Jimmy Clitheroe

Its pantomime season and some months ago I came across an advert for a production of “ Dick Whittington” in Leek in the late 60s. The star of the show was Oldham born comedian Danny Ross better known as the gormless Alfie in the Clitheroe Kid a mainstay of radio comedy for many years. It seems that Danny was regular visitor to Leek, as it was just a short drive over the Pennines from his Lancashire home

I heard Jimmy Clitheroe’s show again recently on Radio 4 Extra. Clitheroe was present along with Alfie, Jimmy’s Scottish grandfather and his improbable sounding sister Susan who had an accent more suggestive of Roedean than Rawtenstall. To me the show was distinctly unfunny. I may have roared with laughter at it in 1964, but certainly not half a century later.

The “Clitheroe Kid” however is still evocative, recalling Sunday afternoons long ago where such programmes held the attention of all the family. It was a recognisable, innocent world where the wrestling is on the telly, and you have to scrape a few coins together to buy sweets.


I was speaking to someone who knew Clitheroe slightly. Jimmy had a Rolls Royce but even with padded seating his 4 foot 3 inch frame found it difficult to peer over the windscreen. My contact initially thought the driver’s seat was empty at their first meeting. He never grew taller than this, and even in middle age could easily pass for an 11-year-old boy. Clitheroe always performed rather spookily in school uniform even when taking part in radio shows.

He had been in show business for years and had performed with such stars of the music hall as Arthur Lucas and Frank Randle.

One of his catch phrase's was “I’m all there with me cough drops” (a Lancashire expression for someone quick-witted). When he got into a scrape - as he frequently did - his catchphrase was “Ooh, flippin’ ’eck”.

 He came to a sad end -dying of a sleeping pill overdose- on the day of his mother’s funeral. His shade came into my life unexpectedly when I visited Beverley and took part in a ghost walk some years ago. The guide mention a small “spirit “ seen to run along a wall “ It’s the ghost of Jimmy Clitheroe” said my companion

Richard Caldwell -Tudor Doctor

2013 sees the 500^th anniversary of the birth of a man completely overlooked in the annuals of famous people of the Staffordshire Moorlands. Richard Caldwell was born in Upper Hulme in the early years of the reign of Henry VIII. For someone from such a remote place Richard must have showed signs of remarkable promise. He attended Brasenose College in Oxford, graduating in 1554. Caldwell was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians four years later becoming President of the College in 1570. He co- founded the Lumleian lectures- annual lectures on the latest medical advance- still held today. It was at a lecture that William Harvey announced his research on the circulation of the blood in 1615 .

During the 16th century there were some improvements in medicine, but it remained basically the same as in the Middle Ages. In 1478 a book by the Roman doctor Celsus was printed. (The printing press made all books including medical ones much cheaper). This quickly became a standard textbook. However in the early 16th century a man named Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541) called himself Paracelsus (meaning surpassing Celsus). He denounced all medical teaching not based on experiment and experience. However traditional ideas on medicine held sway for long afterwards especially in an area as inaccessible as the Staffordshire Moorlands.

Tudor doctors were expensive and they could do little about illness partly because they did not know what caused disease. They had little idea of how the human body worked. Doctors thought the body was made up of four fluids or 'humours'. They were blood, phlegm, choler or yellow bile and melancholy or black bile. In a healthy person all four humours were balanced, but if you had too much of one you fell ill.

 

Despite the relative scarcity of available books on medicine in England, this was a period of rapid development in medicine on the Continent. A number of important teachers were experimenting with new methods and disseminating new ideas. Men such as Falloppius, head of medicine at the University of Padua (for whom the Fallopian tube was named); Columbus, who first described the relationship of the systole and diastole of the pulse to the beating heart; and Montanus, the first to use clinical instruction for the teaching of medical students. Caldwell seems to have been aware of the advances and it is reported that he made a reputation for translating Italian medical research into English.

