Do you remember January 1989?

1989 did not begin well for the District Council. It was voted “ Most Philistine” Council in the satirical magazine “Private Eye” for the second year running. The 1980s locally were dominated by proposals to redevelop Leek and although there was much local opposition the Council were determined to press ahead. Matters had come to a head with a referendum taken the previous autumn in which the plans were rejected

Another charge levelled at the authority was its obsessive secrecy and its willingness to accept the mediocre in terms of building designs for the town centre and for the new Council chamber. It seems to me as a long term resident of the town that the lack of openness identified by the magazine still exists today.

The Post and Times carried headlines of the mental health strategy of local health services. It was reported that 120 patients from St Edwards Hospital were being moved out in the community. These plans were in line with the tenor of the times. Some years earlier the Griffiths Report on Community Care had been published which called for the closure of “asylums” and the treatment of patients in the community. It was a move generally supported by health professionals and the users. Long stay hospitals had been built often in countryside some way from urban areas and the patients tended to be institutionalised in such facilities. In the late 80s I worked as a Community Health Council officer in the North west and can recall some of the terrible stories of patient who had been effectively incarcerated in huge hospitals like Calderstones in Lancashire. In one case a woman had been a patient since the 1930s for having a child out of wedlock.

Bill Sheldon of Wetley Rocks turned 90 in 1989. He was a First World War veteran joining the Leicestershire Regiment at the age of 18. He had a memento of his war experiences in the trenches. A German prisoner at the end of the war had made him a shaving mirror complete with the crest of Bill's regiment- the Fox. Bill had a narrow escape in Flanders in 1917 when he and 5 other comrades including a mate from Longnor were detailed to go on a night raid to gather information. There plans were discovered by an alert German machine gunner who opened fire on them in No Man's land. Only Bill and the Longnor man made it safely back to British lines

It was a happy opening of the year for the Riondino family when Tracey nee Lowndes of Leek gave birth to triplets. Tracey was married to an evangelist preacher Carmine from Italy and they had given the children biblical names Melchisedel, Zipporah and Zion. The family were visiting family members in Leek over the festive period. Carmine had an interesting past and as a young man was involved with the Mafia. He bought this experience to good use in working with gang members and drug user and the family planned to build a church in Central Italy,

Residents in Rudyard were outraged at the activities of a local hunt which had disrupted life in the area over several months in 1988/9. Fox hounds had crashed into a garden in Devil's Lane causing several cats and a puppy to narrowly escape with their lives, the dogs had wrecked havoc in gardens as they pursued a fox some distance. Worse occurred some months earlier when a toddler witnessed a cub ripped apart in front of him.

Leek Ladies had formed a football club and were serious in intent. They took training seriously going on longcross country runs. The star of the team was Maxine Brookes who had acquired the nickname “ Mad Max” given her tenacious tackling ability. It had not gone too smoothly as in an early fixture they were beaten by the Doncaster Belles 36-0

Victorians and Food

Barely a week goes by without items appearing on the adulteration of food. The current controversy over burgers and horse meat being a recent example and a local newsagent was prosecuted ,last year for selling vodka to which a toxic substance was added. Concerns over the quality of food and its impact on the populace first come to the fore during the 19^th century.

All through the Victorian era food was adulterated. It was, put simply, a fact of life. Almost anything you purchased was likely to have had something added. The main reason was economic diluting the product increased profit. Adding water to milk is probably the most common instance of this although adulteration was far more widely practised.

The list of poisonous additives reads like the stock list of some mad and malevolent chemist: strychnine, cocculus inculus (both are hallucinogens) and copperas in rum and beer; sulphate of copper in pickles, bottled fruit, wine, and preserves; lead chromate in mustard and snuff; sulphate of iron in tea and beer; ferric ferrocynanide, lime sulphate, and turmeric in Chinese tea; copper carbonate, lead sulphate, bi-sulphate of mercury, and Venetian lead in sugar confectionery and chocolate; lead in wine and cider; all were extensively used and were accumulative in effect, resulting, over a long period, in chronic gastritis, and, indeed, often fatal food poisoning. It is not surprising that purgatives were frequently used

It also explains the trust people had in the Cooperative Movement in securing quality in food . The Rochdale Pioneers opened their store in 1844 and within a few months they had become known for providing unadulterated goods and a movement was born.

