Orwell in Southwold by Ronald Binns: A visitor would be forgiven for leaving the town without the faintest idea that it was George Orwell’s childhood home. Significant characters from Orwell’s time in Southwold later appear in his writing as vagrants, or the tortured… Continue reading Orwell in Southwold
Hardly an ordinary place but Priestley is quite brilliant and I couldn’t resist. ‘…the buildings have shape and solidity but no weight, they hang in the air like places in the Arabian Nights… a Gothic fairy tale…all the glimpses of ancient loveliness are there…’ Continue reading Morning in the City: JB Priestley
“Stephenson’s snorting locomotive was at least capable of being understood by the common man…The chemists and physicists of the newest industrial revolution…are merely wizards whose spells are unintelligible save to other wizards of the same order of wizardry.” Harry Hopkins: England is Rich: (1957): 231 https://placesandculturaltraces.com/good-companions-around-newcastle-a-personal-cultural-geography/ Continue reading The Rocket
Ellen Wilkinson could be describing Boris Johnson when she paints a picture of the fictional Home Secretary in her 1932 crime novel“…he had marched by well-signposted stages to the place which was obviously his due…Very regrettably, as he had considered, certain newspapers had been encouraging the low craft of the caricaturist. These fellows had seized with joy on such magnificent copy he provided… Continue reading Ellen Wilkinson creates Boris Johnson
In 1924 Ellen Wilkinson became MP for Middlesbrough. She was Labour’s first female MP. Previously a trade union official and a constant campaigner and activist, she became MP for Jarrow in 1935 and authored ’The Town that Was Murdered: the life story of Jarrow’ (1939). She wrote two novels, “Clash’ (1929) and a whodunnit, ‘The Division Bell Mystery’ (1932) where the hero is Robert West. ‘West tried to shake off the thought that so often came into his mind in these days – that this was all a facade… Continue reading The Division Bell Mystery (1932)
Who says nothing ever happens in Goole? Goole comedian Ian Smith wouldn’t agree. Catch his series of 8 minute videos on the culture and history of Goole (and discover more about Tom Puddings…). Continue reading Goole Dock
What must the American tourists be thinking as they wait at Halifax station? The train’s late, nowhere to sit, passengers hang around looking washed out, and the platform needs a spring clean and lick of paint. On the other hand, on the sandstone wall across from platform 2 there’s a poster advertising Shakespear’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ at the Viaduct Theatre. Parents shout at their … Continue reading ‘These days our hometowns are often more exotic and full of new curiosity than Timbuktu or Easter Island’ *
Giving voice to overlooked voices from Wakefield’s five towns. Continue reading All Quiet on the West Riding Fronts
This short video links key episodes from both books to current locations. There’s more to the M180 than you might think! There are no ordinary places. Continue reading ‘Get Carter’, and ‘Manuscript in a Red Box’
The words of Jack Common, Robert Westall, Iain Nairn, Beryly Bainbridge and Sean O’Brien set to photographs of Newcastle’s Metroland: locations are within walking distance of Metro rail stations.
Continue reading ‘Newcastle… sucks you in like a vortex’
Judy loved this building – had her fiftieth last weekend, bar in the community room, rock band on the alter ‘almost called it a stage…’ Continue reading A rock band on the Altar
See distant Huguenots in the stockade beyond Smaque and Dirtness, building scaffold to hang the arsonists. You might spy the highwaymen, hear the gathering vigilantes, fear the rack that tortured Frank Vavasour in the bowels of Butterwick Castle. Continue reading Huguenots in the stockade building scaffold to hang the arsonists
Places and Cultural Traces 