The road past Wigan Pier

Roy Kerndge

Here's a book that's right up your street,' a friendly literary editor said t° nie, handing me a paperback with a lurid cover: Wigan Pier Revisited, by Beatrix Campbell a. 111pbell (Virago). Soon I found that my mend knew little of the streets I frequent, but by then I had promised to review the "tha. Miss Campbell appeared to belong to the school of journalists who delight in pro - i ,vulg that 'the poor' are no better off n 'ngland now than they were in the 1930s. This can easily be done by concentrating on those who harm themselves on Purpose by sniffing glue, leaving home with no money, steePing rough and so on. Beatrix Campbell !flakes a poor case for the working class by in- stead too many trade unionists of normal people. Both her catalogue °I. .miseries and Orwell's well-written original give a false impression of Wigan, i !Inch is one of the most cheerful towns n ngland.

Are You a fellow sufferer?' I asked a Young man on the train going north, for he was reading the same book. However he Proved to be reading it for pleasure, and carried , a rolled-up Morning Star, besides 5Portiflg a tie of deepest red. , find it very interesting,' he said. 'I used io like Orwell, but I've gone off him now., „ Our train sped past Wigan, and at t:reston I changed on to a branch line, for I telt determined to prove that the North was ?fle of the most attractive parts of the coun- trY. To do this, I was to travel by bus, train, }1?acb' taxi, Shanks's pony and hitch- ..iker's thumb for ten days, most of the t.111.1e being spent standing hopelessly on vitally Corners at night with upraised thumb, b hile lights in fellside cottages went out one t Y one. In the growing darkness I stood on °11 of Pendle Hill, gazing down at the orange lights of Clitheroe twinkling among lue glacier-bitten landscape of the Lan- cashire Pennines. I had always felt sorry for t,rwell's friend who praised Clitheroe and North and was k-ornee for his put in Orwell's `Pseud's pains: I am in Clitheroe, Lancs [Orwell's friend Wrote] ... I think running water is much more attractive in moor and mountain country than in the fat and sluggish South. 'The smug and silver Trent,, Shakespehre says; and the South-er the strlugger, I say

Pier], [The Road to Wigan

Destroyed by Orwell's vitriolic prose, the enet-writer emorial left the name of Clitheroe as a Clitheroe Though I was eager to see itheroe, I wasn't sure how to get there, Zar the steep, tussocky slope of Pendle Hill was extremely slippery. Suddenly I had an

inspiration and lay on my back and slid down at what seemed to be 30 miles an hour. I found I could steer with my heels, leaving my hands free to throw loose stones out of the way and hang on to my plastic bag. Down I shot as if all the witches of Pendle were after me. A human toboggan, I reached the bottom safely and made for the Fairway Hotel, near Clitheroe's recently closed railway station. Next morning I set out to explore the town.

Orwell's friend had not lied, for the many terraced streets, old coaching inns, cobbled alleys and the castle on the hill made Clitheroe an ideal base for exploring the countryside. Feeling hungry, I entered a small cafe near the castle and ordered a cot- tage pie from a kindly manageress in a chef's hat and apron. Her daughter, a mischievous girl in jeans, swapped banter with a Cockney sales rep and continually sang the first line of a dubious song, 'Down in Arizona'. To my annoyance, the salesman asked me what I did for a living.

'I write for a magazine called the Spec- tator. I don't suppose you've heard of it,' I said with assurance, for nobody ever has.

'Heard of it? Why, it ranks with Punch!' he exclaimed.

I was shocked, for I felt my anonymity to be threatened.

'You've never heard of it, have you?' I appealed to the motherly northern manageress.

'I write for it! My name's Anne Crowther — didn't you see my article on the "pecking order" in school staff-rooms? There was a great fuss about that.' I swallowed down my cottage pie and fled. Next day I went to Gisburn, a market town seven miles away. It was market day, and a Charolais bull roared an angry welcome to me from its pen, its jaws flecked with foam. Big men in tweeds, waistcoats, cloth caps and knee-length boots gravely surveyed the assembled sheep and cattle. I remembered a story I had heard earlier, of the great dun cow of Bowland Forest. This giant and benevolent beast lived wild on the hills, and let everybody milk it until their buckets were full.

'But one day an old witch milked it into a riddle, that's Lancashire for sieve,' my bearded informant told me. 'So the cow was milked dry and died, and great misfor- tune came on the farms round about. But then it was discovered that if you took one of the cow's bones and fixed it over your door, you would always prosper. That's why farms round my way have got all kind of fossil bones, whale bones they think are cow's ribs and so on, over their doors. Even a chip of bone from the Old Dun Cow is supposed to bring good luck.'

No such wondrous beast was displayed at Gisburn, though a billy goat with sandy hair and a wicked eye was tethered among the sheep.

'That's to sell to Pakistanis,' I was told. 'Would you believe it, they eat goats!'

Near the dingy old auction cockpit, where tiers of seats ringed a showcase for the stock, a Yorkshire firm was selling tweedy farmers' clothes from the back of a van. My trousers had suffered from my rapid descent of Pendle Hill, and after a great deal of small talk I bought another pair, of simulated moleskin.

'It would need too many moles to make all the clothes we sell, so we use brushed

cotton,' the salesman explained. 'We go to all the fairs and markets and even sell to America. But over there we can't call our stock "moleskin" as the conservationists would think we used real moles.'

He and his partner displayed a naïve and open love for money, in the old country Yorkshire fashion, asking me keenly about

horse fairs in London. This business acumen was combined with absolute honesty. When I mistakenly paid too Mall' I was corrected at once. At each side of the great gates ef Gisburn Park, Lord Ribbledale's estate' strange Gothic lodge houses, tall and ria,tr' row, pointed to the sky. A housewlle emerged from one of them and said i was welcome to explore the park if I kept to the paths.

