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"I read a book once - Green it was"
I've not had a good trot with books these last few weeks.Bad Blood by Lorna Sage - a biographical account of her unusual upbringing in rural Wales (she was born in 1943). It was very literary (as befits her status as an academic literary critic) but her upbringing was so unique that it was hard to relate to it. And she was so objective and so dispassionate about her grandparents and parents that one felt it was more of a scientific observation - putting them under the microscope. I'm also very wary of ascribing motives to our older relations. You can have opinions about their actions and reactions, but you can never really know why they behaved as they did. 4/10 for me.
The Paris Seamstress by Natasha Lester. I'm almost ashamed to relate that this is an Australian book. It was lent to me by a friend (although she didn't let on much about it so I'm not even sure if she liked it). It started quite promisingly about the Parisian fashion industry and how the impending Nazi occupation affected it. Plenty of good detail about fashion and fascinating descriptions of particular quarters in Paris, but it soon descended into a melodrama worthy of Mills & Boon. At least a Mills & Boon title would have been mercifully short; this was 450 pages! I soon tired of these impossibly beautiful women and vulnerable handsome men. And she had the temerity to insert some real life characters (John Barrymore for one) and spin tales around them. Awful! 1/10
I invested (cheaply, thank goodness) in four titles by Maureen Jennings - her Inspector Tom Tyler series. I have always been fascinated by the home front in WWII and these books were publicised as "if you liked "Foyle's War"......" (which I did and still do even though Michael Kitchen annoys me no end). So I am about half way through the first one - Season of Darkness - and, who knows, maybe the crime part of the story may turn out to be okay, but as for the 1940 setting, it really is just window-dressing, nothing of substance at all. This could be any era from 1920 to 1970. Apparently she is also responsible for the Murdoch Mysteries - something that always seems to be on TV (like Midsomer Murders) and I have never been interested in viewing either of them. At least it's an easy read and I probably will read the other three if only for that reason.
luckily i've been on a good run, but 'the pie at night' got postponed to make room for a vine pick-up of A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance by hanif abdurraqib, the title being self explanatory, has me impressed by his deft, poetic prose style. only about 20 pages in, this looks like a stoatir of a read, and it seems to naturally follow the g.s.heron books.
no more than halfway thru' the above, mainly because i'm savouring every delicious sentence. written with conviction and with such beautifully crafted flair, bringing to our attention the facts around the unheralded and the world famous exponents of black performance - magnificent!
I've got through a few books of late:As mentioned above, I was not over enamoured with Season of Darkness by Margaret Jennings and it didn't improve. Too many characters were indistinguishable from each other; there was a rather needless (but convenient) death and the married copper's dalliance with an old love didn't sit comfortably in the story or the era. BUT, I did persist with the second in the series (only two to go!) - Beware This Boy - and it was quite an improvement. Not great, but an improvement. The dalliance was on hold while the old love carried on her spy duties in Europe (!), and Inspector Tyler left his home in Whitchurch for the bright lights of Birmingham. The wartime setting was much more convincing this time around (except did people use expressions like "stir crazy" in 1940?), with most of the action taking place within a munitions factory. There was a similarity to the first one with another needless (but convenient) death. When I say "needless", I mean that both characters weren't "baddies", just ordinary servicemen who made a hasty, but bad, decision. Their deaths made for a convenient denouement for part of the story. While I wouldn't recommend the series on what I've read so far, at least the story line in the second one rollicked along without being too tiresome. Number 3 coming up.
I then had to turn to a pile of four books loaned to me by a friend. Naturally I started with the shortest one - I'm Gone by Jean Echenoz. It's a 1999 novel, translated from the French. Quite quirky and enjoyable and very French. I think the translation was probably very well done as it managed to retain the Gallic humour. Funnily, it sorted of reminded me of novels I was reading in the 70s - Martin Amis? An easy read, and as I said, rather fun.
Next up, I needed a small book for reading on the train (I'm back in the world of shows, operas, plays and gigs!) so I chose Vintage Roger: Letters from the POW Years - letters written by Roger Mortimer who was taken prisoner after Dunkirk and spent the remainder of the war in four different prison camps. I don't think you can extrapolate his experience as being true of all, or even most, POWs. Much of it came down to temperament and he was able to stay remarkably phlegmatic, helped by a ready supply of books and gramophone records. His reading list alone is worthy of further investigation. A Captain in the Coldstream Guards, he was a member of that strata of society which resided in Cadogan Square and spent their time with the Hunt or at Epsom, Ascot or Newmarket. Nevertheless, he was able to adapt to confinement with a great deal of pragmatism. His letters to a woman friend were often humorous and (lightly) philosophical. "One thing I've learnt - when times are really hard and difficult, the veneer of birth, education etc. is shown to be amazingly thin." I think he was rather a nice man and I'm looking forward to reading the two volumes of letters to his children (written after the war, presumably when they were at boarding school) - Dear Lumpy: Letters to a Disobedient Daughter and Dear Lupin...: Letters to a Wayward Son.
