On tunnels

When I was a child I lived on the Abbey Hulton council estate in Stoke which was named after the medieval monastery built in the 13^th century. The stones of the Cistercian abbey were in the grounds of the high school I attended so they served as a marker on the past. There were always stories of ghostly monks and the like. One legend persisted. It was the sort of story, which always attaches itself to ancient buildings. It was claimed that underneath the abbey there existed a complex tunnels that stretched off in all directions included a passage that connected Hulton Abbey with Stoke Parish Church some 4 miles away, a journey, if true, that would take it under the river bed of the Trent. Even then it seemed to me implausible that the builders of the monastery should have gone to the trouble to cut a tunnel through the clay and rock to such a great distance but this did not seem to have an impact upon the rumourmongers

A similar tale exists about passages that lie under Leek either under the market place or under the parish church one of which leads off in the direction of Dieulacres Abbey. The existence of a tunnel and an event that I relate during the ghost walk is linked to Dieulacres, which is only a short distance away from the town.
　
The existence of tunnels and passages is a commonly held belief in folklore. Stories often crop up of there existence although exploration often only proves that the tunnel was a cellars or drains. Sometimes the story of tunnels might refer to a historical fact. Houses that belonged to Catholics had secret passages and hiding places. Moseley Old Hall in the south of the county had a priest hole, which was used by the fugitive King Charles II in his escape from the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

To bring the mystery that surrounds tunnels up to date the 70s saw the creation of Subterranea Britannica; a society devoted the study and investigation of man-made underground places from the Second War onwards. Their website for Staffordshire includes a wartime structure in Station Road, Cheddleton- no doubt structures like these will add to the myths in the future.
　
　
　
　

Vera Brittain

On the 20^th July 1914 Vera Brittain left her family home in Buxton and was driven the 12 miles by her father to Leek. On that day she was to take the final exam that would lead to her fulfilling a long held ambition of going to Oxford. Her father dropped her off in Leek while he journeyed on to the family business in the Potteries. She was distinctly unimpressed by the venue for the examination Leek Technical College in Stockwell St.

She later wrote in her autobiography "Testament of Youth"

"I felt strange and a little humiliating to be examined in the airless atmosphere of Leek Technical College surrounded by rough looking and distinctly odoriferous sixteen year old of both sexes. It was not a heroic for the final stage of my prolonged battle with persons and circumstances, and I left Leek with a depressed sense that I had certainly failed".

She need not have feared and she was accepted to begin her degree at Somerville College. The early struggles in her life to achieve the sort of education that she craved and the impact of the First World War are the principle themes of her autobiography, which is still in print having been originally published in the 1930s.

When Vera Brittain took the exam in Leek in July 1914 Europe was descended into the carnage of the First World War. In the previous month the Archduke Franz Ferdinand the heir to the throne of the Austrian crown was shot dead by a Serbian nationalist. On the day that a doubtful Vera left Leek Austria declared war on Serbia whom it blamed for harbouring the terrorists who had assassinated the Archduke. On August 4^th Britain fulfilling a treaty obligation of century earlier to defend Belgian neutrality against aggression declared war on Germany.

The Technical College in Leek that Vera Brittain was so dismissive about was part of the complex within the Nicholson Institute, founded in 1892 as part of a national drive to improve the technical expertise of the nation. Classes that were run from the college included practical classes on cookery, handicrafts and silk manufacturer. Possibly some of the smelly 16 year olds that Vera complained about were completing some of these courses.

On superstition and urban myth

We have just passed Easter and it occurred to me how much the holiday period has changed over the years. I was in conversation with an elderly woman about how much Good Friday in particularly had been altered over the last 30 years. She remarked that her own Mother had been distressed by how irreligious it had become. It used to be regarded as the most sombre day in the Christian Calendar and a time not for frivolity. The Vicar of Leek in the 1950s George Youell complained of inappropriate films being shown. The long forgotten film " Private in Skirts" drew his ire.

