Dr Andrew Gritt reminded the society about living conditions in Industrial towns of Lancashire 1840-1950. There is no doubt that living and working conditions were difficult but Dr Gritt went to considerable lengths to make it clear that most of the written accounts from a range of mainly southern based writers were unfair and often untrue and at best were grossly exagerrated eg statements like’From Wolverhampton to Wallsend and St Helens to Sheffield were blighted landscapes’.with rivers heavily polluted for most of their lengths. THe talk was about getting thing into an accurate perspective. The writers of course wanted to maximise sales of their books,sordid stories achieved this aim.
Southerners took solace from the comparisons made and never did appreciate that the majority of northerners were good living family people who did work hard and were honest clean living, responsible family people many with deep religious beliefs.
Dr Gritt produced extracts from the writings of Tschilly Walter Greenwood George Orwell Dickens and the Bloomsbury Movement and others, where northerners were depicted as rogues vagabonds desperadoes savages with bestial habits etc. A member pointed out that the really poor and oppressed were the agricultural workers of the west country. The lecture was followed by a social evening and Dr Gritt was involved in lively conversation.
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