By the 1870s legislation was enacted and from that date prosecutions start to come through the courts. In February 1879 a local butcher Enoch Clarkson was taken to court in Cheadle for selling discoloured beef unfit for human consumption. A grocer in Burslem was fined for adding alum to flour and in Kidsgrove another was found guilty for adding plaster of paris called “daft” to confectionery On that example sometimes the tendency could have fatal consequences . In 1858 a sweet shop owner in Bradford named Neal mistakenly added arsenic to his peppermint lozenges resulting in over 20 deaths. It was cases like this led to legislation on food quality

A Staffordshire Tolpuddle- early trade unions

In late February 1834 there occurred two incidents, which involved early trade unionism in different parts of the country. One in Dorset received, in time, national and international prominence whilst the other, in the Staffordshire Moorlands, would be forgotten and reports of the incident overlooked.

The incident in Tolpuddle led to 5 men being tried and eventually transported for 7 years to Australia. The other 5 men in the Moorlands would again lead to imprisonment and a trial for the same offence although the outcome would be very different.

Both events took place in a rural England seething with anger and discontent in the early 19^th century. It was a time of great change where the certainties and traditions of the countryside were being swept away. A policy of enclosing the land, undermining the age old rights of grazing livestock on common land, of gathering brushwood or turf for fuel and collecting gleanings from the community harvest to keep the family in bread during the winter months had been disastrous for the rural poor. Their position was further worsened by an economic depression. They had no redress and were powerless to influence a parliament that was controlled by the very landowners who were suppressing them. The people who worked on the land received no compensation whatsoever for the loss of their land and previously held centuries old rights. They were driven to desperation.

By the 1830s a vicious circle of low wages, lack of influence and growing poverty tightened, men were often placed in wretched situations forced to tramp for miles to obtain help from the parishes that administered the poor laws. As rural crime rates increased the response of the Government grew harsher as people did as young as 14 were hanged for stealing and others transported for petty theft.

Finally in the early 1830s the countryside erupted in rebellion and the so-called “Captain Swing” Riots broke out. Villagers around the country marched on the homes of the local squire or magistrate to demand a decent living wage and improved living conditions. To show their feelings hayricks were burnt and machinery wrecked, although there is no record of anyone being killed.

The reaction of the authorities was savage and around the country over 250 people were sentenced to, although only 9 were executed.

The background of these hard times forms an overture to the events both in Tolpuddle and in Flash as working people in both communities sought solutions to the basic problem of how to secure a livelihood.

The answer for both was to look to community action through joining a trade union. By 1834 Trade Unions were legal and had been so since 1824. In that year laws that had existed to make trade unions illegal had been repealed. The right for working men to come together and to bargain with their employers was established. Under the circumstances working men and women took advantage of the relaxed laws and membership of the early trade unions increased.

However one aspect of trade unionism at the time had been omitted from the appeal – the ritual of initiating the member into the union. It was the ritual that bought the wrath of the Government down on the heads of the people, both in Dorset and in North Staffordshire. The initiation ceremony dated back to the years when belonging to a trade union was breaking the law and early trade unionists needed to know that their business was secret and their plans concealed.

The Dorset men were convicted of administering an illegal oath using legislation that had originally been intended for use during a naval mutiny- the illegal oath legislation and it was the same legislation that was intended to be used against another group of workers a few hundred miles further north.

But what was the position in the Moorlands at this time? The township of Alstonefield had a population of 649 and with the population of other townships in the area such a Warslow and Quarnford the wider community added up to an area population of 4700. The Directory of 1834 mentions that an Act of Parliament had recently been laid down to enclose all the common land in the area which surely must have rankled who relied on the commons for additional food and fuel to eke out their meagre wages. Another source of irritation was that the value of the land would have been made over to a local Vicar to the value of £300 a year. It is worth noting that early trade unionism was very much involved Methodists and other dissenters who were often at odds with the established Church of England. I will conjecture that the 5 men on trial were Primitive Methodists, a sect founded in North Staffordshire. The dispute in the area centred on button making and there existed in the area called Oliver a maker of “Florentine buttons”.

