Roman Chester

Christmas is coming! There’s still time to order my book Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives from Amazon if you choose ‘Express Delivery.’

It was the mildest day we’ve had for weeks here yesterday, so I did a spot of gardening. I met a confused bumblebee in the garden; he must’ve thought it was spring already!

It’s always difficult to find places to take the family which are open to visit during the Christmas holidays. The Grosvenor Museum in Chester is open in the winter months (phone or check online for Christmas opening times.) It’s got a fantastic collection of Roman tombstones (left), which give us a unique insight into how Roman people lived in Chester during the occupation. You can also peek into the past and explore daily life in Stuart, Georgian and Victorian times in the Period House (No. 20 Castle St.) Find out more in my Footsteps feature in the latest issue of BBC History magazine.

Christmas is a busy family time in the Wilkes household, so this may be my last blog post for a little while.
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers!

Image: My photo of Webster Stone 21RT: The tombstone of Curatia Diomysia; this Roman lady can be seen enjoying a drink in the afterlife.
© Sue Wilkes.

A Festive Ship

Recently, I was lucky enough to be present when the Lion Saltworks acquired a ‘salt ship’ for their collection. These are quite rare objects. At Christmas time and other festive occasions, the saltworkers would make wooden objects like ships, dip them in the concentrated brine in the saltworks, and put them to dry in the warm stove rooms (where lump salt was dried out.) As the brine evaporated out, a beautiful coating of salt crystals appeared, as on the ship (see image, left.) Sometimes the workers would dip tree boughs in the brine and dry them out to make Christmas decorations for their houses. A pretty effect, isn't it?
Image © Sue Wilkes.

A Spooky Premonition

Some very intriguing news for literary fans last week. Novelist Mrs Gaskell (author of Mary Barton , North and South) had a premonition some time in the months before her death in 1865 that she would not survive much longer. Gaskell was a prolific letter writer, and the story of her spooky premonition was discovered in a new collection of her correspondence recently acquired by the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It will be very interesting to see how the 'new' letters shed light on Gaskell's life and work.

Image: Mill design changes in fifty years. Reports of Factory Inspectors, October 1873. (Author’s collection.) Gaskell's novels 'Mary Barton' and 'North and South' were set in Victorian Manchester, home of the cotton industry. You can find out more about the cotton workers' lives in my book Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives.

Jane Austen vs. Top Gear

On tonight’s Top Gear on BBC2, Jeremy Clarkson compared driving a certain car to sitting in a bucket of wallpaper paste while reading a Jane Austen novel. The implication being that Jane Austen is boring. Well, I’m sorry to have to break it to you, Mr Clarkson, but Jane Austen’s novels will be read and enjoyed long after your puerile effusions have been pulped.
Then I got to thinking, what would happen if we transported the Top Gear team into the fictional setting of Jane Austen’s novels? Which characters would they be?
For my money, Jeremy Clarkson would be John Thorpe, the loudmouth buck in Northanger Abbey who drives too recklessly and is only interested in fast horses, carriages and women. Richard Hammond might be Mr Parker from Sanditon , the lovable enthusiast for all things new, who dashes about the countryside.
James May is more tricky. ‘Captain Slow’ has more wit and charm than Mr Clarkson. Perhaps a younger version of him could be Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey…

Down the Pit

This lunchtime, BBC2 screened a repeat of Fred Dibnah's 'Made in Britain'. I was very interested to see it again as Fred paid a visit to Astley Green Colliery Museum , home to Lancashire's last surviving pit head colliery. I visited the museum for background research for my book 'Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives.' My grandfather and great-grandfather both worked in pits in Little Hulton and Agecroft; it was fascinating to see the terrible conditions the miners faced every day.
Images:
Astley Green Colliery pit head winding gear. The first shaft was sunk in 1908.
No.1 winding engine, Astley Green colliery. One of the largest ever used in Britain; it was built by Yates & Thom of Blackburn and installed 1910 -1912.
Photos © Nigel and Sue Wilkes.

Whizz for Atoms

I was sorry to hear the Large Hadron Collider looks likely to be out of action for some time. This exciting project is basically a kind of Alton Towers ride for sub-atomic particles; scientists are keenly interested in the by-products spewed out when two high velocity beams of protons are smashed together. The experiments will hopefully help to answer key questions about events shortly after the Big Bang occurred these events helped determine 'life, the universe and everything.' (To quote from the super computer Deep Thought's task in 'Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.' ) Physicists are hoping to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson, which will revolutionise our understanding of matter. Let's hope the Collider repairs proceed more quickly than expected.

Image of the Andromeda Galaxy from Sir R.S. Ball's 'Story of the Heavens,' 1893.

Lest we forget

Today is Armistice Day , on which we honour those who have fallen in war. We should never forget, too, the contribution made by those who helped the war effort at home. During WWII, many young women worked in the ordnance factories, such as the one at Risley, Warrington, making ammunition and bombs. The explosive powder they used turned the girls’ hair and skin yellow; they were sometimes nicknamed the ‘Canary Girls.’ The women wore special safety gloves; their faces were protected by a reinforced glass screen. It was tiring work wearing the heavy gloves; if the girls removed them, the heat from their hands could set off the explosive, and many lost fingers as a result.
You can still see the remains of Risley Royal Ordnance Factory at Birchwood Forest Park, now a nature reserve, with birds, dragonflies and wildflowers. It’s hard to believe this site was once home to frantic activity as the unsung heroines of Risley ‘did their bit’ to help the boys at the front.