Chris Nickson's Blog, page 26

A Whiter Shade of Epiphany

It’s true. A record can change the course of your life…

The summer of 1967 was a big one for me. I became a teenager and received my first record player as my birthday present. Although my father loved music, and was an excellent jazz pianist, we had no records, nothing to play them on. No instrument in the house (the baby grand had gone a few years before).

I went into town and bought my first single and LPs. A significant rite of passage, and one that changed me in more ways that I could ever imagine then. The single was one that was all over the Light Programme – Radio 1 was still a couple of months away – one that was the hit of the summer, Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

It was strange, enigmatic, and very literate, gnomic in its lyrics. And the music, with bits of Bach organ carrying the melody over the descending bassline, was mathematically precise and beautiful, a sharp contrast to Gary Brooker’s bluesy rasp of a voice, one that gave an earthiness to the words.

It offered a sense of mystery, of something uniquely different – the guitar might as well not have been there. At its heart was a timeless, still quality, yet it couldn’t be anything but modern. But that made sense: it was a very different year, one that turned the world on its head, at least to a boy from the provinces.

London had been swinging for a few years. We knew that because the papers and TV told us. In the capital, maybe all across the South, British youth had emerged, blinking and dazed, into the 1960s, grown its hair and put on peacock plumage. It was a lovely idea, one that had slowly grown since the Beatles emerged in 1962, and the Rolling Stones, Animals, Kinks, Small Faces a year or two later.

Yet it was really 1965 when the first waves of the sea change really rolled in. The new fashions, the colour. It’s a cliché that Britain was in black and white until the ‘60s. Yet true, until the middle of the decade. And longer up North. We had Top of the Pops, Ready Steady Go! Had been and gone. But walk through Leeds and the reality looked somewhat different. Drab and dour, still hungover from the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Procol Harum, even more than the Beatles and Sergeant Pepper changed that for me. I don’t know how many times I played it. Plenty, with such a small collection, although it didn’t send me off in search of more by the band. It was such a perfect little gem on its own.

What it achieved, with me, was to help me understand that music had possibilities beyond pop. It was a huge hit, supremely catchy. But at its core, it wasn’t pop music. It was deeper, it aspired to be more. So did many other things at the time, including the Beatles themselves, and the Stones’ awful attempt at psychedelia.

The hippies had been going in California, although footage on TV showed them holding a funeral for the movement as it became adopted by so many. So it was over, wasn’t it? And what exactly was psychedelia?

I was too young and naïve to join the dots, probably to even understand they existed, when I went into Woolworth’s and bought the single. However, it didn’t take me long to discover more. Along with records, I discovered music papers, then John Peel on the radio – the pirate stations at first, then Radio 1.

Between them, they offered a real panorama. Not just of music, but a world that belonged to the young, beyond the understanding of the older generation that ran so much of the world. There was a wide-open vista ahead, and some people were leaving the herd and galloping off into it. I wanted to be a part of that.

The original promo film that wasn’t used…you can see why.

By Christmas, the music I was buying – not much, I was 13 and only had pocket money – had moved away from what was in the charts. I read the weekly music papers. I’d become an avid listener to John Peel’s Top Gear. Not that I’d completely turned away from the charts; this was a time when the space between rock and pop was very fluid. I was very taken by keyboards, especially the rich fullness of the Hammond organ, although I was learning to appreciate well-played guitar. But the changes went deeper than music. Some switch inside had clicked because of that single, and I’d realised that you didn’t have to follow the crowds. It was fine to become yourself. A gradual process for any teen, of course, no matter the decade. But without conscious thought, it seemed to become the way I lived my life.

My musical tastes have evolved over the years. They’re bound to, for anyone who loves music. From progressive rock, such as it was, gradually, I learned about roots, where the Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac drew their inspiration, and I delved into that, and my tastes headed farther afield.

I know it’s ironic that one of the most-played and most popular singles in British music history should send me off down a very different path. But there it is. My Damascene moment, my epiphany. And now, more than 50 years later, I have absolutely no regrets.

Leeds In Songs

A few weeks ago, I put in a few voices of Leeds through the centuries. Collecting them was a very satisfying experience. But something I realised was that there seem to be very few references to Leeds in folk songs and broadside ballads.

A trip to the Family and History Library at Leeds Central Library took me into the broadside ballads collected by Frank Kidson, one of folk music’s towering figures and collector and analyst (even if I initially just wanted to know who printed ballads locally). It also brought a few items that relate to Leeds, although it’s doubtful that any of them were ever really sung, let alone, handed down.

Broadside ballads were the single of their day, printed up quickly, each sheet sold for a penny. They commemorated everything – visits, disasters, executions – or sometimes nothing. But they can be a treasure trove.

This, for instance, concerns Queen Victoria’s visit to Leeds in 1858 to open the new Town Hall. What was the tune? We’ll never know at this distance, but it would be a common one that almost everybody would already know.

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The Meeting of the Leeds Town Clocks is an absurd delight, but it also tells us where all these clocks were in Leeds – helpful information for any historian. Many people would not have owned watches of any kind, so public clocks were vital. From around 1860, it’s a wonderful artefact.