Button making in the early 19^th century was a cottage industry and increased use of machinery and adverse trade circumstances and wage reduction in the early 19^th century caused many to look to forming a new trade union which caused them to be in conflict with the law.

The authority mindful of the increase in unrest in both town and country decided on a harsh course and a number of local men were arrested.

The 5 men in the dock at Stafford in August 1834 were named as William Ball, Thomas Malkin, Joseph Coates, Joseph Haywood and Henry Booth- were all from Leek. All these names occur as common surnames in the area which they still do today. They were indicted for administering an illegal oath to Elizabeth Bestwick at Alstonefield on the 27^th February 1834. The evidence of Elizabeth Bestwick of Alstonefield is extremely interesting as it sheds light on how early trade unionist operated

In February 1834 Mr Brunt said to me that the best thing to do was to commence a union. On the 27^th all the defendants came to the Travellers Rest and explained the advantages of joining a trade union and said that we would not have cause to repent it. We of our own free will not make buttons for under 6d and 10d. They were singing and praying, but they did not compel me to take the oath. We took it of our own free will. They sang and prayed and took the oath in the clubroom, our eyes were blindfolded. A woman did it , but I did not know whom. She led us in and we went to a large dining table. We all knelt down with our right hand on our left breast and our left hand on a Bible. We kissed the book and solemnly declared that we would not make buttons for 6d and 10d, but we would keep all the secrets of the lodge and never give the consent that the money should be divided or appropriated for any other than the union and if we did our souls would drop into a bottomless pit.

The first time they came to the Travellers Rest “ Now sister you are a member of our honourable society and may you all prove worthy of the honour conveyed upon you”.

Mr Haywood gave me my oath. Sarah Bestwick was sworn in at the same time. I took hold of her hand. We were to subscribe 2d a week at the quarter of the year. We were to turn out for higher wages. We would be allowed 6 shillings a week. All the prisoner’s were present.

Taylor, Johnson and Bowcock came to the Flash. Some time after this we were initiated and told us that the Dorchester men had been transported for taking the oath and bid us be initiated again. We readily consented to it. When I tool the oath my hands were readily bound, but the handkerchief hurt my eyes and I saw all the persons, the hatchet and the sword. They had on a kind of surplice. Two had light dresses on.

In August when the case came to trial it must have seemed a forgone conclusion. The 5 men pleaded guilty and their dread must have been reinforced when they realised that the judge at their trial was the same judge at the trial in Dorset and in that case Mr Justice Williams had been remorseless.

However the outcome was very different. Firstly unlike in the case of the Dorset men the local magistrate Greaves spoke up for the 5 men indicating that they were respectable and industrious men and what they had done the men had done in their ignorance. The men were contrite and leniency was asked for.

Secondly, public opinion had turned in favour of the Dorset men. Mass demonstrations and petitions had been organised in many places in the country including Stoke on Trent where a public meeting had been organised by the Potter’s Union in the Swan Inn in Hanley and a petitioner comprising of several thousand names had been collected. In London a demonstration of over 200,000 had taken place against the injustice suffered by the Dorset Labourers. The country was mobilised and the authorities did not want a repeat in North Staffordshire of the events in the south

Thirdly the unions had ceased to administer oaths so they were not likely to be caught again in this trap.

The men were realised and were sent on their way back to their Moorland homes and their families.

The Times delivered a homily to the wealthy during this poverty wracked period.

“ Let the rich be taught that Providence will not suffer them to oppress their fellow creatures with impunity. Here are thousands of Englishmen; industrious, kind hearted but broken hearted human being, exasperated into madness by insufficient food and clothing, by utter want of the necessaries for themselves and their unfortunate families”

When Rembrandt came to town

I came across something that I can only describe as astounding recently when going through a bound volume of the Leek Times for 1875. What caused me to be dumbfounded was the description of an art exhibition that took place in April of that year. The venue was the West Street School Rooms and I can probably safely say that at no other moment in Leek’s history has so much cultural and monetary value been amassed in one place. At the opening of the exhibition the report in the Leek Times said that no opening speeches were made but it may have been that the first visitors were simply amazed at the spectacle. The paper gave a list of the artists whose work was being shown at West St over the next weeks.

