Nice to se ‘Royal Scot’ in action recently. Here it leaves Manchester Victoria bound for Sheffield and York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWill Johnson depart? Probably not, at least until after the May elections. If the Tories do really badly, \u00a0then \u00a0maybe. And as for Cressida Dick \u2013 for the best comment I\u2019ve seen so far, look up Libby Purves in The Times<\/em>, February 14th<\/sup> (\u2018Cressida Dick deserved better than this exit\u2019). Always more to these things than meets the eye and her assessment sounds right. She ends with the comment \u201cif she had been allowed to get on with her reforms for a couple of years it would have been to our benefit. Instead of which an ineffective mayor dismays and demoralises the Met to make himself look strong.\u201d<\/p>\nThis issue has my thoughts on \u2018Levelling-up\u2019 as well as \u2018railways and literature\u2019, women dialect writers and Lord Leverhulme. I even stray into deepest Yorkshire. So you can\u2019t say I\u2019m not being inclusive. Well, I suppose you can.<\/p>\n
Do we want to be \u2018levelled-up\u2019?<\/strong><\/h5>\nMichael Gove\u2019s weighty \u2018Levelling-up\u2019 white paper has been met with predictable scorn. It\u2019s certainly long, and actually reads well – but lacks substance and real commitments to invest, repeating promises of \u2018jam tomorrow\u2019 that have already been made, such as The Integrated Rail Plan<\/em>, covered in the last Salvo.<\/em><\/p>\nJennifer Williams, in The Manchester Evening News<\/em>, offers a good review of the document. She makes the point: \u201cA new phrase is seeking to<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG_20220131_134220-175x300.jpg\")
If Manchester ‘levelled-up’ any more it would tipple over<\/figcaption><\/figure>\ndefine the political lexicon of the 2020s. \u2018Levelling up\u2019 is now everywhere and nowhere. It is everywhere, in that it is mentioned at every opportunity by the Prime Minister and his cabinet, repeated back by headlines, academics and think-tanks; it is nowhere, in that nobody yet knows what it means in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continues: \u201cNarrowing the regional divide is firmly on the agenda, post-electoral landslide. For years, many in this neck of the woods have been making arguments that are now becoming mainstream, as the political imperative turns towards holding seats not previously lavished with attention. So far, Number 10 has certainly been strong on transport and the need to improve infrastructure. Yet…..the issues underlying this debate are far more complex and structural than that, having been exacerbated by a decade of unequal austerity. It will require imagination, compassion, determination and getting out of Westminster to rebalance the inequality between north and south, as well as rich and poor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White Paper runs to a total length of 332 pages, including the Executive Summary. If you measured the usefulness of Government<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG_20220119_141923-300x225.jpg\")
Stereotypical Northern views no. 332…Sowerby Bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nreports by volume, it would certainly be up there as a winner. Yet various commentators have pointed out the lack of real commitment, some comparing the huge investment poured into eastern Germany post-unification. It\u2019s full of good intentions; there\u2019s much useful evidence on regional disparities. It presents ten \u2018missions\u2019, or promises to get things done. But how much is wishful thinking? It tells us that \u2018levelling-up\u2019 means:<\/p>\n
\n- boosting productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector, especially in those places where they are lagging<\/li>\n
- spreading opportunities and improving public services, especially in those places where they are weakest<\/li>\n
- restoring a sense of community, local pride and belonging, especially in those places where they have been lost, and<\/li>\n
- empowering local leaders and communities, especially in those places lacking local agency<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The white paper highlights the Italian renaissance where city states \u201ccombined innovation in finance with technological breakthroughs, the cultivation of learning, ground-breaking artistic endeavour, a beautiful built environment and strong civic leadership,\u201d which is all very nice.<\/p>\n
But coming back down to hard reality, what does it mean for places like<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_20210429_122553-300x225.jpg\")
Bolton station on a dull day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBolton – a classic so-called \u2018Left Behind\u2019 town, with \u2018red wall\u2019 constituencies that turned blue, in which even many of its residents seem to glory in its accolade as one of the country\u2019s \u2018crap towns\u2019, if social media is much to go by.<\/p>\n
