington Village Hall every hour from 11.00 17.00 and operates on a  ‘hail and ride’ basis.  It does a loop from Horwich via Rivington Lane, Horrobin Lane and back along New Road and Bolton Road to Horwich. IT’s FREE! Many thanks to Horwich Town Council and TfGM for their support.

Celebrating the life and achievements of the late Margaret Jackson through an exhibition of her artwork assembled by her family. These stunning works have been donated by them in the hope they will raise funds for the Bolton Hospice and Bury Hospital Cancer Ward, both of which looked after Margaret towards the end of her life. Margaret’s work explored many subjects and issues from trees and landscapes to mystical places, protest groups, allotments and architecture and the diversity and variety within the exhibition makes it quite unique.

Lancastrians: at a gradely book shop near you

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets – a new history is now available, published 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 publisher’s blurb says 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 has chapters covering culture, politics, sport, leisure, industry, religion as well as a ‘Cook’s Tour’ of the county (mostly by train). It explores the Lancastrians who left for new lives in America, Canada, Russia and South Africa, as well as the ‘New Lancastrians’ who have settled in the county since the 14^th century. There are about forty ‘potted biographies’ of men and women who have made important (but often neglected) contributions to Lancashire.

The book is published on June 29^th 2023 in hardback, price £25. Salvo readers can get a 25% discount by going to the publisher’s website (www.hurstpublishers.com) and enter the code LANCASTRIANS25 at checkout.

Lancastrians Launched around Lancashire

There are quite a few ‘launch’ events planned for the book. This is the current list up to mid-August:

• Grange Library: Wednesday July 12^th at 15.00
• Bolton Library (Lecture Theatre) July 13^th at 13.00
• Barrow Library: August 17^th at 14.00

I’m open to offers from community groups, societies, libraries and other organizations to talk about the book.

Last Train from Blackstock Junction

My new(isgh) 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 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.

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.

Talks, walks and wanderings

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’ve had already done several  talks on my new book ‘Lancastrians’ book including Chorley Historical Society, Blackrod Local History Group, Preston Retired Railwaymen and Stretford Probus Club.

Other topics I speak on 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

Since it has been a long gap since the last Salvo I’m leaving ‘readers’ Letters’ until Issue 312 – please send ‘em in.

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 £16

See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk for full details of the books (ignore the prices shown and use the above – add total of £3 per order for post and packing in UK)

The Northern Weekly Salvo 310

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

Moves afoot and a sad but joyous farewell

Sorry for the long gap since the last Salvo. I’ve been a bit distracted with house matters – as you’ll see below I’m upping sticks and moving to ‘Lancashire North of the Sands’ – to be more precise, Kents Bank, near Grange-over-Sands. I’m now joint owner of Station House, a fine old Furness Railway stationmaster’s house with splendid views across Morecambe Bay. It means I’m selling my lovely house (and some of the garden railway) at Harpers Lane.

Over the next couple of months there will be a steady transition to Kents Bank (served by hourly trains from Bolton). Work on Station House will be completed by early May so I’ll spend part of my time up there over the summer before taking up full residence when Harpers Lane is sold. I’ll keep a foothold in Bolton, through the Horwich sub-shed.

My friend and community rail stalwart Marjorie Birch died, suddenly, before Christmas. I attended a lovely celebration of her life at the Platform Gallery on Clitheroe station. Fittingly it was held on March 8^th, International Women’s Day. Marjorie did much to promote community involvement in Lancashire’s railways, bringing her huge experience as a teacher to the work of Community Rail Lancashire. It was nice to see many children from a local school at the memorial event.

