JOSEPH RAYNER STEPHENS: This is a recent article of mine on an incredible champion of the poor; whose life and times have been very much overlooked – probably because he was based in the north of England – and certainly because he spoke ‘truth to power’. “Very few are aware of what the factory system […]
Terrors and Fears
High school return post-lockdown and kids – and parents’ – fears: ME: I can totally relate to the fears that kids have right now. I spent an entire year – when I was about 10 – worrying whether I’d spontaneously combust. It’s frightening, How anxious you can become. So fast. HUSBAND: Was that the same […]
Famine, Slavery & Solidarity
Victorian white working class poor identifying their plight with that of the black African slaves … Winter 1863. The starving thousands rioted in Stalybridge. Then in Ashton and then in Dukinfield. And the hussars on horseback arrived – charging the crowds in this Mancunian town – some 44 years after Peterloo. But how many of […]
All Shook Up In’th Shops (part 1)
Some readers of this blog will know that I don’t really do shopping. Well, high street shopping I mean. I hate the same blandness that 95% of the stores here in the UK represent these days. I despise the way that the big chains and the corporates assume that we’re a bunch of brainless, zombified […]