Finally, I'm now onto Suzy's recommendation - The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers - and what a great read it is. It's hard to believe this is a man in his 90s writing of a time in the lead-up to WWI. He writes so clearly and so well of his early childhood in the mill town (Darwen? in the Blackburn area anyway) where every family was equally impoverished but the demarcation of Christian and Jew may as well have been a wall down the middle of the street. I'm about half way through and enjoying it very much. A first class read!
Val wrote: "I've got through a few books of late:As mentioned above, I was not over enamoured with Season of Darkness by Margaret Jennings and it didn't improve. Too many characters were indis..."
'Stir crazy' originated in 19th century London as a term for being confined in prison for extended periods, stir being a slang term for prison. So, it's possible, even though to our ears it might sound like an americanism.
Finished Stephen King's Later. Meh.Now into his If It Bleeds, three novellas, slightly better. He lost it, I think.
Before SK read Clive Barker, all Blood Books, it was delight.
Tim wrote: "'Stir crazy' originated in 19th century London as a term for being confined in prison for extended periods, stir being a slang term for prison. So, it's possible, even though to our ears it might sound like an americanism...."Thanks Tim, knew I should have looked it up. Although, looking it up now, it suggests that "stir" was a common term for jail but that the "crazy" part was added in the U.S. The character who uses it in the book I read was a deserter who had to be hidden in a cupboard whenever someone came to the house. He hates the confinement and says he is going stir-crazy.
"The Oxford English Dictionary first cites stir in Henry Mayhew’s 1851 journalistic investigation, London Labour and the London Poor. His interviewees mention folks “in stir” or “out of stir,” or, as Mayhew helpfully glosses, jail or prison.
By the early 20th century, stir had traveled to the United States, where crazy was added to describe “a prisoner who has succumbed to prison-induced insanity,” as slang lexicographer Jonathon Green defines it."
Val wrote: "Finally, I'm now onto Suzy's recommendation - The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers ... He writes so clearly and so well of his early childhood in the mill town (Darwen? in the Blackburn area anyway) where every family was equally impoverished but the demarcation of Christian and Jew may as well have been a wall down the middle of the street. I'm about half way through and enjoying it very much. A first class read!"Awww, I'm always a bit wary of recommending Books that I've greatly enjoyed reading so I'm really glad that you are enjoying it too, Val ;o>
Harry was actually born and raised in Stockport, Val. It's a little bit complicated and rather hard to explain too ... but at the time several Towns in the Borough of Stockport, including the Town of Stockport itself, was still mostly included as being part of the County of Cheshire - and many of us still choose to consider it to be so now - although, in the 70's, the County and Borough boundaries all changed meaning that the newly extended Borough of Stockport became a southern part of Greater Manchester!
However, just to help to confuse you even further(!) there was, back then and I think still is now?, a small area of Stockport that is just west of the River Tame and north of the River Mersey that was/is included as being part of the historic County of Lancashire ... ! ;o>
Harry mentions quite a lot of more clearly identifiable and familiar areas all around Greater Manchester as well as incorporating and referencing quite a few places that still exist in Lancashire as well - and this has led to me struggling to try to identitify 'the Street' for a few years now.
We do have quite a large and very well-established Jewish community over here on this side of the Stockport Borough as well as in several areas around Manchester, so it could have been in quite a few areas around Stockport? - but I'm thinking that it might possibly have been somewhere over in 'The Four Heatons' area - nearer to where my Nan (my Great Grandma) came to live for all of the rest of her life after coming over from Ireland in search of work and a new life for her and her two Children ... my Great Aunt and my Mum's Dad ;o>
One of my reasons for thinking that it could have been somewhere in this particular area is that it borders the Metropolitan Borough Of Manchester and in the next Town to Heaton Moor is another area that has also always had a very large Jewish community living there - Didsbury - an area that used to be known during the early years of my Mum's childhood as 'Yidsbury' and where there are places like Palatine Road that were, and sometimes still are, referred to by many of the local residents as 'Palestine Road'.
