When the media rediscovers the North

Now every so often the media discovers a place called the North.

The Dinner Hour Wigan,  Eyre Crow, 1874

In the 19th century observers from the south and indeed as far away as France and Germany made the journey north to our great industrial cities to report on how steam, machinery and textiles were transforming what had been small Georgian towns into densely populated places of enterprise and industry.

Along with creating new concentrations of people in remote valleys where a single textile mill or coal mine took advantage of fast flowing water courses and rich veins of the dark stuff.

The visitors marvelled at the new ways of production, were repelled by the awful housing conditions and shuddered at the life expectancy of many who worked in the factories, foundries, and dyeworks. 

As early as 1776 Matthew Boulton, who had teamed up with James Watt to make and sell steam engines, proudly announced to James Boswell, “I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have – POWER”

And just under two centuries later, the historian Asa Briggs described Manchester as “the shock city of the Industrial Revolution”*.

The Forging of the North, Observer, 1965

In between, novelists, social observers and Government officials regularly reported on the energy, novelty and squalor they found in the North, while in the years after the Great War, writers like George Orwell wrote vividly of the decline in the heavy industries, and its impact on unemployment and life chances.

Not that this should surprise anyone who lives in the North or that it remains a topical subject for political pundits, news programmes and journalists, who picked over the bones of the Northern Power House between 2010 and 2016 and more recently all the promises of “Leveling Up”.

As ever the devil is in the detail as many who have made a train journey from Manchester to Leeds or Sheffield will testify.

All of which is an introduction into a collection of old colour supplements from the Sunday Times, and the Observer, that came north with me nearly four decades ago

In 1965 the Sunday Times looked at how traditional values had changed in the North, including an iconic picture of two women out in Elland in West Yorkshire with their hair in rollers half hidden under scarves.

A year later and the Observer weighed into the topic with three part look at the North.  The first focused on “The Forging of the North” which examined “the story of the national epic”, ranging over all the basic heavy industries, the great northern cities as well as the smaller towns and villages and a collection of “Victorian worthies” most of whom have faded into obscurity.**

Sadly, the second of the three has been lost but was on the decline of the basic industries, while the third looked at “New fortunes old Myths”.  

Manchester skyline, 1965, Observer Magazine, 1965

Reading through the six articles of number three 58 years on I am struck by the mix of factual and perceptive reporting which is peppered throughout with  more than a few stereotypical assumptions.  

So, one article pointed out the inadequacy of some civic planning departments reporting that “When John Millar, Manchester’s new chief planner arrived in 1961 charged with redeveloping the crumbling central area, he had a staff of one elderly man…..[which meant that] when the development boom reached the Northern cities in the early 1960s places like Manchester hadn’t even sufficient staff to insist on comprehensive redevelopment orders.  Reluctantly they were bulldozed into accepting piecemeal schemes”.

I don’t doubt the accuracy of the statement but can’t square it with the sweeping and exciting plans of post war Manchester laid out in the City’s 1945 Plan.  But then it might be the difference between the plan and its execution.

Manchester 2021

Away from the factual reporting there was a slightly “southern prejudice” reflected in the surprise that northern working class women had discovered fashion.

And so half way through a piece on “The New North” was a caption under a photograph of some mill girls which ran “Young people in the North today follow and make fashion.  Above stylishly dressed and coiffed girls in a mill in New Mills”, as if factory girls had not always been keen on fashion and looking good.   

A cursory glance at the idealized painting the Dinner Hour, Wigan, by Eyre Crow from 1874 shows a group of young women with colourful scarves, shawls and hairdos which are carefully protected by hair nets.***

And it turns up again on a photograph of the new town of Peterlee in County Durham with its street of modern houses and piles of NCB coal which have been delivered to the curb side.  

Now having lived in the North East I know about the coal, but can’t quite escape that other historic southern notion that working class families kept their coal in the bath …… those of course of them who had a bath.

But the prize must go to the last article “Nothing Fancy in Coronation Street” where “Shirley Conran has a typical North Country meal with Violet Carson – television’s Ena Sharples”.  The dishes offered up were Bacon ribs on onion, Lancashire hotpot, Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding and Bakewell Tart. 

The Avenue, Spinneyfields, 2021

All of which could be found anywhere in the country and certainly on the table in our house in south east London.  

Added to which was the final comment on wine in the North.

Both my parents who were from the North and the Midlands would have smiled at Cyril Ray who was then the wine columnist for the Observer who concluded the article with “Lancashire would rock with laughter if I recommended a wine to go with hot pot. Stout is the thing”.

I await stories of hair rollers, and a succession of examples where "northern life styles" are a part of essential life from Watford down to Bristol and across to Caney Island and Norfolk.

Leaving me to go off and pour over the accompanying commentaries on life in the North in the age of Levelling Up, and remember that it was Doctor Who who said, "Every planet has a North".

Location, that big place called the North

First posted 2022. 

Pictures; , The Dinner Hour, Wigan. The Forging of the North, Observer, January- February, 1966, Eyre Crowe, 1874, Manchester City Art Galleries, and Manchester in 2021 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities, 1963

**The Forging of the North, Observer Magazine, January-February, 1965

***The Dinner Hour, Wigan, Eyre Crowe, 1874, Manchester City Art Gallery, https://manchesterartgallery.org/collections/title/?mag-object-2265