READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY?

[Stanley]

I'm in the Baltic with 'The Commodore', only two to go.......

[Stanley]

I'm on the last story..... Not good!

[Stanley]

Hornblower finished so I'm going back a 100 years and I'm going to read Trevelyan on the Stuarts and then the 19th century. Modern history has overtaken the Old Master in many ways but it's still worth reading him.

[Stanley]

Started on Trevelyan and the Stuarts. Still good informative writing over 100 years after it was published. Lovely old-fashioned style of writing, crystal clear and accurate.

[Stanley]

Trevelyan is surprisingly modern. He wrote this over 100 years ago when talking about the 17th century apprentice laws.
"Seven years was a needlessly long period...... Yet for all its faults the system maintained the best trade traditions, supplied domestic discipline generally at a time when it was most wanting, trained the hand, the eye and the mind and afforded a technical education on a natural economic base which no diminution of the revenue or of the rates and no lapse of educational enthusiasm, could in the slightest degree affect."
Just as true today as it was then.

[Stanley]

Trevelyan going down well. Old fashioned it may be but he gives a very clear account of a complicated subject sticking to the facts. We can still learn from him.

[Stanley]

Finished Trevelyan on the Stuarts. I've got a better overall picture now. I have started on his book on the 19th century, 1782 to 1919 so he could include Pitt at the beginning and WW1 at the end. When I've soaked him up I'll start on the biographies of eminent politicians which I have been saving for retirement!

[Stanley]

I'm re-reading Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall. A good book will always stand a second visit!

[Tripps]

After the Schwabes chimney post a while ago on steeplejacks. I looked into the family and found a book called "The Water Doctors Daughters", by Pauline Conolly. . It's about a 'cause celebre' in the 19th century involving Julia Schwabe wife of the guy that built the chimney. The book is good, but it's worth mentioning that it is physically exceptional. I usually buy second hand books from abebooks, some good, some not so good, but this one is pristine - perfect dust jacket, amazing silky paper quality, and wherever you open it - it lies perfectly flat. A thing of beauty in itself. You don't get that with a Kindle.

Working well tonight - Cimarosa Chardonnay Columbard, South Africa 2012 is the secret.

[Stanley]

Good lad David. I've ordered it simply because of the Schwab connection....

[missmarple]

After the Schwabes chimney post a while ago on steeplejacks. I looked into the family and found a book called "The Water Doctors Daughters", by Pauline Conolly. . It's about a 'cause celebre' in the 19th century involving Julia Schwabe wife of the guy that built the chimney. The book is good, but it's worth mentioning that it is physically exceptional. I usually buy second hand books from abebooks, some good, some not so good, but this one is pristine - perfect dust jacket, amazing silky paper quality, and wherever you open it - it lies perfectly flat. A thing of beauty in itself. You don't get that with a Kindle.

Hi Tripps

I am the author of The Water Doctor's Daughters. Glad you enjoyed it, and I agree that Robert Hale produced a very fine quality book. It will be released for Kindle next March, but like you, I much prefer 'tree books'. Also, thanks for passing on the word, it's a difficult road for authors these days!
If you are agreeable, I would like to use your comments on my website.
Kind regards
missmarple



Working well tonight - Cimarosa Chardonnay Columbard, South Africa 2012 is the secret.

[Stanley]

Morning Pauline! Welcome to the site. You'll be pleased to know that I finished my re-read of Hilary Mantel, Bring up the bodies', yesterday and started on your book. Ian is right, production is superb, particularly the quality of the paper and the crisp reproduction of the images.
I've already got my next reading lined up. I've decided to go back to my old friend Samuel Smiles and re-read his lives of the engineers and other related books. These were the books that first turned me on to industrial archaeology when I read them while recovering from a bad accident in my wagon driving days. Years later I got a full set of five volumes but gave these away to my mate Steve as his payment for being my literary executor. I had some of the books in taty condition but readable and decided to get the others so I could do a complete re-read. Two of the volumes were print on demand paperbacks made by automatic scanning and they are terrible! I wouldn't even attempt to read them. I have just been back in Bookfinder and found two hardback reading copies of Vols 1&4. If anyone wants to try the two paperbacks just give a shout and call in, they're yours!

[missmarple]

Hi Stanley
Hope you enjoy The Water Doctor's Daughters. It's an incredible, albeit tragic story, regardless of me as author. If you are interested in the Schwabe family, there is a professor of history at Kentucky university called James Albisetti who is writing a biography of Julie and Salis. I think it will be published soon.

Best
Pauline

www.paulineconolly.com

[Stanley]

I'm well into the book now and it's a good read. Have recommended it to a friend of mine who has connections with the Schwabes in Middleton and Florence Nightingale (He lived in her house near Matlock).

By the way, it would be a good idea if I blew the whistle on the publishers of the badly scanned paperbacks. It's a firm called general-books.net, don't touch them with a barge pole! I was reminded because the postie just delivered a beautiful leather bound 1904 edition by John Murray. Green leather and gold tooling, in lovely condition. When you compare it with General Books version you realise that to do what they did is very close to fraud.

[Tripps]

"I am the author of The Water Doctor's Daughters. Glad you enjoyed it, and I agree that Robert Hale produced a very fine quality book. It will be released for Kindle next March, but like you, I much prefer 'tree books'. Also, thanks for passing on the word, it's a difficult road for authors these days!
If you are agreeable, I would like to use your comments on my website.
Kind regards
missmarple"

Hello Pauline - lovely to meet you, and yes of course you can use the comments. 'In Vinum Veritas', as one of our members often says.
It's Chateaneuf de Cadburys at the moment to avoid further extravagant comments. Isn't the internet in general, and this site in particular wonderful? Good that Stanley likes the book, and has given it his imprimatur. He's written quite a few books himself, which can easily be found on lulu.com.