I'm really immersed in Harry's story now (200 pages in) and think I will have to buy the second volume. As you're on the ground, I'm sure you'll be able to hone in on the location much better than I can. Especially as most of the residential streets have most likely been cleared and possibly renamed. Landmarks he mentions are:Brook St
Back Brook St
The India Mill
Bann St
The Synagogue on Chestergate Ave
St Peter's school
Hollywood Park School (a hospital in WWI)
The Bernsteins lived "on the corner at the bottom of the first short row of Jewish houses, where Brook Street came to a cul-de-sac at our street".
Daw Bank
King St
St Peter's Protestant church
St Matthew's Catholic church
The Devil's Steps
Wellington Rd
Mersey Square
St Petersgate
Cheadle "where the farms began"
Manchester was 8 miles by tram
"The library was on St Petersgate, a white marble building.....only a short distance from the school and the public baths....It had a flight of marble steps leading up to the entrance...The library was on the opposite side of the square from the school...We went past the blackened statue of St Peter and the ancient, turreted building of the public baths, designed almost like a castle, and then down the brew to Mersey Square."
VERY long Post in response coming soon, Val! ;o>
A very very VERY long Post coming up right now ...
Ohhh, what have you started?!! – but have now also helped to finish too, Val! - LOL!!!Well, I could pretty much write out a whole Forum Thread just in response to your last Post! - but I'll try my very best to spare you that (and everyone else too!), if I possibly can. And I was also hesitating too about putting it all up on here because I know I could be telling you about all of this in an Email instead – but it is all related to a Book that we both like very much and it may possibly also be of some interest too to someone else who has read, or who is thinking about reading, it as well … and so here we go ;o> …
It has been confusing me for a while now as to where the Street might be or have been? - because Harry mentioned in several Interviews that he came back to Stockport in the 1960's and said that he could still see parts of the physical 'Wall' boundaries in the remains of Buildings that were still there - but his many references also reveal that Harry clearly travelled around (what is now Greater Manchester) quite a lot and also travelled quite far too for such a very young Lad.
And the constant mention of it being in Lancashire and a Lancashire Mill Town in all of the Book write-ups and in the Interviews that were done with him have always thrown me somewhat too? ... because I know that he was born, and raised, and always lived in Stockport ... which was indeed a Mill Town but I was stuck in trying to work out as to exactly which part of Stockport would have been a part of Lancashire way back then?
After being prompted by your Post though into having yet another few hours of wandering all around the Internet yesterday ... and with all thanks to you too for making me take another look at it, Val ... I am delighted to say that I have now, finally, managed to get all of the answers to all of my/our wonderings!!! - YAYYY!!! ;o>
To start with, a lot of the places that you have very helpfully listed above do, in fact, still exist - and, although some of the areas and also the Buildings over the last Century have come to change quite a bit or have long since disappeared now - there are still quite a few of areas and landmark Buildings that have barely changed all that much at all.And, on seeing your List laid out like it is, it also immediately became very obvious to me that the vast majority of places that Harry references all group together and focus on a very small area that is right in the very centre of Stockport itself - and it also just happens to be a particular area of Stockport that I actually know very well indeed ;o>
Mum and me often used to go to the Swimming Pool at The Baths on St Petersgate - although the external Building was, by then, mostly built up and over and clad in a really crappy and shabby looking 1970's concrete styled frontage with the original 'ancient turreted building' only just about visibly still there behind and beneath it all. Internally though, virtually nothing much changed over it’s many decades. The rather beautiful tiling from Floor to Ceiling was damaged in a few places and some of it was rather roughly patched up - but The Baths unfortunately needed a very expensive and expert renovation which is why, very sadly, the Council decided to close them down and completely demolish the entire Building (in the mid 1990’s) despite all of the intensive local campaigning to try to save them.
Stockport Central Library is indeed still on the corner leading from Wellington Road South into St Petersgate - although it too was very sadly closed down (at the very start of the Pandemic) and there are currently local campaigns being created to try to save it as well - as the Council have been wanting for many years now, despite ongoing and huge opposition, to move the Library over to being in an even more central and more contemporary Building that has yet to be built.
I do wonder if Harry might possibly be confusing his description of it as ... "a white marble building" ... with ... "a flight of marble steps leading up to the entrance" ... with that of Stockport Town Hall though (situated slightly further along up the main Road), which is an entirely white Building with a very imposing Italian Marble Entrance, and is a Building that is often referred to locally as 'The Wedding Cake' ;o>
Stockport Central Library ...
