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. 

Just Finished Reading: The Debatable Land – The Lost World Between Scotland and England by Graham Robb (FP: 2018) [239pp] 

I’ve never been to Carlisle but I’ve been through it four times – twice on a train during a school trip to Edinburgh and twice in a car travelling to and from a Queen concert in Newcastle when I was at university in Lancaster. So, it's not exactly an area I know much about despite visiting the near-by Lake District many times and being based in and around Lancaster (around 70 miles to the south) for 5 years or so. The other thing that prompted me to pick this book up is the ongoing mystery of the significant amount of Scottish DNA in each and every cell of my body. I was hoping that this book – about the borderlands – might give me some hints to help resolved that. 

Borders, especially ancient borders, are strange beasts. These days we think of borders as barriers with checkpoints and, sometimes, armed guards whose job it is to prevent people simply crossing back and forth as they please. OLD borders were often much more porous and all too often much less defined, much less agreed upon. The ‘debatable land’ investigated by the author after moving into the area from Oxford is one of those more liminal places where the border between England and Scotland was more of a suggestion rather than anything hard, fast or agreed upon by either country. Despite having a VERY long history neither country really concerned itself with this small patch of land that straddled the border as long as order was, more or less, maintained. Both countries periodically invaded the zone – often in pursuit of raiders or cattle thieves – but neither stayed nor built any commanding structures in the area to control it. It was wasn’t worth the effort. This meant, of course, that the area eventually became controlled by a small number of (often feuding) families who made their living out of raiding and protection rackets whilst keeping, as much as possible, off the radar of either nations high and mighty. 

Despite not really being the book I was expecting – I had assumed that it would be about the whole border rather than a small piece of it – this was a reasonably interesting if rather niche book. I certainly now know a lot more about this zone and it might even give me a few family names to work with if they show up in my ancestry searches. Despite being illegal (if at least technically) there was a lot of cross marriage between Scots and English in this zone which might (possibly) explain where at least some of my DNA came from although as far as I can tell that ‘drift’ happened further East of any debatable real-estate. A reasonable read but only really recommended for anyone interested in the Scottish/English border zone or the history of the Carlisle area itself. 

Just Finished Reading: The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (FP: 1937) [212pp] 

I grew up (ages 10-23) about 7 miles from Wigan so it's not that surprising that I’d heard about this classic for as long as I can remember. Recently, especially after reading another non-fiction by Orwell, I thought it was about time I finally got around to reading it. It wasn’t really what I was expecting and, to be honest, I was a little disappointed that Wigan itself didn’t appear more prominently in the narrative. But that was my only, very minor, quibble with this work. 

The word that comes to mind concerning his descriptions of working-class life in the North of England around that time is: grim. Not only was unemployment rife and of long duration – the area was only just beginning to recover from the Great Depression despite industrial uptick due to the ongoing (slow) rearmament program – but the general living conditions were often appalling. Born in a dilapidated Victorian terrace myself (built I think in 1888) I could easily visualise Orwell’s accounts of the houses he stayed in during his time there. I could also sympathise with the tales of overcrowding – although I have no solid memory of such – as my parents and my brother and I shared a TWO-bedroom house with my maternal grandparents. How we actually managed that is beyond me! 

Another early section that really jumped out at me was his description of a visit to a coal mine and a discussion of the conditions below ground as well as how poorly treated (and paid) the coalminers were. In the 1970’s - so a little over a generation later – my school offered a trip to one of the last working coal mines in the area. I THINK it was probably Golborne Colliery. So, when Orwell described the conditions at the coalface and the hardship of just getting there and back – UPAID – I was right there with him. The group of us (plus a teacher or two) only stayed there a few hours but by the time we got back I was both exhausted and filthy – and we hadn’t actually DONE anything. The guys who actually WORKED down there, 8, 10 or more hours a day, week in and week out – just the thought of it amazes me, as it did Orwell who had nothing but praise for them. 

