Fifth series, episode 14

All five series are available here on the HebWeb.

In this episode, George Murphy considers the joys and woes of autumn. He enjoys a stroll into town, until he spots smashed windows. There's a cautionary tale and a sad song. As winter sports start, George describes a star goalkeeper in the early years of soccer. He reflects on the political scene and shares an incident in the life of a miner.

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An ah in the month

Arriving abruptly, after a hot, dry summer, we rather welcomed a warm, wet September. Rain fell, reservoirs got topped up, gardens got soaked, and still the sun peeked out most days. I thinks it's not autumn people dislike, it's our dread of what follows. So I've been thinking of reasons to be cheerful, despite being wary.

There's a nip in the air, so our walks get nippier; young parents wave their tearful darlings off to school, then punch the air; freshmen and women get fresh in student bars – trying to forget the decades of debt that lie ahead; Baby Boomers extend summer by jetting off to warmer climes – forgetting their flights might make their destinations too hot to visit next summer; evening classes, societies and clubs expand our minds and friendship circles as the nights draw in - and stop us from watching the horrors on the news; warmer autumns mean we can hold out for a few days more before turning the heating on. So, we're rather pleased that our winters shrink, as long as we don't take time to think.

The sound of breaking glass

As I went out one morning, some flowers were still in bloom, the canal reflected the azure sky, the park was restful and green. And, in our little tourist town, three of our indie shops were vandalised in the wee small hours, when bored youths or boozed up visitors had a smashing time.

These days, locals avoid the town centre at weekends, when Hebden Bridge is one of the stops for groups of the real ale boozers, who station hop from Leeds to Hebden via Wakefield, Brighouse and Sowerby Bridge. Meanwhile, in Manor Heath, Halifax, a lovely park where our own kids used to play, a Filipino nurse - and her daughter and mum who had gone out to greet her - were attacked as she was walked home from her shift at the hospital.

Rat tales

When swifts and swallows fly south, storytellers go out and about. Paul Degman, a man with a mind steeped in stories, drove me to Stories for a Better World in the Rat and Ratchet pub in Huddersfield, for an evening of tales ancient and modern and a range of modestly priced and rodently titled ales. The Rat is next to a college, from which no student is ever drawn to hear the groups' accomplished performers. So, I wondered if a change of name, to something less preachy, such as Rat Tales, would attract new members. After all, in Todmorden the clunkily named Wednesday Writers Group tripled attendances when they became, simply, Gobsh!te. Mind you, I must admit that I right enjoy the cosiness of our very select, slightly secret, storytelling cell.

As well as performing a choral speaking, but solo piece, entitled Daniel Jazz by Vachel Lindsay, I told two my cautionary tales. This one I'll dedicate to Gordon, who sang a reefer song, and told me he shares my enjoyment of Hilaire Belloc's tales in this genre.

Tina Crumb, who met her end from chewing gum

Avoid the fate of Tina Crumb,
Who loved to chew on chewing gum.
As muscles in her face rotated,
It made her parents irritated,
But, they wor told by Dr Hayes,
'Don't rise to it, it's just a phase.'

But when that gum had lost its taste,
She did not seek a bin for waste,
But, sometimes, if she wor able,
Stuck balls of gum beneath the table,
Till some adhered to Aunty Hilda –
On her best dress – she would have killed her!

But Mother, seeing t' situation,
Banned forthwith gum mastication,
And banished Tina to her room –
A punishment that sealed her doom.
For Tina had a secret hoard,
And chewed on it when she wor bored.
And in self-pity, Tina wallowed,
Two dozen sticks of gum she swallowed.
But chewing gum, each time we swallow,
Fills up bits that should be Hollow.
And after her unhealthy feast,
Miss Tina Crumb wor quite deceased.

The Doctor told her tearful Mum,
'Your Daughter's all bunged up … by gum!'

Train travails

In The Observer, William Keegan blamed Nigel Farage for our dire economic state, citing economists who reckon our exports are 20% lower since Brexit. He also took a swipe at David Cameron, who was running scared of right wing populists in his party and needlessly called the 2016 Referendum. On a more positive note, Keegan, quoted a former president of the European Central Bank, who believes there is good and bad debt. Good debt is for investment 'that contributes to growth and prosperity.' But now Reform have vowed to cancel high speed rail in the north.

Fatty Foulke

When he played for Chelsea, the club employed two young boys to dance around behind the goal to put visiting players off. Then to speed up play, the lads returned missed shots to Fatty as quickly as possible. This ploy led the fledgling FA to introduce ball boys to the game.

When playing against seaside towns, Fatty earned extra cash by setting up goalposts on the beach, where he challenged young holiday makers to try to score against him. The famous keeper died a few years after his retirement, aged 42, from cirrhosis.

Rushbearing

When we lived at Mill Bank, we would walk up to watch the Rushbearing cart on its journey from The Rushcart Inn in Sowerby to the Alma in Cottonstones, and I remember how the procession caused curious cattle to trot downhill to watch its arrival.

Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing Weekend is a survivor of an ancient tradition, in which rushes were gathered to keep warm the stone flags and earthen floors of churches. In Calderdale Traditions, past and present (2024), Glynn Lee describes the Rushcart as a two wheeled vehicle, covered with specially cut rushes trimmed with heather. Some 500 bundles of freshly cut rushes are needed to cover the rush cart's pointed frame. Heading the procession, the cart is pulled by 60 men dressed in Panama hats, white shirts, black trousers and traditional clogs. 10 brakeman control the speed of the vehicle, which has to encounter steep country roads on its journey around the area.

Sitting precariously on top of the Rushcart is the 'cart maiden' whose job is to wave to the waiting crowd and lower the wooden triangle at the front of the cart when necessary to avoid obstacles. At each stop along the way, Morris teams perform, charitable donations are collected and a great quantity of ale is consumed.

Angela, Giles, Boris and Mandy

When Starmer rightly sacked Angela Rayner, Giles Coren in The Times, thought it opportune to attack her on other grounds, as a "quirky, shambolic party animal, who lumbers from one sexy hook up to the next, raving in Ibiza, having children with whoever she fancies, living an entirely consequence-free life … is not Angela Rayner, in fact the Red Boris Johnson?"

Although, Coren doesn't mention that Rayner and her husband have carefully held a house in trust to support their disabled child, and I suspect he has a tenuous knowledge of her personal life despite attempting to link her with Boris.

As for Mandelson, I've always struggled to work out why Blair and Starmer felt it necessary to employ him, although no doubt, with his ability to ingratiate himself, he's played a blinder on keeping Trump from abandoning both NATO and Ukraine.

Well, Trump is on his way, and no doubt we're supposed to mourn the recent shooting of a bigoted right wing racist whilst ignoring the multiple shootings of innocent kids in the States.

Lawrence and Orwell

As I was reading Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence, about the son of a coalminer, who was perhaps the villain of the piece, PW was rereading The Road to Wigan Pier. Kath's dad was a miner in County Durham, where he worked for 48 years. In a famous section of Orwell's book, he describes the process of mining from his observations underground.

The Wigan pit was four hundred yards below the surface. Once underground, the colliers had to walk long distances before starting their shift. Orwell was exceptionally tall (as was Kath's dad) and stooped low down for most of the way to the coal face. The roof was less than four feet high. but after half a mile he found it an unbearable agony. Walking back was worse. He was already tired and the return journey was slightly uphill. Orwell only walked a mile each way, but towards the end of Tommy's mining career he walked much further. His seam was out under the North Sea.

By the 60s, the Durham seam was only a few feet high. Tommy told me that mining the seam was like crawling under the kitchen chair I was sitting on. Orwell, discovered that the younger men, who crawled on their sides to hew the coal, were the highest paid workers, apart from the managers, and were expected to dig out two tonnes of coal during their shift, all whilst lying on their sides, just using their upper bodies when swinging their picks. Tommmy's job, in his later years, was propping up the newly blasted seams. This dangerous job was down the list, below the pay of safety officials and dynamite specialists.

Kath came home from school one day for her lunch, when her mum saw Tommy walking into the backyard. She worried that he was out on strike. Sitting in the kitchen with his cup of tea, fiercely stroking the flanks of his black mongrel Beauty, he didn't speak. When Kath was ready to set off to school again, Tommy stood up and asked her to come for a walk with him instead.

They wandered through Bowburn village and found themselves standing beneath the slag heap. Then noticed the silver trays that local youths had left on the tip for their game of sliding down its slopes. Tommy dared Kath to join him in the game. They whizzed downhill, with Beauty running and barking after them. Catching their breath after this mischief, Kath said, "Right dad, why are you home early?"

It turned out that Tommy's 'marra', Jackie, a big feller who had the same job of fitting the props under the newly exposed mine roof, had got trapped and crushed under a rock fall. Tommy told me once, "When a roof is going to collapse, you hear a thundering above you and then you run like hell." But, that one time, Jackie didn't scramble swiftly enough and got crushed. Tommy was sent home early and pit officials were left to call at Jackie's house to inform his wife.

Orwell was writing in the 30s, when coal was vitally important to the national economy. He wrote, "You and I and the editor of The Times Lit Supp., and the Nancy poets and the Archbishop of Canterbury and Comrade X, author of Marxism for Infants – all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives because of the poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes, with their throats full of coal dusk, driving their shovels with arms and belly muscles of steel."

In my final primary school year, my teacher Mr Evans, had grown up in Gresford, near Wrexham, the site of the greatest disaster in British industrial history. That is, until it was overtaken by an asbestos mill above Hebden Bridge.

HebWeb Anniversary

Elsewhere on this website, Chris Ratcliffe reflects on the birth and development of HebWeb over the last 30 years. I've been particularly interested in the Acre Mill feature that he developed in partnership with Fay Robinson. The World In Action films are especially compelling. I first learnt about the terrible history of asbestos, and the greatest industrial disaster in our history, from my next door neighbour in Soyland back in the 1980s. He'd only worked at the mill during one summer term, but he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in his 50s and was told there was no cure for the condition. All of which inspired me to write a song.

The Acre Mill song

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