Category: Counter-Heritage

Railway Navvies and I.K. Brunel

Everyone knows the name:

Isambard Kingdom Brunel!

And everyone knows that photograph:

The top hat, the waistcoat, the cigar,

The chain-link in the background for emphasis;

The self-assured pride of the Victorian engineer,

The man of the moment and momentum,

Proud of his steamships on the oceans,

And proud of his Great Western Railway:

The dignified certainty of genius,

Knowing that his one hundred-and-twenty mile long line

Would run all the long level permanent way,

From Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads,

With a mean gradient of just 1 in 1,380.

Just as his drawing board had intended.

But where are the men who built it?

And where are the women who followed

The ever-expanding permanent way?

Where are the Fox Talbot portraits of the navvies,

With their picks and shovels and gunpowder,

Their slide rule discipline and one hundred deaths,

Taking the line through Box Tunnel,

So that the sun shone clean right through

On Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s birthday?

Where is the tribute to their anonymity?

A working-class hero is something to be.

Walking and Cycling and Pop-up Museums

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an Hour.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Blake’s lines have become something of a Radical Stroud motif for a number of reasons.

But this is the fundamental reason:

I started writing A Guide to the Radical History of Stroud and the Five Valleys around 2011, with a narrative history occasionally touched by a comedic Mark Steele/ Mark Thomas style of analysis. A visit to the Writing Britain exhibition at the British Library completely changed my approach: no more the lonely writer in the garret burning the midnight oil trope. Instead, collaborative writing on the hoof: ‘Footprints and Footpaths not Footnotes.’

And, also, collaborative texts revealing the extraordinary within the ordinary, in an EP Thompson quest (The Making of the English Working Class): rescuing ‘the poor and anonymous from the enormous condescension of posterity.’ A Blakean optic not just upon the landscape but on social history too.

And that approach led me to a free verse style of writing up my/our walks and the recording of my historical research and consequent blogging: it enabled quick scribbling and composing but with a touch of figurative style. (I include a guide for this approach in a link at the end of this piece.)

I read around psychogeography, the Paris Situationists (‘Underneath the pavement, the beach!’ another of our motifs), Rebecca Solnit, William Hazlitt, Richard Jefferies, Edward Thomas, Phil Smith, et al so as to contextualise my walking through landscape and history: ‘slipping through wormholes of time.’

But now, all roads lead to Edward Thomas.

And Richard Jefferies.

Edward Thomas on Walking and Cycling
Richard Jefferies on Walking

Bike or boots?

Bikes or boots? A difficult question sometimes, and an obvious one at others. I suppose, it’s a question of what you fancy, or a matter of where you want to travel, or how far, or how much time you have: whether you want to wander across fields, or pursue a path along lanes, or up a succession of hills, and down the consequent dales. Or what you did yesterday.

This is how Edward Thomas compared the two pursuits in 1913 In Pursuit of Spring:

‘It was a still morning … But not until I went out could I tell that it was softly and coldly raining. Everything more than two or three fields away was hidden.
Cycling is inferior in this weather, because in cycling chiefly ample views are to be seen, and the mist conceals them. You travel too quickly to notice many small things. But walking I saw every small thing one by one.’

‘Under elms near Semington the threshing machine boomed, it’s unchanging note mingled with a hiss of the addition of each sheaf. Otherwise, the earth was the rooks’, heaven was the larks’; and I rode easily on along the good road somewhere between the two.
Motion was extraordinarily easy that afternoon, and I had no doubts that I did well to bicycle instead of walking. It was as easy as riding in a cart, and more satisfying to the restless … At the same time, I was a great deal nearer to being a disembodied spirit than I can often be. No people or thoughts embarrassed me. I fed through the senses directly … through the eyes chiefly, and was happier than is explicable … a foretaste of a sort of imprisonment in the viewless winds.’

Robert Macfarlane writes in the introduction to The South Country that ‘Edward Thomas was a compulsive walker’, and mentions Helen Thomas’ assertion that “His greatest pleasure … was to walk and be alone”, spurning roads, often walking in a circle for a whole day, without a map, “guided by the hills or the sun”. Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Helen Thomas wrote in the preface to the 1932 edition of The South Country (first published 1909): “for him the most satisfying days were when he wandered far afield alone, rereading forgotten footpaths and hidden lanes, stopping at remote and primitive inns where strangers were rare … to Edward Thomas walking was not merely exercise … Nor was he … only the nature lover intent on observing … Nor was he only the aesthete … the beauty of the contours of the hills, the symmetry of the trees, and the grouping of the villages. Nor was he only the wayfarer meeting fellow travellers … talking … listening… Nor was he only the artist transmuting all this into words. He was all these and much more.”

This is Edward Thomas near the start of the book: ‘I have used a good many maps in my time, largely to avoid the towns; but I confess that I prefer to do without them and to go, if I have some days before me, guided by the hills or the sun or a stream – or, if I have one day only, in a rough circle, trusting, by taking a series of turnings to the left or a series to the right … and to return at last to my starting-point … The signboards thus often astonish me … There is a wealth of poetry in them …’

Another Wiltshire walker is of interest here: Richard Jefferies in his book The Amateur Poacher:

‘Those only know a country who are acquainted with its footpaths. By the roads, indeed, the outside may be seen, but the footpaths go through the heart of the land. There are routes by which mile after mile may be travelled without leaving the sward … village to village, now crossing green meads, now cornfields, over brooks, past woods, through farmyards…’

Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists,

 ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?

More to follow on Edward Thomas later.

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/creative-writing-guide/

 

 

 

 

Walking a Pop-up Museum

I’ve been giving a question some thought: Can a walk (be it themed and purposeful or just ad hoc recreational) not only create a pop-up museum, in consequence, when back at home (individually and/or collectively), but also create a mobile pop-up museum itself whilst in the very act of walking?

Sometimes, of course, this happens automatically, serendipitously and solipsistically, when you’re out and about: that Penny Lane feeling: “And though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway”, and that Truman Show illusion you get sometimes when staring at the world.

In short, when you’re Feeling Groovy, life seems to be a sort of pop-up museum … “Hello lamp-post, what you knowin’, I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’…” And you can get that flight of individual imagination whilst out walking in a group, too, of course, as well as on a solitary ramble …

I tend to drift in and out of company while out on a group-walk; in the main, I like to let my thoughts roam free and unconstrained, making unusual connections and correspondences; but, obviously, and on the other hand, we learn a lot from conversation too: ‘Every day’s a school day’ – surely, it’s only the arrogant fool who believe they know absolutely everything …

William Hazlitt, however,  wrote a wonderful essay on the joys of solitary rambling back in the early 19th century. It’s food for thought.