It reads like a list of the most greatest western artists of the last 400 years Michaelangelo,Correggio,Rembrandt,Jan Steen; Reynolds, Gainsborough and others are programmed as having canvasses at the exhibition.

There are etchings and sketches by Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner and Hollar

There was also very high quality sculpture and pottery on display

The works were selected principally from the galleries of the local gentry but also borrowed pieces from the South Kensington Museum which is now better known as the Victoria and Albert Museum. The named contributors to the exhibition included such local worthies as Mrs Bradshaw, Mrs Crusoe, Joshua Nicholson, Mr George Wardle, WS Brough, Hugh Sleigh, William Challioner, Miss Condlyffe, Mrs Argles, Major Brocklehurst, Miss Van Tuyl, and Miss Gaunt

The painting that the reviewer is most demonstrative about is a canvas by a Dutch artist David Teniers the Elder (1582-1649) called “Peasants Merry Making” the writer is very impressed that the painting had been valued at £3000 in 1870. It was in his words “wonderfully coloured” and painted in 1650 when the artist was working in Brussels. I have attempted through Google to try to find out what happened subsequently to the art since appearing in Leek 132 years ago. That picture can now be seen in the National Gallery in London it was and presented to gallery in 1948 by John Hanbury Martin. Teniers who was the head of a dynasty of painters was the most famous artist of rustic life and very popular in his life time and beyond when many were purchased by the great houses of England and France in the decades that followed his death.

It is also interesting to reflect on the impact of inflation on the price of art since the days of the Mid Victorians. To give you an idea a Salomon Van Ruysdael another 17^th century artist represented at the Leek exhibition sold for $3 million in New York in February this year.

The reviewer obviously liked his rural scenes as another picture to get a rave review is a drawing of cattle by George Morland a very popular London born artist of the mid 19^th century who has now largely lapsed into obscurity. The Leek Times expends a great deal of ink celebrating the art of the unheard of Morland but infuriatingly hardly mentions a portrait by the “immortal” Rembrandt.

The 18^th century artist and founder of the Royal Academy Joshua Reynolds is represented in the exhibition by two canvasses one is a portrait of the poet Goldsmith who was one of the 18^th century artist’s closest friends. It now sits in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin and the other is of a clergyman.

Antonio da Correggio’s 1489-1534 the principle artist of the Parma school of the Italian renaissance and responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16^th century is in the exhibition with his” Holy Family” painting

A contemporary artist shown at West Street in 1875 was one of the founding members of the Pre Raphaelite School Arthur Hughes who would have been 51 in that year. His illustrations of the Tennyson poem “Enoch Arden was displayed. I wonder as a example of idle speculation whether William Morris a principle figure in the moment and living in Leek at the time might have stared at the work as he knew Hughes through a mutual friend Rossetti

Perhaps the canvas that had the strongest connection with Leek in an oblique way was the March to Finchley by Hogarth. The painting which currently resides at the Coram Foundation- the London based children’s charity is based on a real historical event that Hogarth witnessed in December 1745 when British troops marched 10 miles out of London to rendezvous on Finchley Common to face the invading Highland Scots lead by Bonnie Prince Charlie. At the time Hogarth was observing the amassing force 165 miles away the advancing Scots were in Leek. This was nearly the limit of their advance and they retreated soon as they reached Derby when resources and supply lines had reached a limit. The British Army set off in pursuit of the retreating Highlanders pausing to receive the grateful thanks of the leading citizenry in Leek later that month. They caught up with the Scots at Culloden to smash the army and the clan system with it the following April. When he painted the picture in 1749 the danger was well past and Hogarth could afford to treat the subject in a light hearted and relaxed way mocking gin soaked soldiery as they headed north

There was also pottery lent by Minton’s of Stoke and Doulton of Lambeth. Mrs Cruso donated a Dresden vase with landscape and Morris of London contributed ware again I wonder if William Morris approved. Amongst other pottery was a Vase decorated by Louis Solon a French pottery who was beginning to make a reputation for himself having recently arrived in the country after fleeing war in France.