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Equally ludicrous is On Leeds Becoming a Sea Port Town. Quite what prompted it, I don’t know, but the line “From the Exhibition” makes it likely that it was published just after the Great Exhibition in 1851, held in London, and possibly a bit of a satire on all the rage for the new and different.

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The Leeds Tragedy is a very lengthy piece, set in a former time, one of those mock-Medieval fantasies. Quite probably, different version circulated in other parts of the country, with the name of different towns plugged in. It certainly deals with a knotty topic – a brother’s non-brotherly love for his sister.

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The election song for John Barran shows a different facet of the ballad as political advertising. Supposedly from the early 1900s, it indicates broadsides were still in vogue, and must have been effective as party political broadcasting – like newspapers, they were the mass media of the age.

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This ballad doesn’t come from Kidson’s collection, but it’s worth including (I used it in Voices of Leeds, but no apologies for bringing it back). Used to raise funds for the widow and surviving child, it’s the charity single of its day, and possibly a rare example of a broadside not published solely for profit.

When William Snowden’s keel boat, the Edward & William, capsized at Whitton Sands in 1885, only one man seemed to survive. But his wife and three children remained trapped in a pocket of air on the boat, and were freed after seventeen hours. Two of the children died on board. Mrs. Snowden and one child survived. A ballad was written and sold in Leeds to raise money for them.

The Keel to Leeds returning from Grimsby we are told,

In charge of Chaptain Snowden a sailor young & bold.

And in the vessel down below his sleeping children lay,

And two with him to sleep in death upon the coming day.

Soon come the shock, the keel overturned the husband’s spirits fled,

His gallant heart’s ceased beating he is numbered with the dead.

The mother clutched her little ones that slept so peacefully,

And tried, so hard to save them but alas twas not to be…

The water rose about her and higher still it came

The little arms are around her neck and she calls each one by name.

But when the water sunk again she knew one spirit fled,

And called her little Lizzies name but ah! her child was dead…

At last they hear her knocking and willing hands contrive

To save the mother and the only one she’s left alive.

What tongue can tell her feelings or who shall know her grief,

Pray God in all her mercy send her stricken heart relief.

Finally, a song that Kidson collected and published in his Leeds Mercury column in 1887, one which had probably been around Leeds for quite a while – the Lees Wassail, sung by groups who went door to door at Christmas, much as carol singers did not too long ago. It’s obviously a variant on God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen, and though Leeds isn’t mentioned, this was sung locally. Many areas had their own carols (which are still very much alive around Sheffield).

God rest you merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ our Saviour

Was born on Christmas Day

For it is the Christmas time,

And we travel far and near;

So God bless you and send you

A happy new year.

We are not daily beggars

That beg from door to door;

But we are neighbours’ children,

Whom you have seen before.

For it is the Christmas time…

God bless the master of this house,

The mistress also,

And all the little children

That round the table go.

For it is the Christmas time…

Call up the butler of this house,

Put on his golden ring;

Let him bring us a glass of beer,

And better we shall sing.

For it is the Christmas time…

We’ve got a little purse

Made of stretching leather skin;

We want a little of your money

To line it well within.

For it is the Christmas time…

For the musically inclined, the tune is here.

Thank You and A Sense of Place

I hope you won’t mind if I begin with a bit of self-congratulation: Publisher’s Weekly has given Free From All Danger a starred review. I’m immensely proud of that for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s impossible to know what any reader will make of what a writer does, so something that positive means a great deal. Secondly, it’s the seventh in the series, arriving four years after the last one. That’s quite a space of time. All the previous six achieved starred reviews, so there’s a giant sigh of relief that they like this one as much. Richard Nottingham is older this time around, a changed man in some ways. I’m just happy people still like him.

Anyway…Christmas and the end of 2017 are just a few days away. I wanted to wish you all a lovely time, and a happy, healthy 2018 – and to thank you for your support. I really do value it.

At this time of year I like looking around Leeds and thinking about my family connections to the place. They crop up quite a bit in my novels. References I know, that I enjoy putting in.

The biggest is probably the Victoria pub from the Tom Harper novels. Annabelle is the landlady, but from the 1920s to the 1940s, it was my great-grandfather who ran the place. My father lived in Cross Green, and as a boy he’d walk over in the summer so he could go upstairs and play the piano for hours on end. Impossible not to celebrate a connection like that.

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In fact, a little of the idea of including the place at all came from a book he wrote, that was never published. His main character was a female servant from Barnsley who came to a pub in Sheepscar as a servant. She ended up running the place and owning three bakeries. His maternal grandparents were from Barnsley, and originally ran a pub in Hunslet before taking over the Victoria. And, in the Harper series, Annabelle runs, then sells, three bakeries. So thank you, Dad. You have me a lot in that.

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Dan Markham’s flat in Chapel Allerton (Dark Briggate Blues) is in the building where my parents made their first home, and where I spent my first year. Curiously, a reader told me once that her daughter was living there now. His office on Albion Place is where my father had his office.