It used to be a day that carried with it certain taboos; the most widespread was a ban on washing clothes. Disaster was supposed to befall anyone who washed or hung out clothes to dry. There are stories of washing being splattered with blood and family member would die, supposedly "washed away".

Given the nature of the day as the key Christian date for mourning, it is not surprising that there was a general feeling that no work should be done this day. In rural areas this prohibition most certainly applied to the planting of crops. Disturbing the soil was regarded as an impious act and nothing would grow if planted. One worker reported as unwilling to work on Good Friday was the blacksmith. Many would have anything to do with nails. There was a belief that the blacksmith’s wife carried the nails used in the crucification in her apron.
Are we becoming less superstitious with the decline in Faith?

The willingness of people to be credulous still exists as demonstrated by the power of the urban myth. I have certainly been told stories usually nasty there were claimed to be genuine. I came across a good example shortly after the 9/11 attacks. The story concerned a terrorist attack directed against a British city on a specific date. I heard it twice from two different people within days. The pull of myths remains strong even if the technology has changed.

What a waste!!

A friend me of a surprising find in a skip at Fowlchurch Recycling centre in Leek. Sitting in a skip was, as far as he could tell, a perfectly serviceable Moog Synthesiser 1962 vintage. The sort played by Kraftwerk he thought. I’d seen one played by Keith Emerson in ELP at Trentham Gardens in 1971- but the less said about that the better. The point is that here seemed to be a possibly functioning piece of kit, which could fetch around £1000. My friend pleaded with the manager at Fowlchurch to let him have the Synthesiser. The manager refused on health and safety grounds that someone might be injured and sue the authority. It was a deeply frustrating experience. My friend as told that amongst other implausible stuff brought to Fowlchurch included cut up sections of a Chevrolet Car- it suggests the Johnny Cash song. Also, dumped at the recycling centre were items including wash machines still wrapped in plastic and other new appliances.

The willingness of Moorlanders, on this evidence, to throw away perfectly electrical goods is perplexing. It has been going on for sometime. The disposable culture started early. In 1892 William Painter, founder of the Baltimore Bottle Seal Company, patented the bottle cap. The bottles were returned, but the bottle caps got thrown away. They only worked once. Painter's chief salesman at the time was King Camp Gillette, who went on to apply the principle to his own invention, the disposable razor blade. Today almost everything has its disposable version and the concept has been taken a step further until we see the grotesque waste evidenced at Fowlchurch. We now live in a disposable culture.

 What a Waste!

I once, by way of an analogy, met a woman who worked for the Arts Council in Mongolia in the 1990s after Communism fell. She had a job re-organising the Mongolian publishing industry. She told me that under the old system the canons of Marxist- Leninist thought were printed unread by the locals, pulped and then printed again. It seemed to me as good a metaphor for the waste in capitalism as it is for failed Communism
　
　
　

On wonderful Victorian engineering and Oakamoor

I visited the Eiffel Tower recently. It was my first visit. I was staggered by this wonderful piece of 19^th century engineering. The design is truly iconic but strangely was deeply unpopular when first erected. However its status is beyond question. Over 200 million people have visited since it was opened in 1889. Closer to home there is an engineering triumph of the period equally as impressive as M Eiffel construction and its birthplace was Oakamoor.
　
In the Victorian period Thomas Bolton’s of Oakamoor manufactured submarine telegraph cables. During the 1850s they were involved in several schemes but the greatest engineering challenge was to lay a transatlantic cable. The Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed to lay a cable from North America to Europe by 1862. And Bolton’s who were contracted to quickly produce the copper cable needed.

The first cable was produced at Oakamoor works in 1856. Over 108 tons of copper was used to produce 20,000 miles of cable within 5 months. It was eventually laid and connected and a message between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan of the US was transmitted on 17 August 1858. However technical difficulties such as poor conductivity led to only intermittent use.

Undaunted, Bolton’s continued to perfect there manufacturing techniques. In September 1863 a new order for 200 tons of copper wire was placed for a second Atlantic cable. Brunel’s Great Eastern ship was hired to lay the cable and on 27 July 1866 the laying was completed.

