Thomas Armstrong was a writer of long Victorian melodramatic novels with the Crowthers of Bankdam his most well known after it was made into a film. I have his Pilling Always Pays in the Companion Book Club edition. Do book clubs still exist? It took a couple of minutes to find Bookclubdeals.com with list one 100 plus book clubs in the US and a dozen in the UK and the majority have subject categories.. I have always worried that not only hell will not have library but also heaven as there never time now to read all the books I would like. I do not like reading books on line though where it is possible top find adult and children's and the in between such as all Grimm's Fairy Tales.
The 1948 Film of the Crowther family called the Master of Bankdam and shows the progress of the family of a Mill owner in a Yorkshire wool town. As was often the case in the traditional mid Victorian family middle class family, the men run the business and participate in political matters, and the wife and mother rule the household and the affairs of the family. The head couple in the Crowther Household are content with their lives but differ over the outlook of their of their two sons. Zebediah is the business man with ruthless ambitious realist played by Stephen Murray while his brother Simeon, played by Tom Walls is the cloth designer romantic and idealist who falls in love with a mill girl and marries hers when she is pregnant, despite opposition by his mother who does not recognise the marriage for several years. His father however maintains contact and hands over responsibility for the mill to both sons making them partners. Zebediah then marries a one dimensional social climber with even more ambition than her husband. The action takes place during the period 1854-1867, when my mothers grand father was growing up in Calne and joining the army following the death of his parents within a matter of months of each other. I thought of Calne to day having received a note from the Local History Society.
The action then moves forward to 1882-1994 when the Mill is at its greatest success and the British industrial economy is in its heyday. Zebediah is achieving his and his wife ambitions first as a councillor and then as Mayor and it he who persuade Simeon and his father to put new heavy machines into the upper floors of the old mill allegedly on the advice of an architect and against their better judgement. Simeon's son, played by Jimmy Handley, and like his father is a hard worker and has learnt the business from the bottom upwards and is set to take over when grandfather and his two sons die, while Sebediah's son Lancelot Handel Crowther, played by David Tomlinson is a social gadfly, as is snobbish sister who with their mother is contemptuous of work people and the factory worlds upon which their wealth and social status has been built. Fearing that this will mean Simeon junior having a clear run as owner of the enterprise in time, Zebediah forces his son into working in the factory.
The rivalry between the two brothers continues and Simeon senior humiliates his brother follow and attempt undermine a work programme which will enhance his brother's status and Zebediah makes it his main ambition to destroy his brother. The opportunity arises when the misguided location of the new power looms causes the building to collapse with loss of life although Simeon senior is caught up Zebediah ensure that he loses his life and this enables him to put the blame for the catastrophe on his dead brother and this gives him and his son the supper hand in the business, specially when the grandfather discover the truth but has a heart attack caused by Zebediah when he attempts to tell the truth.
The final part of the films occurs during the period 1908 1921, when my birth and foster mothers were children and my mother became a pupil teacher during world war one. Simeon junior has discovered the truth but leaves Zebediah to his conscience. Zebediah then becomes ill with a rare heart condition and goes to Vienna handing over responsibility for the business to his son who under the influences of his mother spends money, runs the factory into ground causes a strike and brings ruination on everyone. Fortunately Zebediah returns recovered just in time and makes Simeon junior the Master of Bankdam. The reason why the book went to several reprints and the film has had periodic showing is the ending where there is a sense of justice despite evil causing harm. It shows the extent to which wealthy men tend to make their money and gain power by exploiting their workforce and consumers, even if they are not engaged in outright criminal activity. In the book and film Zebediah gains the Mayoralty by giving generously to found the new hospital wing with money available because the new looms are placed in the old an unsafe building which destroys and maims lives yet the hospital also does, so whatever the motives behind its building it will save many more lives than were lost in the mill collapse. But tell that to the families to lost relatives in the collapse.
