How Michael
Many West Cumbrians went even further west in their search for a much better life
EMIGRATE! It’s what a great many Cumbrians did in Victorian times. It must have taken a great deal of courage to forever quit their homes. Just what must have passed through their minds as they boarded the ships which were to carry them to countries far away? Were they looking for wealthier lifestyles - escaping unemployment and grinding poverty – or just seeking to start lives anew?
Last updated 24 February 2011
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Getting a feel for big issues of the time by looking back at old news
Why do you keep on referring to items from old local newspapers?
Last updated 3 February 2011
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
I’ll bet you that Cumbrians love to gamble
CUMBRIANS just love to gamble. It doesn’t matter what the event is, you’ll find them having a bet on it.
Last updated 27 January 2011
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Getting to the root of 19th century dental treatment and practices
Toothache! It pains me just to type the word.
Last updated 20 January 2011
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Making a call wasn’t always as easy as just using your phone
Phoneless! That’s what I am – or, hopefully by the time you read this, what I have been for only a few days.
Last updated 13 January 2011
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Emigrants tempted by the promise of a new life in the ‘land of opportunity’
CANADA Calling! Land of Opportunity.
Last updated 6 January 2011
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Quaintly dressed men preserve our cultural folk heritage at Christmas
HAVE you come across a bunch, numbering some five or six, of extremely quaintly dressed men going the rounds of the pubs, clubs or any other locations during the run up to Christmas?
Last updated 30 December 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Be suspicious of talk about ‘localisation’ – but meanwhile can you help with some local history?
LOCALISATION! What an ugly word. But, if I’ve picked up on what’s happening in the world today, it’s what we’ve all got coming to us. It is, supposedly, part of the current politicos’ vision of a decentralised Britain.
Last updated 22 December 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Lamenting the loss of a festive tradition that has fallen silent
CAROL singers seem to have vanished from the Christmas scene in West Cumbria these past few years.
Last updated 16 December 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Xmas in a less material world meant the Beano and oranges
CHRISTMAS still comes but once a year. And in this part of the world we still call it Christmas.
Last updated 9 December 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Cousin Charley leading the way to improve literacy in children
POLITICIANS have been kicking the education football about again. It’s what they seem to do with monotonous regularity – even if they don’t really know anything about it.
Last updated 2 December 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Volunteers off to a foreign land to fight for Queen and country
“SOMEWHERE at the bottom of our boots, if need be, there is this love of country – call it patriotism if you will – which makes a man feel in these stirring times that he would willingly lay down his life in defence of the fatherland.”
Last updated 25 November 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Despite decades of efforts to ban it homework is here to stay
ABOLISH homework for all schoolchildren! Now that could be a popular move if anyone cared to actively campaign for it; the kids would love it and it would probably go down well with most parents.
Last updated 18 November 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
A hard life for the poor fellows who ended up in a workhouse
LIFE in the Victorian workhouse was, most definitely, not a bundle of laughs.
Last updated 28 October 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Pigs - not in clover, but living in kitchens and pantries of homes
WORKINGTON Local Board produced a set of by-laws back in 1882. They were acting, to quote, as “the Urban Sanitary Authority.” They laid down the rules and regulation “with respect to new streets and buildings, in Workington.”
Last updated 21 October 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
So many evocative smells so send for the smells historian
CAN you smell the coffee? I can. I do have a cup of coffee, instant variety, to hand as I type these words – but that’s not the coffee I’m smelling. I’m back in Wallasey, more years ago than I care to remember, outside a coffee shop that roasted its own coffee beans.
Last updated 14 October 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Excessive drinking – a problem that has failed to dry up over the years
HOW many watering troughs are there on the roads between Distington and Whitehaven?
Last updated 7 October 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
The demanding but defunct old school tradition of ‘barring out’
IMAGINE the scene. A schoolmaster, after bidding farewell to a visitor he’d been talking to by the school gate, walked the few steps to his school door, no doubt anxious to get back into the classroom to see what his pupils had been getting up to.
Last updated 30 September 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Old folk cures and advertising your warts in the Times & Star
OLD folk cures have always interested me. But then, as readers of this column have probably worked out, I’m a long time hypochondriac. I blame the neighbour who gifted me, at the age of nine, an aged multi-volume set of “The Home Doctor.” She’s got a lot to answer for.
Last updated 23 September 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
‘She did not weaken, nor tongue babble under the blows of time’
WOMEN lecturers did not impress him. Indeed, he disliked them. To quote: “I think it seems unwomanly, or, at any rate, unlike what our ideal of woman is, to see one of the fair sex shouting and gesticulating on a public platform.”
Last updated 9 September 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk
Search for:
Quick links
Vote