Where do you stand on walking and talking?
On rambling and ranting?
On orating and hiking?
I’m more of a Hazlitt strider myself:

‘One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room, but out of doors, Nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone … I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time … “Let me have a companion of my way,” says Sterne, “were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines.” It is beautifully said: but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment … ‘

I know what Hazlitt means:
Wordsworthian pantheism,
Or William Blake flights of fancy,
Or psycho-geographical musing,
Or Zen-style footfall mindfulness,
Are often inhibited by the clang of voices,
And the din of conversation;
But on other occasions, it’s true
That the knowledge of a companion
Can act as a stimulus to a new understanding,
Or a novel re-creation of a landscape;
And, sometimes, of course, we need to catch up
On ‘news’ with friends or family –
It is all, I suppose, a matter of balance:
A dynamic harmony of opposites
Help make for an enriching walk in company –
Sometimes alone, and sometimes alive
To conviviality and congeniality,
And sometimes finding empathy,
Shared meanings and understanding
When exploring the land in shared silence –
Followed by a post-ramble sharing
Of individual and collective experience
In mutual discourse on how we read our walk,
A deconstruction and re-creation
Of how we made sense of it all;
For as William Hazlitt put it:

‘I am for the synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns …’

Well said, William.

But it’s time now to return to pop-up museums. Let’s remind ourselves of what a pop-up museum is so that we can properly assess whether a walk fits the bill. What exactly is a pop-up museum? This is the definition we work with at Radical Stroud: a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

 

Well, a walk is certainly temporary; exhibits can include maps, photographs of the route from the past, documents, texts, artefacts carried in rucksacks etc.; the display obviously changes as the walk unfolds, and conversation adds to the mix; then talking with strangers and people you meet along the way widens the circle of participants; there might be information boards and plaques along the way, and we sometimes have a bit of performance on a walk – so it certainly can be ‘a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.’

 

We can all learn, of course, from the walking practices of different people and groups. When I accompanied Walking the Land, their practice often involved silent walking with occasional breaks for sketching, photography, writing, recording, video and so on. I often take photos not for social media but as an aide memoire for writing up later – I deliberately avoid making notes so as to strengthen my powers of recall. I write long hand at home first of all: I feel that my mind is more creative and lateral when not circumscribed by the linear A-Z keyboard of my computer.

When on seaside walks with my family, I collect driftwood, and pen lines about the day. Some we leave around the house or in the garden as surprise ‘theatres of memory’ while there is also the joy of seeing pieces in my daughters’ homes celebrating the birth of their children. Stroud railway station has an information board that echoes those acts of creation: NATURE WEAVING

When you next go out on a walk make a collection of natural items that you find interesting. These could be twigs, bark and leaves and fallen feathers. If you have some additional items such as wool at home use these too.

When you are at home make yourself an easy weaving board out of thick cardboard and carefully cut some matching slots at the top and the bottom of the card (about A5 size).

Next, take a long length of wool or string and wrap it around the slots … Once you have completed wrapping the wool around the cardboard start adding your finds from your walk and any additional materials you may have at home.

Attach the items by putting them under and over alternate threads on the board … do the same with pieces of wool or anything else you would like to add.

Charlotte Rooney is a colleague who is also worth following when out on a walk:

“I have always been a bit of a magpie when out and about, unable to resist picking up anything that catches my eye – leaves, feathers, sticks, stones, bits of rusty metal. Sometimes these things form the basis of simple creations or photos or ‘organisings’ that I make when I get home.

It’s hard to deconstruct what feels like such an instinctive, organic act – I hesitate even to call it a practice, it’s just what I do.  If pushed, I would say that there’s something in the act of walking – as many artists and writers will attest to – that allows for untethered thought, a state of mind that enables loose connections to be made, for the subconscious to churn away doing its thing. Maybe this informs what I collect. Certainly, if I am walking with a theme or intent in mind, it shapes what catches my eye, what commands my attention, though just as often the connections are only apparent when I get home, sift through my haul, let my hands and mind wander over the objects I unearth from pockets and bag.

In this way, at the end of a walk I’ve often assembled a miniature, ephemeral, temporary cabinet of curiosities – items that are assembled randomly for the love of the things themselves and their intrinsic, aesthetic beauty – but for all that, sometimes a coherent story can arise from the collection even if was not the collector’s intent.”

And now some words from another colleague: KATIE MCCUE:

‘A corner of a path turned, a brow of a hill reached, a sweeping vista revealed, a secret glade beckoning.

Whether experiencing the joys of a flaneur or being guided by those who now more than I will ever know, (of history, geology, politics or nature) … I see in my own way.

Now seeing is different to looking and my way of seeing is full of shape, colour, movement, light & dark whether macroscopic or microscopic.

Seeing is a feeling thing and an act of creation in itself, it’s an inspiration that often fills me with a need to write or paint or draw.

A guided walk triggers my imagination to people the landscape with folk from the past. I see the men and women of pre-history before our valleys were formed by se and glaciers. I see the medieval farmers in ancient fields, I see the workers and weavers, I see laughing Victorian children paddling in streams, I see the tired eyes of children working in the mills.

These same images can come to mind when I wander as a flaneur with no particular plan in mind. However, it is these walks that truly make my soul sing & my eyes drink in the sight of an insect, the pattern of grasses in the wind, the way the light filters through trees when I stand so small beneath the canopy looking up.

I see in my own way. It feeds my creativity.’

That mention of creativity by Katie reminds me of the notion of writing your own heritage trails – old railway lines offer such scope for industrial archaeology, oral history/memory collection, Shelleyesque Ozymandian reflection, and also William Blake’s doors of perception.

I begin with industrial archaeology at the site of the old Dudbridge railway station in Stroud. These are my words for the nascent heritage trail on the branch line to Nailsworth:

Dudbridge Railway Station

I often walk the cycle track below Rodborough Hill,
The old Midland Railway spur from Dudbridge,
And I often cycle the track on to Nailsworth,
Musing on the springs and watercourses, the ancient holloways,
The Roman villa, medieval ridge and furrow, the woollen mills,
The occasional mill chimney, still rising high into the Stroudwater sky.