Zeppelin Raids over North Staffs 1916

I came across two accounts of Zeppelin raids over North Staffordshire, which are fully described in a newspaper account of late 1918. The Zeppelin was the brainchild of Count Ferdinard Zeppelin a German army officer who began developing his ideas on airships in 1897. The first Zeppelin flew on 2nd July 1900. The LZ-3 Zeppelin was accepted into army service in March 1909. By the start of the First World War the German Army had seven military Zeppelins.

The Zeppelin developed in 1914 could reach a maximum speed of 136 kph and reach a height of 4,250 metres. The Zeppelin had five machine-guns and could carry 2,000 kg (4,400 lbs) of bombs.

In January 1915, two Zeppelin navel airships 190 metres long, flew over the east coast of England and bombed great Yarmouth and King's Lynn. The first Zeppelin raid on London took place on 31st May 1915. The raid killed 28 people and injured 60 more.

The two raids over North Staffordshire occurred on January 31st 1916 and on the night of the 27th/28th November 1918.

On the first occasion North Staffs the district escaped without damage or injuries. On the second occasion 21 bombs were dropped and exploded as well as several duds. The damage was small and one person was injured.

January 31st 1916

The area was taken completely by surprise by the first raid. Few people thought that the airship could reach into the north or the Midlands. Lighting restrictions were not in force and the whole area including the steelworks at Etruria was a blaze of light, hidden by a slight ground mist. A number of airships reached the Midlands. One was over Walsall at 20.10 and another attacked Burton at 20.30. A zeppelin came up from the south and was seen over Trentham. It was attracted by the lights of the steelworks and dropped 6 bombs in rapid succession. (It was probably the one that my grandmother saw who was living in Ashford Street, Shelton in 1916). All the bombs fell on refuse heaps between the works and a colliery entrance. It made craters but did not cause any material damage. Thereafter the course of the Zeppelin is not known. It was heard in Hanley over Wolstanton and Madeley and then passed over the area. Other towns in Staffordshire suffered damage that night. Walsall was twice raised. The Wednesbury Congregational Chapel was completely damaged. Wednesbury, Tipton and Burton were also heavily attacked and the number of deaths in these towns was 12.13 and 14 receptively. At Burton a bomb fell on a mission hut killing the wife of the preacher as well as 4 members of the congregation.

November 27th-28th 1916

Monday the 27th November was a clear and dry night. At 10.45 a warning was received. The whole district was blacked out and air raid precautions were taken. Doctors and Red Cross Nurses were sent to their allocated stations. The Regular and Special police were in readiness for any emergency and the Fire Brigade wee on stand by. Information was received that the Zeppelin was seen coming from the direction of Biddulph and making for Kidsgrove, Goldenhill and Tunstall

A local gave an account of the raid

“I had been burning the mid night oil unaware of the air raid warning had been given, and had just reached my bedroom at a few minutes to One o’clock when I heard a deep, rumbling long sustained explosion. I concluded that a serious colliery explosion had happened, and I had gone to the next bedroom to see if anyone else had heard it when two more detonations occurred- shorter and sharper than the first. Obviously an air raid was occurring. After a brief interval another explosion ripped through the night- still nearer and accompanied by a rending sound. A few seconds and a series of two or three followed in such quick succession as almost to suggest machine gum fire except the firing I heard was of the heavy stuff

Then from the window I could see distant flashes – over in the direction of Chesterton- and every sound was following by a grinding and rending detonation. So the infernal artillery continued to half past one, when the Zeppelin, obviously coming closer to my point of vantage, dropped a bomb that shook every brick and window in the house. Yet the explosion was half a mile away. That was the last and saw of the raider. I counted 21 explosions.”

Bombardment of Tunstall

The first bomb fell on a spoil heap near the Birchenwood Colliery Kidsgrove: it did no damage. The second and third exploded on slag heaps not far from Goldendale Iron works. The third fell in a working class area of Tunstall in a working class district and there was done the main damage of the raid.

