Some details of another Doctor Fergo show, staged in 1977. Also an Arthur Berry poem/song.

The Potteries Post.

New on Past Track, Reconstruction of the Precinct of Croxden Abbey, circa 1340. Also its surrounding Lands.

Seemingly overlooked in the media reporting of the government’s Spring Statement on the public finances, public loos and nappy changing stations…

“Changing Places Fund – The government previously made £30 million available to Local Authorities in England to install life-enhancing Changing Places toilets in existing buildings. Spring Statement is allocating £25.3 million of the Fund to install over 500 life-enhancing Changing Places toilets, in public places and tourist attractions where users want them the most. This will dramatically increase accessibility for thousands of severely disabled people who need specialised facilities. An additional £6.5 million will be allocated to areas where there is little or no provision.”

There will also be many more coming. Because, as announced a few weeks ago… “All new public buildings must provide Changing Places toilets” by law. Sounds good, and sure to raise a cheer in Stoke-on-Trent.

Choice Latin sayings from Wild Yorkshire‘s 1963 school exercise book…

An eagle doesn’t eat flies.

Seize the wine!

Through adversity to the stars.

He’s wise as far as the beard (i.e. don’t be mislead by appearances)

They did things differently in 1963. These would likely be quietly ‘cancelled’ today before even reaching the classroom, for various reasons.

Right, the The Potteries Post is now launched and primed. Have at it, and please spread the word to those puzzled at why the Creative Stoke / Wild Stoke etc Groups have had to cease on Facebook.

When the RSS feed is viewed in a proper Web browser (e.g. Pale Moon) it can be read downward by eye, with most of the body-text included for each post…

The advantage of a blog over Facebook (or Twitter), is that it’s far more public and (eventually) gets into the keyword search-engines.

I’ve retro-fitted my old hyperlocal ‘good news from Stoke’ blog site with a new template and renamed it The Potteries Post. Seems as good a name as any, and doesn’t appear to conflict. Nothing to see there at present except the old 2018 items. But it will start to fill with the items I was previously posting on my Facebook Groups. Submit your own news by adding a comment, which will be held for moderation and consideration as before.

Facebook locked my account last night, and the 11th March 2022 deadline for response has already passed.

Looks like I have no choice but to leave Facebook.

This affects the large Facebook Groups ‘Creative Stoke’, ‘Wild Stoke’, ‘History of Stoke-on-Trent’, and the smaller groups ‘Folklore and Tales of North Staffordshire’, and ‘Pottering Around’.

I’ll be looking at alternative options today.

Jonathan Meades, mentioning Burslem in the latest edition of The Oldie magazine…

“[…] George ‘Metz’ Robinson, whose masterpiece, Burslem Town Hall, is not Gothic. It is not even ‘Modern Gothic’. It is ur-Victorian and belongs to no known school [of architectural design]. [‘Metz’ became a newspaper art critic, but as a journalist in his younger years] he was sent to cover the Franco-Prussian War and was banged up in Metz during the siege – hence his nickname.” [He and his fellow] artists were outsiders – not part of the web of local [municipal architectural] practitioners who, decade after decade, have questionably enjoyed the bulk of municipal and commercial patronage [and who as a class came to be so corrupt both financially and aesthetically in the 1960s and 70s. Robinson can be compared to the men of later 19th-century Birmingham, who in architecture] “developed an idiom that has no peer in England [and who succeeded in making] Birmingham unique in its creation of an arts-and-crafts urbanism” […] “It can hardly be labelled a movement, but there is an undeniable accord between buildings of different types and uses.”

His article is actually on Birmingham but, as usual with such things, south Birmingham relentlessly hogs all the limelight. The article never strays north of the city-centre’s Broad Street. There’s a whole other north Birmingham up there, about which a young Meades admirer might make a Meades-like video series.

Add one to the ‘famous people from Burslem’ lists.

Bernard Hollowood (1910-1981), born in Burslem, became a cartoonist and then the editor of Punch magazine from 1957 through 1968. The magazine is forgotten now except among the over-70s, but Punch was then the leading British humour and spot-cartoon magazine of the post-war period.

Old-style clay pipes on eBay, including one from Stoke-on-Trent. They look a bit too new to be antiques, but I suppose they might be if someone had saved them properly in a tin box.

Conserving Herefordshire’s Ice Age Ponds Project Conference. Wednesday 2nd March 2022 in Hereford.

Nice. Are they the only place in the West Midlands to have them, or are there also some in Staffordshire and Shropshire?