Stockport Town Hall ...
I can’t find any record of there ever being a 'blackened statue of St Peter' situated on St Petersgate and the only Statue that Mum and me can ever remember being there is that of Richard Cobden. There may have been two Statues? - but I do know that Cobden's Statue was already there in the 1880's and it stood in the same spot for 120 years until quite recently, when it was moved to a more prominent place several feet over to one side of where it used to be, so that it now stands within the newly landscaped pedestrian area where The Baths were previously situated ...
Then ... St Petersgate in the 1900s - and with the Trams too! ...
There is no longer a Synagogue in central Stockport anymore. I had long suspected that the congregation might have moved on, as the Jewish community began to migrate (along with so many of other central Stockport residents) out of the far more industrial and commercial areas of Stockport Town Centre and into the newly extended Borough of Stockport Towns - and wondered if it had possibly ended up in becoming the now quite large and thriving modern Orthodox Yeshurun Hebrew Congregation that established itself over half a Century ago on the borderline of the Towns of Cheadle and Gatley ... and, the other day, I came across proof of this indeed being so …https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Comm...
Plus some rather interesting details about Stockport Synagogue and it’s congregation can also be found here …
https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Comm...
St Peter’s (Protestant) Church is still on the Square of St Petersgate and St Matthews (Catholic) Church is still situated on Grenville Street in Edgeley – an area that is on the outskirts of Stockport Town.
I struggled with finding out anything at all about there ever being a School on St Petersgate (we Stopfordians never bother with the ‘St’ by the way and always just call it ‘Petersgate’) so I tried searching through St Peter’s Church website instead as it had to be almost next door to the Church and surely connected to the Church in some way due to it’s name and I struck gold because, here it is, St Peter’s School! … and there is also some absolutely fascinating history about it, the Church, and the times that Harry was born into, as well as some further insights into some of the other religious/cultural divides that were leading to people rioting in the area …
https://www.stpetersstockport.org.uk/...
Hollywood Park School is still on Hardman Street – although it has had a lot of extensive building work done over the years to fit in around and alongside the Listed parts of the old Buildings. The Junior and Senior School closed in 1979 and it has since only been used as a Nursery and as an Adult Education Centre. And I found two fascinating Links to it’s history, during Harry’s early childhood years of growing up in Stockport, here …
https://historicengland.org.uk/listin...
https://gm1914.wordpress.com/2014/03/...
India Mills was a large Mill Factory in the Heaton Norris area of Stockport that was owned in Harry’s time by Kershaw, Leese and Co and was listed as having “89,700 Spindles, 268/368 Weft, 128/308 Twist; 1,370 Looms” …
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Kershaw...
And I’ve actually managed to find a wonderful short Mitchell & Kenyon film - from sometime around 10 years before Harry was even born! - showing some of the many workers coming and going through the Main Entrance of the Mill! …
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/w...
Mersey Square has for so many years now been the area on which the huge Shopping Precinct was built … Daw Bank is the Road that sits alongside the site of Stockport’s large open air Bus Station … and Bann Street off Kings Street West coming off from Daw Bank used to be the site of one of the main Wash Houses in central Stockport. The now 1970’s style Building built on where it once stood has undergone several regenerations into different uses over the years – including once belonging to WRVS and being used by them as private Wash House for a Clothes Bank in the 1980s and was where I used to volunteer as a teenager as a ‘Sorter-Outerer’ of clothing that had been donated ;o> …
https://www.bathsandwashhouses.co.uk/...
And why is Harry Bernstein’s Stockport continually described as being a Lancashire Mill Town? Well, it is because it was back then - as I discovered yesterday that all of Stockport Town, before it became extended into becoming the Borough of Stockport, once belonged to the former historic County of West Lancashire - which was an absolutely vast County area that also managed to include all of present day Liverpool as well as Greater Manchester as well.
Having gone through all of the references to the Schools that were previously mentioned I think it very likely that Harry and/or his siblings might have attended another School in Stockport at some point in their lives - as his family had next-to-no money and too many children to provide for.
The most obvious one that immediately springs to Mind is the Stockport Industrial School for Boys, that was originally known as the Stockport Ragged and Industrial School for Girls & Boys, at Townend House situated on Higher Hillgate. It was decreed at one time that only Protestant children could attend - but I found out that they would sometimes take in Jewish children as well on the strict understanding that they kept all to themselves and received any Jewish Religious Instruction elsewhere …
http://www.childrenshomes.org.uk/Stoc...