The bomb buried itself into soft ground forming the backyard of 6 Sun Street making a crater six feet deep and 7 to 8 yards wide sweeping away the sculleries and out houses of 2,4,6,8 Sun St wrecking those dwelling houses and doing damage more or less severe to many other houses in the locality as well as the Roman Catholic Church nearby. At Number 8 which was occupied by Mr and Mrs Cantliffe and their two children. Mr Cantliffe had just returned from work as a local pit and with his wife was having supper. He was hit in the chest and injured by flying fragments. His wife was uninjured, as were the other occupants of the house who were asleep at the time. The man was taken to the North Staffs Infirmary for treatment for a chest wound and he recovered quickly.

The doors and windows of nearby houses were torn from their framework and splintered windows were shattered and furniture was reduced to matchwood. There were fifteen houses in this row and all were considerably damaged. Back to Back with this row were another houses with their frontage in Bond St; and they suffered considerably, most of the windows were smashed and some having frameworks torn out. Masonry fell on the roofs of houses for some distance. The roof of the Roman Catholic Church was damaged by falling fragments, and the windows were blown out. At the Royal Albert Pottery many windows were damaged. After the explosion of bomb many of the people of the area were out in their night attire, and ready help was given to the people whose homes had been wrecked. Next day the Sun Street area of Tunstall presented a devastated aspect and for days afterwards became a spectacle for the curious.

Chesterton District

From Tunstall the Zeppelins made across Bradwell Woods for Chesterton wee the burning mine hearths in the collieries attracted the raider and gave the enemy the impression of more important targets than mere heaps of ironstones in the process of calcimining. At any rate the airship heavily bombed and the explosions were heavily and numerous. Apart from an old shed, which collapsed from the concussion and a big crater formed in the mine works and on the ground not a scrap of damage. This bombardment was particularly futile. One of the last bombs fell behind Bradwell Lane in Wolstanton and the force of the explosion was felt with great intensity.

For some time the raider circled around and many residents saw the airship. Eventually the airship turned south east and was sighted over Blurton coming over Hartshill at 01.35 leaving the area shortly afterwards

Beside 21 bombs that exploded there was an array of duds. Several were discovered in the Chesterton. And two unexploded bombs at the entrance of the Stafford Coal and Iron works at Sideway and one at Fenton Hall. Both had harmlessly dug in.

The airship responsible for the raid was the LZ61

The LZ 61 took part in a total of ten raids on England during 1916. These included:
January 31

It was ordered to attack Liverpool, but problems with night navigation meant that instead it bombed Tipton, Bradley, Wednesbury, and Walsall: killing over 30 people - including Julia Slater, Walsall's Lady Mayoress.

April 1
It attacked Cleethorpes, dropping several bombs on the town just after midnight. One of which landed on the Alexandra Road Baptist Chapel, killing 31 soldiers of the 3rd Battalion the Manchester Regiment, who were billeted there One of the only British Army units to be directly engaged by enemy action on British soil during World War I.

September 2

It took part in the largest airship attack of the war with 13 other Naval airships and also four Army airships - 16 in total. During this raid the crew of the LZ 61 witnessed the downing of the SL 11, the first airship to be shot down over the British mainland.

September 25–26

It was unable to find its designated targets of Derby and Nottingham, and instead attacked Bolton, Lump, Rawtenstall, Ewood Bridge, Stonefold, Haslingden, Helmshore, Rossendale, Ramsbottom and Holcomb.


On November 27, 1916 LZ 61 began its last raid on England in the company of nine other Zeppelins. Crossing the coast north of Atwick, LZ 61 initially attacked Leeds but was repelled by anti-aircraft fire.