The town, and many others like it, has been the victim of three disasters. The first was the Thatcher years which saw the collapse of its core industries, cotton and engineering compounded by imposition of stringent cuts in local government spending and privatisation of services. Secondly, the town had a lacklustre Labour administration that was overwhelmed by the challenges it faced with little strategic vision and an assumption among senior councillors that their seats were safe. The third disaster was the election of a Tory Government in 2010 committed to further austerity. The cumulative effect on a once-prosperous town was catastrophic, with the loss of well-paid (and unionised) jobs, a town centre full of empty shops and \u2018pound stores\u2019, and the usual panoply of anti-social behaviour, drug-related crime and the rest. The creation of out-of-town shopping centres was yet another nail in the town\u2019s coffin.<\/p>\n
So what should \u2018levelling-up\u2019 mean to towns like Bolton? To be honest, I hate the term. It suggests that we all aspire to be like Slough, Basingstoke or Crawley: car-dominated, alienated suburbs. Actually, many people in Bolton want to be more like their image of how it used<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/IMG_-276hh6-300x300.jpg\")
Lancashire patriotism? Yes please<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nto be, with a flourishing town centre, locally-based jobs and a council that had real power to do things. They resented being coerced into \u2018Greater Manchester\u2019 and remain proud to be \u2018Lancastrian\u2019. In turn, the smaller satellite towns such as Farnworth and Horwich don\u2019t like being lumped into a monolithic local authority, foisted on them in 1974 without so much as a by your leave.<\/p>\n
So the third objective (above) of \u2018restoring a sense of community, pride and belonging\u2019 isn\u2019t something that Westminster can impose. In fact, it\u2019s already there (in a sulk) but needs the powers and resources to do things which the fourth objective promises, of \u2018empowering local leaders and communities\u2019.<\/p>\n
Somehow, I can\u2019t see that happening under the present administration, and as yet there\u2019s not much sign of it being done under one led by Keir Starmer, though Lisa Nandy seems to be getting into her new role as Gove\u2019s oppo. Let\u2019s see.<\/p>\n
(this is based on my latest piece for my regular column \u2018Points and Crossings\u2019 in Chartist<\/em> magazine see www.chartist.org.uk)<\/p>\nMessroom poets and brake van philosophers<\/strong><\/h5>\nI recently gave a talk for Horwich Heritage on \u2018railway workers\u2019 culture\u2019. It covered a lot of ground and gave me the nudge to re-visit a paper I wrote back in 2004 called \u2018Messroom poets and brake-van philosophers\u2019, about railway art and literature in Britain. It was partly inspired by my time as a guard at Blackburn in the 1970s. I have very fond memories of the people I worked with, some of whom had a degree of cultural awareness I\u2019ve not come across since, in academia,<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/WalterHampson1932-194x300.jpg\")
Walter Hampson – driver at Normanton, dialect writer and editor in his spare time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\ngovernment, or railway management. This isn\u2019t hero worship. The messroom didn\u2019t resound to debates on Kantian metaphysics, nor the leading role of the proletariat in the socialist revolution (though I do recall a heated discussion on the merits of Beethoven versus Mozart!). But quite a few of the men were very well-read, some were skilled musicians, and lots had a real interest in the wider cultural world around them. Hardly any had a \u2018formal\u2019 education, and I can remember Sid Townsend (ex-Rose Grove, \u2018Long Sid\u2019) fulminating against the narrowness of modern university education, typified by a management trainee doing a stint as train crew supervisor. \u2018He knows all abeawt ancient Greek history, but bugger all abeawt owt else\u2019. Damned forever. Jack Bradley, ex-Lower Darwen driver, noted for his flat cap which was possibly older than himself, was a crossword expert. I don\u2019t mean the Mirror \u2018quick crossword\u2019 but the Times, Telegraph and Guardian species.<\/p>\n
The full version is here: http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/railway-workers-culture<\/p>\n
Lord Leverhulme: saint or sinner?<\/strong><\/h5>\nWilliam Hesketh Lever \u2013 later to become Baron Leverhulme of Bolton-le-Moors \u2013 is one of the most important figures in Lancashire\u2019s history. There is no doubt that he was a great benefactor to Bolton and a pioneer of good quality \u2018social housing\u2019, the six-hour working day, pensions and a strong believer in women\u2019s equality. But there was a dark side to him, most obviously in his company\u2019s activities in the Belgian Congo, but also his attempt to eradicate the way of life of the crofting people on Lewis and Harris. His defenders would say this was done with the best of intentions, but we all know where those can lead us!<\/p>\n
