Birds in the Great Frost in early 1895

Here is a memory of old Stoke, when Boothen was still meadows. Describing local birdlife during the bitter cold of a two week Great Frost in early 1895...

"Stoke Churchyard in front of my house was the rendezvous of a large number of sparrows, a good many rooks, a few starlings and chaffinches, and a robin or two. We fed them daily and derived great pleasure from observing their movements. Since the adjacent rookery was destroyed rooks only visit the Churchyard in severe weather. My brother noted a jackdaw early one morning, and this record is interesting as I have hitherto never observed this species in the Churchyard except during the breeding season. About half-adozen years ago a small colony came to the Church Tower and nested for several seasons in succession. For two or three years back, however, none have been seen. One sunny day at noon, towards the middle of January, a golden plover flew over the Churchyard at a very low altitude, uttering its beautiful soft clear whistle. It circled round as if about to alight, but at last flew off towards Boothen meadows."

"During the week of open weather about the middle of January, I observed two swans on the canal by the Stoke sewage farm." (the implication of the mention is that they were then a great rarity in Stoke)... "On the 7th of February my brother saw a blue tit in Shelton — quite [remarkable for being seen] in the heart of the Potteries." ... "By far the most interesting of our feathered visitors was the snow bunting, a specimen of which was shot on January 22nd at Cliffe Ville, close to Stoke, whilst feeding in company with some larks." ... "On the 21st January a kittiwake gull was picked up in an exhausted condition in Stoke meadows, and died soon afterwards. On [an] excessively severe [cold] morning, early in February, I observed five rooks at Trentham, each perched on a sheep's back. ... close association with sheep was a marked habit with them throughout the cold weather." ... "Mr Holdcroft's son found a rook with its wings frozen to its body. It was not dead, and he carried it home."

— North Staffordshire Naturalists' Field Club, Annual Report and Transactions, 1895.

Ukip plans a win in Stoke-on-Trent Central

Though I don't have any special affection for conservative vote-splitters like Ukip, this is interesting. "Ukip targets trophy seats" (The Times, 9th Dec 2016, $ paywall) because they can probably win the seat with someone like Nigel Farage...

The party will look to oust “trophy” targets such as Tristram Hunt, who is viewed by Ukip insiders as a figurehead of the metropolitan liberal elite ... the party is ready to scrap the “scattergun” approach [to focus] on a far smaller number of seats ... Ukip came second last year in his [Hunt's] staunchly Eurosceptic seat, Stoke-on-Trent Central, where 65 per cent voted Leave in June.

The city as a whole voted for Brexit by 69.4%, with Newcastle-under-Lyme at 63%...

Incidentally, there's a debunking of Hunt's claim — made a few days ago at Stoke Minster — that here in the Midlands we built the Industrial Revolution with the profits of the slave trade.

Labour wasn't walking

There are actually around twice as many footpaths in Stoke-on-Trent, compared to what Labour had mapped...

From a Staffordshire Ramblers report for April 2016.

Hartshill twinkles

Hartshill twinkles, and not only because all the Stoke MP's have seen sense at long last and have just voted for Brexit...

A community group has helped to brighten up a neighbourhood with Christmas lights after being awarded £10,000. Hartshill and Harpfields Occasions (HAHO) has strung up decorations on trees at the top of Hartshill Road towards Newcastle town centre to help bring some festive cheer to the area. It comes after members were given the money from the Big Lottery Fund – Celebrate England.

"Penkhull in the 1960s" - free screening

"Penkhull in the 1960s" is a free screening at the Stoke Film Theatre, set for Wednesday 1st February 2017 (7.30pm for a 7.45pm start)...

"Penkhull is a picturesque village within our city. Fifty years ago it underwent great changes physically – caught on film by Alan Dodd. Historian Richard Talbot MBE comments on newly digitised films showing the old Penkhull, a period of brutal demolition and new building – and extracts from some of his own documentary videos."

