My life on this, and other, enchanted isles
A while back I saw a film by Amber Films called ‘A funny thing happened on the way to Utopia’ about T Dan Smith – the Newcastle City Council leader in the Sixties who was later jailed for corruption. The film itself was in some ways a rather clumsy Eighties Channel Four effort that blended […]
Read More T Dan SmithBradford once had its own car industry…not only that but its products were Class winners at Le Mans and featured in Raymond Chandler. And only in Yorkshire would vehicles be be named a Curlew or a Weasel (pictured below outside Bradford Town Hall)! The company was established in 1902 in Bradford before moving to the […]
Read More I want to go Jowetting…!The Pennine Way is famous as the first English long distance path. The path was the idea of the journalist and rambler Tom Stephenson inspired by similar trails in the United States of America, particularly the Appalachian Trail. Stephenson proposed the concept in an article for the Daily Herald in 1935 but it wasn’t until […]
Read More The Pennine WayStuck for a plan for a day, or an evening out? Can I suggest you make your way to Scunthorpe steel works (or Appleby Frodingham to give its proper name) for a tour of the works. Leave time to find the assembly point – because it’s not easy. But somewhere near one of the admin […]
Read More Scunthorpe steel works – a great Northern day outFoxline publishing do a wonderful series of books (five volumes so far) on holiday trains from East Lancashire towns to the Coast (mostly Blackpool) – plus linked titles on Blackburn and Colne. Most railway books suffer from ‘rivet counting’ syndrome – but these books by Stuart Taylor immerse you in the life of those towns […]
Read More Colne – holiday trains to Blackpool in the 1960sFriesland, and neighbouring Groningen, are uncelebrated rural provinces in the North of the Netherlands. They are also home to some of the most interesting and provocative ideas about what a humane and progressive transport policy might look like. In November 2002 I spent a week in this big sky country doing some research for a […]
Read More Friesland and Groningen – what a humane transport policy might look like…From a lunchtime lecture at the Institute of Northern Studies… Note that I’m paraphrasing – I may be printing the legend. William Cody (aka Buffalo Bill) wild west tableau took Europe by storm. He was the real enough deal – slaughtering native americans in the morning and performing in US theatres by night. This was […]
Read More Texas Bill Shufflebottom: Wild West impersonators in the North of EnglandI like still Northern places. On a work trip to Stockholm I stayed an extra day, got up early, and took one of the early ferries to the Archipelago. The ferries pinball from one island jetty to another, zig zagging their way in erratically described orbits to the furthest islands and return. It was October […]
Read More IngmarsoI like the ritual of football. And with non-league football you get more of it. The sunset behind the stand, the hot drink earned in the clubhouse as you stamp your feet to shake off the cold and the forgotten stadia of forgotten towns you end up at away games. True you don’t get the […]
Read More Shouting and sunsets
Enchanted Isle 