But, today, I stand at the blue brick retaining wall

At the old Dudbridge railway station,

Watching the cars career around the roundabout,

Drivers mostly oblivious of the history of Dudbridge;

But when I ignore the roar of the traffic,

And I find my mind’s historical eye,

I can see a medieval pilgrim crossing the bridge,

A packhorse with Cotswold wool a mile behind.

For here I stand by the confluence of two rivers.

But also, at the junction of two railway lines:

The interface of water power and steam power,

The inexorable march of the industrial revolution:

Foundries and forges and furnaces

And cranes and pulleys and chains and smoke:

A century-old pandemonium at Dudbridge,

Where once there was an orchard and there is still a Meadow Lane.

Carefully cross the road and study the information plaques

On the wall at Sainsburys; the clothier’s 1646 doorway too;

The inscription at REDLERS from 1910;

The information board at Kimmins Mill,

Then retrace your steps carefully back to the blue brick wall,

And recite these words from T.S. Eliot to yourself:
“And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Now for Ozymandias (and the industrial relics on the cycle track spur of the Nailsworth line running from Stroud through Rodborough to Dudbridge):

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

It’s a motif that runs through much of my rambling.

But it’s getting to the point where I need to conclude this opening chapter. This essay is turning (indeliberately) into a self-referential piece of writing: the piece is almost turning into a performative pop-up museum itself. Time to stop before I get carried away with myself. I’ll finish with a nod to William Blake which will add as a bridge to the next post on this subject.

‘To see a World in Grain of Sand,

And Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.’

It’s another motif.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pop-up Museums Musing

Radical Stroud and Pop-up Museums

I suppose we ought to start this piece with our own working-definition of a Pop-up Museum: ‘a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

We have created such museums in pubs and art spaces and churches before – Rodborough Church, The Prince Albert, Stroud Valley Arts, the Gloucestershire Regimental Museum in Gloucester. We hope to create further pop-up museums in the future: a further Railway Pop-Up Museum (hopefully at the railway station or again at SVA or The Prince Albert) and a series of Stroud community pop-ups (again at SVA or The Prince Albert or in a church or at a closed-down shop or even in the streets).

The possible benefits are obvious: attracting people who wouldn’t normally visit museums might be one.  Encouraging people (including some who wouldn’t normally feel that they had anything important to say) to speak in public in a group, or one-to-one with a ‘curator’, could be another.  Encouraging people to visit ‘proper’ museums in Stroud, Gloucester, Cirencester, Cheltenham, Bristol and Bath etc. could be another. Revitalising closed-down shops might be another.

But let’s leave our area now; indeed, let’s leave the country, via some perceptive observations from Nora Grant in the USA: ‘Pop Up Museums: Participant-Created Ephemeral Exhibitions’:

‘The term “pop-up” has become an international buzzword used to describe ephemeral, experimental projects—from pop-up restaurants to pop-up boutiques—but a pop-up museum is still puzzling: how can you take something as substantial and precious as a museum and add a pop-up twist? What happens when you do?

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we host “pop up museums” (we do not hyphenate the name) that are both ephemeral and mobile; however, content comes from participants rather than museum staff or museum collections. Part exhibition, part program, part story-potluck, our pop up museums offer a hybrid experience that allow us to facilitate conversations around community issues and personal stories.

How does this work? Imagine a potluck in which, instead of a dish, everyone brings an object and/or story to share with others. We collaborate with community partners and choose the pop up museum’s theme and venue together. We then invite people to bring something on-topic to share … Our primary goal for pop up museums is to bring people together in conversation through stories, art, history, and objects …but by calling it a “museum” the project encourages people to rethink museum spaces and experiences. The Name “Museum” Sparks Confusion—But Also Meaningful Conversations.’

‘During the event, one participant commented, “People were willing to talk about what they made, how and why. And it can be loud, unlike museums. I think of museums as . . . you can’t touch anything, you can’t be noisy. It’s nice how you can touch anything. It was casual, but official-feeling at the same time.” This participant’s comment suggests a discomfort with museum spaces and with the inability to touch exhibited content. The pop up museum offers a hands-on experience in which people can touch the objects and speak directly with the exhibitor. We all have interesting things, but people rarely share them with strangers or display them in a museum context. Calling it a “pop up exhibition” or a “pop up show” would describe the physical structure, but it wouldn’t ignite as much conversation about the conceptual space of a museum. We want the project to activate museum space both physically and conceptually.’

‘The pop up museum is a fill-in-the-blanks space that prioritizes conversation over objects. Call it relational aesthetics, potluck, exhibition, museum, or non-museum—its changeability is its charm. Our primary goal for pop up museums is to bring people together in conversation through stories, art, history, and objects.’

I suppose, too, that pop-up museums could be, in a way, virtual and on-line. We have been collecting family stories here at Radical Stroud with ‘A People’s History A Miscellany of History A Textual Weaving of a Cabinet of Curiosities A Textual Sampler’ – we have been adding chapters over the last couple of years and when complete, we shall put in all online in one continuous post. This incremental story-telling has involved the local history society and the community at large. It is a model, perhaps, for future engagement in the locality on different themes. (We have also posted on how to create your own museum and how to create tongue in cheek ludic ‘counter-heritage’ events: see links at the end.)

But it’s time now for a bit of on the other handery, courtesy of Eben Diskin and the USA again (2021): ‘It’s Time to Stop Using the Word “Museum” to Describe Pop-Up Museums’:

Eben enjoys ‘mindless family excursions as much as anyone else, but pop-up museums are more than just benign diversions – they’re a symbol of the growing culture … where people think of themselves as the main character in their own movie. Now that’s metastasizing from social media to our cultural and intellectual institutions… As a highly efficient vehicle for vanity and self-aggrandizement, social media has been the primary catalyst of “me” culture … Pop-up museums are an extension of this … to offer museum-esque experiences without the learning or cultural value. They capitalize on our vanity and shrinking attention spans to tempt people away from museums with actual cultural significance. They contribute to the anti-intellectualization of culture.’

Well, I don’t disagree with some of that. And I don’t agree with some of that too. But it’s good to be mindful of such a polemic to keep us on our toes. But I finish this section with another trip to America as a judgment on the above: “It Ain’t Necessarily So”.

Now to conclude: we started off with our definition of the pop-up museum; but what definition of museum should we use? Here is the International Council of Museums 2022 definition: ‘A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.’

We look forward to contributing further to that ethos in our own idiosyncratic pop-up manner, so as to build upon our successes and achievements outlined in the second paragraph. We have the experience and expertise to take this further on the GWR, in Stroud, the county or region. We have developed a model that others can use and would be more than willing to talk about the nuts and bolts of our pop-up practice so as to spread the word.

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/you-dont-have-to-be-rich-or-famous-to/

 

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/making-your-own-museum-guerrilla/

STOP PRESS!

Making pop-ups in the moment to catch the mood: I have created two over the last couple of days to catch the attention of passers-by as they walk past our front garden. One was for the Mexico v England football match involving an England shirt, a football, a pair of old football boots, two pieces of Stroud scarlet cloth, and a poem about the historic links between Stroud scarlet cloth and Mexico (the cochineal beetle). There will be a performance of the poem at the local pub showing the match in the early hours, with the possibility of further group performance in the event of an England victory.

The other pop-up involves two collages created to mark the 250th anniversary of the USA. These will be co-created with my colleague Katie McCue and displayed in the front garden of my house. It will also feature on social media, as has the football creation.

A Jolly Dystopian Ramble to the Oasis

 

It felt like textbook psychogeography:

Walking in a straight line along the old North Wilts Canal,

In a ‘playful wandering exploration’,

Reimagining the railway works and the seemingly endless sidings,

Remembering where I used to train-spot and play football,

Long before the advent of these seemingly endless roads.

 

We walked past the Victorian railway railings

And the high red brick walls,

With their seemingly endless graffiti,

Despite the signs threatening hefty fines,

Past an old railway iron gate with ornate columns,

The double-lock once important for railway security,

But the gates now lie open on a road to nowhere.

 

But the carefully wrought railings were a delight

With a high-tide of creamy may blossom,

With an occasional disconcerting cluster

Of last autumn’s red berry mist of fruitfulness,

To remind us of William Faulkner’s dictum:

‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’

But is that so?

 

The Oasis lies in classic edgelands terrain:

A brownfield scrubland of ‘guerrilla ecology’,

The Oasis itself, erupting from the landscape

Like some gaunt symbol of lost modernity.

I took a photo and sent it to my children:

“Omg! I loved the Oasis! I remember thinking the shower and wave machines were the most exciting things ever. I remember your shorts, dad, over-inflating and us getting stuck on the tubes.” “Those days out on the train in the summer holidays to the Oasis are such treasured memories. A real special treat.”

I read their messages and stared at the dome,

Standing in what felt like a dystopian movie-set,

So hard to imagine now that this once contained

A ‘tropical-style swimming pool complete with water slide.’

 

It seemed correct to continue on a virtual straight line

So as to continue my psychogeographical ramble:

 I went straight on to AI for the reasons for this bizarre brownfield mystery:

 

A grade 2 listed building, ‘protecting it from simple demolition and making its future redevelopment complex’ and thus ‘suffering from disrepair and anti-social behaviour, resulting in a partial closing order for the site. While currently closed and undergoing ownership/repair disputes, a deal was signed in April 2026 for GLL to run it if reopened, although no firm opening date has been set. SevenCapital, the owner, has entered into an agreement with GLL to operate the centre upon restoration, as shown in reports.’

‘The Save Oasis Swindon group continues to campaign for the renovation of the lagoon pool and sports facilities.’

 

 

I absorbed some of that and gazed wide-eyed

At this dystopian dreamscape,

Where the trees had escaped from the tree museum

To recolonise still extant but futile car parks,

With their fading white lines of division,

Signage warning of non-existent ramps,

Where mouldering layers of asphalt now lie

(‘Underneath the pavements, the beach!’

The Situationists once more cry),

By the sign of the silhouette

Running full pelt behind the arrow

On the ‘Evacuation Route’ through time and space,

Past the UKPC sign NO UNAUTHORISED PARKING …

So many ghosts of cars and vans, and families

Full of anticipatory glee …

 

The Oasis windows from this position

Had echoes of an art deco ocean liner,

But with a hull festooned with tagging and graffiti,

Fencing and trees and close circuit tv cameras …

 

I took once last valedictory look –

I remembered once more my children’s memories,

And me playing football and train-spotting,

And I remembered those lines from T.S. Eliot:

‘And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started.

And know the place for the first time.’

 

‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’

 

 

General Strike Centenary Schedule

General Strike Centenary Schedule

  1. Exhibition about the General Strike nationally and in Stroud at Stroud Valley Arts April 22-26 Performance at SVA Wednesday 22nd
  2. Stuart has written an account of the General Strike in Stroud. This will be published by the Bristol Radical History Group together with an account of the General Strike in Gloucester written by Tony Conder. The Bristol Radical History Group are publishing a number of booklets about the General Strike in the region
  3. Stuart speaking about Swindon, the GWR and the General Strike M Shed Bristol Saturday April 25th
  4. Saturday May 2nd May Day Rally with a General Strike walk through Stroud and a talk (at the request of Stroud & District Trade Council).
  5. Saturday May 9th Stuart speaking about Stroud and Swindon and the General Strike at Gloucester Heritage Hub
  6. May 12th Stuart speaking about Stroud and the General Strike at the Little Chapel, Rodborough
  7. There will also be a mini-exhibition up The Prince Albert in early May
  8. Stuart speaking at the Stroud Local History Society November 19th

General Strike Centenary

We are looking forward to developing a variety of events  to commemorate the General Strike centenary in Stroud and also looking forward to contributing to events in Bristol and Gloucester over the coming months.

All will be revealed in the fullness of time but we’re really pleased to be associated with the following organisations for the national centenary:

This project is supported by:  

Beamish, the Living Museum of the North, Birmingham People’s History Archive, Bristol Radical History Group, British Association of Local History (BALH, Campaign for Trade Union Freedom, Castleford Civic Society, Crab Musuem, Culture Edinburgh, Culture Matters, Finborough Theatre, General Federation of Trade Unions, Gloucestershire Archives at Gloucestershire Heritage Hub, Jack Dean & Company, Leeds Industrial Musuem, Mary Quaile Club, Mayday Rooms (London), Modern Records Centre, Musuem of Bath at Work, National Coal Mining Museum for England, Newcastle University’s Labour & Society Research Group, North East Museums – Discovery Museum, North West Labour History Society, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Labour History Society, People’s History Museum, Plymouth Branch Historical Association, Radical Glasgow Tours, Radical Stroud, Radical Tea Towel Company, Society for the Study of Labour History, Somerset Coalfield Life at Radstock Museum, Strike Map, The Folk of Gloucester, The Kent Mining Museum, The Rowntree Society, TUC Library Collections – London Metropolitan University, University of Brighton UCU, Wikimedia, Wisecrack Productions, Working Class History, Working Class Movement Library 