HS2 – told you so…

The saga of the HS2 farce continues to unfold, with more and more of the ill-conceived project cut back. As The Times commented, it is becoming like ‘The Black Knight’ who continues to maintain he’s perfectly OK despite more and more of his limbs being cut off. “’Tis but a scratch!” The secretary of state’s announcement that the Birmingham – Crewe section is being deferred a couple of years ‘to save money’ ought to presage its total abandonment . As supporters of the scheme have said, deferring it for two years will end up costing more. Talk about throwing good money after bad. I suppose it will get as far as Birmingham given that a lot of the building work is underway. The chances of it getting to Crewe seem increasingly slim and – at least as currently projected – won’t ever reach Manchester. Good. This scheme would have done little to support regeneration in the North, other than development schemes in the immediate area around Piccadilly. The North desperately needs investment in the local and regional network. Personally I’m not that enthusiastic about ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’, the east-west high-speed route from the Mersey to York and the Humber. Too much of it is politically-driven (even the name!) including the bonkers idea of going via Bradford. The city has fared badly from lackof rail investment but the idea that you tunnel twenty miles under the Pennines to serve the city is yet another dream that will never materialise. Build Bradford Cross-Rail to connect up the two parts of the city’s rail network – that could be delivered in a realistic timeframe and bring real benefits. As for the main Manchester – Leeds route, invest in the existing Standedge route (including re-opening the disused tunnels) and electrify Calder Valley Line via Hebden Bridge and Bradford.

True Levellers would be aghast

Labour’s victory in the West Lancashire by-election last month was hardly unexpected; the best the Tories could come up in response was to say that the 10% swing wasn’t as much as they’d expected.  There were some big local issues which highlight the joke that the Government’s ‘levelling-up’ agenda has become.  In particular, the Department for Transport’s rejection of plans for a rail link to Skelmersdale, now the biggest town in the West Lancashire constituency. Skelmersdale (or ‘Skem’) was one of the 1960s new towns, built in the days when the car was king and planning was built around assumptions that universal car ownership was just a matter of time. So the railway that ran through the centre of the planned town was allowed to close and get built on. A community that grew to a population of over 40,000, mostly re-housed Liverpool families, was left stranded with only a slow bus service to get them into the city for jobs (if you were lucky) and to see friends and relatives.

In a positive display of partnership working, Conservative-controlled Lancashire County Council worked with Labour’s West Lancashire Borough Council and Liverpool City Region, with its Labour mayor Steve Rotheram, to come up with a plan to get Skelmersdale back on the rail network, with a short link to the existing electrified Merseyrail network at Kirkby.  It looked like a scheme tailor-made for the Government’s ‘levelling-up’ policy: getting people into jobs, offering an alternative to the car, and deliverable. Yet it was rejected as being ‘poor value for money’. Instead, a bus link has been provided to get people to the station at Kirkby. Experience has shown that these bus links, for relatively short journeys, are seldom well-used. People wanting to get to Liverpool city centre would use a direct train service, but taking a bus to then get a train is more problematic. Those that can would probably carry on driving to the nearest station.

The decision probably cost the Tories little more than a handful of votes – their supporters in Skelmersdale are a virtually extinct species. But it highlights the nonsense of civil servants in London having responsibility for a decision that should be made within the region. Meanwhile, about 30 miles to the east, the people of Oldham have been informed by the London-based Arts Council of England that all of their funding for the highly-respected Oldham Coliseum theatre is to cease. This means the theatre, which has worked hard to make itself inclusive and accessible to everyone in Oldham and beyond, will close down. The decision to stop funding the Oldham theatre is all the more perverse when the Arts Council has recognised regional imbalances yet still gone ahead with its plans that will see the end of one of the North’s most successful theatres.

