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This book was first published in 1991.
This is the kind of book which I really like. It is a story written around a little known fact of English history.
Castleton is a village in the Peak District halfway between Manchester and Sheffield. Near Castleton is a huge cave. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a community of rope makers lived in this cave - and were actually far better off than the people who lived in conventional cottages in the village itself.
The rope makers built their cottages against the walls of the cave. They had no rent to pay and if the cottage was not big enough then it was an easy matter to build on an extra room. Water was no problem as a clear, unpolluted river ran through the cave. The rope makers had all they needed - plenty of space and fresh air. There was even an inn and an ale-house in the cave. The work on the rope walks kept them fit and many of them lived well into old age. They had to work hard but they still had time for fun as at Christmas when the gypsies came and there was feasting and singing and dancing each night. Then in the spring there was the celebration of the Castleton Garland.
Young Minnie Dakin likes living in the cave with her family. Nevertheless she longs to see something of the outside world and eventually she gets her chance. Her married sister Netty is living in Sheffield and she is ill. Minnie goes to her to help.
She finds the cruel, dirty city of Sheffield a dreadful contrast to her Derbyshire cave. For a start, twice or even three times a day, she has to trudge up the hill and stand in a long queue to fetch water from the well. And this despite the fact that a river flows past their door. But the river water is just for work. It cannot be drunk because all the muck and waste is tipped into it. How different from the cave with the river of clear, ice cold water flowing through it.
But there is worse to come. The work of the ropemakers may be monotonous but it is healthy - unlike the work of the Sheffield file workers. They have to work long hours and most of them soon succumb to a fatal disease. This is because of the lead dust from the cutting blocks flying up to their faces and mouths. And all the time they are working in the shadow of the bailiffs and the debtors' prison.
The story of Minnie, Netty, her husband Josh and family is worked out against this background until a grim climax during a riot after which they manage to escape back to Derbyshire.
This is a wonderful book. The first part which describes the cave is fascinating. The harshness of life in Sheffield is lightened by little touches -- like when Minnie helps to settle her little niece Marianne by telling her stories of where Rope Dolly came from. The characters are all well drawn.
The story ends with a brief forward flash with Minnie and her sisters looking back over their lives and all the loose ends are neatly tied up. Now they are all old women but they are still living in the cave - although theirs is the only cottage remaining. They have just had a visit from the young Queen Victoria. But I felt quite sad that the wonderful cave community was now no more.
The Rope Carrier is carefully researched and based on fact. It is illustrated with contemporary engravings and there is a bibliography at the back. It is an outstanding book.
10+
This is from Scholastic's fictional diary series. It describes a momentous year in the life of thirteen-year-old Eliza Helsted.
Eliza's teacher gives her a book in which she can practise her writing. Eliza decides to use it to keep a diary. She is very proud of it because inside her teacher has written To Eliza Helsted. For excellent progress. April 1842. Eliza's teacher has said that she may get her to help with the little children. Eliza is really excited. Could she ever become a teacher?
But shortly after this Eliza is forced to leave school. Even worse, a few weeks later she starts work in a cotton mill in the carding room. As if all this is not bad enough there is friction at home as her father is a member of the Chartists and her mother is afraid this could result in him losing his own job at the cotton mill. Then there is a widespread strike, starvation and Chartist meetings which are broken up by soldiers. A neighbouring family decide to leave and emigrate to America.
But just when things seem at their blackest Eliza discovers that dreams can come true -- as long as you don't expect too much.
This book gives a good picture of the times and the cramped living conditions with houses built back to back are contrasted with working conditions in the mill. There even the few government regulations are not observed. Under age children are employed and the workers' water is not changed so that it becomes mixed with cotton fluff. Worst of all is the plight of the little scavengers -- small children who have the dangerous job of crawling under the moving machines to sweep up waste dirt.
The book comes with a timeline and a series of contemporary illustrations. There is also a copy of mill rules and fines.
But, rather surprisingly, the six points of the Charter are not detailed.
Nevertheless this is still a good introduction to the cotton mills and the People's Charter.
10-14
Daniel Richards' family move from London to a village in Somerset - to an old rectory. While renovating the kitchen an old stove is uncovered. Daniel is drawn to it. In some strange and compelling way it reaches out to him. Eventually he is transported back to the year 1835. He is an orphan boy - with the same name, Daniel Richards - working in the kitchen of the rector. His job is to clean and blacken the stove each day; to stoke it and tend to it and peel the vegetables that are cooked on it and eat the left-overs from those same meals. At night he sleeps beside it.
There is much hardship in the village. The farmers do not pay their labourers enough and the people are starving and the children dying. Daniel makes friends with George Wright and meets the Methodist preacher Samuel Smith. They want the labourers to form a union to try to get the farmers to pay them better wages. There is a secret meeting and an oath is taken - an illegal oath which is against the law. This is a felony punishable by seven years transportation to Australia.
Daniel learns of a plan to betray the men and tries to warn them. Does he succeed?
Based on the Tolpuddle Martyrs this book gives a vivid picture of the conditions of farm labourers in the 1830's and the struggle for the right to form trade unions.
10+
Set in 1842, this is a story about the struggle for the People's Charter set against the background of the Sheffield steel industry.
Young Ben Sterndale starts work as a cellar lad in Dyson's Scythe Works. He has to get up at dawn. His father is the pot man i.e. he makes the pots in which the steel is melted. Once at work Ben has to help his father to mix up the powdered clay. Then he has to help the melting team. He is constantly running into the cellars to rake out the hearths as well as rushing to the alehouse for ale for the workers. Finally he has to help his father with the lids for the crucibles.
