Not all knowledge is contained outside LJ

[desperance]

Whoops. I have been cheerfully reading Adam Hart-Davis' What the Victorians Did for Us as a piece of casual research (for the steampunky stories about the barber-surgeon-spy who shaved Half-Emperor Cyrrhenius): the book is a coffee-table tie-in to a TV series, so deep it isn't. But superficial can also be instructive, especially if you can treat it as reliable; one thing for sure, Hart-Davis knows more than I do. In and of himself, he does, and I'm sure he has researchers also turning up book-suitable facts.

Three chapters in, I hit what is almost the first fact that I know independently - and it's wrong.

"Cholera was especially frightening, because it was a new disease. The first case, apparently brought from India, appeared in Newcastle in 1831..."

Sunderland, damn it! Sunderland!

(For a rather wonderful novel about the outbreak, see Sheri Holman's The Dress Lodger. Written by an American who had never been to Sunderland, but that's okay, we ain't proud...)

Comments

Off-topic

[kazdreamer.livejournal.com]

Spotted some copies of Daniel Fox's new book in FP today. Took a pic that can be downloaded from my phone tonight, if needed. ;)

I bought one for myself - it looks tres cool!

Re: Off-topic

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Saint. Angel. Goddess. Supreme Being...

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

There is a perpetual confusion amongst Some People about anywhere north of Watford... Southerners!
(I, it should be observed, hail originally from Coventry.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Do you indeed? I thought you were Welsh. But you're (almost) all southerners anyway, from where I sit. Either southerners or Scottish; there is precious little margin in between...

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I'm Welsh on my mother's side and on parts of my father's side.
Am not a Southerner. Am Midlander!

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

We have a confusion about things north of the Watford Gap, which is 70 miles north of Watford. 70 miles is a good distance to be from Watford, as anyone who's been there would no doubt agree. But this strange fact might also explain why some of us are confused.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hah! If you'd ever had the nerve to penetrate further, you might have found Scotch Gap. Which is, um, a long way south of Scotland.

Happily, all our confusion slides away downhill, and pools in the Great Declivity. Which is what we call London.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Oh, indeed. (I spent my teens just north of Watford Gap services. It was one of the few sources of local part-time jobs.)

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, that's going to sow a seed of doubt about the rest of the book, isn't it?

(Is that incident mentioned in Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland?)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

That is exactly the problem. Not that it matters, technically, to me: if I find a neat idea I'll run with it anyway, and call it a part of the fantasy. But from a non-research angle it does rather take the gloss off.

(And rather bizarrely, given how often I've read that text [I was proofreader-emeritus], I can't remember whether Bryan used it - tho' I find it hard to imagine that he didn't...)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

And the last (I've been told) typhoid epidemic in England started right here in 1932 when cousins of a local family, on a visit from India, (and carrying typhoid, obviously) swam in the Square Wood reservoir at High Flatts which served Denby Dale, causing an outbreak of Typhoid in Denby Dale, but not here in the village.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's where you are! I've been there. Big pies...

And hee. I didn't know that. Thank you!

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Yes bloody big pies. The last one was 12 tons. I'm in (surprise) Birdsedge, which is about 2 miles from Denby Dale.

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

I think it's like the way that when talking about a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy the North and South Poles are in essentially the same place. For Londoners places like Newcastle and Sunderland are all at that one point where parallel lines meet.

They'll regret it when the sandmen come for them and they have to Run outside the city ...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. When my first novel was published (which is very explicitly set in Newcastle), the US publishers used the same text and the same cover but rewrote the cover copy. "Fear haunts the night-darkened streets of London..."

I wrote to point out the error. Paperback edition? Rewritten copy, still talking about London. To sheep, other sheep no doubt seem different...

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

I'm OK up to and including North Yorkshire, but then it all gets hazy until you hit Scotland. And anything west of the Pennines is a closed book to me.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

You're all Northerners. Far, far, far Northerners. Anyone north of the equator is a Northerner.

What I don't understand - if you're all Northerners - why you don't all speak with the same accent.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

same reason all the southerners don't

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

With my lack of British geography I used to look really confused when people referred to Manchester, hell Chester, as in the north.. From my perspective both those places are in the middle of the country, possibly tending towards the south. I have met very few British people who understand. But when I look at a map of the UK, Manchester is in the center (granted on a coast so to one side) and Chester is exactly on a line with Dublin - so at best it is in the middle if not slightly south.

Newcastle and environs is slightly north alright.

[(Anonymous)]

Hah. I also like to tell Mancunians they're Midlanders, but they dislike it extremely.

You may be falling for that devil's trick of looking at the whole of Britain-the-island when you measure? You have to remember to remove Scotland from the equation. Even then, Manchester is no more than than two-thirds of the way up England, which is why I have a great deal of sympathy with your position; but they reckon it's far enough to qualify...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

You need first to look at England (as mentioned below).

And then you need to consider population rather than geography. People are what matter, not empty acres of countryside.

Hmm, a quick Google™ bring up this. Oh yes! This so matches how people instinctively divide the country.

Even if you look at the whole island of Britain (so those grey fringes of Scotland and Wales), you don't get much change.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

The North South divide as we know it goes back to the Danelaw. Seriously. That's why the Northern acents are different to the other accents, a lot of the old local dialects are based on Norse, there's a much greater preponderance of Scandiwegian genes.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

England? That's in Scandinavia, isn't it?


(I kid. We Bordeaux people can always place good customers.)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Bordeaux? Now that really is the southern part of this country!

(No, we will not accept that French incursion. Not yet.)

[(Anonymous)]

The north/midlands/south divide is quite easy to show. Get an atlas and a ruler. >>> http://www.slimpalmer.com/2008/2/26/up-north
Slim :)