How Michael

What’s in a name? Mystery of the likes of Yorky, Melbreak and Ingot

YORKY! Anyone remember the name? He/she used to cover Rugby League for the “Workington Star” some time after the last war.

Last updated 29 July 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Lifting gloom and despondency with piglifting and a sack race

DEPRESSION, disease and near starvation hit Workington, and the rest of West Cumberland, in 1891. Times were hard.

Last updated 22 July 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Reds star’s Hartlepool transfer fee – £10 and a box of kippers

WHAT you write today wraps the chips tomorrow! I can remember using these words, once told me by a grizzled old newspaper pro, in this column a good many years ago. And, as I remember, I didn’t disagree with his sentiments.

Last updated 8 July 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

A case of rose-tinted spectacles?

WHY are you wasting your time digging out a load of stuff about the past? It’s all dead and gone – and no use to us today. What we should all be thinking about is the future!

Last updated 1 July 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Drink your way to good health – with water

SIX glasses of water! That’s what we should all be drinking every day – for the sake of our health.

Last updated 24 June 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Mining hero immortalised in verse by Canon Rawnsley

WILLIAM Walker was a hero in August 1891. Everybody said so.

Last updated 17 June 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

A glimpse behind the scenes of life for British POW camp guards

DARTBOARD wanted! If you haven’t got one to spare, how about a chess or draughts set, dominoes – or any other board game?

Last updated 10 June 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Age of criminal responsibility is a very long-running debate

THEY were charged at Workington Petty Sessions with “having stolen four pairs of cloth leggings on January 18, from the shop of JC Harkness, tailor, Station Road, Workington.”

Last updated 3 June 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Cycling can be hazardous for your pocket and your looks

IGNORANCE of the law is no excuse! That’s what two erring cyclists were told in Whitehaven Police Court in July 1903, just before they were fined 10 shillings each for their cycling misdemeanours. A not inconsiderable sum of money then.

Last updated 27 May 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

School pupil strikes thought to be copying their industrial elders

WHEN will pupils in our local schools go out on strike? Are they, in today’s increasingly permissive climate, legally able to strike? If the powers that be think not, could potential junior strikers claim that they had been denied their human rights? Who knows? And if the pupils at one school did actually strike, would there be a series of copycat strikes in the rest of the country?

Last updated 20 May 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Cumbrian pudding traditions – something you don’t trifle with

JELLY is something you will never find in an authentic Cumbrian Sherry Trifle! That’s what she told us. So many years ago I can’t remember when, which in itself is a bit worrying, or who it was who told us – even more worrying!

Last updated 6 May 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

KO specialist that did for ‘The Cumberland Giant,’ stateside

THE pitch wasn’t fit to play on. The game should never have been started.

Last updated 29 April 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Anything goes in the rules of unruly mass football games

IS THERE anything to stop a participant in the “Uppies & Downies” turning up to play the game on a horse? Or a small group of horse riders joining in? Probably not.

Last updated 8 April 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Eisteddfod was Britain’s first ever music and drama festival

IF YOU can’t take criticism, do not enter any event in a music festival or eisteddfod.

Last updated 1 April 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Mystery village and a tale of drunkenness and ribald songs

IT WAS a strange sort of story – well, not even a story.

Last updated 25 March 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Dispersal orders Victorian style – they were for street musicians

STREET musicians didn’t make much money in the Workington of 1890.

Last updated 18 March 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

The mystery of gilt keys and a suitably inscribed tennis racquet

VULCAN Park was officially declared open on June 4, 1925, a Thursday afternoon, by John McMullen, the then Mayor of Workington. Before entering the park he was presented with a gilt key to the park gates by veteran Labour alderman Paddy Walls. This is where I usually ask if anyone has any idea what happened to that key. But in this case, we know.

Last updated 11 March 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Grand exhibition to breathe some life into art and industry

HARRINGTON was trying to raise its profile back in November 1889.

Last updated 4 March 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk

Aspirin – much more versatile than just curing your headache

ASPIRIN. It’s something we all know. Is there any one of us who hasn’t, at some time or other, taken an aspirin tablet or two? It’s a medication we’ve grown up with. Before the market was flooded with alternatives, if you had a headache, you took an aspirin.

Last updated 25 February 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk