It\u2019s summer…time for a new book to blossom<\/strong><\/h5>\nThe new and updated edition of my biography of Allen Clarke (Allen Clarke \u2013 Teddy Ashton: Lancashire\u2019s Romantic Radical<\/em>) is back from the printers and looks good, apart from a few annoying typos. \u00a0There is a lot of new material in it, including an entirely new chapter on Clarke\u2019s ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Allen-Clarke-cover-200x300.jpg\")
railway writings. The Bolton News<\/em> carried a feature on his novels recently (June 16th<\/sup>) \u2013 there\u2019s a word version of it below. The official publication date will be September 1st<\/sup> but I am doing a pre-publication offer for \u00a315, with free local delivery in the Bolton area, or add on \u00a33 for UK postage.\u00a0 You can download an order form from my website, below, or there\u2019s one at the back of this newsletetr: http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/order-form<\/p>\nI\u2019m hoping to do a number of launch events in late August or early September. If you\u2019d like to host a launch, even for a small group of people, please let me know.<\/p>\n
Who was<\/em> Allen Clarke?<\/h4>\nMore than any other writer of the early 20th<\/sup> century, he captured the essence of life in the industrial North. He was born into a working class Bolton family in 1863 but most of his later life was spent in Blackpool. He followed his parents into the mill, starting as a \u2018half-timer at the age of 11. He went on to write over 20 novels, dozens of short stories and poems as well as factual accounts of life in the factories, one of which was translated into Russian by Tolstoy, whom he greatly admired as a writer and political thinker.<\/p>\nHis sketches in Lancashire dialect (written as \u2018Teddy Ashton\u2019) \u201cpoked sly fun and undermining sarcasm\u201d at the social evils of the day and sold over a million copies. His newspapers, like Teddy Ashton\u2019s Northern<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Christmas-2-191x300.jpg\")
Cover of one of his hugely popular ‘Annuals’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWeekly<\/em>, were read and passed round mill and factory by thousands. His book Windmill Land<\/em> popularised the Fylde countryside and is a mix of history, folklore and roadsides chats.<\/p>\nThe new edition includes lots of new material which sheds more light on this important, but neglected figure in English literature who was loved by thousands of his readers in the textile districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. He had a close relationship with his audience and one group of Manchester railwaymen wrote to Clarke protesting at the abrupt way he ended one of his novels!<\/p>\n
As well as his own work, Clarke encouraged other working class men and women to write for his newspapers and was instrumental in forming the Lancashire Authors\u2019 Association in 1911. His \u2018readers\u2019 picnics\u2019 attracted hundreds of visitors, often arriving by train or bicycle.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Lancs-Romantic-Radical-cover-300x300.jpg\")
Cover of the 2009 edition, now out of print<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOne, at Barrow Bridge near Bolton in 1901, was held to raise funds for the locked-out quarry workers at Penrhyn, Wales; it was attended by several thousand, including the Clarion Choir. He mobilised his child readers to raise funds for the starving families and organised cycle trips to the quarry villages.<\/p>\n
After his move to Blackpool he created the Blackpool Ramble Club, one of the biggest walking clubs in the country. He died in December 1935 and is buried at Marton Cemetery, close to the windmill that is now a shrine to his memory.<\/p>\n
Unlikely Pioneers<\/strong><\/h5>\nI\u2019ve been working on a new edition of my \u2018Whitman\u2019 book \u2013 With Walt Whitman in Bolton \u2013 spirituality, sex and socialism in a Northern Mill town<\/em> \u2013 ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Walt-Whitman-cover-v2-200x300.jpg\")
last published in 2019 though little changed since 2009. I\u2019ve combined it with a lengthy paper on Whitman\u2019s influence on \u2018Northern Socialism\u2019 and re-titled it Unlikely Pioneers: Walt Whitman, the Bolton Boys and Northern Socialism<\/em>.<\/p>\nI\u2019m debating whether to do a print edition or just publish it on kindle, which makes life easier in terms of an international readership. Readers\u2019 views welcome!<\/p>\n
The latest Salvo<\/strong><\/h5>\nThe latest edition of my blog\/e-newsletter or whatever, is out and can be downloaded from here:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/northern-weekly-salvo-294<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nThe latest edition carries comment on the Labour Party\u2019s current quandaries, progressive regionalism and the latest Government \u2018Plan for Rail\u2019. There\u2019s a Salvo take on the recent Lib Dem by-election victory and comments on Batley and Spen, which is now history. The media had more or less conceded victory to the Tories; my take was that they could be wrong, and they were.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Bolton novels\u2019 of Allen Clarke<\/strong><\/h5>\nAllen Clarke, born in Daubhill (Bolton) in 1863, was one of the most important figures in Northern literature between the early 1890s and late 1930s. Today his work is largely forgotten. Yet he was loved by tens of thousands of Lancashire mill workers and had an astonishing output of dialect sketches, poetry, journalism and works of philosophy. He wrote over 20 novels, most of which were never published in book form, but appeared in newspapers across Britain and even beyond.<\/p>\n
Most of his novels are set in Bolton, where he was born and bred. He was never part of the upper class literati \u2013 his parents were mill workers, and he started his working life as a half-timer at the age of 11.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1.-Clarke-244x300.jpg\")
Portrait of the author as a young lad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHis subject matter was the people he knew and the places he grew up in. His parents encouraged his love of writing; at the age of 14 he won a national prize for one of his poems. As his writing developed he had a clear aim \u2013 to be a writer of the people and for the people. In 1896 he said: \u201cMy aim today is to give the working class life (of Lancashire principally, for that I know best) faithful expression in the literature of England<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nHis first published novel was The Lass at the Man and Scythe<\/em>, written in 1889 and published in book form (by himself) in 1891. It was printed by Pendlebury\u2019s of Bolton. The \u2018Lass\u2019 was later revised and extended, re- titled John O\u2019God\u2019s Sending<\/em>. It is a story of the Civil War, set in Bolton\u00a0in 1644. It contained many of the themes that featured in his later novels. There is tragedy, a conventional love story, and a healthy dose of radical politics. His preface to the first edition of the book is an early example of his attempt to engage the reader:<\/p>\n\u201cWith the aid of that wizard\u2019s wand, a pen, dipped into that magic fluid, ink, the Boltonians who live and move again (at least I hope so) in the following pages have been temporarily raised from the dead. For taking the liberty of resurrecting them somewhat prematurely I beg their pardon. If I have done the business clumsily and inconvenienced these characters in any manner whatever I humbly tender my apologies. I am but a novice at the work<\/em>\u2026\u2026\u201d<\/p>\nThe novel revolves around the ancient Bolton\u00a0pub, The Man and Scythe, still standing opposite the town cross, where the Earl of Derby was executed for his part in the Siege of Bolton in 1644. Royalist soldiers, led by the Earl and Prince Rupert, besieged the town siege and massacred a large number of the townspeople, who supported the Parliamentary side. Clarke sets the wider political context in characteristic style:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe war that was taking up the time, money, and blood of the nation at this period was a struggle for supremacy between King and Parliament. The King wanted to do exactly as he pleased; the people, as represented by Parliament – wanted to do what they pleased. As a rule, when two parties each resolve to please themselves, it pleases neither. It was so in this instance. Both were obstinate. The monarch had on his side \u2018the divine right of Kings\u2019; but that is not much when opposed to the superior force of revolutionary masses.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\nClarke favoured the Parliamentary side but the novel shows that things are never black and white, and creates some positive, human characters amongst the Royalists.<\/p>\n
A very important part of this first novel is the extensive use of dialect amongst its characters. Early in the novel we find this exchange between Bolton\u00a0characters, sat in the pub debating the war:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow think ye the cavaliers will fare in York?\u201d asked Isaiah Crompton.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cThey sen they\u2019ll howd eawt till th\u2019King sends a force to their relief,\u201d said Cockerel, \u201cthough for my part I think as they\u2019ll have hard wark for\u2019t keep Fairfax eawt o\u2019th\u2019city.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cWheer\u2019s that wild Prince Rupert, what feights like Satan<\/em>?\u201d queried Roger Roscoe, a farmer.<\/p>\n\u201cDeawn tort Lunnon, somewhere, i\u2019them forrin parts<\/em>,\u201d replied another.<\/p>\nThe novel was a success. Readers enjoyed the local connections, the \u2018homely\u2019 characterisation and use of dialect, the love interest \u00a0combined with the horror and violence of the siege. It was subsequently re-written and enlarged as John O\u2019God\u2019s Sending<\/em> and published in book form in 1919.<\/p>\nHis next novel was The Knobstick<\/em>, completed in 1891 and serialised in his paper The Bolton Trotter<\/em>\u00a0from October 21st 1892 and later published in book form. \u00a0\u2018Knobstick\u2019 is an abusive Lancashire term for strike-breaker or \u2018blackleg\u2019 which has long gone out of use. This time Clarke used a near-contemporary event \u2013 the Bolton\u00a0Engineers\u2019 Strike of 1887 \u2013 as the backdrop to the story.<\/p>\nSome of Clarke\u2019s themes from The Lass at the Man and Scythe<\/em>\u00a0re-emerge: a love story, a dramatic event \u2013 in this case the strike, with a powerful riot scene. The novel was celebrated by the East German writer Mary Ashraf\u00a0in a schoalrly article in 1976, who identifies the beginning of the novel as being of very high literary quality, suggesting \u201cif that quality had been maintained throughout, the book might have been a masterpiece<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nThe engineers\u2019 strike is a central part of the novel and Clarke builds up a sense of an impending struggle through the union secretary Peter Banks and his wife:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gooin to strike Jane<\/em>,\u201d said Peter Banks to his wife one evening, speaking, as he always did to her, in the dialect.<\/p>\n\u201cGod forbid<\/em>!\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s so for aw that<\/em>,\u201d continued Peter, \u201can I\u2019m afraid as it\u2019ll\u00a0 come\u00a0 off\u00a0 this\u00a0 time.\u00a0 Th\u2019men\u2019s\u00a0 gradely dissatisfied, an fully resolved to have mooar money\u2026It\u2019ll be a mighty struggle if it begins and there\u2019s dozen\u2019s what\u2019ll ne\u2019er see o\u2019er it. Of course eaur society\u2019s very rich at present an\u2019 con howd eaut a good while; but t\u2019mesturs con howd eaut longer. I\u2019m willin for t\u2019 strike anyday, but I\u2019d rayther not. I con feight as weel as anybody when I\u2019m put to, but it seems a silly gam to me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nIt\u2019s melodramatic stuff but well told; it appealed to the readers he was aiming at. After tragedy there is a happy ending with hero and heroine \u00a0married; the strike ends and a new era begins in the town, with working men elected to the council.<\/p>\n
During the 1890s Clarke was working flat out, editing and publishing his Northern Weekly<\/em>. He wrote much of the copy, including a steady stream of novels including The Little Weaver<\/em>, Lancashire Lasses and Lads<\/em>, A Daughter of the Factory<\/em>, A Curate of Christ\u2019s, For a Man\u2019s Sake <\/em>and Slaves of Shuttle and Spindle<\/em>. All of these are set in the Lancashire mill towns, mostly Bolton – often fictionalised as \u2018Spindleton\u2019.<\/p>\nThe Little Weaver<\/em>\u00a0proved popular with his readers, who identified with the characters in the tale; as so with most of his novels, it was about people like them. It has this powerful image of a mill coming to life on Monday morning:<\/p>\n\u201cThen, slowly, at six o\u2019clock precisely, there stole a huzzing murmur on the silence; the shafts began to revolve, the straps that chained the looms creaked, stretched and yawned, as if reluctant to begin their duty, and commenced to climb languidly up to the ceiling, quickening their speed with every turn; the huzzing murmur grew and grew; the weavers touched the levers of their looms one by one, and set them on. The murmur had now become a rattling roar; the sound swelled; the straps whizzed faster; the threads of the warp flowed into the loom like a slow broad stream, and the shuttle darted across them like a swallow, binding them together and making them into cloth; there was creaking and groaning of wheels; the hissing and spluttering of leather straps, as if the animal moaned painfully in its hide; the air grew warmer; the noise became deafening; you could not hear your own voice; and the weaving shed was in full swing<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nClarke hated what industrialism had done to the Lancashire countryside. In Driving<\/em>\u00a0– a tale of weavers and their work<\/em>, he contrasts what Lancashire once was with how it is day, but even here there is a sense of a tremendous human achievement which has somehow been abused:<\/p>\n\u201cWhat a marvellous transformation James Watt\u2019s steam engine, aided by the spinning and weaving inventions of Kay, Hargreaves and Crompton had wrought in a hundred years; an agricultural and pasturing shire had been turned into a county of manufacture; Lancashire\u2019s wild moorland vales had become the smoky workshop of the world; and once sweet hillsides were now cinder-heaps and once- bright brooks were now sinking sewers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nLancashire Lasses and Lads<\/em>, set in Bolton and Farnworth, was first published 1896 and in book form 10 years later. The hero, Dick Dickinson, is the son of a factory master who forces his son to leave the family home and \u2018descend\u2019 into the working class, where he meets and falls in love with a young weaver, Hannah. \u00a0Again, Clarke is fascinated by the awesome power and beauty of the factory contrasted with the reality of life inside the mills. Dick Dickinson, when he arrives in Bolton early in the morning, sees the mills coming to life:<\/p>\n\u201cLights began to show in the great factories of four or five stories, with their many windows. Soon they were all lit up like a vast illumination. \u2018Very pretty to look at from the outside, and at a distance on a black frosty morning,\u2019 said Dick, \u2018but it\u2019s a different matter toiling inside them\u2019<\/em>.”<\/p>\nClarke was a friend of the Tillotson family which published The Bolton Evening News<\/em> and Bolton Journal<\/em>, both of which carried his writing, long after he had left Bolton to live in Blackpool. The\u00a0 company set up the Tillotson Newspaper Fiction Bureau to syndicate novels and short stories for newspapers across the British Empire. Many of Clarke\u2019s novels and short stories were published in such seemingly unlikely newspapers as The Forfar Herald, Western Evening Herald, The Devon Valley Tribune<\/em> (Clackmannanshire) and The Kilrush Herald and the Kilkee Gazette<\/em> of West Clare. Quite what they made of the Lancashire dialect I can\u2019t imagine.<\/p>\nClarke\u2019s novels were of their time but remain readable and offer real insight into Lancashire life in the late 19th<\/sup> century. Some of them deserve re-printing, perhaps starting with \u2018The Knobstick\u2019.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s \u2018Wakes Week\u2019….or is it \u2018Bolton Holidays\u2019?<\/strong><\/h5>\nAcross Lancashire, from late June, the cotton towns started to close down for the fortnightly holiday. It was actually a short-lived tradition, taking off after the Second World War (when paid holidays came in) and ending with the decline of the cotton industry in the 1980s. Some places called it \u2018Wakes Week\u2019 though my own memories in Bolton (and many friends) are of \u2018Bolton Holidays\u2019. Take your pick \u2013 maybe there were localised differences, with Great Lever people calling it \u2018Bowtun Holidays\u2019 and Daubhill people saying \u2018Wakes Week\u2019? Over the Pennines in Yorkshire, Huddersfield had separate holidays for engineers and textile workers, which was a bit tricky if dad worked in engineering and mum in the mill, as many people did.\u00a0 Further research is needed. Anyroad, take a look at this, from last week\u2019s Bolton News<\/em>:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/19416154.wakes-week—folk-bolton-headed-off-coast\/<\/p>\n