The main work of the day was to load the new external drive software and commence the creation of new DVDs for the photograph presently on all my active computer system with separate disks for Development, Creative, Event This work well on computer one but not on computer two where for some reason the device has not registered although it did for computer three. More work tomorrow as I attend other project work and to household records
The second film of the day was also conventional in that it featured good and bad men although had unusual twist as its beginning. The Hanged Man 1974 is the story of a gun fighter in the old West convicted for murder and sentenced to death although he was not guilty of the crime which was self defence. An atheist he rejects the help of a Mexican priest but somehow managed to survive after pronounced dead. When he regains his ability speak he asks the priest what happened to Lazarus after his resurrection and the priest explains that the bible does not say.
On his way out of town he comes across the son of a recent local widow who husband was killed by the town baddie who wants to buy up all the competitive local mines one way or the other. He help the boy who his bitten by a snake and then stays on to help the widow resist the baddie. The inevitable confrontation occurs although the baddie baddie effectively kills himself and the reformed baddie rides off for further adventures as the legend begins!
Two new Takeaway delivery leaflets arrived to day. The Godfather 0191 420 2727 has established in Whiteleas Way which is close the former residential Home at Bolden. Whiteleas used to be a Council run uniform estate of houses with gardens establish post 1945 for primarily mine workers and their families. I was taken by the Chairman of the South Tyneside Social Services Committee to meet the Committee of the Social Club which was within his council constituency early on in my appointment on a Sunday lunch time where the main event was a bingo game at the end of the bingo session where the prize was more than a week's wages. It was an unexpected experience with two floors of the club occupied by men quietly drinking one or two pints and reading Sunday papers. Sunday lunch was around between two and three pm with one of the 1000 or so households celebrating and others being given a treat which choice cuts if meats and other practical prizes. This new service offers an Al Capone, Lucky Lucciano, Don Corleone and an Antonio Montana. The other new takeaway is exclusively Indian in Quarry Lane which as the street name indicates is on the way to Marsden Quarry which overlooks the coast, Marsden By and the Marsden Rock. The Quarry Lane Tandoori was established in1993 0191456959 and that both leaflets have been delivered from the southern end of South Shields indicates that hard times have come again and that more and more people are going for cheap food buys to make up more of their own meals rather than eat out or send for the ready made. I liked the price grid of the Tandoori which has 24 dishes on one column and forms of dishes and nine forms of content on the other with vegetable based at £3 to King prawn at £5.30.
The main event of the evening was Question Time where there was a very pushy Tory young women who had evidently been strongly coached by the political central office and who reminded me of a fired up Sarah Palin and surprise surprise said she bumped into the Shadow Chancellor earlier in the day. The exchanges were predicable apart from business men praising the quality and application of the workers from Europe, especially from countries such as Poland and the idleness and lack of ability of a percentage of school leavers. Instead of a British working class we have created a work-shy class and in some instances a scum class..
Then it was the turn of Michael Portillo the cultured and thinking man's Tory and Diane Abbot who likes to hit at windmills while flying back and forth between her constituency and the West Indies. Andrew Neil and his crew had decorated the set as the inside of the Yacht and I thought the location of the boat tied up a marina for the political take on the week looked family which turned out to be docklands on the Thames. Obviously if one does not want to meet top politicians when on holiday the place to go is Corfu for the next year or to. Both programmes concentrated on the lack of judgement of the Shadow Chancellor, and the attempt to obscure the fact that a grant was being seriously considered. For once Diane Abbot did not have an ear to the media rather than the back stairs, nearly said back stabbings, of Westminster ,for she did not know that the Tory party had set the upper limit for an individual donation at £50000. It was evident from Question Time that all the political Parties are now intent on making as much mischief as they can over the revelations especially if the Electoral Commission continues to say that it has no evidence which means that the author of the letter to the Time is either unwilling to provide proof in the form of affidavits, or this is being held over for a Sunday Paper or TV exclusive. Diane Abbot's forecast that the appointment of Lord Mandelson to the government will end in tears has his record behind the assertion but Michael P drew attention that Westminster had become colourful again and while the opposition parties and his enemies within the Labour Party will go for him hook line and sinker and the media will rant whenever possible they all appear not to appreciate what his return in a Brown government will mean for the Party at the next General Election campaign, or perhaps they do and that is the problem. Meanwhile there is growing acceptance that Brown has led the rest of the capitalist world in a solution to the banking crisis which will bring him much personal self confidence and recognition abroad but as with Tony and his establishment as a world statesman it will not cut much ice back home, such is the nature of politics in the UK.