After bombing Sharton, Dodworth, Kidsgrove, Goldenhill, Tunstall, Chesterton, Fenton and Trentham it made out into the North Sea near Great Yarmouth. It was intercepted by three RNAS pilots: Flight Sub–Lieutenant Edward Laston Pulling; Flight–Lieutenant Egbert Cadbury; and Flight Sub–Lieutenant Gerard William Reginald Fane flying B.E. 2C aircraft. After exchanging fire with the three aircraft the LZ 61 burst into flames and crashed into the sea about eight miles (13 km) east of Lowestoft. Kurt Frankenburg commanded the Zeppelin. He and the 16 other members of the craft did not survive.

Neil Armstrong 1930-2012

 

 

Neil Armstrong died over the weekend. For people of a certain age the exploits of Armstrong and other pioneers of space travel will remain for always an indelible part of their youth. Earlier today I looked up my diary entries for 1969. I was 14 years of age and in the week of the moon landing had been on holiday in Wales. We got back to Stoke that weekend and sat to watch the events of the night of the 20^th and 21^st of July unfold. The TV coverage was memorable; the BBC at the time had a policy of employing people who knew what they were talking about. And then in the early hours of that memorable Monday morning the news that Armstong and Aldrin had landed the moon vehicle and Armstrong was about to make his epoch making walk. The grainy TV screen made out a ladder and a boot as the astronaut made his descent and of course as he touched the surface of the moon his famous comment. A copy of The Guardian was bought commemorating the moon landing, which we kept until it disintegrated.

It was a time of optimism about the future of man in space and each episode of space exploration- whether it be American or Soviet- was eagerly anticipated. I particularly recall the Apollo 8 voyage in 1968. It was Christmas time and a particularly snowy holiday period. I remember looking up at the night sky at a brilliant full Moon as the astronauts beamed back the celebrated picture of a vulnerable planet Earth, a startlingly blue, and of course later the dramatic escape from catastrophe of Apollo 13. As someone told me today all these explorations were achieved by basic computers, slide rules and log tables.

I knew someone who met Armstrong and told me what a self-effacing and modest man he was. He never once sought to make personal gain from his triumph. The astronaut was the first to recognise that his supreme achievement was the product of teamwork, of the thousands of people who had worked on the space programme since the 1950s. In a modern age and in a time of instant celebrity perhaps we should reflect on what truly makes for a hero. Armstrong would certainly fit into this category, even though he shunned the limelight, because, for a brief shining moment he showed the way to the stars.

A history of smells

A few weeks ago I received a letter from Shirley Williams thanking me for sending her an article I had written on her mother Vera Brittain. In the piece, which appeared in May, I wrote of Vera’s taking her Oxford entrance exam at Leek College one hot day in July 1914. She wrote of the unpleasantness of the occasion the consequence of being cooped up with “odiferious” 16-year-old students. In her letter of reply the Baroness believed that the personal hygiene of teenagers had not changed much in a century. It’s an opinion, which I challenge given the range of deodorants available. But nevertheless this led me to think of the olfactory landscape of North Staffordshire in the past.

One great change is the absence of horses nowadays compared with 100 years ago the by-product of equines would have been very noticeable as would have been the absence of cars and exhaust fumes. People would have smelt of carbolic, especially as soap become more widely available after the 1880s. There was the odour of camphor from mothballs on clothes during the winter. My mother recalls clearly the smell of “Rinso” on washing hanging in the alleyways in the 1930s. Industry would have its own emanations. Smoke hung heavily in the air. Dye works gave off a pungent fragrance. The smell of steam trains to me is wonderfully evocative, other places would give off from less pleasing stenches. A friend recalls the reek coming from a bone mill near to where he lived in Silverdale. Slaughterhouses smelt of blood and the acrid smell of scorched hide, but for my mother an unforgettable aroma was that of roasting meat on the range. My own Proustian recollection is that of hot Brown’s sausage rolls in Stoke market. Of cigarette smoke during a football match combining agreeably with wintergreen. And I do miss the smell of pipe tobacco in public places.

