Cheshire Salt Newsflash!

Cheshire salt is needed to keep the country moving! This news video shows the huge stockpile of salt at Middlewich which is going to save Britain's roads from the Big Freeze.

True Grit

It was snowing hard when I got up this morning, although it’s beginning to ease off now. Like many other people, I suspect, I find it strange that so many schools have been closed this week – I remember trudging through the snow to get to school when I was a kid.

In earlier times, people just got on with their lives, unless they physically couldn’t get out of their door because the snow was so high. The mail-coaches kept going even if snow was up to their horses’ bellies. There were reports of mail-guards and passengers riding outside the coaches freezing to death in severe weather. One of the bleakest nights on record during Georgian times was that of Friday 8 November 1799. Many mail-coaches got stuck in the snow. The mail guards had to leave their coaches behind and take the postbags on horseback to their destination.

Images: 'Taking up the mails,' and 'In a Snowdrift.' Hugh Thomson, Coaching Days and Coaching Ways, (Macmillan, 1910.)

Manchester Histories Festival

I've just heard news of an exciting one-day event to celebrate Manchester's amazing industrial past. The Manchester Histories Festival will explore many different facets of the city's story, from the cotton industry to politics. There's going to be an exhibition in the Town Hall, including a display on Manchester workers, its scientific community, and its buildings. And of course, you can find out more about the story of Lancashire's industrial past and in particular, workers in towns like Manchester and Liverpool, in my book Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives.

Image: The Portico Library, Manchester. © Sue Wilkes. The library first opened in 1806; it was designed by Thomas Harrison. It was a subscription library - beyond the budget of many ordinary workers.

Burns Night

Tonight’s a special Burns Night – the people’s poet is 250 years old today. He was born on 25 January 1759 in a humble cottage near Ayr. His poems brought him fame, but not wealth. Burns loved to socialise; I’m sure he would have enjoyed the many Homecoming events planned for this year.

Image: Robert Burns, Burns’ Poetical Works, (William P. Nimmo & Co., 1881.)

Stolen Childhoods Talk

I’ll be giving a talk to the Gaskell Society at 1pm on 10 February at the Cross St Chapel, Manchester. During late Georgian and Victorian times, children worked long hours in many different industries: coal, cotton, glass and metal trades. I’ll be looking at their daily lives and working conditions. If you are attending the talk and have bought my book Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives, if you bring your copy I’ll sign it after the meeting has finished.

Image: Calico Printing, 1840s. Pictorial History of the County of Lancashire, 1844. Child workers in the roller printing works (illustrated here) were usually about ten years old; this little girl is probably helping her father rather than working full time.

Madame de Staël

It’s hard to imagine two more dissimilar writers than Jane Austen and Madame de Staël (1766-1817.) Unlike Austen’s ‘little bit (two inches wide) of ivory’, de Staël used large brushstrokes on her literary canvas; she painted portraits of whole continents, people and politics.
Born in Paris, Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker was an admirer of Rousseau. She was the daughter of wealthy Swiss banker Jacques Necker (later French Minister of Finance.) The tomboyish young woman with ‘dark, flashing eyes’ married Swedish ambassador Baron de Staël-Holstein in 1786.
Germaine became embroiled in Revolutionary politics. She had a very public spat with Napoleon, who exiled her from France. De Staël was famous for her literary salons; she hobnobbed with Byron, Sheridan and other eminent writers.
Germaine died in the same month as Austen. Like Jane, she left work unfinished: her memoirs, and her Considerations on the French Revolution. There’s a Society dedicated to her works. You can find out more about de Staël’s life, books and unorthodox love-life in my feature for this month’s Jane Austen's Regency World.
Image: Madame de Staël. History of England, Vol. VII, Charles Knight, (London, 1868.)

A Real Treat

I really enjoyed Neil Oliver's new History of Scotland (BBC2) this evening. Oliver's enthusiasm and genuine passion for his subject are infectious. As well as giving a lively account of Scotland's turbulent past, Oliver's account is packed with sublime images of Scottish scenery. Tonight's programme was specially interesting for me as Oliver visited some of the places I've seen on holiday in previous years: Dunadd fort, the island of Iona and Dunnottar Castle. I can't wait for the next instalment.