 

A Film Called Happiness

A Film Called Happiness by Jon Seagrave / Jonny Fluffypunk
You are fifteen years old. It is 6 in the morning and it is February; it is pitch dark and freezing cold, and you are huddled foetal, shivering in a thin sleeping bag on the seat in a compartment of an ancient railway carriage parked up for the night in the deserted, unlit platform at Thurso station. The end of the line, the far north of Scotland, the most northerly point of the British railway network. And don’t you know it- the sky is blacker than black, the windows of the carriage rimed with ice, inside and out.
There are four of you. You broke into this train at midnight; four fifteen year olds, full of chips and glowing from under-age beer drunk in a pub that couldn’t care less, in possession of a purloined carriage key. You came up here yesterday, across the vast and empty moorland on this train, and you will head back south on this train at daybreak, and now you are sleeping on this train, or trying to sleep in the bitter chill. For the past four days trains have been your home; they will be your home for the next three, too. 650 miles away, on the outskirts of London, your mother is wondering where the hell you are and what you are doing.
And what you are doing is bashing, which your mother finds difficult to understand. This is your life. You are a Basher, and you are in the (self- appointed) top tier of railway cranks. To the outside world- the normals- you are just another ‘trainspotter’, but you are not a trainspotter. Merely seeing trains and noting their numbers is not enough. You are a basher, and you are all about haulage, about riding behind a locomotive, about racking up the mileage; the beast has to work for you to earn it’s red-pen underline in the hallowed BR Motive Power Pocket Book. And it doesn’t stop at that underline, oh no: clear that loco for 100 miles, for 500, for a thousand… there is no end to this chase, no end to life on the bash.
And here in Thurso, at the head of the short rake of carriages, silhouetted a English Electric Class 37 diesel-electric locomotive. Nicknamed ‘Tractors’ for their throaty, throbbing engine sound and their suitability for any job, from express passenger to Welsh valleys coal train. Twenty-two-year-old filthy blue-and-yellow beasts like this are your passion. You travel the length and breadth of the country in pursuit of them. It is class 37s that for now bring the thrills, the joy, the let-downs and the heartbreak that soon enough will be brought by girls and bands and politics, but not yet. You don’t know it, of course, but you have 10 months left to go before this all becomes your slightly embarrassing past.
In half an hour the Thurso train-crew will arrive; they will nod you a gruff hello. They know you’re not meant to be here, but in 1985 railway cranks are part of the everyday of rail-workers’ lives; you’re eccentric but harmless- dossing on locked-up frozen trains is just the sort of thing you do, and for the most part no-one gives a toss, and you’re just left to get on with it. And soon enough daylight will grow in the east, and the engine will splutter and cough into life, and the steam-heat will drift up from under the seat to slowly warm your frozen body, and then passengers- the normals- will invade your little world and then- with a horn-blast and a roar of engine-thrash- you’re away, with you hanging out the front window, filling your hair with diesel-smoke. And four hours later you will be pulling into Inverness, and you will have racked up another 150 miles behind a class 37, and it will all have been worth it.
Your passion is relentless. Day after day, train after train. You make desperate leaps between split-second connections, endure rancid ‘festers’ in cold waiting rooms, all in pursuit of more Tractor mileage in the book. You get word-of-mouth info from other cranks. You make calls from remote phone boxes to contacts in BR Control. You are ever- hungry for the golden prize of insider knowledge- the ‘Gen’. And when you’ve got the gen, then it’s out with your ‘Bible’ (the two-inch-thick British Rail 1985 All Line Timetable, 4-point font on rizla-thin paper). Then the frantic working out of ‘moves’, whole working timetables etched into your memory. Then scrambling at a moment’s notice from Exeter up to Edinburgh, from Bridge of Orchy down to Bristol, all because some monstrously ‘big’ freight-only 37 has wound up diagrammed on a summer cross-country relief. And when that thrashing, growling monster pulls into the platform there will be dozens and dozens of you who have made it there from all corners of the country to greet it, all alerted through some magic of pre-digital bush telegraph, all succumbing to the irresistible pull of itsblack-hole gravity.
In 1985, there are thousands of people like you. Tens of thousands, even. They are not all old men in anoraks, like the few cranks you still see occasionally in 2025- the last dying remnants of railway enthusiasm, gamely clinging to what-once-was against the backdrop of a ravaged and decimated privatised rail system. In 1985 you are for the most part young and you can be anyone- there are cranks who are punks, cranks who are skinhead bootboys, cranks who are soul-boys, mods, or footie casuals, cranks who are metal-heads or goths. There are black cranks and Asian cranks and female cranks, though admittedly they are few. But even amongst the vastly-predominant Young White Males, all the outside-world rivalries- all the divisions of music and class and race and sexual orientation, of north vs south, all are put aside in pursuit of trains. Gen, moves, carriage compartments and waiting rooms are all shared freely, regardless of haircut or accent or tightness of trouser.
Inside-world rivalries, of course, abound: train spotters are the pits, you’re all agreed on that, all you who have turned your back on the static passivity of the platform end in favour of the Great Hunt, the intoxicating chase of bashing. But then what to Bash? You, you’ve self-identified as an English Electric man, through and through, committing to the pursuit of locomotives built by that stalwart Newton-le-Willows manufacturer, with their distinctive engine sounds and classic stylings not just class 37s, but also class 20s, 40s, 50s, and that refinement straightaway puts you way above the bash-anything-that-moves ghettoes of the NED (‘New Engine Desperado’) and the Insect (all day back and forth the same few miles between Birmingham’s New St and International, or Edinburgh’s Waverley and Haymarket), slaves both to the red pen underline, to quantity over quality. And- in your mind at least- it puts you way above the ‘Peak’ bashers, the ‘Rat’ bashers, and all others dedicated to what you-correctly- perceive as lesser breeds of motive power. And above all of you, at the top of the tree, the ‘main men’, the ones who’ve been at it for years, for decades even, men who started on steam; the 24/7 train-tramps, perpetually on the move, with wild hair and unidentifiable income-streams and airs of rightful superiority, the ones who’ll talk to no-one with less than a quarter-million miles on the clock, the Kings of the Rails.
And you dream of being a Main Man one day, with a beard and an eccentric overcoat and your life in a battered Gladstone bag, but for now you’re still one of the aspiring rabble, one of the thousands, with your Adidas bag graffitied with the numbers of your fave machines and stuffed with your Bible, your moves books, a jumper or two and a pair of pants. Day after day of strip- washes in swaying train bogs, snatched sleep hunched in seats under strip- lights, 3am ‘bailing’ at some freezing junction followed by a hellish ‘fester’ on a windswept platform; this is how you live. Hanging from carriage door droplight windows, drunk on the roar of engine-thrash, flailing arms, bellowing whoops in salute to the thundering machine up front.
You’ve had 37’s to Skegness. 37’s to Aberystwyth, 37’s to Blackpool and Yarmouth and the Devon coast. You’ve had 37’s to Mallaig and Thurso and Wick, to Oban and Ayr. In 1985 as a 15 year old boy you rack up 35,000 miles on the rails. Every school holiday is a week’s All-line Rover here, a Freedom of Scotland ticket there (sixteen quid for the latter; unlimited travel for  even days); every weekend you’re off and away. Rail travel’s cheap in ‘85, but for you it’s even cheaper: the basher is a black-belt at ‘effing it’, a dab hand at the art of dubious validity, and you are no exception – deftly doctoring date-stamps with brake-fluid and milk. On a crowded summer Saturday express, with an overworked guard and every vestibule chocka with window- hanging bashers, then a quick flash of an out-of-date North Wales Rover will get you all the way to Newcastle.
Well, most times it will. But just as every cartoon hero must have their nemesis, so yours are the TTI’s, the Travelling Ticket Inspectors, all big black overcoats and hawk-eyes, the gestapo of British Rail. Like you, perpetually on the move. Like you, wedded to the rails. These are hardened men, veterans who give no quarter; grim-faced, vengeful men, primed to spot your fudged date-stamp at 100 yards.. They hate you, all of you, and they want you off their trains. All have nicknames: Loose- Irons. The Purple Mask. Granville of the London Midland, who’d once spot-fined his own mother, and once went rogue in a Welsh market town, storming out into the street, demanding valid tickets from a chip-shop queue. You fear the TTI’s. You all do. You have had a TTI rip your dodgy Scottish Rover to bits in front off you, then throw you out in the rain at Falkirk High, a teenage boy, ticketless and skint and hundreds of miles from home.
But does it put you off? Not for a minute. It’s all part of the great railway adventure, and you wouldn’t swap it for anything. None of it- not the TTIs, the freezing nights, the dossing in your clothes, the filthy hair stinking of diesel fumes; not the diet of chips and Travellers-Fare sarnies, not the fitful sleeps, not the ‘leaps’ for connections at three in the morning. It’s all worth it, all of it, every glorious moment. For you don’t know it yet but you will come to think of these days as some of the best days of your life, your most favourite days, your carefree days, the days before girls, the days when joy and despair were in the hands of simple lumps of metal, and you rattled through the summers with the windows down, your head sticking out, you drinking in the distant engine-thrash, the engine-thrash that could be the soundtrack to a film you could make of all of this, a film you’d call, simply, Happiness.

Gordon and ‘The Flyer’

Inside the Gloucester shed, Gordon was not a happy engine.
–I am a large, strong blue engine, he moaned, whilst his driver fussed around him, oiling his joints and polishing his brass with a greasy cloth, –I know what is best for me and I simply wish to be treated with respect.
Gordon was ‘on loan’ to the Great Western, as they were suffering from a locomotive shortage.
–Oh, stop moaning, said his driver, –the other engines will think you’re getting too big for your wheels. And what do you mean about being treated with respect? You’ve been asked to pull the Cheltenham Spa Express, after all!
Gordon rolled his eyes, and hissed gently from his valves.
–They keep trying to make me burn their horrible coal. But I have told them, your coal may be all well and good for green engines– Gordon said the word ‘green’ with such disdain that the other locomotives in the shed narrowed their eyes and muttered under their breath –but I am a blue engine and I burn only Sodor coal.
Burton Agnes, a large Hall-class engine, shining in polished green, with gleaming brass chimney and numbers, let out a snort.
–You’re as daft as your are blue. Welsh steam coal is the best coal in the world!
Gordon shuddered
–Dreadful stuff, he said haughtily –I am a finely-tuned express locomotive. I have very sensitive firebars.
–Oh, give it a rest now, you old fusspot said his driver, cranking the wheel that released Gordon’s handbrake, then pushing his reversing lever forward and gently opening his regulator. With a rather huffy chuff, Gordon rumbled slowly from the shed
–Go on, called out Burton Agnes as he went, –treat yourself to a nice bit of Welsh! You’ll thank me for it!

–Never! Gordon retorted, and harrumphed slowly off toward the coaling-stage, where a wagon-load of his precious Sodor coal had been pushed up the ramp especially for him, and was waiting on the tippler to be tipped into his tender.
Making his way along the neighbouring siding was Thomas, who was also on loan to the Great Western.
–Peep peep, Grandad! Thomas called out cheekily –what do you think of my lovely new Attachments?
Gordon again rolled his eyes, and ignored Thomas.
Thomas was very proud of his Attachments. The Fat Controller had arranged for him to be sent to Swindon Works to get them, so that he could work with the special coaches on the Golden Valley line. Thomas missed Annie and Clarabel, but he’d already made great friends with Amy, his new ‘auto-coach’.
–Now I can PUSH as well as pull, said Thomas, as Gordon trundled slowly past –You’re a bit, er, ‘one direction’, aren’t you? Thomas giggled to himself.
–Really useful engines NEVER push, replied Gordon and came to a halt beneath the coaler.
-’Ere, you want to get some proper Welsh coal inside you, not that rubbish.
Don’t want you holding me up in the Golden Valley- I’ve got a party of historians to fetch today, don’t you know? Peep peep! And with that, Thomas scuttled off to collect Amy and head to the station.
**********************************
Gordon had to admit he felt a lot more cheerful once his headboard was on, and he’d stretched his wheels running ‘light’ to Cheltenham, where he now sat, proud and resplendent in St James station, coupled to his coaches. The Cheltenham Spa Express was a very famous train, and its record-breaking speeds meant it was known to railwaymen as the Cheltenham Flyer, or just ‘The Flyer’, for short. Gordon felt very full in the boiler, and his fire burned nicely in his firebox.
–Who needs Welsh coal? He said to himself.
But his coaches were less happy to see this strange engine coupling up to them, and they grumbled amongst themselves.
–Look at him. He’s BLUE, for goodness sake!
-He’s not from round this region, is he?

