Walking through history

[John Arton]

Did anyone watching Channel 4's Walking through History with Tony Robinson, last night.
He was walking the Liverpool to Leeds canal describing the reason for its building and how it was built.
Some excellent shots of Stanley Dock and the Tobacco warehouse. He ended at Wigan pier. It was coal that made the Industrial revolution and Wigan had the largest number of pits anywhere. Coal drove the growth of Liverpool from a population of around 5000 to 80000 in a couple of decades.
Coal drove the factories such as Hartleys Jam which annually produced sufficient jam to supply the whole of the Empire.
A rather weird offshoot of the population growth was the increase in agricultural land in Lancashire and Cheshire fertilized by==wait for it== all the night soil (human crap) produced by the Liverpool population which was taken by barge up the canal to the likes of Aintree and Parbold.
If you get the chance to get to watch it on catch up then it is well worth a watch.
He also did a number of episodes in Australia and two that stick in my memory were the ones on Newcastle NSW and Melbourne. In Newcastle the took about the top 30 metres off Nobbys Head to build the causeway linking it the mainland and thus creating the beach there.
rgds
JA

[cappy]

#1 bet that's were the first greengage jam came from .....but nobody liked it so it was put on the merchant ships for the next 100 years

[John Pruden]

john how many have been or passed through LIVERPOOL to every part of the world it must be millions and yet the gutter press is always trying to have a go at us most that have never been here? I have had the offer of living anywhere on the planet but would never leave here?jp

[alf corbyn]

i thought the world of Enfield where i was born, until the sixties when the blacks started to move in. i was taken to the council by a jamaican woman who used the race card and was interveiwed by an arab who had only been in the country a short while. i saw the light and moved to Devon. We are now the underdogs of what was once a great nation and is now a clearing house for the dregs of the world.

[John Gill]

Well put Alf- you've just upset at least three minority/majority ethnic groups in North London, keep up the good work.
gilly

[robpage]

Hey , Hey Alf start on the Blacks Jamaicans and Arabs by all means , but hands off us Dregs

[Jim Brady]

Just watched this show brought back childhood memories.The scenery today is far different to when i was a kid,there were factories churning out all kinds of pollution and emptying all kinds into the canal.We must've had some very strong antibiotics built into our systems in those days,to many of us the canal was our swimming baths.Near to town was Tate&Lyle British American Tobacco to name just two of the factories that used the canal water and pumped it back into the canal.The kids down that end called the canal the "scaldie" meaning that the water was hot and they could swim in it any time of the year.Down our end here we had a Lead Works about 4 Tanneries Copper & Tin Smelters Tar Works Rubber Works and other industries all pumping stuff into the canal where we swam,thats besides the dead cats and dogs and the odd pig.If we walked out a mile or so towards Leeds the canal became clear so most of our swimming was done there.
Regards.
Jim.

[John Gill]

i thought the world of Enfield where i was born, until the sixties when the blacks started to move in. i was taken to the council by a jamaican woman who used the race card and was interveiwed by an arab who had only been in the country a short while. i saw the light and moved to Devon. We are now the underdogs of what was once a great nation and is now a clearing house for the dregs of the world.

Just hope you underdogs are not under water down there Alf.

[happy daze john in oz]

Just hope you underdogs are not under water down there Alf.

Yes we have seen a lot of it on Oz TV, they keep refereing to the Wet country but I think thye mean the west country

[happy daze john in oz]

We get a few of Tony Robinsons shows here in Oz and they are very good. But what did Nobby do to have 30 foot taken off his head?