It is hard work for a boy but Ben knows that there are people far worse off than he is. His older sister is married to a grinder. Grinders do not live long. If they are not killed at their dangerous job, then they will likely succumb to the deadly lung disease caused by the dust they have to work in.
But the workers are now trying to do something to improve their lot and, young as he is, Ben finds himself involved. He hears about the People's Charter - which wants working men to be able to vote and sit in Parliament. Ben goes with his father into Sheffield and signs the Charter - or, to be more accurate, makes his mark. Later Ben attends a chartist's funeral.
Then Ben becomes involved in something more sinister. The Chartists are peaceful but there are those who believe in violence to achieve their aims. Mr Dyson takes on two non union grinders and gets threatening letters signed "Mary Ann" - a pseudonym because the penalty for sending "threatening letters" is imprisonment or transportation to Australia. Mr Dyson ignores the warnings with drastic consequences.
Against this background Ben and his family carry on with their day to day lives. Ben's mother had died of cholera when he was a child. Now Ben's father decides to marry Jess, a grinder's widow. So Ben will have a new mother and Ruth, Jess's daughter will have a new father and two new brothers - Ben and Will, the orphan son of a grinder who has been adopted by the Sterndales.
This is an interesting story which contains much information about the early days of the steel industry, the struggle for the Charter and the beginnings of the trade Unions. There is also much detail about the living and working conditions at the time. There is even a chapter on the dreaded Workhouse.
The scene of the story can be visited to-day as Dyson's Steel Works is now the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet.
There are useful historical notes at the beginning and end.
10+
This is one of the Racers series for younger readers.
Like The Cellar Lad this book is also about the Sheffield steel industry last century but Meet me by the Steelmen is for a younger age group - seven to eleven.
Strange things are happening in the Meadowhall shopping centre, Sheffield. At night shops are being broken into. And not just broken into. A powerful blow torch is being used to burn holes in the steel shutters. The shops concerned are all shops which sell food - Yorkshire puddings and sandwiches.
The Meadowhall shopping centre was built on the site of Hadfield's Steelworks after it was closed down. To commemorate the old steelworks three huge, bronze statues of steelmen are placed in the centre of the shopping centre. When he goes shopping with his mother and older sister Jenny, seven year old Stevie is always fascinated by the steelmen. Jenny is alarmed when Stevie tells her that the statue of the young boy stuck out his tongue at him. Moreover, one of the other statues asked, "Where's our snap?"
Stranger and stranger. Jenny and Stevie have a neighbour, Ethel, who is the widow of a steelman. One day they take her to see the shopping centre. She gazes at the statues and says, "But they've got no snap." She explains to them that snap was a steelman's dinner in a tin.
Then Jenny has a crazy, terrifying thought? Could it be the steelmen breaking into the shops at night to get their snap?
Stevie has an idea. They should give the steelmen their snap. But how?
There is one person who can help, Ethel. They tell her they want a steelman's picnic and she helps them to make one up - home made bread, fruit scones, potted meat sandwiches, cheese, pork pie and hard boiled eggs. And home made lemon barley water to wash it down.
Jenny and Stevie take the snap to the statues. They grasp the apron of one of the statues and find themselves taken back through time to the days of Hadfields Steelworks. What happens to them in the Steelworks?
Told very effectively in the first person by Jenny.
This is an engrossing and unique story which contains much information about the former steel industry, information which occurs quite naturally as part of the story. As well as being interesting the details about the "snap" have the effect of humanising the steel industry. Why is food always such a fascinating subject?
This book also brings out the way in which our country is changing. So many of our traditional industries - mining, shipping, and the steel industry are either being curtailed if they are not being phased out completely. They are being replaced by what? Computers and electronics, heritage and leisure centres and, as in this case, shopping centres.
Books for this age group are often, unfortunately, rather bland. Not so in this case. This is a fascinating read for any age group. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
7-11
Out-of-Print
This book is about 17,000 words long.
It is 1839. Incensed by the arrest of two of their leaders, some of the Welsh Chartists decided that since peaceful methods have failed to win them the Charter, then violence was the only answer. They began to arm. There was a plot to take Newport and blow up the railway bridge. The Army was drafted into Newport and there was a confrontation between the Army and the Chartists in which twenty Chartists were killed. Afterwards some of the Chartist leaders were transported to Australia. That is the historical background to this story.
The events leading up to the Newport riot are described from the viewpoint of a ten year old boy, Daniel Jenkins.
Daniel does not want to go down the mine. He is afraid of the dark. So he runs away to Newport. He hopes to be taken on as a sailor aboard a ship, perhaps one even going to America. But he meets a man with kind eyes, a tailor by the name of John Frost. John Frost takes pity on Daniel and takes him home with him. He decides that Daniel could be useful to him and he goes and asks Daniel's parents to let him stay with him. They agree and Daniel moves into John Frost's house.
John Frost is one of the leaders of the Chartists. He takes Daniel around with him when he is collecting signatures for the Charter. John Frost is firmly against violence but he finds he cannot control the more hot-headed members of the movement.
Daniel becomes involved - although John Frost makes sure that he is kept well away from any trouble. Daniel is present at some Chartist meetings. Later Daniel overhears the gentry planning to arrest the Chartist leaders. He tries to take news to John Frost about the soldiers in Newport.
An interesting story written around the Chartist movement in Wales.
7 - 11