The 1948 Film of the Crowther family called the Master of Bankdam and shows the progress of the family of a Mill owner in a Yorkshire wool town. As was often the case in the traditional mid Victorian family middle class family, the men run the business and participate in political matters, and the wife and mother rule the household and the affairs of the family. The head couple in the Crowther Household are content with their lives but differ over the outlook of their of their two sons. Zebediah is the business man with ruthless ambitious realist played by Stephen Murray while his brother Simeon, played by Tom Walls is the cloth designer romantic and idealist who falls in love with a mill girl and marries hers when she is pregnant, despite opposition by his mother who does not recognise the marriage for several years. His father however maintains contact and hands over responsibility for the mill to both sons making them partners. Zebediah then marries a one dimensional social climber with even more ambition than her husband. The action takes place during the period 1854-1867, when my mothers grand father was growing up in Calne and joining the army following the death of his parents within a matter of months of each other. I thought of Calne to day having received a note from the Local History Society.
The action then moves forward to 1882-1994 when the Mill is at its greatest success and the British industrial economy is in its heyday. Zebediah is achieving his and his wife ambitions first as a councillor and then as Mayor and it he who persuade Simeon and his father to put new heavy machines into the upper floors of the old mill allegedly on the advice of an architect and against their better judgement. Simeon's son, played by Jimmy Handley, and like his father is a hard worker and has learnt the business from the bottom upwards and is set to take over when grandfather and his two sons die, while Sebediah's son Lancelot Handel Crowther, played by David Tomlinson is a social gadfly, as is snobbish sister who with their mother is contemptuous of work people and the factory worlds upon which their wealth and social status has been built. Fearing that this will mean Simeon junior having a clear run as owner of the enterprise in time, Zebediah forces his son into working in the factory.
The rivalry between the two brothers continues and Simeon senior humiliates his brother follow and attempt undermine a work programme which will enhance his brother's status and Zebediah makes it his main ambition to destroy his brother. The opportunity arises when the misguided location of the new power looms causes the building to collapse with loss of life although Simeon senior is caught up Zebediah ensure that he loses his life and this enables him to put the blame for the catastrophe on his dead brother and this gives him and his son the supper hand in the business, specially when the grandfather discover the truth but has a heart attack caused by Zebediah when he attempts to tell the truth.
The final part of the films occurs during the period 1908 1921, when my birth and foster mothers were children and my mother became a pupil teacher during world war one. Simeon junior has discovered the truth but leaves Zebediah to his conscience. Zebediah then becomes ill with a rare heart condition and goes to Vienna handing over responsibility for the business to his son who under the influences of his mother spends money, runs the factory into ground causes a strike and brings ruination on everyone. Fortunately Zebediah returns recovered just in time and makes Simeon junior the Master of Bankdam. The reason why the book went to several reprints and the film has had periodic showing is the ending where there is a sense of justice despite evil causing harm. It shows the extent to which wealthy men tend to make their money and gain power by exploiting their workforce and consumers, even if they are not engaged in outright criminal activity. In the book and film Zebediah gains the Mayoralty by giving generously to found the new hospital wing with money available because the new looms are placed in the old an unsafe building which destroys and maims lives yet the hospital also does, so whatever the motives behind its building it will save many more lives than were lost in the mill collapse. But tell that to the families to lost relatives in the collapse.
The main work of the day was to load the new external drive software and commence the creation of new DVDs for the photograph presently on all my active computer system with separate disks for Development, Creative, Event This work well on computer one but not on computer two where for some reason the device has not registered although it did for computer three. More work tomorrow as I attend other project work and to household records
The second film of the day was also conventional in that it featured good and bad men although had unusual twist as its beginning. The Hanged Man 1974 is the story of a gun fighter in the old West convicted for murder and sentenced to death although he was not guilty of the crime which was self defence. An atheist he rejects the help of a Mexican priest but somehow managed to survive after pronounced dead. When he regains his ability speak he asks the priest what happened to Lazarus after his resurrection and the priest explains that the bible does not say.