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Lottie Armstrong’s house in The Year of the Gun is the house where I grew up. The present owner graciously showed me around, and it’s very much the same as it was, I’m pleased to say.

It’s four years now since I moved back to Leeds, and honestly, I’ve never felt more connected to a place in my life.

The Real Leeds Voices From History

Several weeks ago, I was talking to a gentleman who works in the Local and Family History Library at Leeds Libraries. We discussed the lack of authentic Leeds voices in our local history (among other things). There is a book called Leeds Describ’d, but so many of the pieces in there are from outsiders describing the town.

In the last few days I looked through the Leeds books on my shelves and put this together. It’s far from exhaustive, and other people have done the heavy lifting, really. But this is Leeds in the words of the people who lived here, the condition of the place, how they lived, how they worked. A little window into history, I hope.

The Cost of keeping Roundhay Park, 1373

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In medieval times, Roundhay Park was used for hunting, and was much bigger than it is today. There was boundary fence. In the accounts of Robert de Halton, reeve, there’s an indication of some of the yearly work.

And in the wages of five men cutting brushwood and other trees for feeding the deer in the winter season of this year, in the park of Roundhay, viz, each of them at different times for forty days, at 2d per day.

And in six cartloads of hay to support the deer in the ensuing winter, in a place called le Stannk – 20s.

And in the hire of one cart to carry the hay from le Stannk to the Grange within the park by six turns at 8d a turn.

And in the wages of one man driving the said cart and helping to stow the said hay in the Grange, for four days, taking by the day 3d-12d for this year.

 

A Handfasting in Headingley, 1563

Handfasting was a form of marriage, and still practiced in Elizabethan times. This comes from evidence given to the Consistory Court of the Archbishop of York by Thomas Whitehead, regarding the union of Edward Walker and Anne Hobson. The meeting described took place in the garden area of what is now the Original Oak.

Walker: Ye know that you and I have had communication together for marriage howe saye you nowe is there any man that you beare any better favour unto than you beare unto me and the said Anne answering said no and further said unto the said Edward that he shulde be more welcome to her company than any other man shulde be using himself lyke and honest man. And then & there the said Edward Walker said unto the said Anne Hobson yf You be contented to sticke to me as I am contented to sticke to you we will make no more to do but take wittnes & go throw with the matter. Whereunto the said Anne consented. And then and there the said Eward Walker toke the Examinant [Whitehead, the witness] to be wittnes for him & the said Anne toke William Smythe to be witness for her.

 

An End to Three Plotters, 1664

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After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a Republican plot to overthrow Charles II was discovered – the Farnley Wood Plot – and a number of men sentenced to death. Three of them, Robert Atkins, John Errington and Henry Wilson escaped to Leeds, where they were arrested in an inn and hung in chains on Chapeltown Moor. But that wasn’t the end of their punishment, according to a contemporary account:

…their 3 heads were cut off and put into a cloth bagg by the executioner, Peter Mason, a Notorious Villain, by occupation a Joyner at yt day brot in a cart to Leeds and all yt night lay in a flask full of water in the prison to suck out all the blood. 20. Jan, 1664, being Wednesday all there heads were sett upon the Moot hall end, severally fixed upon 3 spikes of iron.

 

Servants, 1704

Any large house required a small army of servants to keep it running. But those employed hard to work hard for their wages, as this agreement between Sir Walter Claverley of Esholt Hall and Joseph Mawde shows.

Agreed with Joseph Mawde to serve me one year from this day, for which he is to have £5, and 20s to buy him a frock with for brewing, & a livery, vizt, coat, waistcoat, breeches, hat & stockings: & his imployment is to be, to look at all the stables, horses & mares, both in the house & pastures, & keep the fold clean & also the pheasant garden & little garden within the pales of the fold, & to see the trees to be therein nailed any time on occasion, & also to keep the court before the hall door clean, & grass places in good order, & also to brew the master all his drink, to keep the jack in order, to take care of the calash & drive it, to keep the boat carefully locked, cleaned & dressed, to wait at table when occasion, &, if he does not his best, but neglects these things, to have no wages.

 

The Tenter Cutter, 1713

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Cloth was a vital part of the Leeds economy for centuries, and it was stretched using hooks on tenter poles set in open land. Anyone interfering with the process, from spinning to sale, could expect rough treatment and swift justice. From the Memoranda Book of John Lucas.

Friday 24 July, about 9 o’clock in the evening one Matthew Bailey who lived in Meadow Lane but was one of those persons called kerseymen was taken in the act of cutting tenter in the Millgarth. He had been suspected to follow that trade long he was apprehended that night, and the next day, was sent to York and it being Assize time Mr Mayor went to York early on Monday morning and got him tried that forenoon where he was cast, and in the afternoon he had sentence past on him to be transported.

 

Trying to Avoid a Hanging, 1748

From the of Births, Marriages and Deaths for Leeds Parish Church 1748/9. Josiah Fearne was the first (only) Lord of the Manor of Leeds to be executed – and his is a great story. But it’s the length of this entry that makes it unusual. The murder took place at Nether Mills on Fearn’s Island.