Almost immediately, the cable opened for business but only the rich could afford it -- the initial rates were a startling 10 shillings a letter at a time that a monthly wage for a labourer was a few £s

As with the overland cables, undersea cables were laid rapidly. Within 20 years there were 107,000 miles of undersea cables linking in the first global communication. The original cables stopped working in the 1870s but by this time four other cables were laid. It is interesting to note that even though later cables could carry large numbers of signals at the same time, it was not until the 1960s that the first communication satellites offered a serious alternative to the cable the development of which owes something to the workers of Oakamoor
　

In praise of art

I was in a privileged position last week. I was a guest of the art dealer Bonham’s of Knightsbridge at a special showing of the David Hockney exhibition- the Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy. My friend Jim had made me a beneficiary of his will and one of Jim’s Hockney’s was in the retrospective. Jim’s Dad was Hockney’s tutor at Bradford College of Art in the 50s and he acquired a number of paintings and drawings.
The exhibition was a celebration of the British countryside with huge works in vivid colours in a variety of mediums. A series of paintings of a lane in the Yorkshire Wolds in different seasons was particularly striking.


I love art and feel glad that my parents introduced me to great paintings at an early age. It seems to me deplorable that museum and art galleries seem so alien to many but that was not the case in my childhood. I have an abiding memory of being drawn into the grotto in the " Madonna of the Rocks" in the National Gallery when I was 7. Such days were exhausting as were tried to cram as much as we could in a day trip from Stoke. On one occasion in the Rubens Room my father rubbed his weary legs exposing flesh something not done in the early 60s. My Mother upbraided and my father pointing at a voluptuous nude said, " That’s nothing she’s showing her arse"

I returned to the National Gallery after visiting the RA. The National was a place Jim and I visited often when we were in the capital. I thought of him. His quips were memorable. A picture of Salome and the head of John the Baptist resulted in the comment. " Send it back I ordered a cheeseburger" I stood before one of his favourites a study of an earnest young man by the 17^th century Italian artist Salvatore Rosa. It had a Latin inscription translated as " Be silent unless what you say is better than silence"- a sentiment as Jim remarked that should be directed at mobile phone users and local radio presenters.

What if Bonnie Prince Charlie had won?

The people of Cheadle were overjoyed according to the Derby Mercury to hear of the defeat of the Scots Rebels under the command of Charles Edward Stuart at the Battle of Culloden in April 1746. "Bonfires were lit and houses were illuminated in a handsome manner". The commander of the British army that inflicted such a crushing defeat on the Highlanders was the son of King George William, Duke of Cumberland. The previous winter the Scots and the Dukes Army had come close with the Scots passing through Leek and the loyalists camped at Stone. The Duke had spent the night at Cheadle and after the Rebels had began their retreat northwards he was received as a liberator by the people of Leek as he pursued the Scots.

But it was a close thing.

Bonnie Prince Charlie had nearly succeeded. As the rebel army journeyed south the Government in London was in a panic; King George was all set to flee. The majority of the British Army was out of the country fighting in Flanders. If only they had covered the last 150 miles to the capital the prize could have been won.
This poses the question what if? What would have happened if the rebels had won and Charles’s father had been crowned James III in the summer of 1746? It’s a good game speculation. Well I imagine that the whole shape of British history would have been changed. Given the French support to the Jacobite cause I imagine
it would have led to a period of co-operation between Britain and France. No ruinously expensive 18^th century wars. We might have a French speaking Canada. An America that did not break with George III in 1776 and evolved into dominion status like Australia. Louis XVI might have been able to effect reforms that forestalled the need for the Revolution. No Robespierre and no Napoleon. A France not torn by war and revolution grows into the major power of 19^th century Europe and is able to curb the development of Germany. No Bismarck, No Kaiser and no First World War. As for Britain the stubborn Stuart gene re-emerges under James IV who succeeded his father Charles III in 1796. His illiberalism does not fit well with the emerging middle class and the monarchy is overthrown in 1822. Britain becomes a republic with President Byron assuming the mantle of government