Certain places carry with them unique bouquets. I always think of the pleasing reek of Higson’s brewery- sadly gone- as you walked out of Lime Street Station in Liverpool. When the wind was in the right direction aniseed fragrance from the Uncle Joe’s Mint balls factory pervaded the air of Wigan and catching a train in Worcester was made the more congenial by the close proximity of the Lee and Perrin works.

On two conflicting religious houses

t was a colourful sight that would live long in the mind of those who witnessed it that autumn day in 1846. The assembled clergy representing the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in England had arrived in the Staffordshire Moorlands to assist in the consecration of newly built St Giles Church in Cheadle the inspired creation of architect Augustine Pugin.

The Morning Post of September 3^rd 1846 commented on the clergy “All were habited in the full costume of their rank- exhibiting a solemn and imposing scene and it was impossible to witness it without the mind carried back to those ancient times”. Amongst the assembled bishops was Seraph Heliani the Armenian Bishop of Jerusalem with long flowing beard and dressed in oriental robes- an exotic sight for the people of Cheadle.

The newspaper did not hold back in the praise lavished on the newly opened Church.

“Bright and glittering colours, gorgeous decoration, beautiful paintings meet the eye on every side until the senses become dazzled”

I visited St Giles for the first time recently: it is a stupendous sight, undoubtedly one of the great British churches of the early 19^th century. Whilst I was there I took the opportunity to visit the Museum opened to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Pugin. I marvelled that this architectural jewel could be in the Staffordshire Moorlands. I noticed that the visitor book was full of reverential comments. I added an appropriate quote from Gerald Manley Hopkins.

Later my mind turned to another impromptu visit made in July to a place of worship diametrically opposite to Roman Catholic opulence .The Primitive Methodist chapel in Milldale was the place I thought of. It was built a decade before St Giles. It is unadorned, bare, but for me it was as much imbued with the spirit of God as the Cheadle Church. The visitor book was as full of positive comments as was St Giles. The chapel is set in wonderful countryside beside the Dove and I was alone. I sat in silence to hear the birdsong in the copse next to the chapel and the flow of the river. It was as much a glimpse of heaven as Pugin’s marvel

 

 

 

 

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On stress-past and present

During the Christmas period I over heard two young women complaining on how hard life was compared with the past. It is a source of puzzlement to me that we are living in an age where most people live longer and healthier lives with access to modern health care and social services and yet seem to be unhappy. The number of prescriptions for antidepressants, as one indicator, increased by 28% from 34m in 2007-08 to 43.4m in 2010-11, according to the NHS information centre. For a majority though standards of living are better than they were 50 years. Work now does not have the physical dangers of a century ago in industries like coal mining. Even the shopping experience is superior to that encountered by people in the past. Greater choice, goods always in season in one place is to be expected and obtained today. In short for many the lives they live are far better and less hazardous than their ancestors lives.

The picture that heads this article is that of my grand mother Hannah Sherwin born in 1890. The picture was taken in 1918. Her history serves as a crushing rejoinder to those today who bemoan their lot. By her teens both her parents were dead and she was left to bring up 4 siblings. A brother and a sister died in a typhoid outbreak after playing in a polluted area in Hanley in 1912. Four relatives including a beloved brother- George Mitchell- were killed in the trenches of the First World War. Her first husband Harry Cartwright who she married at Milton Church in 1917 died of wounds the year later in France two weeks before the end of the war. Afterwards she met and married my grandfather whose illnesses and wounds received serving in the 7th North Staffs in Mesopotamia shortened his life. Both lived through the dangers of the Second War including bombing of the steelworks close to where they lived. Their sons served in the forces, safely returning.  I barely knew my grandparents who both died in 1958 when I was 3.

I suppose the strains of modern life are exacerbated by the loss of community and the needs for individuals to succeed, but no one can convince me that queuing up in a supermarket is as stressful as charging across a muddy field against German machine guns.