Tho. Grave, Nether Mills, buried 4th March 1748/9

N.B. Tho. Grave was most barbarously murdered in his own House, by a domineering, villainous Lord of the Manor, Josiah Fearn, 24 Feb., 1748, with four wounds in his Body, of which he died 2 Mar. Fearne was taken and committed to York Castle and tried before Sr Tho. Burnett, was convicted, condemned, and hanged 25 Mar., 1749.

Soon after Fearne was condemned, he sent an Attorney to Mrs Grave to offer her Twenty Pounds a Year for Life or for Twenty Years to come at her own Option, in case she wou’d sign a Petition to the Judge in his Favour (which Fearn said was a Sufficient Recompense for the Injury he had done to her and her Eight Children), but she prudently declined the Offer, well knowing there is no Satisfaction to be made for ye Blood of a Murderer.

This probably is the First Lord of the Manor of Leedes that has made his Exit at the Gallows and God Grant he may be the last. Fearne’s Temper was extremely rigid to the poor and his Dependents, that he was dreaded by All, but beloved by None. He was buried at Clifton, near York, 31 Mar.

 

Highway Robbery, 1774

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Crime has always been with us, but reports of highwaymen around Leeds are quite uncommon. This is from a newspaper, possibly the Leeds Intelligencer.

On December 27th, 1774, as the daughter of an eminent butcher of this town was returning, in company with a servant maid, from Chapeltown, they were stopped by a footpad, who presented a pistol, with the words, “Your money or your life”. Not assenting immediately, he searched their pockets and took from them one shilling, three halfpence, and a silver thimble and then gracefully retired.

 

Poverty, 1797

Anonymous

Cellarts, Garrets and such like Places, exhibit…abodes of human Misery, the wretched Inhabitants are frequently found either exerting the last Efforts of Nature to support themselves…or languishing under the most powerful Influence of complicated Disease.

 

Poor Trade, 1826

The Leeds wool trade was in dire straits in the 1820s. In a letter to his brother, merchant Joshua Oates was frank about the situation.

I have actually suspended what? payment? No! not exactly, but I have suspended purchases of every description except bread, meat and potatoes, and I have driven clothiers away with a “can’t you call again next month?”….there is literally next to nothing doing by our foreign merchants and such numers of them are in back water that I should hardly know where to begin with introductions – it is                                         said by the Dyers and clothiers that with the exception of six or eight houses in Leeds no payments have been made since last November.

 

The Irish in Leeds, 1842

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Dr. Baker, the Medical Officer, had done wonderful work after the cholera epidemic in 1832. Throughout the 1830s and 40s, many Irish people came to Leeds, many settling on the Bank (Richmond Hill). In 1842 he wrote about them.

In the houses of the Irish poor, of which there are a great many in Leeds, who work in factories and are engaged in weaving by hand plaids and other stuff goods, there is a general state of desolation and misery…They are mainly employed in plaid-weaving and bobbin-winding, and in some of the mills of the town, of whose population they compose no inconsiderable amount, especially those departments of mill-labour which are obnoxious to English constitutions and to some unendurable. To such an extent, indeed, has the employment of the Irish been carried in Leeds, that, in 1835 and 1836, many of the flax-mills would have been obliged to stand for want of hands, but for the influx of Irish labourers which then took place.

 

The Children of the Poor, 1849

Angus Bethune Reach was a Manchester journalist on the Morning Chronicle. In 1849, with the Relieving Officer, he went to some houses in Leeds. In one, he found three children picking ropes apart. The family had been receiving parish relief for seven years. The oldest of the children was eight.

Where’s your mother?

Gone out to try and get some washing to do.

Where’s your father?

In the Fleece – that’s a public house. Ah! Mother told he had better not go today for you (to the relieving officer) would be very likely to come round; but he wouldn’t stay.

What does your father do?

Sweeps the streets sometimes.

But does he not help you pick these ropes?

No; he wouldn’t do that. He makes us do that.

What do you get for picking?

Fourpence a stone but I give it all to my mother.

Do you go to school?

Only on Sundays. I must work, you know. I can’t read yet. But my little brother goes to school on week-days. Parson pays for him. Only sometimes they keeps him at home to help in picking. He can’t read either.

And is not the other little boy your brother?

Oh no! He only comes in to help us pick.

Do you like picking?

No, because it makes me poorly. The dust gets into my eyes and down my throat, and makes me cough. Sometimes, too, it makes me sick. I can’t keep at the work very long at a time, because of that.

You say you give all you earn to your mother Does she never let you have a penny for yourself?

Sometimes.

And what do you do with it?

I buys bread.

 

A Pint and a Death, 1856

Drink and violence were as common in Victorian times as they are now, especially on a Saturday night when men had been paid. This is a deposition to an inquest into the death of John Mensey, from Robert Madden, the landlord of the Yorkshire Hussar on Union Street.  Both men lodged on Lower Brunswick Street, and the fight took up again there, lasting until one am. A verdict of manslaughter was returned.