On his way out of town he comes across the son of a recent local widow who husband was killed by the town baddie who wants to buy up all the competitive local mines one way or the other. He help the boy who his bitten by a snake and then stays on to help the widow resist the baddie. The inevitable confrontation occurs although the baddie baddie effectively kills himself and the reformed baddie rides off for further adventures as the legend begins!
Two new Takeaway delivery leaflets arrived to day. The Godfather 0191 420 2727 has established in Whiteleas Way which is close the former residential Home at Bolden. Whiteleas used to be a Council run uniform estate of houses with gardens establish post 1945 for primarily mine workers and their families. I was taken by the Chairman of the South Tyneside Social Services Committee to meet the Committee of the Social Club which was within his council constituency early on in my appointment on a Sunday lunch time where the main event was a bingo game at the end of the bingo session where the prize was more than a week's wages. It was an unexpected experience with two floors of the club occupied by men quietly drinking one or two pints and reading Sunday papers. Sunday lunch was around between two and three pm with one of the 1000 or so households celebrating and others being given a treat which choice cuts if meats and other practical prizes. This new service offers an Al Capone, Lucky Lucciano, Don Corleone and an Antonio Montana. The other new takeaway is exclusively Indian in Quarry Lane which as the street name indicates is on the way to Marsden Quarry which overlooks the coast, Marsden By and the Marsden Rock. The Quarry Lane Tandoori was established in1993 0191456959 and that both leaflets have been delivered from the southern end of South Shields indicates that hard times have come again and that more and more people are going for cheap food buys to make up more of their own meals rather than eat out or send for the ready made. I liked the price grid of the Tandoori which has 24 dishes on one column and forms of dishes and nine forms of content on the other with vegetable based at £3 to King prawn at £5.30.
The main event of the evening was Question Time where there was a very pushy Tory young women who had evidently been strongly coached by the political central office and who reminded me of a fired up Sarah Palin and surprise surprise said she bumped into the Shadow Chancellor earlier in the day. The exchanges were predicable apart from business men praising the quality and application of the workers from Europe, especially from countries such as Poland and the idleness and lack of ability of a percentage of school leavers. Instead of a British working class we have created a work-shy class and in some instances a scum class..
Then it was the turn of Michael Portillo the cultured and thinking man's Tory and Diane Abbot who likes to hit at windmills while flying back and forth between her constituency and the West Indies. Andrew Neil and his crew had decorated the set as the inside of the Yacht and I thought the location of the boat tied up a marina for the political take on the week looked family which turned out to be docklands on the Thames. Obviously if one does not want to meet top politicians when on holiday the place to go is Corfu for the next year or to. Both programmes concentrated on the lack of judgement of the Shadow Chancellor, and the attempt to obscure the fact that a grant was being seriously considered. For once Diane Abbot did not have an ear to the media rather than the back stairs, nearly said back stabbings, of Westminster ,for she did not know that the Tory party had set the upper limit for an individual donation at £50000. It was evident from Question Time that all the political Parties are now intent on making as much mischief as they can over the revelations especially if the Electoral Commission continues to say that it has no evidence which means that the author of the letter to the Time is either unwilling to provide proof in the form of affidavits, or this is being held over for a Sunday Paper or TV exclusive. Diane Abbot's forecast that the appointment of Lord Mandelson to the government will end in tears has his record behind the assertion but Michael P drew attention that Westminster had become colourful again and while the opposition parties and his enemies within the Labour Party will go for him hook line and sinker and the media will rant whenever possible they all appear not to appreciate what his return in a Brown government will mean for the Party at the next General Election campaign, or perhaps they do and that is the problem. Meanwhile there is growing acceptance that Brown has led the rest of the capitalist world in a solution to the banking crisis which will bring him much personal self confidence and recognition abroad but as with Tony and his establishment as a world statesman it will not cut much ice back home, such is the nature of politics in the UK.
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