About half way between Oldham and Skelmersdale is my (current) home town of Bolton. Fortunately, we’ve an excellent theatre which is, so far, managing to survive. We’ve got good rail links. Unfortunately, the fine town centre, dominated by the 150 years-old town hall, is crumbling, with empty shops and worse to come. A few weeks ago Marks and Spencer announced it was closing its town centre store, because of ‘changing shopper needs’ or some such bullshit. This comes on top of the general decline of the town centre which has seen Woolworth’s, Debenhams and dozens of small shops disappear and much-heralded development plans run into the sand. Marks and Spencer was the last remaining ‘quality’ store of any size in the town centre. Not to worry, there’s another Marks and Spencer, along with multiplex cinemas and all the big name chains, three miles away at Middlebrook – a large retail development which is poorly accessible by public transport – but has a huge free car park. The Tory-controlled Bolton Council has said it has been ‘in talks’ with the company to persuade them to stay but I suspect it would take a sizeable financial inducement to get them to reverse the decision. Not our problem? Well, yes, it is: it will accelerate the town centre’s decline with other shops and cafes that benefit from people coming into town to visit M&S becoming vulnerable. And oh yes, Bolton’s bid for ‘levelling-up’ funds to regenerate the town centre were recently turned down.

What all this adds up to is the absurdity of decisions that affect the lifeblood of communities being made by civil servants in London. The North needs strong, well-resourced  and democratically-accountable regional government that can work with local authorities and the private sector to support new railways, arts facilities, town centres and much more. It would be nice if Keir Starmer and his team showed more sign of recognising this.

This is based on an article in a recent issue of Chartist magazine (www.chartist.org.uk)

What future for the station booking office?

There are growing concerns that we are about to see ‘A Beeching of the Booking Offices’, in which most if not all station booking offices will disappear. This would be disastrous for all sorts of reasons. The Rail Reform Group held a well-attended seminar before Christmas in which some creative ideas for how to re-imagine the traditional booking office were explored. A paper has now been published on the Group’s website (https://railreformgroup.org.uk/). The three key suggestions in the paper are headed ‘Bringing About Change’:

“First, it appears to be clear that reform to ticketing is desirable before major changes are made to the provision of information and tickets at stations. Reform would simplify the decisions that would-be travellers have to make, making alternative provision of tickets, for example, through convenience stores, more viable.  Making changes without such reform risks eroding revenue even further.

Second, industry red tape needs to be cut back. There needs to be a way of changing the arrangements for selling tickets at stations which involve local communities and make it easier for 3^rd parties to sell tickets than is the case within the current regulatory framework.  There could for example be provision for 3^rd parties to be rewarded for guiding customers through transactions on their own devices or for direct ticket selling. The process of agreeing changes to building use and lessee where these lie outside the operational boundaries could also be made simpler.

Third, there is scope to change the way things are done, building on current examples of good practice which have used community-led change to deliver a more market-focused railway. Change should be collaborative involving staff, managers and local communities. The whole industry – Regulator, policy makers, staff and managers need to be open to this in order to create the best possible railway within the resources available. Where it is proposed to either ‘re-purpose’ or even close a booking office, there needs to be a clear and accountable process for this, which could include bodies such as Transport Focus and local community rail partnerships.”

• Meanwhile, The Beeching of the Buses continues, with little opposition. See Colin Speakman’s excellent piece, here: https://www.cnp.org.uk/blog/national-park-bus-services

Property Page:  FOR SALE: Garden Railway with Bungalow and large garden

So it’s time to move on from 109 Harpers Lane. I’ve been there nearly five years and I’ve loved it. But the attraction of my own Station House is too much to resist and keeping two houses going was neither viable nor ethical. I’ve bought the house jointly with Linda and we’ve spent the last three months getting work done on it – and spending far too much time going round B&Q, Wickes and the like. However, the aim is to restore as much of the historic features of the house as possible. Should be done by May: look out for announcements on events, including possibly one for Community Rail Day at the end of May.

Meanwhile, 109 Harpers Lane is being marketed by local estate agent Chris Ball. The asking price is £295,000, which doesn’t include the garden railway. This will be by separate negotiation as I’m hoping to accommodate at least some of it at Kents Bank. I’m hoping the house will sell over the summer. In the meantime I’m hoping to hold at least one garden party with the railway in full operation.

Details of my Bolton house are at: https://www.chrisballestates.co.uk/property-details/32156371/

Lancastrians: at a gradely book shop near you soon

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets will be published at the end of June 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 on June 29^th 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 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 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’ve had several requests to give talks on my forthcoming ‘Lancastrains’ book including one for Chorley Historical Society and Stretford Probus Club.