On Saturday night the deceased and Patrick King came together to my house, about ten o’clock at night. They appeared to have had some beer, but were sober. Whilst in my house, they played at dominoes, and about half-past eleven they quarrelled over the game. The deceased got up and put himself into a fighting attitude. King did not seem disposed to fight, and the deceased called him a coward. King replied, “Well, I’ll be a coward.” Mensey then sat down. They continued to have high words up to twelve o’clock, when I requested them to go. I followed them to the door, and when they got outside they began to fight. I requested some persons present to assis me in separating them. At that time they had fallen to the ground. We assisted them up, and immediately afterwards they fought again; but I cannot say who began it. They had then taken off their coats. Both fell again, and were again separated. King then went towards Vicar-lane and Mensey went in the opposite directions towards his lodgings. The deceased and King were fresh, but able to walk. I heard King say that he didn’t want to fight, but he would not be “put upon.” After they separated, I saw no more of them.

 

The Omnibus, 1857

In some ways, perhaps, bus travel doesn’t change much. This is an letter to the Leeds Mercury about the early, horse-drawn omnibuses.

I have had the misfortune to ride with people half drunk, three quarters drunk, quite drunk, noisy drunk, sleepy drunk, dead drunk. The omnibus, unfortunately for some of us, passes two or three places of resort in Briggate and elsewhere, where men is respectable positions congregate of an evening to talk and tipple, then ride home in a public conveyance to the disgust of all decent people. Could not a tippler’s omnibus be started for these should-be-gentlemen? I am not a teetotaller, but I hate to sit in a small compartment of about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long, with two, perhaps three redolent gentlemen trying to talk without stuttering, but none of whom could pronounce intelligibly the word ‘statistics’, if it were to save his life.

 

The Places of Crime, 1859

A police report noted:

120 houses of ill-fame; 30 public houses; 50 beerhouses; and seven coffee shops, all being resorts for thieves and prostitutes. There are also 120 low lodging houses which accommodate 622 persons nightly, several of them of questionable character requiring the attention of the police.

 

Death and the Ballad, 1885

When William Snowden’s keel boat, the Edward & William, capsized at Whitton Sands in 1885, only one man seemed to survive. But his wife and three children remained trapped in a pocket of air on the boat, and were freed after seventeen hours. Two of the children died on board. Mrs. Snowden and one child survived. A ballad was written and sold in Leeds to raise money for them.

The Keel to Leeds returning from Grimsby we are told,

In charge of Chaptain Snowden a sailor young & bold.

And in the vessel down below his sleeping children lay,

And two with him to sleep in death upon the coming day.

Soon come the shock, the keel overturned the husband’s spirits fled,

His gallant heart’s ceased beating he is numbered with the dead.

The mother clutched her little ones that slept so peacefully,

And tried, so hard to save them but alas twas not to be…

The water rose about her and higher still it came

The little arms are around her neck and she calls each one by name.

But when the water sunk again she knew one spirit fled,

And called her little Lizzies name but ah! her child was dead…

At last they hear her knocking and willing hands contrive

To save the mother and the only one she’s left alive.

What tongue can tell her feelings or who shall know her grief,

Pray God in all her mercy send her stricken heart relief.

 

Tom Maguire, 1886

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Maguire was one of the most important – and largely unheralded – figures in late 19th century Leeds politics. He was a union organiser, a proud proponent of Socialism, and played a vital role in the formation of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. He made his living as a photographer’s assistant and died penniless on Quarry Hill in 1895 at the age of 29. This reminiscence comes from Alf Mattison:

My first meeting with Tom Maguire was also the occasion of my first acquaintance with socialism. It must have been sometime early in 1886 that, strolling through the Market-place of Leeds, my attention was attracted to a pale but pleasant featured young man, who in a clear voice began speaking to a motley crowd. After listening for a while I began to feel a strange sympathy with his remarks, and – what is more – a sudden interest in and liking for the speaker; and I remember how impatiently I waited for his reappearance on the following Sunday. A few months later I joined ‘the feeble band, the few’ and became a member of the Leeds branch of the Socialist League…

 

Jewish Labour, 1885

Published in Arbeiter Freund, this is a strong reminder of the collective action taken by Jewish tailors in the Leylands in 1885. Many came from Poland and Russia and settled in the triangle of the Leylands, a network of streets running just north of the city centre towards Sheepscar. This is possibly an outside voice, but sheds some valuable political light.

In the history of the Jewish labour movement in England, Leeds will, without doubt, occupy one of the nicest places, if not, indeed, the first place. And, in truth, whilst in some other towns such as Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham and others, the Jewish workers are not even organised in societies, or are entirely beneath the heel of the masters, having entirely surrendered their free will to them, the Leeds workers have, in this regard, made enormous progress. They have not stopped at this…they have decided to open a co-operative grocery shop, and, by this means, to free themselves from the shopkeepers, butchers, ritual slaughterers, milk-and-butter dealers, etc., who live and get fat on the sweat of the workers like rats on a living corpse.