In recent years students at Bolton School have researched the story of Lever, who was a major benefactor of the School, in the light of the \u2018Black Lives Matter\u2019 movement. \u00a0Lever wasn\u2019t a slaver, but he was complicit in forced labour. Let\u2019s have a look at his record.<\/p>\n
He was born at 16 Wood Street, Bolton, in 1851. The fine Georgian building remains and has been home to Bolton Socialist Club since 1905, ironic in view of Lever\u2019s life-long Liberal beliefs. He inherited the parental Nonconformity and was a member of Bolton Congregational Church. He went into the family grocery business and quickly excelled as a businessman and marketeer, expanding the family business to Wigan and elsewhere. He developed the \u2018Sunlight\u2019 brand of soap which became a household name. Its fame spread from Bolton to the whole of the British Empire. It made him enormously rich. He developed his own \u2018garden city\u2019 on the banks of the Mersey, which he called \u2018Port Sunlight\u2019. It was a model community with good quality housing and social and educational facilities for his workers and their families.<\/p>\n
There was a price to pay if you were one of Lever\u2019s employees. The secretary of the Bolton Engineers\u2019 Union wrote to him saying \u201cno man of an independent turn of mind can breathe for long the atmosphere of Port Sunlight…the profit-sharing system not only enslaves and degrade the workers, it tends to make them servile and sycophant, it lowers them to the level of machines tending machines.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is no doubt that Lever expected complete subservience from his workforce, though he did accept trades unions in his factories. One union negotiator described him as a \u2018martinet\u2019 while other colleagues quickly realised that there was only one right way of doing things \u2013 his way.<\/p>\n
This inability to compromise was to cost him dearly, with his ill-conceived plans to transform the Hebridean islands of Harris and Lewis into modern industrial communities, dragging the crofting people out of poverty and providing them with good housing and sanitation. He purchased the two islands in 1918 and set about his ambitious plans with gusto. The only problem was that the crofters were quite happy with their traditional way of life, and just wanted to own their own small plots of land \u2013 to which they resorted to guerrilla tactics to achieve. Within five years his plans were in tatters and the huge investment was wasted. The irony was that if Lever had listened to what the islanders were asking, his own ambitions could probably have been reconciled with theirs.<\/p>\n
Lever\u2019s role in the Belgian Congo and Solomon Islands was even more problematic, where the same tendency to exert total control \u2013 even if it was for your own good, as he would have seen it \u2013 caused him to become embroiled in the use of forced labour to coerce African workers to produce the palm oil essential for his soap manufacturing process. The coercion involved violence and imprisonment of workers and their families, leading to questions being asked in the Belgian Parliament, which had initially welcomed Lever\u2019s investment.<\/p>\n
At home, Lever \u2013 Baron Leverhulme of Bolton-le-Moors from 1917 \u2013 never lost his links with Bolton. He was elected mayor of the town in 1918 and a few years earlier produced a remarkable vision for \u2018Bolton as it is and as it might be\u2019, crafted by the landscape architect Thomas Mawson. Most of his ideas never saw the light of day, but what did was his lasting legacy to the people of Bolton: the Rivington Estate and Lever Park. He saved historic Hall i\u2019th\u2019Wood from decay and probable destruction and gifted it to the people of Bolton. He died in 1925 and in his will provided for the establishment of the Leverhulme Trust, which continues to support a vast range of research and educational projects.<\/p>\n
William Lever: saint or sinner? Let history judge.<\/p>\n
(based on a feature published recently in The Bolton News<\/em> \u2018Looking Back pages)<\/p>\n
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done with the Market Kitchen \u2013 a large open eating space with lots of food outlets \u2013 ranging from your traditional hearty Barnsley fare to Thai, Greek, Indian and more. Up the hill, past the splendid town hall (now home to Experiencing Barnsley local history museum) is The Cooper Gallery which has lots of good material and a nice cafe (where I once met Dickie Bird, who is celebrated in a nearby statue, even though he\u2019s still alive).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG_20220202_124036-225x300.jpg\")
other things to interest the visitor. The Heritage Centre website says that following the surrender of the lease by the trustees of Elsecar Heritage Railway in August 2020,\u00a0 combined with the Pandemic, the future of the railway is under review and a consultation process will start very shortly. Let\u2019s hope the railway will return, it\u2019s an important part of what the heritage centre offers.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG_20220205_141203-300x187.jpg\")