-What IS he burning? It’s got ever such an awful smell.
– Whatever will they say back at the carriage sheds?
-We shouldn’t put up with this- we’re Cheltenham coaches!
Gordon tried to ignore them, but they were spoiling his proud moment, and he could feel twinges in his safety valve.
–How DARE they? He thought to himself. –I am bigger and better than any Great Western engine!
At last the signal dropped, and- dead on time- the guard’s whistle blew.
–Right away, driver said the Station Master, who always came out to see off the Flyer.
Gordon gave a blast on his whistle, then pulled away suddenly, with a sharp tug that had the coaches squealing.
–Ow! Ow! Ow!
–He’s tugging my couplings!
-He’s bruising my buffers!
-I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them!, barked Gordon as he gathered speed, enraged at the insolence of his rolling stock, -I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them!
The carriages rocked and swayed behind him, clattering over the points, complaining all the while:
–He’s-awfully-rude! -We’re-too-good-for-this! He’s-awfully-rude! We’re-too-good-for-this!
Gordon continued to pull roughly, and with increasing fury. The coaches were dragging their wheels, and he wasn’t going to stand for it. Not him, Gordon, a proud blue engine! He would show the Great Western a thing or two.
–God’s Wonderful Railway, my boiler-sludge! He thought to himself But the Flyer was a long and heavy train, and by the time they got to their short Gloucester stop, he was already very glad of the rest. His driver wasn’t best pleased with him.

-’Ere, will you stop playing up? You treat those coaches nicely, you hear? And don’t bust your boiler- this bit’s the easy bit; you wait til we get to the bank. You’ll need all the puff you can get.
But Gordon was in no mood to listen. Again, he pulled away with a jerk, which had the steward furiously stick his head out the restaurant car window
–You silly great engine! You’ve had me spill tea on the Bishop of Tewkesbury!
As they thundered across the Barton Street level crossing, a blast from Gordon’s ejector valve knocked a postman off his bicycle.
–You lumbering idiot! You’ve crumpled me letters!
The coaches were beside themselves with shame.
–It’s-such-a-disgrace, this-cannot-go-on! It’s-such-a-disgrace, this-cannot go- on!
Gordon thundered onwards, out of the city, and over the junction that took them onto the line for Swindon and London. Just beyond this junction, the tracks curved round to the East as they approached the town of Stonehouse, and on this curve Gordon really began to feel the full weight of his train.
Come-ON! Come-ON! Come-ON! Come-ON!
Gordon didn’t know what was wrong with him. None of the trains on Sodor was as long or as heavy as this, and there were no record-breaking times to be kept, but he was an express engine, and he had more wheels than any of the Great Western engines, so why was he finding this so hard? They rumbled through Stonehouse station at less than line speed, and Gordon was suddenly grateful there were no passengers waiting to witness him. He felt very red in the smokebox, and was starting to not enjoy himself at all. He could see the dark mass of the Cotswold scarp filling the horizon in front of him, and it filled him with unease- he’d been told that up ahead lay the job of climbing the stiff bank up to Sapperton Tunnel. Goods trains on this line had to be ‘banked’ up the steep gradient to the tunnel by a big tank engine shoving from behind, and Gordon shuddered at the thought of such engines, who had to push for a living, and as for the indignity of being shoved…
Gordon’s fireman- a Great Western man, who ‘knew the road’- piled more and more coal into his firebox, trying to give him strength for the climb.
–I can’t understand it, he shouted to the driver, I can’t get the heat! What IS this stuff?

Gordon’s driver rolled his eyes.
–Gordon doesn’t believe in anything else.
On they went, with Gordon struggling to keep up his speed as the countryside  either side of the line became steadily hillier, and houses and mill-buildingsand factories crowded against the tracks. They passed through Stroud station, then rode high above a derelict canal and a river on a big viaduct. As soon as his wheels left the viaduct, Gordon felt the beginnings of the big gradient. His coaches suddenly felt very heavy indeed.
Oo-er! He gasped, trying to catch his breath, digging his wheels into the rails –It’s-starting-to-HURT! It’s-starting-to-HURT! It’s-starting-to-HURT!
The railway ran alongside the old canal at this point, and there were boys fishing amidst the reeds.
–Cor, look at that blue thing! Shouted one of them, as Gordon struggled past -’E sounds like burst balloon!
The other boys burst into laughter, and Gordon closed his eyes, feeling sick to the bottom of his drain-plugs. His coaches were no help
–We’re-oh-so-ashamed, we’re-oh-so-ashamed, we’re-oh-so-ashamed, they sang sadly as they dragged along behind him.
–Open your valves, Gordon!, shouted his driver, –or we’ll be ringing for the banker!
Gordon winced, and put all the steam he had into his pistons. On they went, but they were getting slower and slower. As they rolled through Brimscombe station, they passed the big banking engine, who was resting in his siding between assisting goods trains. The banker watched Gordon with dismay.
-’Ere!, the banker called out –you shift your side-rods! Don’t you go spoiling my lovely morning break!
But it was no use. At St Mary’s Crossing, the gate-keeper stood on the steps of his box, tapping his watch as they went past.

Gordon’s puffing became more and more weak and laboured. As they rounded the bend toward Chalford, his driver and fireman looked at each other and shook their heads. With the heavy coaches dragging hard on his tender, Gordon coughed and wheezed and spluttered into Chalford station at walking pace
-I- can’t- go- on, I- can’t- go- on, I- can’t- go- on.
And he ground to an embarrassing halt just beyond the platform, and hid himself in shame in a cloud of escaping steam. His driver quickly put on all the brakes to stop the whole train rolling backwards.
Gordon sat there with his eyes shut. He could hear station staff milling around behind him, and telephones ringing, and his passengers opening the coach doors and climbing out onto the platform to see what was going on. Thankfully, they weren’t allowed beyond the platform end, for Gordon feared they might have nasty things to say to him. And then, just when he  hought things couldn’t get any worse, he suddenly heard a horribly familiar voice.
–Peep peep! Well, hello, slowcoach!
Thomas and Amy had worked the morning Chalford auto-train from Gloucester, carrying their party of local historians, as well as schoolchildren and millworkers and shoppers, and had, as was the custom, then pulled forward into a siding to await the passing of Gordon’s express, and take on water. After this, they would cross over to the ‘down’ line platform for their return journey, this time with Thomas pushing Amy from behind. Thomas’s driver would sit in a little cab at the front of Amy, and drive Thomas from there, through Thomas’s special ‘Attachments’.
But Gordon’s plight had obviously been noted by station masters and signalmen back down the line, for phone calls had occurred, and arrangements had been made, and so now when Gordon opened his eyes, he saw in horror that Thomas had been quickly uncoupled from Amy, and was now trundling towards him down a siding, pushing a grubby mineral truck loaded with what looked horribly like best Welsh steam coal.
–This’ll put steam in your pistons, old man!, whistled Thomas cheerfully as he drew to a halt with the wagon right alongside Gordon’s cab. –Don’t you go wasting it; this is meant to be my local supply!
Gordon was beyond protesting. His driver leaped up on top of the coal wagon with a shovel, where he was joined by the signalbox boy, and together they began frantically raining the big black lumps down onto Gordon’s footplate where his fireman equally frantically fed them into his firebox. Just then, the Chalford Station Master came briskly trotting up.