 

Criminals, 1892

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The Chief Constable requested more officers to cover the increased area of Leeds and deal with all the urban problems.

In the Borough residing at present are 21 known convicts, 17 persons under police supervision, 335 suspected persons, i.e., persons who seldom or never work, but loaf about the streets, watching persons getting into or out of tramcars with a view to picking pockets, or frequently following women who are of loose repute, and who entice men into secluded spots where they are robbed and ill treated by the man or men and woman.

Places to be most avoided are the Dark Arches, Swinegate, Whitehall Road, or anywhere behind the Queen’s and Great Norther Hotels.

 

A Hunslet Home, 1894

The booklet Hypnotic Leeds appeared in 1894, a polemic about the problems the working-classes in Leeds lived with every day. This was written by Joseph Clayton, a blanket-raiser who lived in Hunslet.

The typical workman’s house in Leeds has one living room, adorned with sink and taps for washing purposes, two bedrooms, and an attic in which is possibly a bath. The bath is the one redeeming point, and the corporation should insist on it being built in every house.

The sink and taps on the other hand are depressing in a sitting room, and the smell of the atmosphere of the weekly wash not conducive to health of mind or body. If we prefer to dry our clothes across the street and not indoors we may gratify our neighbours’ curiosity as to the condition and quality of our under-clothing, but the smoke of Leeds resents our brandishing clean clothes in the open air and showers down smuts. Of the necessary sanitary arrangements of every dwelling-house – it is difficult to speak calmly in Leeds. Our ashpits which adorn the street are the resting place for decayed vegetable matter, and domestic refuse generally; the stench from them is probably a sweet smelling savour to the arch fiend, but it is poison to the children who play around them.

 

The Machine Girl’s Life, 1896

This comes from Richard Sheracy’s superb expose, The White Slaves of England: The Slipper-makers and Tailors of Leeds, published in Pearson’s Magazine.

I come in at 8am. If I’m late I’ll be fine 1d or 2d. There will be nothing for me to do. Then I’ll sit at my machine doing nothing till half-past twelve. Then I’ll ask the foreman if I may go home. He’ll say: “No, there’s orders coming up after dinner.” Dinner? I probably haven’t any, knowing work was slack and expecting to get home. So I go without. At half-past one, I’ll go back to my machine and sit doing nothing. Foreman will say “Work hasn’t come up yet.” I have to sit at my machine.

Once I fainted from hunger, and asked to be allowed to go home, but they wouldn’t let me, and locked me up in the dining-room. I stay at my machine till 3 or 4. Then the foreman will say, as though he were conferring a favour: “The orders don’t seem to be going in, you can go home till the morning.” And I go home without having earned a farthing. Sometimes work may come in the afternoon, and then I will stay on till 6.30, earning wage for the last two or three hours.

 

The Traffic Problem, 1898

A report by the Chief Constable.

The rowdyism in Briggate is a matter most difficult to deal with owning to the number of people using this busy thoroughfare, it being next to impossible to keep people to the right of the pavement, arising from the great number of side passages leading in and out of Briggate. On the 7th January 1898, a number of men were placed in Briggate to note particularly the number of vehicles and pedestrians passing. They watched from 8.20pm to 8.30pm at one point not exceeding 30 yards, on the west side of Briggate and noted 2,306 pedestrians, 3 omnibuses, 10 tramcars, 3 four wheeled cabs, 6 hansoms ans 2 post mail carts.

The Club for Mill Girls, 1890s

To try and keep mill girls out of the gin palaces and music halls, and on the straight, narrow path, middle class women would set up clubs for them with wholesome activities. Several existed in Leeds in the 1890s.

We have taken a large room and made it look as tempting as we can, with bright curtains and some pictures, and above all a very fair piano, which to our musical Yorkshire girls is an endless source of pleasure.

 

The Old Market Cross and the Fish, 1897

The market cross had stood at the top of Briggate since the 1600s, but was demolished tin the 19th century. More Annals of Leeds contains a reminiscence vaguely about it by Mr. William Campbell.

Between the south end of the cross and the noth end of the Middle Row was the fish market. I have a vivid recollection of a jolly good natured looking fishwife who had the principal stall near the cross. Returning one day from taking my father’s dinner, I stood watching the woman empty a hamper of fish, when taking out a fair sized cod, she remarked, “There’s been a devil at that fish.” A large piece had apparently been bit off its shoulder. Looking at me, she said, “Here, my bonnie lad, take that home to your mother, and tell her to boil it for your dinner; it’s no worse for having that piece bitten out.” I scarcely need say I ran all the way to Woodhouse with the fish, and how welcome it was. My father was employed by a corn merchant; his wages were 15s a week, out of which a family of seven had to be supported. His hours of work were much nearer sixteen per day than eight. A dinner of boiled fish was a treat to us. The fish market was held on Thursdays, and I may say that fish was sold much cheaper in those days than it is now.

Hunslet, 1930s

In Memories of Distant Days (1989) Carrie Stocks wrote about growing up in Hunslet in the 1930s.

