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Barbados and Stroud and Stroud and Barbados

At the solstice, on the longest day of the year, I traced long lines across the Atlantic archipelago From Stroud to Africa, from Africa to Barbados, And from Barbados to Stroud railway station.   I visited Risée Chaderton-Charles’ exhibition: Caribbean Atlantean at Stroud Valley Arts, A multi-layered fusion of art and archive A ‘visual voyage’ to commemorate Those kidnapped Africans who chose death in the carmine deep Rather than enslavement in the plantations. I exchanged emails and ideas with Risée, Before discussing with Jo Leahy at SVA How we could artistically collaborate On presenting the history of our railways. And when I got home, I dug out my notebooks: The 1835 Prospectus for the Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway: ‘Cheltenham and its Vicinity, embracing not...

The Poetry of Chartism

The Poetry of Chartism; Aesthetics, Politics, History   Mike Sanders C.U.P. 2009 ‘Between 1838 and 1852, the leading Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, published over 1,000 poems written by more than 350 poets – as the readership of the Northern Star numbered...

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Thomas the Tank Legend by Crispin Thomas

I was inspired by reading about Rev Awdry and the first two books in the Railway Series.  How he eventually wrote the stories after telling them to Christopher, especially when he had measles etc; Thomas really first appears in the second book.  Thomas to me,...

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Overton’s Window Again

Overton’s Window Trade Unions and Chartism and Trade Unions and a People’s Assembly   The concept of Overton’s Window Connotes some sort of casement on fashion: A window of acceptability And unquestioned validity: A sort of Zeitgeist vista on the Zeitgeist. And...

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A People’s History Chapter 7

A MISCELLANY OF HISTORY A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES A TEXTUAL SAMPLER Chapter Seven The 1825 Riots   These are my memories of what I saw and did, together with others in the Stroudwater Valleys in 1825. I know I am supposed to show remorse but I...

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Rev Awdry 80th Anniversary

Rev W. Awdry 1911-97 (Jottings made from a reading of The Thomas the Tank Engine Man Brian Sibley The Story of the Reverend W. Awdry and his Really Useful Engines 1995) In the Beginning was the Word, But there was also a tunnel at Box, Where a young child christened...

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