There was also a Bronze of St John the Baptist by Ghiberti of Florence dated 1412. I wondered if it is the same bronze which is now in now in the Orsonmichele in Florence? Ghiberti first became famous when he won the competition to design the doors of the bronze doors of the baptistery in 1401 described by Michelangelo as being “worthy of the gates of paradise”. This event is thought by art historian to have been the start of the Renaissance

The journalist covering the event over three weeks of the Times wrote glowingly about the Embroidery exhibition

“We think the time is not far off when English Ladies will be spend their spare hours in placing on our fabrics productions of their own minds or designs of the great masters of design and colour

We must not forget to look at three needlework pictures found near the embroidery, relics of better taste than of the cross stitch age, two of them being worked by Miss Condlyffe and one lent by Miss Sutton, they are well worked in the style of the old tapestries”

During the whole week the exhibition has been visited by large amounts of people and this has induced the management to keep the exhibition open by an extra week. £40 was spent on bringing the exhibition to Leek

Music was heard at the exhibition including a performance by the band of the Rifle Volunteers.

The reporter ended his report by praising the organisers of the exhibition and even from a distance of over a hundred years I can only marvel at the range of material that these three men helped to bring to Leek. I do wonder about the security and I have a vision of the Rembrandts and the rest travelling to Leek wrapped in brown paper and travelling in the Guards van.

“Mr Thomas Wardle, WS Brough and John S Winfield must be especially pleased that there arduous labour and untiring perseverance has achieved a success which a week after the exhibition seemed impossible.”

The exhibition had been poorly attended to start with and the committee had thought of making the exhibition free however on the fourth day the number of visitors increased and at the end the exhibition made £25

Do you remember January 1967?

A report published at the beginning of 1967 sounds oddly familiar to modern ears. Leek was described by a visitor as “ being dead from the neck up”. Architects Shingler Risdon carried out an in-depth assessment of the town with sweeping proposals within its conclusion. The introduction to the report painted a gloomy picture. No major employer had been attracted to Leek since the war. The population had stayed static since the 1930s whilst other Staffordshire towns had grown. The town's young people were leaving as the town provided insufficient opportunities especially for its graduates. There were 26 empty shops in the town centre.

The report proposed a number of bold changes. The bottom end of Derby St near to the monument would be extensively re developed with a new Civic centre, a Magistrate Court, Library and Children's Health Clinic, A 20 mph one way system was devised with a new road connecting Earl Street and Southbank. Derby St would be pedestrianised and a “ new triangular road system around Derby and Hayward Street with the end of the roundabout 44 years before it was achieved.

Leek people looking to book their summer holiday in January 1967 could look at a number of choices to escape to warmer climes. The previous decade saw the start of cheap package holiday to Mediterranean resorts. Typical was a 11 day holiday to the Italian Riviera costing £34 but for the hardy there was a 14 day coach trip to Italy including stops in Brussels, Lake Lucerne, Milan, Florence, Pisa, two days in Rome, Assisi, Rimini, Venice, Innsbruck and Augsburg. The trip included 2,500 miles travel and cost £41. The people of Leek were beginning to follow a national trend as airports such as Luton developed to meeting the need to escape to the sun although Britons were only allowed to take £50 out of the country due to the economic plight of the country.

 

A footballing legend appeared in Leek in the month before his 52 birthday. Stanley Matthews was the manager of Port Vale and bought a young team to play Leek Town before a large crowd of 1,400. The crowd were entertained in a free scoring game in which the visitors won 6-1 . The home team included the uncompromisingly named Boote and Nutting but they were overwhelmed by the Vale. Stan bossed the game and even at this advanced age his vision and touch had not deserted him.