–Banker’s on it’s way, he shouted up to Gordon’s driver, who nodded, then pointed at the coal he was standing on.
–We’ll have steam up in no time with this, he said. Then he jerked his thumb at Gordon, still wheezing and burbling pathetically. –I’m sorry about HIM.
The Station Master leaned over the handrail at the end of the platform and called out to Gordon.
–I say! I’ve had your Fat Controller on the phone. He is very, very disappointed in you, Gordon. He says Really Useful Engines are team players.
And then he turned and strode off toward his office, to telephone an update on the situation.
Gordon said nothing. He was feeling very, very foolish. But already he could feel his strength returning, and then some. His fireman had expertly stoked the fire, which was now a fierce and roaring inferno. Water began to bubble and fizz around his fire-tubes in an unusually energetic way, which Gordon found very pleasant indeed.
–Perhaps, he grudgingly said to himself, as he felt the steam build up in his dome, –perhaps this Welsh coal isn’t too bad, after all.
Suddenly he felt a jolt in his buffers.
–Banker’s here! said his driver, throwing a last few lumps of coal across, before passing the fireman the shovel, then jumping back over himself. Gordon was about to insist that an engine like him didn’t need anything as vulgar as a banker, but then thought better of it. It was very hard for him to admit, but perhaps he didn’t quite know everything.
-Steam’s up!, called his driver, and blew a short blast on Gordon’s whistle, to remind all the passengers to jump back aboard. When the guard waved his flag to indicate they were all safely on, and the doors shut, Gordon gave a longer blast to signal to the banker. The banker gave a long blast back, and they were ready for the off.
You’ll be alright now, old man, with something decent in your belly, said Thomas rudely, as he prepared to draw back with his truck. – Ooh look, my historians are back! Get you, Gordon! They’ll be here for you, I bet- you’re making history as the engine that failed on the ‘Flyer’!

Sure enough, a large throng of people in sturdy outdoor boots were making their way along the platform, carrying rucksacks and walking-poles, led by an enthusiastic fellow in shorts and owlish glasses. The failure of the Flyer had indeed caused quite a local commotion, and the historians were obviously keen not to miss out on this small piece of local history in the making, and they had just made it in time.

Straining every valve in his frame, Gordon’s big blue driving wheels began to slowly turn. He did not want stay in this little station a moment longer;  e certainly did not want to have to listen to his sorry exploits being discussed by historians. He could hardly believe it, but he found himself wobbly to the axles with gratitude at the strong, determined push he could feel from the banker engine at the back of the train.
Together, they got the heavy express moving.
WE-CAN-DO-IT! WE-WILL-DO-IT! WE-CAN-DO-IT! WE-WILL-DO-IT!
Gordon’s puffs became stronger and stronger, as he slowly gained speed, and the banker barked gruffly at the back. But even together, they were not quite loud enough to drown out the booming tones of the leader of the historians, as he turn to his party and loudly announced
–And there is our lesson, people! Never, never, NEVER trust anything not built in Swindon!

By Jon Seagrave / Jonny Fluffypunk 2025

A People’s History Chapter Nine

A MISCELLANY OF HISTORY

A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

A TEXTUAL SAMPLER

Chapter Nine

 

A few parish register entries:

Nympsfield 1719 Daniel ‘a black stranger’ buried.

Nympsfield 1773 Francis London ‘a servant to the Rt. Hon. Lord Ducie – supposed to be 17 years of age, ‘a native of Africa’ was baptised.

Rodborough 1778 William Jubiter – ‘black’ was buried.

Stroud 1786 Adam John Parker, ‘Negro, 32, was buried. Parish funeral’.

Frocester 1790 ‘William Frocester, supposed to be 11 or 12 years old, born on the island of Barbados, now a servant of Edward Bigland Esq. residing in Jamaica, was baptised.’

Stroud 1801 William Eliis, ‘son of Qualquay Assedew, a Negro of Guinea, aged 12 years, was baptised.’

Bisley 1815 Testimonial from Richard Raikes, supporting the application of John Hart, Writing Master, to the post of master at Bisley Blue Coat School, ‘Unfortunately he is a Mulatto, a native of the West Indies.’

Minchinhampton 1826 Thomas Davies, ‘an infirm travelling Black’, was buried, 67 years old.

 

Walks from Stroud Railway Station from the Black Ark Media Group from the Gloucestershire Black History Map: The Abolition Arch

‘This Grade 2 Arch is Britain’s oldest antislavery memorial. Originally built as the entrance to Farmhill Park for Henry Wyatt, a clothier who bought the Stroud property the same year as the Abolition Act (having been a tenant since 1817). A supporter of the Stroud Anti-Slavery Society he pressurised MP, W.H. Hyett, to vote for abolition in Parliament. The Arch is a source of pride and for some a reminder of the £20m (equivalent) injection into the Stroud District economy from seven local ‘compensated’ slave owners.’

 

Walks from Stroud Railway Station from the Black Ark Media Group from the Gloucestershire Black History Map: Black Boy Clock

‘At the junction of Castle, Nelson and Middle Streets a 1774 “Jack Clock” sits within a specially designed niche on an old Girls School Building. This depiction of a small Black boy with a club may have been inspired by tobacco advertisements of the time. It was made by Stroud watchmaker John Miles 270+ years into the transatlantic slave trade. Some of the Stroud elite were connected to and profited from this trade. In April 2022 the Council recommended that the clock be removed.’