Make Greater Manchester Greater (from Salvo 294)<\/strong><\/h5>\nAs a proud Boltonian I have never been comfortable with the idea of being part of \u2018Greater Manchster\u2019 preferring the original, admittedly cumbersome title of \u2018South East Lancashire and North-East Cheshire\u2019 used by the buses. SELNEC. They could have added \u2018with bits of The West Riding of the Yorkshire\u2019 recognising Saddleworth\u2019s inclusion in the area. Greater Manchester doesn\u2019t really work. And I deeply disagree<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Lancashire-United-logo-jpeg-300x300.jpg\")
Just call it ‘Lancashire’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nwith the contemporary obsession with \u2018city regions\u2019 in which the \u2018city\u2019 will always dominate the satellite towns. Years ago I remember my friend David Begg talking about \u2018Greater Manchester\u2019 in a transport context pointing out that its hinterland goes well beyond its current boundaries. He was right then (1990s?) and that perception is truer today than ever. Blackburn and North-East Lancashire are very much part of the wider hinterland that relates to Manchester itself. So is Preston and \u2013 more arguably \u2013 Warrington. Lancashire itself, in administrative terms, is a total shambles, with unitary authorities for Blackpool and \u2018Blackburn with Darwen\u2019 and talk of carving up what remains of local government into larger and even less accountable districts.<\/p>\n
There is an alternative! Make Greater Manchester into a much bigger entity, more or less recreating \u2018Lancashire\u2019 but with boundaries which make political, economic and cultural sense now. I\u2019d be inclined to leave Merseyside (or \u2018Liverpool City Region\u2019) as a separate entity with Chester. But it would all need a lot of debate and discussion rather than the forced imposition of an alien concept, back in 1974. The new \u2018Greater Lancastria\u2019 should have an elected assembly along similar lines to the existing devolved administrations, with re-constituted local authorities which should have more, rather than less, power.<\/p>\n
Other books from th\u2019same shed: Moorlands, Memories and Reflections<\/strong><\/h5>\nStill available. \u00a02020 was the centenary of the publication of Allen Clarke\u2019s Moorlands and Memories<\/em>, sub-titled \u2018rambles and rides in the fair places of Steam-Engine Land<\/em>\u2019. It\u2019s a lovely book, very readable and entertaining, even if he sometimes got his historical facts slightly wrong. It was set in the area which is now described as \u2018The West Pennine Moors\u2019 It also included some fascinating accounts of life in Bolton itself in the years between 1870 and the First World War, with accounts of the great engineers\u2019 strike of 1887, the growth of the co-operative movement and the many characters whom Clarke knew as a boy or young man.<\/p>\nMy book is a centenary tribute to Clarke\u2019s classic – Moorlands, Memories ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Moorlands-Memories-Reflections-cover-207x300.jpg\")
and Reflections<\/em>. It isn\u2019t a \u2018then and now\u2019 sort of thing though I do make some historical comparisons, and speculate what Clarke would have thought of certain aspects of his beloved Lancashire today. There are 28 chapters, covering locations and subjects which Clarke wrote about in the original book, with a few additions. It includes the Winter Hill rights-of-way battle of 1896 and Darwen\u2019s \u2018freeing of the moors\u2019; \u00a0a few additional snippets about the Bolton \u2018Whitmanites\u2019, handloom-weaving, railway reminiscences, the remarkable story of \u2018The Larks of Dean\u2019 and Lancashire\u2019s honourable tradition of supporting refugees (including the much-loved Pedro of Halliwell Road). The story of Lancashire children\u2019s practical support for the locked-out quarryworkers of Snowdonia in 1900-3 is covered in some detail, including the remarkable \u2018Teddy Ashton Picnic\u2019 of 1901 in Barrow Bridge, which attracted 10,000 people. It will be profusely illustrated.<\/p>\nIt is available price \u00a321, with \u00a34 post and packing. Go to http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/order-form<\/a><\/p>\nfor details of how to order. I can do free delivery locally (within 6 miles of Bolton).<\/p>\n
The Works: a tale of love, lust, labour and locomotives<\/strong><\/h6>\nI\u2019ve had a steady flow of orders for The Works<\/em>, my novel set mostly in Horwich Loco Works in the 1970s and 1980s, but bringing the tale up to date and beyond \u2013 a fictional story of a workers\u2019 occupation, Labour politics, a \u2018people\u2019s franchise\u2019 and Chinese investment in UK rail.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had lots of good reactions to it, with some people reading it in one ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/The-Works-195x300.jpg\")
session. The Morning Star<\/em> hated it. If you want a copy I can offer it for \u00a310 plus \u00a32.50 postage to those of you on this mailing list. Please make cheques payable to \u2018Paul Salveson\u2019 and post to my Bolton address above or send the money by bank transfer (a\/c Dr PS Salveson 23448954 sort code 53-61-07 and email me with your address). If you are local I can do free delivery by e-bike (so just a tenner<\/strong>). There is a kindle version available price \u00a34.99 and you can also buy it off Amazon. See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve already read and hopefully enjoyed The Works<\/em> it would be great if you could do a short review of it on my facebook page (Lancashire Loominary). Feedback on how it could have been better is also welcome, especially as I\u2019m starting work on the next novel (see below).<\/p>\nThe Works <\/em>is available in the following outlets \u2013 please support them! If you know of any local shop which might like to take my books please let me know. I do a third discount, sale or return.<\/p>\n\n- Justicia Fair Trade Shop, Knowsley Street, Bolton<\/li>\n
- The Wright Reads, Winter Hey Lane, Horwich (currently closed)<\/li>\n
- Bunbury\u2019s Real Ale Shop, 397 Chorley Old Road<\/li>\n
- Pendle Heritage Centre, Barrowfoed<\/li>\n
- Smethurst\u2019s Newsagents, Markland Hill<\/li>\n
- Pike Snack Shack, Rivington<\/li>\n
- Horwich Heritage Centre<\/li>\n
- A Small Good Thing, Church Road Bolton<\/li>\n
- Carnforth Bookshop<\/li>\n
- The Lakeland Gallery, Bo\u2019ness<\/li>\n
- Penrallt Bookshop, Machynlleth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
railway writings. The Bolton News<\/em> carried a feature on his novels recently (June 16th<\/sup>) \u2013 there\u2019s a word version of it below. The official publication date will be September 1st<\/sup> but I am doing a pre-publication offer for \u00a315, with free local delivery in the Bolton area, or add on \u00a33 for UK postage.\u00a0 You can download an order form from my website, below, or there\u2019s one at the back of this newsletetr: http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/order-form<\/p>\nI\u2019m hoping to do a number of launch events in late August or early September. If you\u2019d like to host a launch, even for a small group of people, please let me know.<\/p>\n
Who was<\/em> Allen Clarke?<\/h4>\nMore than any other writer of the early 20th<\/sup> century, he captured the essence of life in the industrial North. He was born into a working class Bolton family in 1863 but most of his later life was spent in Blackpool. He followed his parents into the mill, starting as a \u2018half-timer at the age of 11. He went on to write over 20 novels, dozens of short stories and poems as well as factual accounts of life in the factories, one of which was translated into Russian by Tolstoy, whom he greatly admired as a writer and political thinker.<\/p>\nHis sketches in Lancashire dialect (written as \u2018Teddy Ashton\u2019) \u201cpoked sly fun and undermining sarcasm\u201d at the social evils of the day and sold over a million copies. His newspapers, like Teddy Ashton\u2019s Northern<\/em><\/p>\nCover of one of his hugely popular ‘Annuals’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWeekly<\/em>, were read and passed round mill and factory by thousands. His book Windmill Land<\/em> popularised the Fylde countryside and is a mix of history, folklore and roadsides chats.<\/p>\nThe new edition includes lots of new material which sheds more light on this important, but neglected figure in English literature who was loved by thousands of his readers in the textile districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. He had a close relationship with his audience and one group of Manchester railwaymen wrote to Clarke protesting at the abrupt way he ended one of his novels!<\/p>\n
As well as his own work, Clarke encouraged other working class men and women to write for his newspapers and was instrumental in forming the Lancashire Authors\u2019 Association in 1911. His \u2018readers\u2019 picnics\u2019 attracted hundreds of visitors, often arriving by train or bicycle.<\/p>\nCover of the 2009 edition, now out of print<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOne, at Barrow Bridge near Bolton in 1901, was held to raise funds for the locked-out quarry workers at Penrhyn, Wales; it was attended by several thousand, including the Clarion Choir. He mobilised his child readers to raise funds for the starving families and organised cycle trips to the quarry villages.<\/p>\n
After his move to Blackpool he created the Blackpool Ramble Club, one of the biggest walking clubs in the country. He died in December 1935 and is buried at Marton Cemetery, close to the windmill that is now a shrine to his memory.<\/p>\n
Unlikely Pioneers<\/strong><\/h5>\nI\u2019ve been working on a new edition of my \u2018Whitman\u2019 book \u2013 With Walt Whitman in Bolton \u2013 spirituality, sex and socialism in a Northern Mill town<\/em> \u2013 last published in 2019 though little changed since 2009. I\u2019ve combined it with a lengthy paper on Whitman\u2019s influence on \u2018Northern Socialism\u2019 and re-titled it Unlikely Pioneers: Walt Whitman, the Bolton Boys and Northern Socialism<\/em>.<\/p>\nI\u2019m debating whether to do a print edition or just publish it on kindle, which makes life easier in terms of an international readership. Readers\u2019 views welcome!<\/p>\n
The latest Salvo<\/strong><\/h5>\nThe latest edition of my blog\/e-newsletter or whatever, is out and can be downloaded from here:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/northern-weekly-salvo-294<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nThe latest edition carries comment on the Labour Party\u2019s current quandaries, progressive regionalism and the latest Government \u2018Plan for Rail\u2019. There\u2019s a Salvo take on the recent Lib Dem by-election victory and comments on Batley and Spen, which is now history. The media had more or less conceded victory to the Tories; my take was that they could be wrong, and they were.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Bolton novels\u2019 of Allen Clarke<\/strong><\/h5>\nAllen Clarke, born in Daubhill (Bolton) in 1863, was one of the most important figures in Northern literature between the early 1890s and late 1930s. Today his work is largely forgotten. Yet he was loved by tens of thousands of Lancashire mill workers and had an astonishing output of dialect sketches, poetry, journalism and works of philosophy. He wrote over 20 novels, most of which were never published in book form, but appeared in newspapers across Britain and even beyond.<\/p>\n
Most of his novels are set in Bolton, where he was born and bred. He was never part of the upper class literati \u2013 his parents were mill workers, and he started his working life as a half-timer at the age of 11.<\/p>\nPortrait of the author as a young lad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHis subject matter was the people he knew and the places he grew up in. His parents encouraged his love of writing; at the age of 14 he won a national prize for one of his poems. As his writing developed he had a clear aim \u2013 to be a writer of the people and for the people. In 1896 he said: \u201cMy aim today is to give the working class life (of Lancashire principally, for that I know best) faithful expression in the literature of England<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nHis first published novel was The Lass at the Man and Scythe<\/em>, written in 1889 and published in book form (by himself) in 1891. It was printed by Pendlebury\u2019s of Bolton. The \u2018Lass\u2019 was later revised and extended, re- titled John O\u2019God\u2019s Sending<\/em>. It is a story of the Civil War, set in Bolton\u00a0in 1644. It contained many of the themes that featured in his later novels. There is tragedy, a conventional love story, and a healthy dose of radical politics. His preface to the first edition of the book is an early example of his attempt to engage the reader:<\/p>\n\u201cWith the aid of that wizard\u2019s wand, a pen, dipped into that magic fluid, ink, the Boltonians who live and move again (at least I hope so) in the following pages have been temporarily raised from the dead. For taking the liberty of resurrecting them somewhat prematurely I beg their pardon. If I have done the business clumsily and inconvenienced these characters in any manner whatever I humbly tender my apologies. I am but a novice at the work<\/em>\u2026\u2026\u201d<\/p>\nThe novel revolves around the ancient Bolton\u00a0pub, The Man and Scythe, still standing opposite the town cross, where the Earl of Derby was executed for his part in the Siege of Bolton in 1644. Royalist soldiers, led by the Earl and Prince Rupert, besieged the town siege and massacred a large number of the townspeople, who supported the Parliamentary side. Clarke sets the wider political context in characteristic style:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe war that was taking up the time, money, and blood of the nation at this period was a struggle for supremacy between King and Parliament. The King wanted to do exactly as he pleased; the people, as represented by Parliament – wanted to do what they pleased. As a rule, when two parties each resolve to please themselves, it pleases neither. It was so in this instance. Both were obstinate. The monarch had on his side \u2018the divine right of Kings\u2019; but that is not much when opposed to the superior force of revolutionary masses.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\nClarke favoured the Parliamentary side but the novel shows that things are never black and white, and creates some positive, human characters amongst the Royalists.<\/p>\n
A very important part of this first novel is the extensive use of dialect amongst its characters. Early in the novel we find this exchange between Bolton\u00a0characters, sat in the pub debating the war:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow think ye the cavaliers will fare in York?\u201d asked Isaiah Crompton.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cThey sen they\u2019ll howd eawt till th\u2019King sends a force to their relief,\u201d said Cockerel, \u201cthough for my part I think as they\u2019ll have hard wark for\u2019t keep Fairfax eawt o\u2019th\u2019city.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cWheer\u2019s that wild Prince Rupert, what feights like Satan<\/em>?\u201d queried Roger Roscoe, a farmer.<\/p>\n\u201cDeawn tort Lunnon, somewhere, i\u2019them forrin parts<\/em>,\u201d replied another.<\/p>\nThe novel was a success. Readers enjoyed the local connections, the \u2018homely\u2019 characterisation and use of dialect, the love interest \u00a0combined with the horror and violence of the siege. It was subsequently re-written and enlarged as John O\u2019God\u2019s Sending<\/em> and published in book form in 1919.<\/p>\nHis next novel was The Knobstick<\/em>, completed in 1891 and serialised in his paper The Bolton Trotter<\/em>\u00a0from October 21st 1892 and later published in book form. \u00a0\u2018Knobstick\u2019 is an abusive Lancashire term for strike-breaker or \u2018blackleg\u2019 which has long gone out of use. This time Clarke used a near-contemporary event \u2013 the Bolton\u00a0Engineers\u2019 Strike of 1887 \u2013 as the backdrop to the story.<\/p>\nSome of Clarke\u2019s themes from The Lass at the Man and Scythe<\/em>\u00a0re-emerge: a love story, a dramatic event \u2013 in this case the strike, with a powerful riot scene. The novel was celebrated by the East German writer Mary Ashraf\u00a0in a schoalrly article in 1976, who identifies the beginning of the novel as being of very high literary quality, suggesting \u201cif that quality had been maintained throughout, the book might have been a masterpiece<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nThe engineers\u2019 strike is a central part of the novel and Clarke builds up a sense of an impending struggle through the union secretary Peter Banks and his wife:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gooin to strike Jane<\/em>,\u201d said Peter Banks to his wife one evening, speaking, as he always did to her, in the dialect.<\/p>\n\u201cGod forbid<\/em>!\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s so for aw that<\/em>,\u201d continued Peter, \u201can I\u2019m afraid as it\u2019ll\u00a0 come\u00a0 off\u00a0 this\u00a0 time.\u00a0 Th\u2019men\u2019s\u00a0 gradely dissatisfied, an fully resolved to have mooar money\u2026It\u2019ll be a mighty struggle if it begins and there\u2019s dozen\u2019s what\u2019ll ne\u2019er see o\u2019er it. Of course eaur society\u2019s very rich at present an\u2019 con howd eaut a good while; but t\u2019mesturs con howd eaut longer. I\u2019m willin for t\u2019 strike anyday, but I\u2019d rayther not. I con feight as weel as anybody when I\u2019m put to, but it seems a silly gam to me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nIt\u2019s melodramatic stuff but well told; it appealed to the readers he was aiming at. After tragedy there is a happy ending with hero and heroine \u00a0married; the strike ends and a new era begins in the town, with working men elected to the council.<\/p>\n
During the 1890s Clarke was working flat out, editing and publishing his Northern Weekly<\/em>. He wrote much of the copy, including a steady stream of novels including The Little Weaver<\/em>, Lancashire Lasses and Lads<\/em>, A Daughter of the Factory<\/em>, A Curate of Christ\u2019s, For a Man\u2019s Sake <\/em>and Slaves of Shuttle and Spindle<\/em>. All of these are set in the Lancashire mill towns, mostly Bolton – often fictionalised as \u2018Spindleton\u2019.<\/p>\nThe Little Weaver<\/em>\u00a0proved popular with his readers, who identified with the characters in the tale; as so with most of his novels, it was about people like them. It has this powerful image of a mill coming to life on Monday morning:<\/p>\n\u201cThen, slowly, at six o\u2019clock precisely, there stole a huzzing murmur on the silence; the shafts began to revolve, the straps that chained the looms creaked, stretched and yawned, as if reluctant to begin their duty, and commenced to climb languidly up to the ceiling, quickening their speed with every turn; the huzzing murmur grew and grew; the weavers touched the levers of their looms one by one, and set them on. The murmur had now become a rattling roar; the sound swelled; the straps whizzed faster; the threads of the warp flowed into the loom like a slow broad stream, and the shuttle darted across them like a swallow, binding them together and making them into cloth; there was creaking and groaning of wheels; the hissing and spluttering of leather straps, as if the animal moaned painfully in its hide; the air grew warmer; the noise became deafening; you could not hear your own voice; and the weaving shed was in full swing<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nClarke hated what industrialism had done to the Lancashire countryside. In Driving<\/em>\u00a0– a tale of weavers and their work<\/em>, he contrasts what Lancashire once was with how it is day, but even here there is a sense of a tremendous human achievement which has somehow been abused:<\/p>\n\u201cWhat a marvellous transformation James Watt\u2019s steam engine, aided by the spinning and weaving inventions of Kay, Hargreaves and Crompton had wrought in a hundred years; an agricultural and pasturing shire had been turned into a county of manufacture; Lancashire\u2019s wild moorland vales had become the smoky workshop of the world; and once sweet hillsides were now cinder-heaps and once- bright brooks were now sinking sewers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nLancashire Lasses and Lads<\/em>, set in Bolton and Farnworth, was first published 1896 and in book form 10 years later. The hero, Dick Dickinson, is the son of a factory master who forces his son to leave the family home and \u2018descend\u2019 into the working class, where he meets and falls in love with a young weaver, Hannah. \u00a0Again, Clarke is fascinated by the awesome power and beauty of the factory contrasted with the reality of life inside the mills. Dick Dickinson, when he arrives in Bolton early in the morning, sees the mills coming to life:<\/p>\n\u201cLights began to show in the great factories of four or five stories, with their many windows. Soon they were all lit up like a vast illumination. \u2018Very pretty to look at from the outside, and at a distance on a black frosty morning,\u2019 said Dick, \u2018but it\u2019s a different matter toiling inside them\u2019<\/em>.”<\/p>\nClarke was a friend of the Tillotson family which published The Bolton Evening News<\/em> and Bolton Journal<\/em>, both of which carried his writing, long after he had left Bolton to live in Blackpool. The\u00a0 company set up the Tillotson Newspaper Fiction Bureau to syndicate novels and short stories for newspapers across the British Empire. Many of Clarke\u2019s novels and short stories were published in such seemingly unlikely newspapers as The Forfar Herald, Western Evening Herald, The Devon Valley Tribune<\/em> (Clackmannanshire) and The Kilrush Herald and the Kilkee Gazette<\/em> of West Clare. Quite what they made of the Lancashire dialect I can\u2019t imagine.<\/p>\nClarke\u2019s novels were of their time but remain readable and offer real insight into Lancashire life in the late 19th<\/sup> century. Some of them deserve re-printing, perhaps starting with \u2018The Knobstick\u2019.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s \u2018Wakes Week\u2019….or is it \u2018Bolton Holidays\u2019?<\/strong><\/h5>\nAcross Lancashire, from late June, the cotton towns started to close down for the fortnightly holiday. It was actually a short-lived tradition, taking off after the Second World War (when paid holidays came in) and ending with the decline of the cotton industry in the 1980s. Some places called it \u2018Wakes Week\u2019 though my own memories in Bolton (and many friends) are of \u2018Bolton Holidays\u2019. Take your pick \u2013 maybe there were localised differences, with Great Lever people calling it \u2018Bowtun Holidays\u2019 and Daubhill people saying \u2018Wakes Week\u2019? Over the Pennines in Yorkshire, Huddersfield had separate holidays for engineers and textile workers, which was a bit tricky if dad worked in engineering and mum in the mill, as many people did.\u00a0 Further research is needed. Anyroad, take a look at this, from last week\u2019s Bolton News<\/em>:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/19416154.wakes-week—folk-bolton-headed-off-coast\/<\/p>\n
Make Greater Manchester Greater (from Salvo 294)<\/strong><\/h5>\nAs a proud Boltonian I have never been comfortable with the idea of being part of \u2018Greater Manchster\u2019 preferring the original, admittedly cumbersome title of \u2018South East Lancashire and North-East Cheshire\u2019 used by the buses. SELNEC. They could have added \u2018with bits of The West Riding of the Yorkshire\u2019 recognising Saddleworth\u2019s inclusion in the area. Greater Manchester doesn\u2019t really work. And I deeply disagree<\/p>\nJust call it ‘Lancashire’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nwith the contemporary obsession with \u2018city regions\u2019 in which the \u2018city\u2019 will always dominate the satellite towns. Years ago I remember my friend David Begg talking about \u2018Greater Manchester\u2019 in a transport context pointing out that its hinterland goes well beyond its current boundaries. He was right then (1990s?) and that perception is truer today than ever. Blackburn and North-East Lancashire are very much part of the wider hinterland that relates to Manchester itself. So is Preston and \u2013 more arguably \u2013 Warrington. Lancashire itself, in administrative terms, is a total shambles, with unitary authorities for Blackpool and \u2018Blackburn with Darwen\u2019 and talk of carving up what remains of local government into larger and even less accountable districts.<\/p>\n
There is an alternative! Make Greater Manchester into a much bigger entity, more or less recreating \u2018Lancashire\u2019 but with boundaries which make political, economic and cultural sense now. I\u2019d be inclined to leave Merseyside (or \u2018Liverpool City Region\u2019) as a separate entity with Chester. But it would all need a lot of debate and discussion rather than the forced imposition of an alien concept, back in 1974. The new \u2018Greater Lancastria\u2019 should have an elected assembly along similar lines to the existing devolved administrations, with re-constituted local authorities which should have more, rather than less, power.<\/p>\n
Other books from th\u2019same shed: Moorlands, Memories and Reflections<\/strong><\/h5>\nStill available. \u00a02020 was the centenary of the publication of Allen Clarke\u2019s Moorlands and Memories<\/em>, sub-titled \u2018rambles and rides in the fair places of Steam-Engine Land<\/em>\u2019. It\u2019s a lovely book, very readable and entertaining, even if he sometimes got his historical facts slightly wrong. It was set in the area which is now described as \u2018The West Pennine Moors\u2019 It also included some fascinating accounts of life in Bolton itself in the years between 1870 and the First World War, with accounts of the great engineers\u2019 strike of 1887, the growth of the co-operative movement and the many characters whom Clarke knew as a boy or young man.<\/p>\nMy book is a centenary tribute to Clarke\u2019s classic – Moorlands, Memories and Reflections<\/em>. It isn\u2019t a \u2018then and now\u2019 sort of thing though I do make some historical comparisons, and speculate what Clarke would have thought of certain aspects of his beloved Lancashire today. There are 28 chapters, covering locations and subjects which Clarke wrote about in the original book, with a few additions. It includes the Winter Hill rights-of-way battle of 1896 and Darwen\u2019s \u2018freeing of the moors\u2019; \u00a0a few additional snippets about the Bolton \u2018Whitmanites\u2019, handloom-weaving, railway reminiscences, the remarkable story of \u2018The Larks of Dean\u2019 and Lancashire\u2019s honourable tradition of supporting refugees (including the much-loved Pedro of Halliwell Road). The story of Lancashire children\u2019s practical support for the locked-out quarryworkers of Snowdonia in 1900-3 is covered in some detail, including the remarkable \u2018Teddy Ashton Picnic\u2019 of 1901 in Barrow Bridge, which attracted 10,000 people. It will be profusely illustrated.<\/p>\nIt is available price \u00a321, with \u00a34 post and packing. Go to http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/order-form<\/a><\/p>\nfor details of how to order. I can do free delivery locally (within 6 miles of Bolton).<\/p>\n
The Works: a tale of love, lust, labour and locomotives<\/strong><\/h6>\nI\u2019ve had a steady flow of orders for The Works<\/em>, my novel set mostly in Horwich Loco Works in the 1970s and 1980s, but bringing the tale up to date and beyond \u2013 a fictional story of a workers\u2019 occupation, Labour politics, a \u2018people\u2019s franchise\u2019 and Chinese investment in UK rail.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had lots of good reactions to it, with some people reading it in one session. The Morning Star<\/em> hated it. If you want a copy I can offer it for \u00a310 plus \u00a32.50 postage to those of you on this mailing list. Please make cheques payable to \u2018Paul Salveson\u2019 and post to my Bolton address above or send the money by bank transfer (a\/c Dr PS Salveson 23448954 sort code 53-61-07 and email me with your address). If you are local I can do free delivery by e-bike (so just a tenner<\/strong>). There is a kindle version available price \u00a34.99 and you can also buy it off Amazon. See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve already read and hopefully enjoyed The Works<\/em> it would be great if you could do a short review of it on my facebook page (Lancashire Loominary). Feedback on how it could have been better is also welcome, especially as I\u2019m starting work on the next novel (see below).<\/p>\nThe Works <\/em>is available in the following outlets \u2013 please support them! If you know of any local shop which might like to take my books please let me know. I do a third discount, sale or return.<\/p>\n\n- Justicia Fair Trade Shop, Knowsley Street, Bolton<\/li>\n
- The Wright Reads, Winter Hey Lane, Horwich (currently closed)<\/li>\n
- Bunbury\u2019s Real Ale Shop, 397 Chorley Old Road<\/li>\n
- Pendle Heritage Centre, Barrowfoed<\/li>\n
- Smethurst\u2019s Newsagents, Markland Hill<\/li>\n
- Pike Snack Shack, Rivington<\/li>\n
- Horwich Heritage Centre<\/li>\n
- A Small Good Thing, Church Road Bolton<\/li>\n
- Carnforth Bookshop<\/li>\n
- The Lakeland Gallery, Bo\u2019ness<\/li>\n
- Penrallt Bookshop, Machynlleth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
His sketches in Lancashire dialect (written as \u2018Teddy Ashton\u2019) \u201cpoked sly fun and undermining sarcasm\u201d at the social evils of the day and sold over a million copies. His newspapers, like Teddy Ashton\u2019s Northern<\/em><\/p>\n Weekly<\/em>, were read and passed round mill and factory by thousands. His book Windmill Land<\/em> popularised the Fylde countryside and is a mix of history, folklore and roadsides chats.<\/p>\n The new edition includes lots of new material which sheds more light on this important, but neglected figure in English literature who was loved by thousands of his readers in the textile districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. He had a close relationship with his audience and one group of Manchester railwaymen wrote to Clarke protesting at the abrupt way he ended one of his novels!<\/p>\n As well as his own work, Clarke encouraged other working class men and women to write for his newspapers and was instrumental in forming the Lancashire Authors\u2019 Association in 1911. His \u2018readers\u2019 picnics\u2019 attracted hundreds of visitors, often arriving by train or bicycle.<\/p>\n One, at Barrow Bridge near Bolton in 1901, was held to raise funds for the locked-out quarry workers at Penrhyn, Wales; it was attended by several thousand, including the Clarion Choir. He mobilised his child readers to raise funds for the starving families and organised cycle trips to the quarry villages.<\/p>\n After his move to Blackpool he created the Blackpool Ramble Club, one of the biggest walking clubs in the country. He died in December 1935 and is buried at Marton Cemetery, close to the windmill that is now a shrine to his memory.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been working on a new edition of my \u2018Whitman\u2019 book \u2013 With Walt Whitman in Bolton \u2013 spirituality, sex and socialism in a Northern Mill town<\/em> \u2013 I\u2019m debating whether to do a print edition or just publish it on kindle, which makes life easier in terms of an international readership. Readers\u2019 views welcome!<\/p>\n The latest edition of my blog\/e-newsletter or whatever, is out and can be downloaded from here:<\/p>\n http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/northern-weekly-salvo-294<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The latest edition carries comment on the Labour Party\u2019s current quandaries, progressive regionalism and the latest Government \u2018Plan for Rail\u2019. There\u2019s a Salvo take on the recent Lib Dem by-election victory and comments on Batley and Spen, which is now history. The media had more or less conceded victory to the Tories; my take was that they could be wrong, and they were.<\/p>\n Allen Clarke, born in Daubhill (Bolton) in 1863, was one of the most important figures in Northern literature between the early 1890s and late 1930s. Today his work is largely forgotten. Yet he was loved by tens of thousands of Lancashire mill workers and had an astonishing output of dialect sketches, poetry, journalism and works of philosophy. He wrote over 20 novels, most of which were never published in book form, but appeared in newspapers across Britain and even beyond.<\/p>\n Most of his novels are set in Bolton, where he was born and bred. He was never part of the upper class literati \u2013 his parents were mill workers, and he started his working life as a half-timer at the age of 11.<\/p>\n His subject matter was the people he knew and the places he grew up in. His parents encouraged his love of writing; at the age of 14 he won a national prize for one of his poems. As his writing developed he had a clear aim \u2013 to be a writer of the people and for the people. In 1896 he said: \u201cMy aim today is to give the working class life (of Lancashire principally, for that I know best) faithful expression in the literature of England<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n His first published novel was The Lass at the Man and Scythe<\/em>, written in 1889 and published in book form (by himself) in 1891. It was printed by Pendlebury\u2019s of Bolton. The \u2018Lass\u2019 was later revised and extended, re- titled John O\u2019God\u2019s Sending<\/em>. It is a story of the Civil War, set in Bolton\u00a0in 1644. It contained many of the themes that featured in his later novels. There is tragedy, a conventional love story, and a healthy dose of radical politics. His preface to the first edition of the book is an early example of his attempt to engage the reader:<\/p>\n \u201cWith the aid of that wizard\u2019s wand, a pen, dipped into that magic fluid, ink, the Boltonians who live and move again (at least I hope so) in the following pages have been temporarily raised from the dead. For taking the liberty of resurrecting them somewhat prematurely I beg their pardon. If I have done the business clumsily and inconvenienced these characters in any manner whatever I humbly tender my apologies. I am but a novice at the work<\/em>\u2026\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The novel revolves around the ancient Bolton\u00a0pub, The Man and Scythe, still standing opposite the town cross, where the Earl of Derby was executed for his part in the Siege of Bolton in 1644. Royalist soldiers, led by the Earl and Prince Rupert, besieged the town siege and massacred a large number of the townspeople, who supported the Parliamentary side. Clarke sets the wider political context in characteristic style:<\/p>\n \u201cThe war that was taking up the time, money, and blood of the nation at this period was a struggle for supremacy between King and Parliament. The King wanted to do exactly as he pleased; the people, as represented by Parliament – wanted to do what they pleased. As a rule, when two parties each resolve to please themselves, it pleases neither. It was so in this instance. Both were obstinate. The monarch had on his side \u2018the divine right of Kings\u2019; but that is not much when opposed to the superior force of revolutionary masses.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n Clarke favoured the Parliamentary side but the novel shows that things are never black and white, and creates some positive, human characters amongst the Royalists.<\/p>\n A very important part of this first novel is the extensive use of dialect amongst its characters. Early in the novel we find this exchange between Bolton\u00a0characters, sat in the pub debating the war:<\/p>\n \u201cHow think ye the cavaliers will fare in York?\u201d asked Isaiah Crompton.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThey sen they\u2019ll howd eawt till th\u2019King sends a force to their relief,\u201d said Cockerel, \u201cthough for my part I think as they\u2019ll have hard wark for\u2019t keep Fairfax eawt o\u2019th\u2019city.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWheer\u2019s that wild Prince Rupert, what feights like Satan<\/em>?\u201d queried Roger Roscoe, a farmer.<\/p>\n \u201cDeawn tort Lunnon, somewhere, i\u2019them forrin parts<\/em>,\u201d replied another.<\/p>\n The novel was a success. Readers enjoyed the local connections, the \u2018homely\u2019 characterisation and use of dialect, the love interest \u00a0combined with the horror and violence of the siege. It was subsequently re-written and enlarged as John O\u2019God\u2019s Sending<\/em> and published in book form in 1919.<\/p>\n His next novel was The Knobstick<\/em>, completed in 1891 and serialised in his paper The Bolton Trotter<\/em>\u00a0from October 21st 1892 and later published in book form. \u00a0\u2018Knobstick\u2019 is an abusive Lancashire term for strike-breaker or \u2018blackleg\u2019 which has long gone out of use. This time Clarke used a near-contemporary event \u2013 the Bolton\u00a0Engineers\u2019 Strike of 1887 \u2013 as the backdrop to the story.<\/p>\n Some of Clarke\u2019s themes from The Lass at the Man and Scythe<\/em>\u00a0re-emerge: a love story, a dramatic event \u2013 in this case the strike, with a powerful riot scene. The novel was celebrated by the East German writer Mary Ashraf\u00a0in a schoalrly article in 1976, who identifies the beginning of the novel as being of very high literary quality, suggesting \u201cif that quality had been maintained throughout, the book might have been a masterpiece<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n The engineers\u2019 strike is a central part of the novel and Clarke builds up a sense of an impending struggle through the union secretary Peter Banks and his wife:<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gooin to strike Jane<\/em>,\u201d said Peter Banks to his wife one evening, speaking, as he always did to her, in the dialect.<\/p>\n \u201cGod forbid<\/em>!\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s so for aw that<\/em>,\u201d continued Peter, \u201can I\u2019m afraid as it\u2019ll\u00a0 come\u00a0 off\u00a0 this\u00a0 time.\u00a0 Th\u2019men\u2019s\u00a0 gradely dissatisfied, an fully resolved to have mooar money\u2026It\u2019ll be a mighty struggle if it begins and there\u2019s dozen\u2019s what\u2019ll ne\u2019er see o\u2019er it. Of course eaur society\u2019s very rich at present an\u2019 con howd eaut a good while; but t\u2019mesturs con howd eaut longer. I\u2019m willin for t\u2019 strike anyday, but I\u2019d rayther not. I con feight as weel as anybody when I\u2019m put to, but it seems a silly gam to me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s melodramatic stuff but well told; it appealed to the readers he was aiming at. After tragedy there is a happy ending with hero and heroine \u00a0married; the strike ends and a new era begins in the town, with working men elected to the council.<\/p>\n During the 1890s Clarke was working flat out, editing and publishing his Northern Weekly<\/em>. He wrote much of the copy, including a steady stream of novels including The Little Weaver<\/em>, Lancashire Lasses and Lads<\/em>, A Daughter of the Factory<\/em>, A Curate of Christ\u2019s, For a Man\u2019s Sake <\/em>and Slaves of Shuttle and Spindle<\/em>. All of these are set in the Lancashire mill towns, mostly Bolton – often fictionalised as \u2018Spindleton\u2019.<\/p>\n The Little Weaver<\/em>\u00a0proved popular with his readers, who identified with the characters in the tale; as so with most of his novels, it was about people like them. It has this powerful image of a mill coming to life on Monday morning:<\/p>\n \u201cThen, slowly, at six o\u2019clock precisely, there stole a huzzing murmur on the silence; the shafts began to revolve, the straps that chained the looms creaked, stretched and yawned, as if reluctant to begin their duty, and commenced to climb languidly up to the ceiling, quickening their speed with every turn; the huzzing murmur grew and grew; the weavers touched the levers of their looms one by one, and set them on. The murmur had now become a rattling roar; the sound swelled; the straps whizzed faster; the threads of the warp flowed into the loom like a slow broad stream, and the shuttle darted across them like a swallow, binding them together and making them into cloth; there was creaking and groaning of wheels; the hissing and spluttering of leather straps, as if the animal moaned painfully in its hide; the air grew warmer; the noise became deafening; you could not hear your own voice; and the weaving shed was in full swing<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Clarke hated what industrialism had done to the Lancashire countryside. In Driving<\/em>\u00a0– a tale of weavers and their work<\/em>, he contrasts what Lancashire once was with how it is day, but even here there is a sense of a tremendous human achievement which has somehow been abused:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a marvellous transformation James Watt\u2019s steam engine, aided by the spinning and weaving inventions of Kay, Hargreaves and Crompton had wrought in a hundred years; an agricultural and pasturing shire had been turned into a county of manufacture; Lancashire\u2019s wild moorland vales had become the smoky workshop of the world; and once sweet hillsides were now cinder-heaps and once- bright brooks were now sinking sewers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Lancashire Lasses and Lads<\/em>, set in Bolton and Farnworth, was first published 1896 and in book form 10 years later. The hero, Dick Dickinson, is the son of a factory master who forces his son to leave the family home and \u2018descend\u2019 into the working class, where he meets and falls in love with a young weaver, Hannah. \u00a0Again, Clarke is fascinated by the awesome power and beauty of the factory contrasted with the reality of life inside the mills. Dick Dickinson, when he arrives in Bolton early in the morning, sees the mills coming to life:<\/p>\n \u201cLights began to show in the great factories of four or five stories, with their many windows. Soon they were all lit up like a vast illumination. \u2018Very pretty to look at from the outside, and at a distance on a black frosty morning,\u2019 said Dick, \u2018but it\u2019s a different matter toiling inside them\u2019<\/em>.”