`The Big House has got dry rot,' she plained sadly, 'so they're turning it intf at private hospital to raise the moneY repairs. Go down to the old mill bridgeci where the salmon come up in season, an you'll see a lovely view over the river.' This proved good advice, and after 3, miring the first swallows, who were sk1ra"'.

ing over the Ribble, I asked directions an old estate craftsman who was cartY'n.- boxes of tools into a barn, helped bY little grandson. Gravely, he put down his box, picked °tip a nail and began to scratch a map for Ine °I a piece of slate. In my pre-Spectator daYs, was once a slate-engraver at a WeisA. quarry, and all my old instincts returne; Seizing the nail, I drew a Welsh dragt°h. rampant, with fire coming out of its rod Not to be outdone, the old man snatebee the nail back and solemnly drew a Pict° of a horse below the dragon. 'I used to be top at drawing when I were at school,' he said proudly. 'Is that a cow?' the child asked tinfee,01' ingly. I left them both drawing on slate` their hearts' content.

My directions sent me further north' to Holker Hall, near Grange-ove`i Sands. There I found that the grounds °10 this stately home had been thrown oPeri balloonists who floated up to the skY t baskets. Enormous balloons, filled with and air heated by propane gas, swelled uP y were airborne, their baskets full of halgr children. Strong men hung on to the anc" ropes to prevent the balloons floatingaveaYlfl: One balloon, which seemed 100 feet tar was shaped like a golligwog, while onthdc. appeared to be Carmen Miranda's heiar, Much mirth was generated by the gollY,Iijcb ching into Carmen and appearing to Paibe her fruit. Deflated, the golly seemed to s were veininogor, th n one elbow. ilo elbhoaw. balloonists thsiemfpeslytivirulepd: anchored and floated away, waving go° bye as they drifted over the park and ny over the Pennines, tiny dots that disaferd peared into the blue. Wistfully I wateilthe them go, their destination chosen hY 1_f wind. Judging from the rough jokes n, itnhetsheehierrioshicsmeean. , they half-expected to larlet the My feet carried me, later on, to ed village of Over Kellet, where I st°PP,te transfixed at a cottage with the late transfixed Clapp'. Charcoal drawings of aharit1A some woman with tousled hair, drawn awl's': redrawn 30 or 40 times, filled the Wind the while marble statues clustered round elf door. I knocked, and the woman he answered. As I showed her my Spectator card and she went to fetch her artist- sculptor husband, I caught a glimpse of an old-world interior crammed with drawings and statues. Roy Clapp then appeared, but had no message for the readers of the Spec- tator. For a moment the two Roys gazed at °Ile another in wild surmise. Then the artist-Roy gave a scream of delight, and, d esPite my protests, began drawing my por- trait on a pad, in charcoal. In two minutes he had finished, and then did a profile. On- lY then did he ask me inside, where I noticed 'hat the settee and chairs were hung with goatskin5.

shall put your picture in the window with the others!' the talented artist exulted. 4` 'What happened to the goats who wore those skins?' I asked.

'Goats make very good meat. Come out- side and meet the billy and the kid.' He opened a door in a stone wall and two goats emerged from the blackness.

„. 'We had many others, but we've eaten them a,,,,

he explained.

011 the last day of my northern excursion I could be seen toiling up a steep hill in Westmorland. White streaks of snow on the mountain tops mocked my heat-struck con- dition. At last I reached the Old Hall, where the farmer and his wife gave me a hearty welcome. I had made their acquaintance at PPlebY Horse Fair. A big pink-faced man In tattered overalls, Farmer Gospatrick took a bucket and three-legged iron stool foaming Milked his Jersey cow. I carried the bucket down to the stone far- mhouse, where his wife poured the milk through a cloth into a jug, to remove specks ot straw and dust.

'We call that "siling",' she told me. 'I've got cream for the trifle here, and I make the inilk into butter.'

A slight Welshness in the Gospatricks' Speech revealed the Celtic influence in the ountains. The farm was completely isolated, and often snowbound in winter. It vy,.,as famous for its Kendal Rough fell sheep. Ewes in lamb were herded into long straw- filled sheds. While her husband drove off to a letting auction, where land rent was decid- ed by bidding, his wife fed orphan lambs 'min a bottle. One lamb had been given to a strange ewe, a foster mother who baulked at feeding her charge. 'She'll have to go into the stocks,' Mrs kiospatrick remarked, showing me two ey.,:ni,es with their heads bolted in holes inrou

a a board, while lambs were being

Later, the farmer returned, accompanied by his daughter, who worked in a village shop miles below. We went for a walk up °bit the Fell, a haunted country strewn with

oulders. The farmer left his shepherd s crook leaning on the gate. The Gospatricks were a far cry from sheep farmers I had met near Clitheroe who beetled about in ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles), scooterised

Shepherds whose dogs had to run to keep up With them. 'Lots of foxes live here,' the farmer told me, 'but they never raid us, as we're near suckled their home. Here's the Druid Circle, look.' 'When I was a little girl I was rather lone- ly up here in the hills,' his daughter said. 'I used to come up here to the stone circle and dance round and round on my own.'

Later that evening we sat contentedly round a log fire in the oak-beamed living room, where a wall of dark oak had been carved into a dresser. The farmer watched football on television, along with a friend who had dropped in, while his wife sewed on shirt buttons and his daughter knitted a jumper. Orwell would no doubt have felt as contented there as I did.