Young people with increasing disposable income were spending their money on themselves. John English hair stylists of Cheadle telephone number 3367 advertised their new style for 1967 – the Grecian Boy. It was promoted this: “PERFECT layer cutting. To ensure lasting style our new 1967 permanent wave with buoyancy which will give your hair that soft rippling waviness which is so feminine, A hairstyle that will require absolutely No BACKCOMBING a very little lacquer, in fact, just a flick of the brush keeps its shape”.

Amongst the bands that were getting off on the right foot in January 1967 was the Mysteries pictured in the Post and Times who had just been booked by Molloys, a London based agency. One of the members of the band was Iain Sutherland who in the 70s was playing with his brother Gavin in the Sutherland Brothers and later in Quiver. The song “Sailing” was taken up by Rod Stewart and was a number one in the UK charts for 4 weeks in 1975.

The moral turpitude of the nation exercised the mind of the Rev Ken Foster of Rushton who used the Leek Deanery magazine to examine the increased usage of a fashionable word “mini” “ Big Girls are trying to look like little girls, the Commonwealth is becoming mini in company with the motor car and a whole system of mini morals are reducing human society to a state.... surely in 1967 we will have to reverse this process and begin to grow up again before it is too late. We see history and life in great sweeps and apply the fertiliser of common sense to our stunted social economy”

Mr Bowcock- a "visionary" hoarder

Anyone who thinks that compulsive hoarding is a new phenomena as revealed in television programmes might like to hear of the case of George Bowcock of Kiln Lane. I would go as far as to say that Bowcock might be one of the earliest accounts of the compulsive disorder predating the case of the New York Collyer brothers by nearly 60 years. The curious affair of Bowcock came to public notice in the 1870s when his activities were first investigated by the authorities .Leek's sanitary commission asked him to clear up his “treasure house” as he styled it in 1873. George had “ by many years patient toil succeeded in amassing a heterogeneous collection of curiosities the like of which a man would never expect to see in the course of a life times travel”. The old man has assembled the collection in caves and passages around Kiln Lane, but he was ordered to clean up and the material was carted away. Nothing daunted he started again at 125 Mill St, since long demolished , as he reported to journalist he intended to gather another collection “ of such gigantic proportions to cast all other collections in the shade”

George in a visionary statement “ dreamed of a future world in which old pots grew on apple trees and there were mines of old cans, wheels, bottles, and crockery and where the whole world was engaged in an occupation collecting as much rubbish they could find room and a man's blissful or wretched state depended on what he collected”. George seems to have the obsessive desire of people in the 21^st century to acquire stuff bang to rights. Perhaps a large statue of him could be erected naturally from re-cycled materials in Brough Park? However it proved too much for townspeople then and he was taken to court by Inspector Farrow for collecting rubbish “injurious to health” in 1876.

Shortly before the rubbish was removed a reporter called on George. He climbed into the house making his through “ an assortment of broken and cracked gallipots which encumbered the stairway” Clothes were everywhere and in the bedroom George sat on a bench encircled by pots in which he was brewing herbs. His bed was surrounded by detritus, but that did not concern him “ I only sleep here, I eat at Selina Tatton's”, he cheerfully remarked.

Scouting for Boys

Sunday the 6^th June 1920 was a splendid early summer day and a day that a large proportion of the town turned out to enjoy. All the principle dignitaries of the town were present. The MP Mr Broomfield, the Nicholson’s and Lady Brocklehurst. Another distinguished visitor was an Australian born Admiral Sir Guy Gaunt who lived at Swainsley Hall who was to meet with an old comrade who had also seen conflict in the Boer War of 1899-1902.

A war hero was in town and one whose exploits exactly 20 years before had lead to national rejoicing when the news from the front was grim.

Robert Baden Powell arrived in town having lunched at the home of Mr and Mrs Horace Wardle at “Ladydale”. BP, as he was universally known, had become famous overnight in 1900 as the defender of the town of Mafeking, which had been surrounded by a Boer Army in the South African War. The war had at that stage gone very badly for the British and his valiant defence of the town made him a national hero. Following the end of his army career Baden Powell wrote “Scouting for Boys” in 1908 part of which was written in the “Isaac Walton Hotel in Dovedale. He had also stayed at the summer house of the Wardle’s at Swainsley Hall; they had owned the house prior to the Admiral taking over the house in 1909. Baden Powell being a Scout insisted that on camping in the grounds of the house.