And FINALLY where exactly is/was the Street where Harry lived? … well, Brook Street doesn’t exist anymore and I can’t find any record of it either except a mention that it was somewhere very close to Daw Bank and so I took another look at all the references and the area and came up with East Street which still exists even though every House on both sides of it were completely demolished back sometime in the late 1950s to early 1960s to make way for several long Blocks of 3 Storey Flats along one side and one large 16 Storey Block of Flats on the other.
And when I Googled around to try to do some more research on this being a possibility – Lo and behold! – after SO much searching all over the Internet I finally came across an Article that could have helped to save me SO much time and effort!!!
It was written and posted up by a Library Assistant at Stockport Central Library back in 2016 – and is all about Harry and the Bernstein family!!! … and interestingly she has also identified East Street as being THE Street where Harry grew up!!! … YAYYY!!! ;o> ...
https://cartularytales.wordpress.com/...
And I’m now going to go and have a lie down for a very very VERY long time – LOL!!! ;o>
And I will be gone for a couple of weeks while I go through all the links that Suzy has unearthed by dint of patient research. Are you sure you weren't a librarian in another life? Remind me to tell you my story about Nancy, the school prize and Annuello.
LOL!!! - well, it may all be far more interesting to me, Val, because I've always known that particular area of Stockport so well. I spent 3 very happy years attending Stockport College - and every day I would walk down past the Town Hall to the Library and then on down to Mersey Square to have a quick look around the Shops before going over to wait at the Bus Station ;o>We have a very large Jewish Community living around Greater Manchester - and most people will tell you that everyone who lives around here tends to be far more integrated and accepted by the communities that they live in now. However, you very sadly don't have to scrape far below the surface to see that there are still some 'invisible walls' in place today.
The Jewish Cemetery is still an area that is very sadly known for being maliciously targeted every few years by the most appalling acts of Spray Paint vandalism and damage to the Grave Stones - and only very recently, during the Pandemic, there was quite a significant local uproar as well as some very offensive anti-semetic opposition to the Yeshurun Hebrew Congregation in Cheadle submitting their plans to install an Eruv that will 'enclose' quite a huge area of several miles all around their Synagogue ...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...
The plans are certainly eyebrow raising. I don't get why it would be necessary to have a physical 'Eruv' area, when simply stating the bounds of such an area (a large map in the synagogue perhaps), so the community know the limits would do, surely.
It has been stated for over half a Century now but I don't think that it was ever felt to be enough to just know about where the Eruv boundaries were and should be in place for the Orthodox congregation. The only two things that really bothered me about it was firstly just how visible and obvious the Poles and Wires might be in a few far more open air and exposed places and also as to how much they would come to add to the already large amount of Street-side 'clutter' we already have in more build-up areas - fitting them in alongside or inbetween all of the existing Walls, Fences, Phone Masts, Lamp Posts and Telegraph Poles.
And secondly I am also naturally quite concerned as to whether all of the claims that have been made about the huge risk of potentially fatal injuries to Wildlife, such as Birds continuing to fly into the Wires, will tragically come to be a reality once they are installed.
suzysunshine7 wrote: "There is no longer a Synagogue in central Stockport anymore. I had long suspected that the congregation might have moved on, as the Jewish community began to migrate (along with so many of other ce..."In answer to some of the points in your post:
I think you're right about Harry confusing the Library with the Town Hall - unless perhaps the Library was housed in the Town Hall at some stage.
Re "the blackened statue of St Peter" - again, I think you're likely right in that he's confusing it with the statue of Richard Cobden. I can't think of many towns that would have a statue to St Peter. Most statues on civic land are secular in nature. Unless there was a statue of St Peter in the Church grounds or school grounds.
The website
https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Comm...
says of the Stockport Jewish community "The congregation was unaffiliated but under the aegis of the Chief Rabbi." But doesn't name any rabbis. It lists:
Ministers of the Congregation:
Rev. Nathan Speakmaster - from about 1903 until, possibly, 1908
Rev. Abraham Dove - from about 1908 until at least 1918
Rev. Menachem Ben Zion Ordman - from 1924 until 1927
There is a gap between 1918 and 1924. Circa 1920 Harry names the newly appointed Rabbi (a refugee from Russia after the Revolution - he was a Socialist but found the new regime wasn't any more sympathetic to the Jews than under the Czars) as Rabbi Abraham Oslov.
The website
https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Comm...
names (in 1921 and 1922) J. Korer, Hon Sec. Harry mentions (about this time) a Mr Max Korer, the Treasurer, who took a dim view of the new young Rabbi (Abraham Oslov) playing ball with the boys during cheder. Again, I think he is possibly mis-remembering names or positions.
