Mar 28, 2018
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Hard Fact by Howard Spring
Hard Fact by Howard Spring
Hard Facts is about several characters and how their lives become involved with each other. The main character Theodore Chrystal is sent to be a curate to help a vicar in Manchester, England. He was the only character in the book I really didn’t care for. He seemed ill- suited to his chosen profession, lacking compassion, judgmental, and selfish. He meets the Dunkersly family, who own a…
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In the long school holidays we would be up early and away into the dewy fields which lay then much nearer to the city than they do now, and we would seek mushrooms, though I do not remember that we ever found one, or gather the flat bunches of elderberries that stained our fingers an exciting purple, and from which our mother concocted wine. Or, making a whole-day job of it, we would set out with a few slabs of bread and butter and a bottle of water; and in those inexacting days these simple provisions answered to all that we knew by name of dinner. We took with us a book on natural history, and discovered much joy in identifying this and that; and in a stream at Fairwater, crossed by a railway bridge whose embankment was at time like a long snowdrift, so thickly the dog daisies grew there, we would fish by the hour, tirelessly turning over the stones in search of millers' thumbs. Once I wandered away from my brothers and sisters and went into a near-by field, and right out in the middle of it I lay down in grass so high that nobody could see me. The red sorrel from that angle rose like spires and the dog-daisies trembled against the blue with fantastic loveliness. The silence was so great that I could hear the grasses making a small commotion like the trees of a forest in which I was a beetle. I shut my eyes and tried to forget that I was anyone at all. I tried to imagine that I was a stone lying on the ground; and I remember snatching myself up from what must have been something near to unconsciousness and rushing away frightened. From Heaven Lies About Us, a childhood memoir by Howard Spring (1939)
Mr. Flegg, the headmaster, had made a rule that when he appeared on a balcony overlooking the playground and blew his whistle, sound and motion must on the instant cease. On the second blast, everyone must fall into his own rank in front of his teacher. It need hardly be said that watchful eyes were on Mr. Flegg as soon as he appeared on the balcony. The raising of the whistle to his lips was the signal for monstrous attitudes to be assumed, and when the whistle had sounded the schoolyard took on the appearance of a vast lunatic asylum struck to petrification. Mouths gaped open; fingers were pushing noses into strange distorted shapes, boys lay flat on their backs, or standing upon their hands, had their feet against a wall; couples were engaged in grotesque wrestling attitudes; or, caught in the middle of a run, remained with one leg lifted in the air. Mr. Flegg never knew that the whole schoolyard was a howling derision; it seemed to give him a god-like sense of power to be able, with one expulsion of his breath, to strike life suddenly into the silence and immobility of death. From Heaven Lies About Us, a childhood memoir by Howard Spring (1939)
"The district was goodly. We had intended merely to walk through it; but when we reached Falmouth, which is its gateway, we were held in spell by its evening beauty. On the waters of the dark harbour small sailing craft rocked gently to and fro. Above each swayed a masthead light; and in the dusk those lights were like candles burning above obscure religious shapes. The grave surge of the sea moved amid the grave beauty of the ships, inclining them this way and that in silent slow obeisance under the stars and under the thin crescent of the moon. The next morning was as beautiful as the evening had been. We knew at once that we should not pass on as we had from so many other places. On the contrary, we said that we would go through the gateway of Falmouth and know all we might of what the district held. For me it was adventurous, but Marion had been there before. The sea sweeps into a magnificent harbour, and off the harbour run broad arms of water – now blue, now green – that feel their way deep into the recesses of the hills; and themselves in many cases throw off other arms that go in countless ramifications through the countryside. All are subject to the sea, so that the surge and sigh of waters governed by the steadfast law of tides draw music through all the hollows of the hills. Great ships go up and anchor deep in the heart of the country; and at every turning one may come upon an inland village with a sweep of shingle beach, a tiny jetty, and a marine flavour. It was evident that this was the ideal place to live. No motor-car of char-à-banc disturbed the quiet; to get from place to place, if one did not want to walk twenty miles, one used a boat to cross the blue shining fiords. A twilight doors one came suddenly on old twilight men, telescope to eye, following the fortune of vessels they had known more intimately. In sunny gardens palms grew to a splendid height, and the intense colours of the sea, seen between their stems, gave the landscape a sub-tropical illusion. Then there was the blue and green transparent water of the sea and the creeks inviting the body to its cold embrace; and there were farms where old memories might be revived of “three-decker” teas – bread and butter, jam and cream piled on top of one another. Not least of the charms was the name of the district – Roseland." Howard Spring, writing in a short lived paper called ‘Voices’. Quoted by Marion Spring, his wife, in her memoir ’Memories and Gardens’.
John Street Birds
On John Street in the Northern Quarter, and around the corner on Tib Street, you may have spotted these ornamental birds and their neighbouring ceramic parrots. There's no shortage of street art to be found in this area yet it's surprising how few people know the motivation behind each installment.
As Manchester moved into the Victorian Era this particular area transformed from a poorly maintained, muddy lane that was characterised by poverty to a much more amiable community. The cotton trade had brought some riches to the area and the radical, publisher and eventual major of Manchester, Abel Heywood, had brought education and free speech. The residents of Tib Street began to shape the trading community and, once where pigs roamed the lanes raiding side streets for discarded offal, there stood a thriving hub of enterprise. In true Victorian fashion, the shops pulled a crowd because they provided entertainment for the consumer and the speciality of Tib Street became a form of natural history.
Almost every shop featured live animals on display inside the window or tethered outside in the street and often the shops would remain open well into the night pulling a larger crowd still as food prices dropped as the clocks approached midnight. At one point it's believed that almost 20,000 people descended on the area in a single evening to take in the sights and pick up a bargain.
The area quickly became synonymous with animals and there was even a travelling canary salesman based on the street. The novelist Howard Spring sets his children's book Tumbledown Dick in Tib street of the 20s and Mike Harding's comic sketch The Fourteen and Half Pound Budgie features the former Bob Groves' pet shop.
The last of the pet shops, Walter Smith's, closed in 2002 as the area became the focus of a regeneration project but for a hundred years Tib Street had continued to showcase its natural wares and as 'pet paradise' it became a huge draw for children and families, which is quite the opposite now when you consider that the area is saturated with bars and sex shops. But this shift in trade is natural given that the post war focus was to revitalise the city centre thus leaving the Northern Quarter to fend for itself, and it did so; offering the cheapest rents in the city it continues to host all manner of local businesses that took refuge here from the commercialism of the city and its blossomed as a refuge for artists, musicians and alternative business ventures. For administration purposes the residential figures for the area don't actually exist but it was recently awarded Great Neighbourhood of the Year 2011 at the Academy of Urbanism Awards in London.
The artist responsible for these beautiful ornamental birds is Guy Holder, a Brighton based sculpter. The idea is that although the exotic birds and pet shops of the area are gone, the birds are not - instead they escaped their demise and fled. They flew to the surrounding streets and made their homes there and now freely perch on old fire escape brackets and window ledges.
I'm glad they escaped their 'paradise' in the end, and that they've stuck around the neighbourhood.
Thanks to Sam Newiss for this image
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