I once read that a good therapy for anyone suffering from depression is to draw up a list of the good things in their life. I don't think I have ever been clinically depressed, if I have I haven't noticed it! However the idea a looking for the Silver Lining is a good one. I've been thinking about it and knowing me you won't be surprised that my mind wandered down the corridors of history.
In 1348 the good people of Barlick had every reason to be alarmed and depressed. They had gone through a period of bad harvests, remember that in those days there was no Cathedral of Choice or imported food, a community survived or perished on what could be grown or harvested locally. Even the wild food of the hedgerows and the small animals had diminished, everyone was at a low ebb mentally and physically. This was bad enough but then they were hit by the Black Death which killed between a third and a half of them. To add to their woes, it seemed that the spiritual anchor of the community had broken down. They had been taught that visitations like the Plague were a punishment of sins sent by God but they saw their priests dying as well. Did this mean that the holy men themselves were also sinners? What did this do for the authority of the Church? Taken all round they were in a pretty pickle with no obvious way out. They were not to know that the infection would burn itself out and spare more than half of them. As far as they were concerned death was just a matter of time. I doubt of anyone alive in Barlick at the time would have seen any upside to what was a dreadful situation but with the advantage of hindsight we now know that this catastrophe was actually the trigger for change which eventually transformed their lives.
The first advantage was that the land and its produce was not harmed, indeed there was to be an improvement in climate and much better harvests. There were less mouths to feed and so there was more food per head. The shock to the feudal system caused by the failure of the supply of labour meant that policies for managing the manor had to change. In order for the Lords to maximise the income from the Manor of Barnoldswick the Manorial Court moved towards favouring legal rented tenancies for land holdings instead of trying to work it themselves with a diminished labour force. They got a better return by encouraging individuals to use their initiative and produce more because they were working for themselves. This nod from the Lords encouraged the growth of the infant Domestic Textile System and by a coincidence coincided with increased demand for cloth. There was a good market for the produce from the land so the first tenants did well and developed into the yeoman farmers who were to be the backbone of the rural economy from then on.
There was another consequence for many feudal labourers. Worth noting that this didn't seem to apply as much to areas in the North of England where the textile industry had taken hold and gave additional income but in other areas the peasants did what up to then had been unthinkable. They migrated to other villages where there was income from hiring themselves out as waged labour. Instead of being tied by duty and custom to a Lord they were independent wage-earners. Many southern villages were deserted and never recovered. Theoretically this mobility was still illegal but the demand for labour was so high that the Lords themselves ignored the law and got workers from wherever they could. There were attempts by the government to stop this trend but the genie was out of the bottle and wage labour established as a practical reality. So, the catastrophe of the Black Death transformed the lives of the peasants and started off the long march to where we are today with an entrepreneurial class supporting workers paid money for their labour. Who'd have thought it? Modern Barlick was born out of death and disease.
Have you ever read 'Love on the Dole' by Walter Greenwood or seen the play? Walter was made redundant in the hard days of the 1930s and had to seek a new career once his apprenticeship at a local factory was terminated to save paying him a skilled man's wage. He went into journalism, wrote Love on the Dole and became world famous. How many miners, thrown out of work at the same time, gained in health by a long period of fresh air above ground and perhaps migrated to start a new career in parts of the country where things were better? Lots of people moved out of Barlick in the 1930s to the booming cities of the Midlands where they found well-paid jobs in the motor industry and stayed there. Remember me telling you the story of Arthur Entwistle? He was not alone.
All water under the bridge I know but are there any lessons for us today? After all we are facing ten years of austerity and falling incomes in a hard world. It may be that this will be a spur to change the way we consume and how we live our lives. I know of a local woman who, not long ago, faced with the necessity of earning money, turned what had been a hobby making cushions, into a business, first from a market stall then a small unit and she is now a supplier to a leading brand. I know another family who found that it was cheaper to work in lower paid jobs near home than run two cars. They are better off now than in their higher paid jobs out of town. I always remember a wealthy man telling me that it was cheaper to rear kids when you were poor because they didn't expect as much.
Some of us older ones have been here before and despite hard times we survived, reared families and are still alive and well. We learned to buy cheap but good food and cook it ourselves, we became expert at make do and mend, we even darned socks when there was a hole in them. So, if you're feeling the pinch, write that list, examine the options, remember the Black Death and if all else fails think of the pit ponies who were brought above ground when the mines closed and gambolled in the fields. There may be a Silver Lining, all you have to do is find it!
A medieval image of the Black Death. The birth of modern Barlick.