The website
https://www.stpetersstockport.org.uk/...
has a photo of a statue of St Peter, but it is inside the church, and I can't think that Harry would ever have had cause to go inside the church.
Unfortunately the 1900 film at
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/w...
is restricted to viewers in the United Kingdom only!
Re public wash-houses, if you've never seen it I highly recommend the play (I have it on DVD) "The Steamie" (set in the 50s) which is available on Youtube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEi9E...
You might need sub-titles for the Glasgow accents.
Val wrote: "Unfortunately the 1900 film athttps://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/w...
is restricted to viewers in the United Kingdom only!"
Awww, what a rotten shame, Val! ;o<
I wish I could figure out a way to open up access to it for you.
It never extends the view of the fixed position of the Camera beyond where you can see it focussed on in the still Picture on the Website - but it is nevertheless fascinating to see all of the Mill Workers (so many of them Women and very young Children) swarming in and out of the Entrance Door.
There are a lot of very smart clean outfits and quite a few fancy Hats worn too - presumably because they were all warned to dress well in front of the Camera by the Mill owners and also because they wanted to be seen to be looking their very best as well ;o>
There is a little Lad who is so utterly entranced over continuing to look up and over at the Camera as he goes in the Doorway that he gets all caught up in everyone else coming out - and halfway through going in ends up in being turned around and coming out again before going back in! - LOL!!! ;o>
It must have seemed even more magical back then in the 1900s - to be a young Child and to be told that this very weird and rather large contraption pointing at you was actually a Film Camera that was taking a moving picture of you that could be projected onto a Screen?!! ;oO
And I wonder if any of them ever had any idea at all that this short Film of them would still be around and freely available to view over 120 years later?!! ;o>
I've just watched 10 minutes of The Steamie, Val, and found myself really getting in to it ... so I've decided to watch it all later on tonight when I will have far more time to enjoying doing so.Luckily, I'm not having any problems at all with the Accents, although I am aware that I may not always be taking in and fully understanding all of the different things that they are so busy doing all the while that they are talking ;o>
Val wrote: "Just be prepared for a wee weep."Or maybe even bawling your eyes out if you’re anything like me.
Ohhh no?!! ... I haven't seen it yet as our Internet is still playing up something chronic at the moment and it kept freezing on me.Ahhh well, at least I know to have plenty of Tissues on standby!
Some more thoughts:I don't think Harry attended any other school apart from St Peter's because he talks about the same headmaster from his first year through to the end of WWI and beyond and also some of the teachers, one of whom served in the War and came back much changed. However, at one point he says "no wonder they sometimes called St Peter's the Ragged School".
It was lovely to see the photo of the family on the website
https://cartularytales.wordpress.com/...
Especially Lily with her "long, silken hair flowing behind her".
You (and Sophie Kembrey) are definitely right about East St because the map clearly shows what Harry describes as: "Our street was smaller than most of them. It had just one long row of houses on one side and two smaller rows of equal combined length on the other, intersected by another street called Brook Street. It sloped slightly on a hill that began far up in the better section of the town."
This description can be clearly seen on the map that Sophie shows in her piece:
"I wheeled him around the corner on to Wood Street. We went past the taproom entrance and to the end of the street to where the steep brew that ran up to where the park began. ...we began the climb. We ran alongside the rec at first. It was a large playground at the foot of the park, covered with layers of crushed cinders....It was here that I had often watched Freddy play soccer for the county team...An iron rail separated it from the road that went up the hill....I puffed and pushed and sweated, and I got to the top at last and halted, breathing hard. We were at the spot where I had once stopped with my mother on my way to the fancy school, and just as I had done then I turned to look down at the view that lay before us. There it was, the same as before, the same as always, a clutter of streets and endless slate roofs and chimneys, and the taller chimneys of the mills, thrusting into the clouds, and all of it seen through a film of the yellowish smoke that hung constantly over the town, its acrid smell drifting up to us".
Harry also mentions going out into the country to the Derbyshire Hills. Sister Lily and her Christian boyfriend Arthur used to meet at "the Seventeen Windows, a quaint old inn ... given that name because it had exactly that many windows". They caught the tram from Mersey Square and got off at a "little holiday town called Marple, which was as far as the tram went, and began walking".
There are a number of web pages about the Seventeen Windows and if you google "seventeen windows" and Fogg (name of landlady), you get to read the text of Harry's book on Google books.