Whilst the first half of the book covered conditions for the workers – both above and below ground – the second half moved onto more political and sociological discussions of Class which was much more important and honestly rigid almost 100 years ago. Orwell had some interesting ideas about the prospect of a ‘classless’ society as well as the problems of ‘social mixing’. In some ways little has changed, although so-called social mobility is far easier these days where money talks louder than old-school ties – at least in most places. I did find it interesting when Orwell mused on the possible future European war and the dangerous rise of fascism both on the Continent and in England itself. Interestingly he thought that fascism could indeed take hold here if it wasn’t intelligently challenged.  

Overall, this was a very interesting look at a particular Class in a particular part of England at a particular time – and viewed (of course) from a Middle-class perspective [Orwell was VERY conscious of his position in the class hierarchy and that in itself was another fascinating look at the lived experience of the control system that Class was/is]. Inevitably this was at times very dated – a LOT has changed in the last 90 years or so – and, as a look into a very different world, could be quite confusing at times – even the language used was different in some ways back then – but as a brief glimpse of a slice of cultural/political/industrial history it's definitely worth a read and is worthy of the name Classic. More Orwell to come. Recommended.  

Just Finished Reading: The Nanny State Made me – In Search of a Better Britain/A Story of Britain and How to Save It by Stuart Maconie (FP: 2020) [281pp] 

I picked this up for several reasons in addition to the standard ‘Buy one get one Half price’ deal: It was about the Welfare State, it was written by someone I’m aware of and haven’t read anything by him before and it was (by and large) about the North or at the very least from a Northern perspective. Although initially it took me a while to settle into this rather rambling narrative at times, I ended up liking it quite a bit. I’d heard the author talk several times on TV (he worked/works for the BBC), so I actually ‘heard’ him chat away in his own voice in my head as I read along – and ‘chat’ was definitely the word here. 

Part history of, and indeed love letter to, the Welfare State (although in nothing like the detail of my previous book on the subject naturally), part polemic against those who opposed its founding and are even now trying to dismantle it and part autobiography, this was an interesting look into the impact the Welfare State had on also all of us growing up in Britain. Very early on the author makes a very valid (and funny) point. Those in positions of power who disparage the Welfare State by calling it a ‘Nanny State’ are the only ones who HAD nannies – unlike the rest of us. It is, I think, a telling argument. It is only our ‘betters’ who generally oppose a system that is meant to alleviate the conditions that prevailed before its arrival in the late 1940’s - poverty, ill health, ignorance and poor-quality housing. Using his own life story growing up in the North of England – primarily in Wigan, a mere 7 miles where I was coming of age around the same time – as well as fellow beneficiaries of Welfare provision (from schools, libraries, doctors and public parks) this was a very personal ‘take’ on the making of modern Britain. Naturally, given the state of things, this is not simply a tale of good news, a tale of community over greed or a tale of civil society over wealth inequality. It is also a defence of the provision of welfare in all its aspects in an environment where such a provision is under attack as never before, from library closures, privatisation of bus services, ‘redevelopment’ of public parks, the lack of social housing, and the chronic underfunding of so many of the services so many rely on. 

Reading through this rambling but often entertaining (with laugh out loud moments) narrative, I was struck time and again by the close correspondences with my own life. The author was born 18 months after and 11 miles further east than me. He spent his formative years in and around Wigan – only 7 miles away where I lived ages 10-23 – and even taught (briefly) in Skelmersdale College only 2 years after I left with good enough A Levels to attend University. So, we almost met (as he taught Sociology – a subject I took at the College). Weird! Inevitably this was, in many ways, a cosy comfortable read being focused (mostly) on life in the North of England in the years I lived there. Interesting and informative on many levels and full of interesting insights and people this is a great piece of social history. Definitely recommended to anyone who wants to understand how the Welfare State works at the ‘coalface’ and what its loss would mean to so many. More from this author to come I think!

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