[missmarple]

Thanks Tripps! I will check out Stanley's books.
Are you aware of the community website Middletonia? There is quite a bit on the Schwabe family there, with a picture of the factory chimney etc. Here is a link to the site, via an article I wrote for them involving the Marsden case re Julia Schwabe and the Manchester MP Richard Cobden.
http://www.middletonia.co.uk/localhisto ... hwabe.html
Best
Pauline

[Tripps]

Yes - that's where I first found your book. It all began on the Steeplejack thread page 13 dated 21 Sep 2013. Worth a look. Stanley was involved and he said -
"The reason I took an interest in Swabs was because my mate Robert wanted to add it to his collection of redundant chimneys. He asked Peter Tatham to ladder it and wanted my opinion. The bait was that the owners would sell it for a tenner and include the small piece of land it stood on. It took me a while to convince him to forget it. Too close to the road and potentially too expensive to maintain. There were a lot of problems. The main one I identified was the poor internal condition of the flues under the road and it was unclear whose responsibility they were. You could hear the traffic going over the top and flakes of brickwork were falling! I was asked by Bernstein's to put a scheme up for safe demolition and I recommended putting a tramway in the main flue, dropping the bricks internally and packing them in the main flue back to the boiler house. I cubed the brickwork up and most of the stack would have fitted in there but nothing was ever done. I think it banked a couple of men before Ben took it on and his solution was to scaffold it internally and drop the bricks off the back of the stack onto the spare ground. I think H&S made him scaffold it more securely. Big problem was that to do it his way, all the bricks had to be carried round to the back, not a big problem at the head but the more you took off the further you had to carry them. Ben started in 1979 and I think it was 1982 before he finished."

I love the idea that Salis was a Unitarian Jew. Perhaps a good role model for later immigrants to follow? I think there's a film in all this sort of thing somewhere.

[Stanley]

Pauline, you'll find a lot about 'Swab's Chimney' on Steeplejack's Corner.



There's a clue on the cover to how bad this book is!



Compare this copy that arrived yesterday. Love the fact that it has the Manchester Coat of Arms in gold leaf on the cover. Not sure why as it doesn't seem to be ex libris.

[Stanley]

I finished Pauline's book yesterday and it's very good, if a harrowing read. It's a valuable snapshot of some of the least desirable aspects of Victorian society and of course extended even to the royal family. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in the social history of the period.



I have a story for you about this book. I used to meet Asa Brigg occasionally at David Moore's dinner parties at Gawthorpe in the great days when it was under his care. We always got on well and David knew this and used to seat us next to each other. Asa was always interested in my experience running Bancroft Mill and he consulted me when he was writing 'The Power of Steam'. I put him in contact with Daniel Meadows who supplied Asa with images of Bancroft and he used some of mine as well. One thing that was exercising him was the design of the front cover and I suggested he got a brass name plate made like the ones that makers put on their engines. He did so and you can see the result above.
The book is typical of the pot-boilers that Asa was doing at the time, a coffee table book rather than a serious academic exercise. This might be the reason why, in some cases the editing left something to be desired. in particular the image of the rope drive at Bancroft which was printed upside down (p. 99).
Several years later I was talking to Asa and he let slip the fact that despite promises made to him the publishers had never given him the original brass name plate that had been used for the cover. I took it on myself to write a couple of letters and about 12 months later I got a nice letter from Lord Brigg telling me that he had got a surprise in the post. Someone had evidently taken notice and the name plate went back to Asa.
Books have a life of their own and this is often concealed. In this case I thought it was worth recording what happened and the outcome. (And it gave me a chance to do some name-dropping!)

[Stanley]

Started my re-read of Smiles yesterday and was happily immersed in my favourite 18th C engineers, Brindley and Smeaton for starters.... For years Smiles was regarded as an eccentric biographer but then it became clear that he was remarkably accurate and had evidently had access to contemporaries. I always liked and trusted him and am pleased that these days he gets wider recognition. He deserves it because he was chronicling men who otherwise would have remained anonymous. If you want to have a look, there's a single volume abbreviated edition called 'Lives of the Engineers'. The originals have the same title but also volume numbers.

[missmarple]

Hi Stanley
Oh dear, I can see what you mean about the quality of that paperback! Until now, Robert Hale have delayed publishing
books with illustrations as ebooks. However, they are hoping the technology has improved and that the pics will appear successfully. We shall see

I read an excerpt of the book about your father and was most interested. My WIP is about a shell-shocked Tasmanian soldier who was at the dawn landing at Gallipoli and then went on to fight in France. There is a parallel story about his RMO, who dodged Gallipoli and returned home. He turned out to be a completely bogus doctor, but went on to become surgeon Superintendent if the Hobart General Hospital!! Strange but true.

Best
Pauline

[Stanley]

Pauline, it always intrigued me that so many Aussies enlisted under assumed names in WW1. I don't know whether you picked up the fact that when we really started digging we found that almost everything he told us about his war service was a legend! He actually spent almost all the war in dock with the worst case of clap ever! You'll find the book on Lulu.com. 'An Australian Life'.

[Stanley]

Happily immersed in Lives of the Engineers. So nice to revisit Smiles and confirm that my early impressions of the value of his work was right. Apart from anyting else it's such good social history.

[Stanley]

I've had a quick try-out and the days of reading without glasses have gone forever. However, my El Cheapo readers work fine and even at this early stage it's far clearer than it was. Looking good.

[Stanley]

Reading gets better every day. Smiles was interrupted by the arrival of this week's Private Eye but I'm back into roads and bridges now in Volume 1 of Lives of the Engineers'.