Realgrumpytyke

By Realgrumpytyke

A town of red brick - Dickens challenge DHT2 & 5

Today was the last day of this, the second, week's Dickens Challenge (thanks to hildasrose and Chantler63) and despite rain, sleet and snow, I was determined to do something with the quotation from Hard Times which has been taxing me all week:
"It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage."
The quotation struck a chord with me when I first read it as here in Yorkshire buildings were generally built in stone; I remember well the shock when I moved to the Midlands as a student and found myself surrounded by red brick.
I had fancied dressing Petronela in Victorian clothes and getting her to slide down the bannisters to take on:
“She was the most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from one storey to another was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea.”
but unfortunately no Victorian clothes were to hand.
I thought I would be forced to blip that which I thought the most obvious one to do, so I got soaked getting a couple of shots to cover this and I'm putting them as extras for:
“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.”
The first extra is the magnificent building which was built as the Mechanics Institute, in World Heritage village Saltaire, by Sir Titus Salt for his mill workers in 1851 (three years before Hard Times was published). The institute was where the mill workers could garner FACTS from the 'Mechanics', the qualified civil and mechanical engineers, in person through lectures and courses, etc, or in the library. Opposite to the building pictured is the village upper school, to which went one of my brothers and my sister, then the Salt Grammar School (long ago moved to a more modern building elsewhere).
The lion seen in front of the Institute, named War, is one of four, the others named Peace, Determination and Vengeance, reputedly originally designed for Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square. Be careful if you go there at night; they come down from their pedestals to go down to the river to drink.
The second extra is where I acquired some FACTS from five years old to eleven, the infants and primary schools. From seven years old I lived at the bottom of the road pictured, Albert Road (all the streets in the village are named after members of Queen Victoria's family or those of Sir Titus). The hill in the distance (not clear through the rain) was one of my childhood playgrounds. Up there is Shipley Glen, from where I blipped my Mum's seat on 13th January.

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.