Richard Talbot's full film is two hours long and documents in detail the wanton destruction of Penkhull in the 1960s by the City Council. A DVD...

"can be obtained from price £12.95 (£15.00 inc. P&P, overseas £20) by mailing richard.talbot88@btinternet.com "

Not sure if he takes PayPal via that address, or not. I'd imagine there may well be DVD copies on sale at the Film Theatre screening in February, but that's just my guess.

I'd say we need a similarly pinpoint and well-researched documentary on Brendan Nevin and the Labour City Council, in relation the destruction of Middleport and other parts of Stoke-on-Trent in the 2000s, if anyone is looking for a good topic for an investigative historical documentary...

Stationary Road

"Public consultation starts on University Quarter improvements". Oooh gosh, look at them pretty pictures of Stoke train station and the Leek Road...

Er... hang on a second. So, where did all the heavy traffic go in those pictures? The noise, the fumes, the roaring buses, frazzled taxi-drivers, the continual stream of cars? Are they planning to put it all into a tunnel or something? Er, no, it seems not. Actually the traffic seems to be set to get heavier and faster...

"Key elements include increasing capacity at Joiners Square roundabout and changes to the Leek Road/Station Road junction to reduce queuing ... [(implying increased speed and volume of traffic) and] widen Leek Road" (my emphases)

So they're effectively lying with those ridiculous pictures, by not showing the heavy traffic. Traffic that it seems is going to get even heavier than it is now. Who are they hoping to fool? Surely not the local Planning Committee, who must be savvy to such wool-pulling. Presumably it's the local residents who they think are gullible, and who they're worried are going to write letters of objection.

Kudos to the Council and the University for trying to do something with the area, I suppose, but certainly not for trying to fool the public into believing that the scheme will make the traffic vanish or the area safer or nicer for pedestrians. Such behaviour recalls the worst propaganda excesses of the Labour years in Stoke, and it should be firmly stamped on by the current Council as they try to take the city forward in an honest manner.

So, increased traffic. But at peak times Station Road and related bits are already a car-centric nightmare to walk, with a few concessions to pedestrians here and there (45% of Stoke households do not have access to a car: ONS). It's not a pleasant road for drivers, either. The journey times for a car to get down the short ⅓-mile stretch of Station Road are already long, with The Sentinel newspaper reporting in June that...

"It is horrendous. It can take you 20 minutes to get down Station Road."

This problem doesn't seem likely to be fixed by their plan to simply move the short-stay parking spaces from directly outside the station, down the same road to a spot barely thirty yards away... "next to the taxi rank and the rear car park" (that's a Sentinel-ism — the journalist should have written the "side" car park). It might make the first glimpse of the city very slightly prettier for the traveller leaving Stoke station, but over time increased traffic seems likely to eat up most of the time savings that arise from moving the short-stay parking spaces.

There probably will be a speed boost, resulting from moving the short-stay parking places and speeding up junctions. But it seems very likely to be a temporary boost — any effect will likely be swamped by the rise in overall vehicle traffic as the city's economy grows further...

"Stoke-on-Trent has seen the biggest increase in rush hour congestion, at 44%." [among UK cities, according to the 2015 Traffic Index from TomTom]

As well as growing congestion, the overall volume of traffic is also growing — the city's Local Transport Plan 2011-2026 forecast a total of 94,280 peak-time vehicle trips each morning in the city by 2026, compared to 68,684 in 2007. Those figures were factoring in the good work that is being done to try to manage this growth, most of which I agree with, but in the end it just comes down to: we need less cars on the road if we're not going to eventually gridlock.

As to the area around the train station, I'd also worry that the new uncomfortable and uncivilised backless seating opposite the station will, in fairly short order, mean the removal of the proper civilised benches that are currently there. The new seating also looks like it's too low and too near the road, re: fumes and particulates.

Dib, dib, dob...

Hand-turned wooden dibbers for your garden, available now at Two Doors Studio in nearby Alsager...