Professor Paul Salveson is a historian and writer and lives in Bolton. He is visiting professor in ‘Worktown Studies’ at the University of Bolton and author of several books on Lancashire history. Boltonians of a certain age will remember fondly the ‘day trip’ to Blackpool, by train. It has a history stretching back to the middle of the 19th century and was known for generations as ‘th’ chep (cheap) trip’. Allen Clarke, in his novels, poetry and dialect sketches wrote lovingly and realistically about it - an important part of life in Bolton and all of the Lancashire cotton towns.
Remembering the chep ride from Bolton to Blackpool theboltonnews.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theboltonnews.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Professor Paul Salveson is a historian and writer and lives in Bolton. He is visiting professor in ‘Worktown Studies’ at the University of Bolton and author of several books on Lancashire history including a biography of Allen Clarke and his latest production Moorlands, Memories and Reflections. He also owns The Bolton Bicycling Bookshop. How did our predecessors celebrate Christmas? There isn’t much written about how ordinary people in different parts of the country marked the festive season a century and more ago. We’re lucky in Bolton in having a writer who came from a mill worker’s family and wrote about - and for - his own people. That was Allen Clarke, better known by his pen-name ‘Teddy Ashton’. From 1892 until his death in 1935 he produced his ‘Lancashire Annual’ each Christmas, or ‘Kesmas’ in the dialect he used.