<\/p>\n Clarke was a friend of the Tillotson family which published The Bolton Evening News<\/em> and Bolton Journal<\/em>, both of which carried his writing, long after he had left Bolton to live in Blackpool. The\u00a0 company set up the Tillotson Newspaper Fiction Bureau to syndicate novels and short stories for newspapers across the British Empire. Many of Clarke\u2019s novels and short stories were published in such seemingly unlikely newspapers as The Forfar Herald, Western Evening Herald, The Devon Valley Tribune<\/em> (Clackmannanshire) and The Kilrush Herald and the Kilkee Gazette<\/em> of West Clare. Quite what they made of the Lancashire dialect I can\u2019t imagine.<\/p>\n Clarke\u2019s novels were of their time but remain readable and offer real insight into Lancashire life in the late 19th<\/sup> century. Some of them deserve re-printing, perhaps starting with \u2018The Knobstick\u2019.<\/p>\n Across Lancashire, from late June, the cotton towns started to close down for the fortnightly holiday. It was actually a short-lived tradition, taking off after the Second World War (when paid holidays came in) and ending with the decline of the cotton industry in the 1980s. Some places called it \u2018Wakes Week\u2019 though my own memories in Bolton (and many friends) are of \u2018Bolton Holidays\u2019. Take your pick \u2013 maybe there were localised differences, with Great Lever people calling it \u2018Bowtun Holidays\u2019 and Daubhill people saying \u2018Wakes Week\u2019? Over the Pennines in Yorkshire, Huddersfield had separate holidays for engineers and textile workers, which was a bit tricky if dad worked in engineering and mum in the mill, as many people did.\u00a0 Further research is needed. Anyroad, take a look at this, from last week\u2019s Bolton News<\/em>:<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/19416154.wakes-week—folk-bolton-headed-off-coast\/<\/p>\n As a proud Boltonian I have never been comfortable with the idea of being part of \u2018Greater Manchster\u2019 preferring the original, admittedly cumbersome title of \u2018South East Lancashire and North-East Cheshire\u2019 used by the buses. SELNEC. They could have added \u2018with bits of The West Riding of the Yorkshire\u2019 recognising Saddleworth\u2019s inclusion in the area. Greater Manchester doesn\u2019t really work. And I deeply disagree<\/p>\n with the contemporary obsession with \u2018city regions\u2019 in which the \u2018city\u2019 will always dominate the satellite towns. Years ago I remember my friend David Begg talking about \u2018Greater Manchester\u2019 in a transport context pointing out that its hinterland goes well beyond its current boundaries. He was right then (1990s?) and that perception is truer today than ever. Blackburn and North-East Lancashire are very much part of the wider hinterland that relates to Manchester itself. So is Preston and \u2013 more arguably \u2013 Warrington. Lancashire itself, in administrative terms, is a total shambles, with unitary authorities for Blackpool and \u2018Blackburn with Darwen\u2019 and talk of carving up what remains of local government into larger and even less accountable districts.<\/p>\n There is an alternative! Make Greater Manchester into a much bigger entity, more or less recreating \u2018Lancashire\u2019 but with boundaries which make political, economic and cultural sense now. I\u2019d be inclined to leave Merseyside (or \u2018Liverpool City Region\u2019) as a separate entity with Chester. But it would all need a lot of debate and discussion rather than the forced imposition of an alien concept, back in 1974. The new \u2018Greater Lancastria\u2019 should have an elected assembly along similar lines to the existing devolved administrations, with re-constituted local authorities which should have more, rather than less, power.<\/p>\n Still available. \u00a02020 was the centenary of the publication of Allen Clarke\u2019s Moorlands and Memories<\/em>, sub-titled \u2018rambles and rides in the fair places of Steam-Engine Land<\/em>\u2019. It\u2019s a lovely book, very readable and entertaining, even if he sometimes got his historical facts slightly wrong. It was set in the area which is now described as \u2018The West Pennine Moors\u2019 It also included some fascinating accounts of life in Bolton itself in the years between 1870 and the First World War, with accounts of the great engineers\u2019 strike of 1887, the growth of the co-operative movement and the many characters whom Clarke knew as a boy or young man.<\/p>\n My book is a centenary tribute to Clarke\u2019s classic – Moorlands, Memories It is available price \u00a321, with \u00a34 post and packing. Go to http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/order-form<\/a><\/p>\n for details of how to order. I can do free delivery locally (within 6 miles of Bolton).<\/p>\n I\u2019ve had a steady flow of orders for The Works<\/em>, my novel set mostly in Horwich Loco Works in the 1970s and 1980s, but bringing the tale up to date and beyond \u2013 a fictional story of a workers\u2019 occupation, Labour politics, a \u2018people\u2019s franchise\u2019 and Chinese investment in UK rail.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had lots of good reactions to it, with some people reading it in one If you\u2019ve already read and hopefully enjoyed The Works<\/em> it would be great if you could do a short review of it on my facebook page (Lancashire Loominary). Feedback on how it could have been better is also welcome, especially as I\u2019m starting work on the next novel (see below).<\/p>\n The Works <\/em>is available in the following outlets \u2013 please support them! If you know of any local shop which might like to take my books please let me know. I do a third discount, sale or return.<\/p>\nUnlikely Pioneers<\/strong><\/h5>\n
last published in 2019 though little changed since 2009. I\u2019ve combined it with a lengthy paper on Whitman\u2019s influence on \u2018Northern Socialism\u2019 and re-titled it Unlikely Pioneers: Walt Whitman, the Bolton Boys and Northern Socialism<\/em>.<\/p>\nThe latest Salvo<\/strong><\/h5>\n
The \u2018Bolton novels\u2019 of Allen Clarke<\/strong><\/h5>\n
It\u2019s \u2018Wakes Week\u2019….or is it \u2018Bolton Holidays\u2019?<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Make Greater Manchester Greater (from Salvo 294)<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Other books from th\u2019same shed: Moorlands, Memories and Reflections<\/strong><\/h5>\n
and Reflections<\/em>. It isn\u2019t a \u2018then and now\u2019 sort of thing though I do make some historical comparisons, and speculate what Clarke would have thought of certain aspects of his beloved Lancashire today. There are 28 chapters, covering locations and subjects which Clarke wrote about in the original book, with a few additions. It includes the Winter Hill rights-of-way battle of 1896 and Darwen\u2019s \u2018freeing of the moors\u2019; \u00a0a few additional snippets about the Bolton \u2018Whitmanites\u2019, handloom-weaving, railway reminiscences, the remarkable story of \u2018The Larks of Dean\u2019 and Lancashire\u2019s honourable tradition of supporting refugees (including the much-loved Pedro of Halliwell Road). The story of Lancashire children\u2019s practical support for the locked-out quarryworkers of Snowdonia in 1900-3 is covered in some detail, including the remarkable \u2018Teddy Ashton Picnic\u2019 of 1901 in Barrow Bridge, which attracted 10,000 people. It will be profusely illustrated.<\/p>\nThe Works: a tale of love, lust, labour and locomotives<\/strong><\/h6>\n
session. The Morning Star<\/em> hated it. If you want a copy I can offer it for \u00a310 plus \u00a32.50 postage to those of you on this mailing list. Please make cheques payable to \u2018Paul Salveson\u2019 and post to my Bolton address above or send the money by bank transfer (a\/c Dr PS Salveson 23448954 sort code 53-61-07 and email me with your address). If you are local I can do free delivery by e-bike (so just a tenner<\/strong>). There is a kindle version available price \u00a34.99 and you can also buy it off Amazon. See www.lancashireloominary.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/With-Walt-Whitman-cover-2019-300x297.jpg\")
of Boltonians began a correspondence with Whitman and two (John Johnston and J W Wallace) visited the poet in America. Each year on Whitman\u2019s birthday (May 31) the Bolton group threw a party to celebrate his memory, with poems, lectures and passing round a loving cup of spiced claret. Each wore a sprig of lilac in Whitman\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/will-yo-come-o-sunday-207x300.jpg\")
many left). The Kinder Scout Mass Trespass of 1932 was by no means the first attempt by working class people to reclaim the countryside. Probably the UK\u2019s biggest-ever rights of way struggle took place on the moors above Bolton in 1896, with three successive weekends of huge demonstrations to reclaim a blocked path. Over 12,000 took part in the biggest march.<\/p>\n