Marple now comes under the Borough of Stockport and is an area that I also know well - including where Seventeen Windows used to be situated on the borderline of Dooley Lane with Offerton - a Town that also likes to claim Seventeen Windows as being a part of their own local history as well ;o>Agatha Christie apparently named Miss Marple after the Town of Marple. She was a fairly regular visitor to family and friends in this area throughout her life - and wrote several Books and short stories as well including ... The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding - a Hercule Poirot Short Story ... while she was staying over many Christmas times as a family guest at Abney Hall in Cheadle - owned for many years by the Manchester Textile tycoon Sir James Watts who was married to Agatha's older Sister, Margaret - known to the family as Madge.
It was originally published in short episodes under the title of the 'Christmas Adventure' in The Sketch (a weekly issued British illustrated Journal focused on high society and the aristocracy) in December 1923 - before the finalised version of it became a short story that was published as part of the collection ... The Adventure Of The Christmas Pudding And A Selection Of Entrées
https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/ho...
Since my last post, I have read the following:No Known Grave - Maureen Jennings (No. 3) - Inspector Tom Tyler has now moved to Ludlow and his investigations mostly take place in a halfway house for servicemen and women who have been badly injured in the War. Easily read but quite forgettable. I think Jennings writes a lot but says very little. Not a lot happens but she still manages to fill over 300 pages. Oh well, just one more in the series to go thank goodness.
The Children Act - Ian McEwan. I don't think I've ever read a McEwan novel before. This was very good! Brilliant writing - the absolute antithesis of Jennings above. McEwan doesn't waste a single word. I felt I really knew these people and the Lincoln's Inn setting. It was a very quick and easy read but I am wary of watching the film in case it over-emphasises the relationship between a middle-aged woman and a teenage boy. They certainly have a devastating effect on each other's lives but it is in no way a romantic relationship. And, by coincidence, the book starts with a civil case about a Jewish family named Bernstein where the judge has to rule on whether the children should attend an orthodox school (the father's wishes) or a secular school (the mother's wishes).
Dear Lupin...: Letters to a Wayward Son - Roger Mortimer. Following his six years as a P.O.W., Roger Mortimer married and had three children. Son Charlie was born when Roger was 43 so he was a mature dad. But Charlie must have put more than a few grey hairs on his head. His letters to his son are very sweet and quite funny but you have to consider the casual racism and anti-semitic views of the time and class to which he belonged. The letters range from 1969 to 1991 during which time Charlie narrowly escaped being expelled from Eton, lasted only a few months in the Coldstream Guards and pursued dozens of dodgy career options. His many questionable choices saw him just avoiding the justice system, bill collectors, etc apart from the spells in rehab. The family may have cried poor but every week was spent giving luncheon to Lady this and Sir that. And the staff inevitably moved on ......
I'm now onto The Dream: A Memoir - Harry Bernstein. This follows on from "The Invisible Wall' and tells of the Bernstein family's move to Chicago in the early 1920s. Vividly told, as was the first volume, it is very hard to put down. It reminded me of Barry Levinson's film "Avalon" which also tells of Jewish migration to America.
you may love House of Leaves, you may not. it's hard work, very satisfying and very original.now on They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by the wonderful, poetic, visionary hanif abdurraqib. essays on mostly music and those who make it, but reading the whole picture.
completing the prose output of hanif abdurraqib,Go Ahead in the Rain - not a biography on a tribe called quest, but an eloquent tribute to what they meant to the author. not essential to be familiar with their music, and you'll wish he'd written about your favourite band. even manages to fold in the death of leonard cohen into comparison to the passing of phyfe dawg (atcq). superb essential writings.
now on Nina Simone's Gum written by bad seed in chief, warren ellis, and centred around the chewing gum taken from nina simone's piano after a performance at the nick cave curated 'meltdown' 1999, and how it became a relic for ellis. fascinating stuff.
......and it was a very good read, unique even. what kind of mind picks the chuggy off nina simone's piano? ...........and then, physically never actually touches it again? lot of pictures of the chuggy involved.couple of genesis breyer p.orridge books on the market at the moment, picked up this one, a memoir - Nonbinary: A Memoir - we're reading of a young gen who's too skinny and doesn't like to eat things.