Other topics I speak on 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.

Talks..and films

There are some interesting talks coming up in the next few weeks.

• Tuesday March 14^th Horwich Heritage is hosting a talk on The Handloom Weavers of Horwich by Geoff Timmins, who has written extensively on handloom weaving in Lancashire. Starts 19.30 in the Resource Centre, Beaumont Road (small admission fee for non members.
• Tuesday March 21^st, 17.30 Bolton Town Hall (Mayor’s Parlour). ‘The Hidden Muslim Mayor of Victorian Manchester’. A talk by Robert ‘Reschid’ Stanley by his great x3 grand-daughter!
• On Wednesday March 22^nd Alan Fowler and Terry Wyke are giving a talk on The Gradely World of Sam Fitton at Oldham Gallery, 14.00. Fitton was a highly talented writer and artist.

This film sounds good: “A laugh-out-loud story of a dysfunctional Punjabi family in the pressure cooker life of a terraced suburban home in Slough. Newly arrived from India, naive Simmy has come to marry the family’s eldest son Raj, who shockingly does a runner, leaving Simmy locked in the house by her domineering mother-in-law. However, Simmy is smarter than she appears, and soon enlists the support of the family’s disgruntled in-laws, including a sugar crazed, diabetic grandpa and dangerous, but hot, brother in law, fresh out of jail. Together they plan Simmy’s big escape.” There’s a Bolton screening. See www.littleenglishfilm.com

READERS’ LETTERS

Salvo 309 had a good haul of readers’ letters, many on HS2 but most on the Christmas short story, The First Aid Phantom of Wayoh Sidings. It’s still on my website if you want to have an unseasonal catch-up:

 

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 £16

See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk for full details of the books (ignore the prices shown and use the above – add total of £3 per order for post and packing in UK)

Mates’ Stuff

Several of my friends are writers and I always try to give a good plug for their work. In the last Salvo I mentioned Martin Bairstow’s excellent new publication (well, updated new edition) on Railways in the Lake Counties. In the last couple of months I’ve had copies of new books from John Davies, Les Lumsdon and Nick Burton. Here’s a summary:

From Achill Island to Zennor

I’ve known John for a long time and always admired his broad knowledge of railways across the world. His latest offering, From Achill Island to Zennor, covers his wanderings ‘to the extremes of the British Isles’. There’s much on ‘Celtic Britain’, including his native Wales, Cornwall and Scotland. John travelled extensively in Ireland and the book features his trip to Achill and also explorations around Donegal, once served by the magnificent County Donegal Railway.  The book is well illustrated and anyone with an interest in ‘the wider Britain’ will love it. Email John for details on price and postage etc: johnbaytrans@btinternet.com

The Heart of Wales Line Trail

Les Lumsdon has updated his guide to the Heart of Wales LineTrail, a 141 mile route from Craven Arms to Llanelli. The walk uses well-established rights of way, taking you through magnificent Welsh and borders countryside. The walk was first mooted in 2015 and was taken forward by the then Arriva Trains Wales with the Heart of Wales Line Development Co. It was launched a couple of years later and has become one of the UK’s most popular long-distance trails. The Heart of Wales Line Trail is published by Kittiwake, price £10.95. See www.kittiwake-books.com

Walks for every season

Nick Burton has done much to promote walking as a healthy and accessible activity in Blackburn and the Ribble Valley. His booklet on Lancashire- Year Round Walks describes twenty walks, with five for each season of the year. It also includes ‘top pub recommendations’. It’s a very handy little production which fits easily into your pocket. Each walk includes a map of the route with suggestions for places to eat and drink. If I’ve any criticism it would be the lack of reference to public transport links – the assumption is you’ll get to the start by car. I suspect this is the publisher’s fault rather than Nick’s. Published by Countryside Books price £5.99 see www.countrysidebooks.co.uk

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.

………………………………………………………………………

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.

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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