Baden Powell was in Leek meeting with the newly formed Scout Troops part of the national obsession with the Scout Movement, which was developed following the first scout camp on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour in 1907.

Baden Powell who in 1920 was aged 63 looked according to the local reporter who covered the event as “hard as nails” and very fit. Over 5,000 people assembled on the Beggars Lane Cricket field with scouts and guide groups from all over the district. There were Scouts from Mill St Mission and West St as well as Oakamoor. The Leek First Guide group attended commanded by Captain Worthington and the participants heard a drumhead service conducted by the Vicar of Leek. The Foden Band provided the music.

Baden Powell welcomed a number of ex servicemen who were parading that day who had fought in the Boer war and who had shared hard times. He went on “It was all very well to erect memorials to men who had fallen in war. The best memory was to follow the example and that people should not be trained to be soldiers but to be good citizens. Scouts in Leek belonged to a vast family extending over the Empire. I want you to honour God and the King and do good to someone every day”.

In 1920 BP was acclaimed Chief Scout of the World at the national jamboree held in London. He was to die in 1941. My mother who was a guide recalled the memorial service for all scouts in North Staffs, which was held in St Peter’s in Stoke.

Scouting continued to thrive in Leek over the decades and the local paper carried regular reports on the health of the movement. In May 1924 an anonymous correspondent “Scouter” rhapsodised on the coming of summer. One could look forward to the smell of the campfire and the early morning dip in the river and the pleasures of living the natural life as opposed to the artificiality of the modern town dweller. Scouter however was troubled

“ A number of privileges are given to scouts are now be taken away owing to the careless habits of people who preceded them and who fail to see that there careless habits are spoiling the ground for others. Scouts do not do this and the object of the scout camper is to leave as little trace as possible and he usually manages to do this. To learn to fend for yourself should be the object of every youth”

It remained a very popular activity for many young people in Leek and central to many then and up to the present. In fact during the war the Nazi’s regarded Scouting as a dangerous spy organisation and Baden Powell although a very old man by 1940 was to have been arrested if the invasion of Britain had proved successful.

In 1957 the 50^th anniversary of the start of scouting was celebrated by an international jamboree in Birmingham. Scouts from many nations took part and a party of 200 were welcomed to Leek in August of that year. The event did not go to plan as Scouts from Belgium, Burma, Denmark, South Africa and the United States made the journey up by rail. In a scene reminiscent of a film star of the time Norman Wisdom the specially charted train passed Leek station at high speed past the hapless civic and scouting leaders who lined up on the platform. The newspaper report stated that the fireman happily waved at the group as the train charged through. It got close to Macclesfield before the train was recalled. It was suggested that a mix up in languages and confusion over the parties accounted for the error. Lunch was prepared at Rudyard and the Scouts were taken around the district including the Isaac Walton Hotel where BP had written part of “Scouting for Boys” in the summer of 1907. There was disappointment as many of the local mills were closed for the industrial holiday.

The tour ended in the town centre and parties of Scouts were taken on a speedy tour of Leek particularly conspicuous were the American Scouts in brilliant red jackets with the badge of the American jamboree, which they had attended earlier in the year. Cllr Stubbs mentioned the link between the States and the town when the party passed through the army camp at Blackshaw Moor where part of the American Third Army was stationed during the War.

It is easy to mock some of the sentiments expressed in “Scouting for Boys” but one has to admire a book, which had part of its birth in the Moorlands. I think that it can be strongly argued that it was a book that changed the world. And some of the views presented in it given the current debate over youth prescient. Baden Powell wanted to produce practical, self reliant and unselfish citizens and I would say as a former scout myself- 81^st Milton Scouts- this is what is exactly what is required today.

In 1907 there were 20 scouts at the original camp on Brownsea Island today there are 28 million worldwide. And of the 12 Americans who walked on the moon 11 had been scouts.