We were surrounded by factories and work shops. At the bottom of our street was Belinda Street; Bromley’s Coffee Works was in the middle of Belinda Street and the smell of coffee hung round most of the day. Alongside was Lax and Shaw’s Glass Storage Depot so the chink of glass bottles could be heard. The smell from the Lead Works of Wilson and Jubb also permeated the surroundings, as they were a few yards higher up the street.

In Church Street was the Chemical Works; they threw out a yellow dust which settled on the pavements, roads and gardens, and gave off a smell of sulphur. On Low Road opposite my school was the Hygenol Soap Works where they manufactured disinfectants, polish and soap. A little further along the road was the Coglan Iron and Steel Works, giving out loud sounds of metal being beaten by trip hammers.

The Wireworks and the Nail Mill with machines working loudly were on Penny Hill, and on the wind came the smell of fish and leather from the Fish Canneries and Tanneries just over Balm Road Bridge.

A Play With Live Jazz

I’ve been sitting on this news for a while, but as the official announcement was made today, I’m very pleased to tell you that my play, New Briggate Blues, commissioned by Jazz Leeds, will be performed next July as part of JazzLeedsFest 2018.

It features Dan Markham, the Leeds enquiry agent from Dark Briggate Blues and The New Eastgate Swing, along with his wife, Carla, as well as a live jazz quintet, who will perform during the play.

It’s very much a celebration of Studio 20, the Leeds jazz club that features heavily in both books, and will be directed by Ray Brown.[image error]

Come the Fear

Download the first two chapters of Come the Fear courtesy of Severn House:

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Let Good News Abound

It’s a time when good news seems to abound (and, aptly, it's Yorkshire Day). The other week, up in Leeds, I was showing my son the interior of Holy Trinity Church, which dates from the times of my Leeds novels. It suddenly struck me that this would be the ideal place for the launch of the fourth in the series, Come the Fear. After a quick word with the venue director – it’s now called Trinity Arts – things were set in motion, and a week ago everything was confirmed. There will be readings from the book by young actors, storytelling from a couple of England’s top storytellers – Shonaleigh and Simon Heywood (who’ll celebrate their marriage just two weeks before) – along with music and artwork from young artists inspired by passages from the novel. Hopefully a great evening’s entertainment, and for anyone around Leeds on the evening of September 14, come on down.

And then, yesterday, my publisher made an offer, which I accepted, for the next book in the series, At the Dying of the Year, which will be published February 2013 in the UK (June in the US). I’m thrilled. It was a difficult book to write, very emotional and draining. I won’t say why, but I will let slip that it’s the fifth in the Leeds series. Whether Richard Nottingham himself is in it – my mouth’s zipped, and if you read Come the Fear you’ll know why.

On top of that, I’m working on the publisher’s edits for the first of my Seattle books, Emerald City, which will appear as a simultaneous ebook and audiobook in the next few months and waiting to hear the audiobook version of The Broken Token. I feel as if I’m beginning to make at least a little headway. It’s been a long, hard slog, but when I finish something and feel that it’s good, it’s all worthwhile.

50 Shades of Yorkshire, Chapter 1

She saw the advert in the Yorkshire Evening Post and it was as if it spoke to her soul. ‘Wanted,’ it said, ‘lass to work in chippie. Hard graft, but good rewards and free scraps.’ She read it again and again, and she knew it was fate calling. This was a job made for her, with the sensual feel of fat and batter.

It was up in Leeds, but she wasn’t going to let distance stop her from following her fate. The next morning she dressed well in her fanciest coat, taking the rollers out of her hair before she finally put on the new headscarf from the market her mam had given her for Christmas, and took the bus from South Elmsall.

The journey was tortuous, but that only strengthened her resolve. If she could get there before three, the job would be hers. She willed the driver on through the puddles, noticing how, as she moved north the people began talking funny, saying town instead of tarn and right instead of reet. It scared her, being in this alien land.

She found the place at five minutes to three. Green’s Fish & Chips, the sign read, and her heart raced to see it, scarcely contained by her lacy 38F bra. A world of promise lay inside.

‘Eh up, luv, what that having?’ a girl said to her. She was dressed in whites, the clothing pristine and pure except for the stains across her front.
‘I’d like to see t’owner,’ she answered, he voice as meek as a mouse in a cattery. ‘About t’job.’

The girl nodded at a door with the word 'private' painted on it. A door of temptation and promise, she thought.

‘Go through there, luv, and up t’stairs. Office is at top. I’ll ring him for thee.’

‘What’s…’ she began, and had to force herself to breathe before she could continue. ‘What’s ‘is name, please?’

‘Herbert Green. Right bugger wi’ ‘is hands he is, too.’ She surveyed the lush form in the low cut dress. ‘He’ll be over you like a rat on a corpse.’

Herbert Green. Even the name sounded magical, she thought as she climbed the stairs to a small waiting room with two old chairs and a coffee table. She balanced her handbag on her lap and waited, crossing one leg over another. Finally, after five minutes, a door opened and a man stood looking at her.

‘Thas’s here about t’job?’

