county, with North East Lancashire well repre sented, it is p a r t ic u la r ly s tro n g on C h r is tm a s memories from the mills and the ragged schools, the factories and the workhouses.
4 ....Andrew Spencer meets top young oboe player
The excerpts on these pages are from “A Lan cashire Christmas”, a new anthology th a t captures the festive season past and present in -It) pieces of poetry and prose. Drawing from writings from th ro u g h o u t the
A Lancashire Christmas Outlook
Outlook Hut there is also a seasoning of how the other
h a lf lived, with one of the most lively chapters being the r io tou s C hr is tma s pa r ty scene from Robert Neill’s classic of the Lancashire witch legend, “Mist over Pendle” . As can he seen here, there is also a ch ap te r
on Christmas in Burnley 100 years ago, based on Express reports of the day — and another short item tak en from o u r a rch iv e s , te l l in g o f an ex trao rd in a ry Victorian football riot a t liwood Park, Blackburn, on Christmas Day, 18!)0. V in ta g e p h o to g r a p h s , in c lu d in g g r a p h ic
Rachael Clegg, Vivien Meath’s dream holiday isle is T resco 5 Sue Ritchie and colleagues become fashion guinea
pigs 6 ......................A Christmas tragedy by Jack Nadin 7
................Margaret Wright meets a runner turned
photographer 8 Pendle, the hill we’re at home with, by Paul Wilson;
W.H.Smith content 10,11 .Tim Procter meets Fence flower designer Craig Bullock 12 ..Dining Out with Sue Ritchie at the Tempest Arms, Elslack 13
.........Hot tips for winter angling by Mick Cookson 14 .................What’s On in Lancashire’s Hill Country 15
..........Tony Thorpe joins Roger Westbrook who’s celebrating 25 years in folk music 16... A year in the life of a rally driver with Geoff Brown 17 ..................................................Outlook gardening 18
................Gary Stott test drives the new VW Polo 19
...Wina C500 Fax, Duke Bar, Sue Parish meets a man who’s turning old car engines into works of craftmanship
a Victorian Christmas 9
.............Colourful nick-names by Victor Birtwistle,
like Sam Laycock and Teddy Ashton and some of the best of the cu r ren t breed give the hook an authentic Lancashire feel. Compiled by John Hudson, who was brought up
reminders of big snows at Lane Bottom in 1917 and on Manchester Road in 1913 and the 1920s, add effectively to the mood of nostalgia. And dialect verses and stories from past masters
near Bury and has worked on newspapers in Pres ton and Manchester, “A Lancashire Christmas” is published by Alan Sutton at £7.50 □
Christmas in 1890
There was no shortage of present ideas, either. At John H Dickinson’s in St James’s S treet you could buy a nine-carat gold ring for 5s. and a man’s gold sig net ring with a real stone for 4s. (id. Allham’s Tea Stores, apart from putting on a special Christmas cake offer with every half-pound of tea sold, carried a wide range of fancy goods, toys and novelties, while out in
Nelson, Oddie Har tley ’s Railway S t re e t Bazaar offered the New Japanese
la tent Green tendencies bought th e ir Christmas mincemeat and loaves at Robert Ogden’s of Manches te r Road, where Health Brown Bread was the spe ciality. Taylor’s of the Mar ket Place made no medicinal claims about their Christ mas cakes, game pies, fancy boxes, fondants, chocolates and crystalized fruits; but in Nelson, townsfolk who had failed to stay healthy bv eating Ogden’s bread could perhaps have found relief in Old Brown's Cough Mix ture. available at a dis couraging Is. l'/cd. a bot tle at YV Preston’s chem i s t s ’s shop in Scotland Road. □
Decorations. Burnley consumers with
Bringing in the Christmas holly A witches celebration
angered by it. Me belaboured the nearest with his sceptre — an inflated bladder, swinging by a cord from a two-loot stick — and he roared lustily for silence. "Mint Oeer I ’ e ml I <•", Robert Neill CD
the doors were flung wide, and into the room, tum bling in joyous somersaults, his motley a wild Hurry of blue and yellow, came the man who meant Christ mas— the crazy Lord of Misrule. He had a thunderous welcome, and pretended to be
Then came what they called mince pies, shaped like a manger to tell them of a Birth, and stuffed with every kind of spice to tell them of Gifts that had conic from the East. There was cold goose with wheaten bread: and nuts and sugar and plums; and mug after mug of the prime October to help it down. Then, when all was done and the hungriest stuffed to repletion, the clatter dies and the talk sank to whispers; and with out any order given, the company moved from the centre of the room and pressed themselves against the dark panels of the walls. Then a trumpet blared and drums banged noisily;
Treasures of
Towneley
This hand-made glass with its air twist stem enclosing spiral glass bubbles was recently purchased to add to a collection of ISth century glasses formed by the medi cal officer for Lancashire Dr Henry Holroyd in the 1920s and and donated to Towne ley in 1935.
known as Jacobite glasses, wheel engraved with sym bols of the Stua'rt cause. Such glasses might have been used in the "17-lOs by the Townelevs to toa s t Bonne Prince Charlie and “the King over the water”.
This glass is of a type
A mill Christmas
'merry time. “When I wan a Little Girl". Elizabeth K. Waehbnrii CD
Christmas has come, ant there is no sign of the wai ending, as people said i would do at Christmas; bu we manage to have a little celebration in the mill oi the day before Christina; Eve with the kissing monc.\ we get during the week. This is a very old custom, when the braver women weavers and big girls gi round the mill and kiss all the men from Uncle John, the manager, to the youn gest man weaver, and get some money from them. This is then spent on pies and cakes and coffee, which we cat at our looms wearing pape r caps and singing Christmas carols, which can be heard over the clatter of the looms. It is quite a
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