WHILE I WAS AWAY….

[Stanley]

WHILE I WAS AWAY….

25 August 2002

I’ve been away for a couple of months and one of the first things I did on my return was to walk round the town centre and check how well you’ve been looking after it. I freely admit that I have been homesick and couldn’t wait to get back to a place where I knew so many people and there were no biting insects and tornados! Have you ever noticed how easy it is to notice things about people, especially children, when you haven’t seen them for a while? Exactly the same thing happened to me with Barlick. As I walked down Rainhall Road for my papers (and ten weeks worth of BET) I noticed that Tom Ward’s tailor’s shop had gone and had become a toyshop. I have to admit that I never patronised Tom’s shop, I’m not really a suit person but if it’s the same bloke I remember him when he worked at Sough, Bristol Tractors I think, and served him many a time when we had the shop there.
Later the same day I was walking down Newtown and realised with a shock that the artificial tan business must be booming. A second look showed that I was mistaken, they had simply moved into what used to be Elmer’s ironmonger’s shop on the corner. Another for sale sign confirmed what I already knew from a conversation I had with David Riley some months ago, my favourite butcher’s shop had gone as well. There can be few retail trades that have had as much pressure on them in the last couple of years as butcher’s shops. Apart from the slump in trade caused by the various scares about meat they have had to cope with a flood of new regulations and increasingly restricted slaughtering facilities. 100 years ago there was a slaughterhouse next door to Riley’s shop and more facilities down the Butts. If you wanted the suet from a beast you just asked for it, in a modern slaughterhouse any request like this slows the production line down and special requests aren’t appreciated. So, it doesn’t surprise me that Geoff and David have had enough. Good luck to them and thanks for forty years of superb service and wonderful meat. It would be natural to think that the Riley trade will go to the other butchers and help them survive but I have my doubts. When I ran the engine at Bancroft and we heard of another mill closure we never expected it to improve our trade, the demand seemed to evaporate completely. I asked Sidney Nutter why this was and he told me he never understood it either, it had always been the same. I suspect the same mechanism might apply to butcher’s shops, most people will simply buy at the supermarket.
The bottom line is that within a year we have lost a tailor, an ironmonger and a butcher. Ponder on this when I have one of my occasional rants about Barlick losing its character and becoming a dormitory town. It may be that the world is changing and I’m not keeping up but I can’t help feeling sad about the changes. I will defend to the death the right of people to open nail replacement establishments, tanning salons, hairdressing shops and crystal emporiums but these changes look to me like symptoms of an ailing town centre and that can’t do anyone any good.
On a similar note my picture this week is a sad one. It is the flower beds at what used to be Rainhall Road School. They are an overgrown, neglected mess and a terrible advertisement for the town. Just imagine you are a stranger coming into Barlick and one of the most prominent buildings right on a junction that is a gateway to the town is obviously in decline. The question I asked myself is would the Chief Executive of Lancashire County Council allow this to happen to flower beds outside County Hall? Of course not! So why allow it to happen in Barlick? The school may be redundant but the county council still owns the property and are responsible for the mess. Could it be anything to do with the fact that we are a long way from Preston and they don’t have to put up with it? What’s the story with the school anyway, are we still allowing it to deteriorate until, shock horror, someone finds dry rot and it has to be demolished? I know there is supposed to be a ‘consultative process’ going on to determine future use but I have grave misgivings about it all. I think it’s about time we stood up and started putting pressure on.
I was watching the BET website while I was in the States and was very pleased when I saw that the town’s efforts had paid off and Cravenside was to be retained. I also noticed that the majority of the other care homes were to go so in a way it’s a hollow victory for anyone outside Barlick and that makes me sad. The lesson is that we all need to be vigilant and to speak up when we see anything we don’t like. Through taxes and rates, we pay for these facilities and it is a denial of our rights when decisions are forced on us.
There is one item I have to go back to. When I did the piece about ‘Ticky Tock’, the Burnley Ironworks engine at Clough Mill, I wasn’t sure about the engineer’s name. I have had a phone call from a lady in Salterforth who tells me it was George Hoggarth and she has a copy of the same picture that Newton Pickles gave me. As usual, thanks for your support. Any questions or comments will be welcome, I’m always pleased to hear from you.

25 August 2002