Just Finished Reading: Northerners – A History from the Ice Age to the Present Day by Brian Groom (FP: 2022) [336pp] 

Despite living over half of my life in the South (both East & West) I am, and will always be, a Northerner – not just at heart by bone deep. When I worked in London for 6 years it always felt special travelling north to visit my parents and go HOME. I always looked out for certain landmarks after we left Birmingham (at the halfway mark) and although I never had a tear in my eye it always felt different, special. 

Of course, the North IS different, as the author rightly points out. Not only because of its history but because of the basic geology. There is a real North-South divide in the very rocks under our feet. A real consequence of that is very real differences in farming between the two regions. Whereas in the South we see rolling fields of wheat, in the North we have much smaller farms and plenitudes of sheep. The North is also rich in things like coal and iron which is a major reason why the Industrial Revolution happened there. At first the industries around these resources huddled close but it wasn’t long before the demand, especially for coal, required its transport over distance hence the building of first an extensive canal system and then an expanding rail network that was later exported across the world. Industry and the pollution that followed defined the North in ways still remembered and still satirised to this day. It was indeed, at least for a long while, grim ‘Up North’. 

Written with a wide knowledge and a healthy dose of love this was a fun and informative read from beginning to end. I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Most English general history books tend to mention the North in passing (often focused just on the Industrial Revolution) so it was good to see the whole North as THE focus of a book. A fair bit of spice was added by an extension bibliography which I’ll be diving into in the coming months for recommendations – it'll certainly help me in my Ancestry endeavours. I was already aware that the author had another book out on the history of Manchester (already on my Wish List) but I’ve just discovered (during my search for a cover to post here) that he’s also produced a general people’s history of the entire British Isles too!  

This is definitely recommended for any Northerner out there curious about their region's proud history. More to come from this author (naturally) and from the North itself. I’m particularly looking forward to a history of Liverpool (the city of my birth) which is out in July.