Time to spill the beans about the man in black and the Cobweb club

So did I win anything?

I won absolutely nothing and, more than that, I ended up with fewer numbers on my tickets than usual.

I did promise not to write about superstitions again in the near future – unless I won big on Euromillions lottery.

I should be so lucky!

So you most certainly won’t be reading about superstitions for quite a time – unless, of course, I win the big one.

Hope springs eternal!

What I have got for you this week are queries.

Anyone who has had anything to do with local history soon realises that so much of it has never been put on paper – or any other computerised contraption.

And if some of these events have been recorded, the reports are often brief and only minimally informative and all too often the only detailed information lies locked in someone’s brain – perhaps half forgotten because the potential informant claims that they never thought it would have been of interest to anyone.

I ask you questions because you might well remember some things that were never recorded anywhere – or written about in some rare or unknown source – and there are plenty of those.

If this was not the case, my to-be-researched file would be slimmer than it is.

So here goes! For those living in or around Workington, were you ever a Cobweb – a member of The Cobwebs?

All I know is that it was a social club for young people which had been started by Father Damian Webb.

So was it a youth club or a rambling club?

Did it have anything to do with Fr Webb’s academic study of children’s games or the recording on tape of the songs associated with these games, which must have taken place in the 1950s and 1960s?

Fr Webb achieved an international reputation as an expert on folksong, folkdance, both British and European.

His photographs have found their way into some academic textbooks, so you might well have achieved international photographic immortality.

It was 1948 which saw the first appearance in Workington of “The Man in Black”.

He was often seen in the half-light in all black attire, with a large black cloak with hood or a black sombrero-style hat, with his face covered with a mask.

He was a feature of the Workington social scene in the immediate post-war years.

He was responsible for organising a number of social events in the town.

People on the guest list would receive a card through the letter box, probably around midnight.

They might be invited to meet at some unlikely location, the local slaughterhouse perhaps, and invited to buy tickets for a social event at some unspecified venue.

On the night of the event once the invitees had assembled, instructions as to where the event was to be held were issued to them – and off they would go to eat, drink, dance and, reportedly, have a good time – with the 150 or so other guests at the chosen venue where the Man in Black, still masked, would usually appear.

So who was he? I have asked this question before and if anyone does know, they’re not telling.

All this was in the 1940s. Surely the time has come to spill the beans.

I’ve been asked if I have any information about a foreign, possibly Hungarian, footballer who played for Workington sometime in the 1950s.

All my enquirer can remember about him is that he was a forward and, in one game, he scored four goals.

I suppose that this was regarded locally as an achievement.

In the 1950s I was watching Tranmere Rovers. I don’t know when he did it but they had a centre-forward, Bunny Bell, who scored nine goals in one game.

I wonder what he would be worth in today’s transfer market?

The 1881 census lists one Robert Hudson, unmarried and aged 41, as being a teacher at Cockermouth Workhouse.

Workhouse staff were not particularly well paid and I’ve often wondered how he ended up doing that job. He was, after all, the nephew of George Hudson – the millionaire “Railway King”.

Robert was born in Howsham, but it appears that very little else is known about his life and early career.

Unless you know any different!