He had a deep, masculine voice that flowed liked water through a slag heap. His belly bulged invitingly against a 1974 Leeds United home shirt, and over the waist of his brown terylene trousers. He had a thin, cruel mouth, and he gave her a smile that would have been overwhelming with a full set of teeth. She felt the heat flow through her. She’d never seen a man like this, one who exuded power and the smell of mint humbugs in equal portions.

He began to turn away from her, back into the office. She stood quickly to follow and tripped over the rug, sprawling behind him. He offered a hand to help her up.

‘Do that near t’fat fryer and tha’ll be ruining a tenner’s worth o’ chips’ he warned her. ‘Can’t be going arse over tit here.’ She held his hand a little longer than she needed, relishing the strong grip. ‘And summat else, lass, you forgot to put your kecks on this morning.’

She blushed deeply, embarrassed by her stupidity, the haste in which she’d dressed to come her following him into the office. The windows looked out onto a row of back-to-back houses and the desk was scarred wood. This was a man’s office, she thought, the centre of an empire.

‘What’s tha name?’ he asked, and she could feel his eyes boring into her. She could never have any secrets from this man.

‘Call me…Doris.’

‘Aye, right. What experience do you have, Doris?’

‘None,’ she admitted, lowering her eyes. ‘I’ve done nowt.’ Suddenly there was pleading in her voice. ‘But I’m eager to learn. I want this. I want it all.’

‘Steady on, lass,’ he said quietly, reaching across the desk to pat her wrist. So there was tenderness in him, too, she realised. He was a complete man. ‘Can tha make a decent cuppa?’

‘Pot to the kettle,’ she said, ‘and let it steep for three minutes before I pour.’

He smiled and she knew. The job was hers.

‘When can tha start?’

‘Now,’ she said impulsively. She had nowhere to stay in this strange town, no money, no spare clothes, not even a pair of knickers. But life was giving her a chance, and for Herbert Green she was willing to take it.

‘Champion,’ he told her. ‘Champion.’

Making My Main Character Female

For my new Seattle Emerald City series of books, my main character was a male music journalist – something I did myself in that city. I say was quite advisedly: the company that’s publishing the books (simultaneously as ebooks and audiobooks) suggested making the protagonist female. It wasn’t a demand, by any means, and I understood the practical rationale behind it (one of the women behind the company is American and an award-winning ebook narrator and actress – Lorelei King). But it appealed to me. I’m male, think like a man. Now I’m changing the character’s sex and it’s proving to be a wonderful, deep challenge.

It affects every dynamic in the book, every interaction with every character, male and female. More than that, I have to get into her head and learn to think, and more especially feel, as a woman. What writer wouldn’t relish? Seattle in the late 1980s was far more feminist than most parts of the US. Gender politics were rife, as were gay politics, which were interlinked. That has to be part of it, and it’s made me think and become more aware of the sexism inherent in everyday life. It was more so then, and quite casual, but it still exists. It was even there in the music scene, not too bad but still there. There were some female music journalists around, but men remained in the majority and they made up most of the musicians.

A woman writer said to me that women feel more. That might not always be exactly true, but in general women are more aware of their feelings, and they’ll discuss them, with partners and friends, so that has to becomes part of the equation of character, too.

Add to that the fact that I’m inserting this character into a story that’s already written, although there will be some changes and it becomes even more interesting. Am I enjoying it? Absolutely. Will it succeed? I hope so, but you’ll have to read for yourself to decide. That’s your challenge…

A Deal Gone Right

You probably missed it. I was amazed - there it was on Booktrade and Bookbrunch. And here it is now - the press release for my deal with Creative Content. All the words, no filler.

Creative Content, the specialist digital publishing company, has signed a 3-book deal with Chris Nickson, author of the popular Richard Nottingham historical crime series .
Changing country, century – and the gender of the protagonist – Nickson's "Emerald City" is a trilogy of crime novels set in Seattle during the evolving grunge music scene of the 1980s and '90s, featuring music journalist Laura Barton.

Ali Muirden of Creative Content said "We were really excited when we read Chris's manuscript, as it encapsulates Seattle during the period. Chris lived and worked there for many years and it really shows in the way he writes. His evocative descriptions of Seattle and the surrounding Pacific North West coast area really made me want to visit the city. "

Chris Nickson said "I'm thrilled to be working with Ali and Lorelei again – we've collaborated on a couple of projects before. They're knowledgeable and enthusiastic – and complete professionals. Bringing Laura and Seattle alive with them will be an absolute joy."

The first novel in the series will be published later this year as a simultaneous eBook original and audio book to be read by Lorelei King, recently voted Audible's 'Narrator of the Year'. She said, "I've long been a fan of Chris Nickson's writing, and I'm so thrilled he's doing a book set in America. I can't wait to record this one."

For more information, or to request a review copy, please contact Ali Muirden at ali@creativecontentdigital.com or visit our website at www.creativecontentdigital.com

For more information on Chris Nickson, please visit www.chrisnickson.co.uk

www.creativecontentdigital.com