........a very enjoyable read about a genuine groundbreaker in music and the arts, but it all runs too smoothly, everything falling into place as if meticulously planned. no mentions of the beatings he gave cosey, or of other questionable things he's known to have done. looking at all the 4/5 star reviews given to The Young Team, and, 20% in to the book, i'm not seeing it yet. the vernacular is no issue, just a bunch of violent events one after the other. i'm guessing that some kind of redemption might be ahead for 'azzy' williams, and i'll crawl towards it, but 's feeling basic so far.
packed in The Young Team before it sends me into a coma. just really really boring! i imagine that The Perfect Reminder will be more entertaining, due to knowing one of band and familiar with places likely to be mentioned.
and i was right! The Perfect Reminder was compelling reading. wrote a glowing review on these very pages (well, the one with the book on it).looking forward to the following books released next year,
Illuminations
Poguemahone
God's Teeth and Other Phenomena
couldn't refuse at £3.99 (£11 off) for this very handsome book of scott walker's lyrics, curated by the man himself. greater part of the book is dedicated to his later work.amazon.co.uk/Sundog-Scott-Walker/dp/0...
Tech XXIII wrote: "couldn't refuse at £3.99 (£11 off) for this very handsome book of scott walker's lyrics, curated by the man himself. greater part of the book is dedicated to his later work.amazon.co.uk/Sundog-Sc..."
That's a good price. There's a few at the back which presumably went unrecorded before his death. Shame.
well, that was a long book! 😁if you enjoyed Shuggie Bain, and really who didn't, Young Mungo is even better - beautifully written, heartbreakingly desolate and depraved, this is a brilliant and awful book. what kind of mother sends her 15 year old son on a fishing weekend with a couple of random drunks? painful and compulsive book.
I did enjoy Shuggie Bain but it was a bit like shaving your skin off layer by layer. I'm not sure I could sufficiently gird my loins to do it all over again.
been working my way through Mick Herron's Slough House/Slow Horses series of spy thrillers. At the point where i have to ration myself so i don't finish them too quickly. For brilliant dialogue ( albeit a bit crude at times) it is hard to beat and the plotting is bang up to date. Currently on Joe Country with only Slough House (No.7 in series i think) to go, although i see he has a one coming soon in hardback. A bit p155ed off when the TV Series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb was snapped up by Apple TV - can't BBC afford anything nowadays ???
Maybe, if it was even offered to them the BBC turned it down because the principal cast weren't 'diverse' enough. That sounds an awful thing to say, but it's the way Auntie is going these days.
Tim wrote: "Maybe, if it was even offered to them the BBC turned it down because the principal cast weren't 'diverse' enough. That sounds an awful thing to say, but it's the way Auntie is going these days."Have you read the Herron books - his bunch of spies are a diverse bunch and the casting seems to have filled any other gaps to guarantee inclusivity, equality, non-binaryism etc etc etc. I know what you mean though. Like the recent film version of David Copperfield
Huck wrote: "Have you read the Herron books."I haven't no. The info I have is from the wiki page for the show, which divides the cast into the three principals, and then a longer list of recurring characters, who are indeed a more diverse bunch. Current day BBC would recoil in horror at the former group being all played by white actors.
Tim wrote: "Huck wrote: "Have you read the Herron books."I haven't no. The info I have is from the wiki page for the show, which divides the cast into the three principals, and then a longer list of recurrin..."
Lord preserve us from quota systems - will we ever be free of them? That said i do remember being appalled when the minor part of Prof Godbole in the David Lean 1984 film A Passage to India was given to Alec Guinness. Of course he was famous then - having made his name in Star Wars ! I thought Michael Bates should have had the role :-)
.......or his son, Young Master Bates! parp!more celtic genius in the queue after Young Mungo,
Poguemahone, an epic from the Irish master of the dark.
and £2 worth of charity shop goodness, Old Men in Love
Post Soviet wrote: "Recommended! reading now,https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yeah-Story-M......"
do we need to start with the prequel Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop by Bob Stanley ?
Huck wrote: "Post Soviet wrote: "Recommended! reading now,https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yeah-Story-M...+..."
Oh, just came out, I won't rush, feels too much info on the subject.
edit: it's like start watching Hobbit after Lord Of The Rings. 'o)
Just arrived, signed copy,Re-sisters: Recordings of Cosey Fanni Tutti, Delia Derbyshire and Margery Kempe
very much looking forward to reading.
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the 2nd, The Nigger Factory is basically a very tense read about black students demanding radical change from the faculty of a black university.
thing about both books, is that they could have been written yesterday, as the issues outlined in these are still very valid and ongoing!
for a wee change in pace and location, next up is The Pie At Night: In Search of the North at Play - a whole £3 for the hardback in w.h. smith (oh the thrill of buying a book in a shop!)