by Maggie B Dickinson Based on a true story. I had a similar version published in Northern Life When it comes to secrets, the tiny village of Sunderland Point leads the field. Growing out of a peat bog, lashed by westerly gales, cut off by the tide twice a day – and with its only…
Category: Historical
Brief Encounter Revisited
by Maggie B Dickinson The daddy of all time pieces, in film-going terms, is probably the gem on Virgin’s West Coast Line at Carnforth in Lancashire, UK. The clock (as The Clock) supported the main characters Celia Johnson (as Laura Jesson) and Trevor Howard (as Dr Alec Harvey), as they headed dangerously and deliciously towards…
For Valour
JAMES HEWITSON VC OF CONISTON 1892 – 1963 Originally published by Cumbria magazine November 2018 On November 11th 2018 Remembrance Sunday falls exactly one hundred years to the day since the Great War officially ended with the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany, at Compiégne in France. For four years thousands of men had…
William Wordsworth’s little-known marriage venue
William Wordsworth’s little-known marriage venue Published as The perfect village? October 2017 Republished here by kind permission of Dalesman magazine ‘I could stand it no longer and threw myself on the bed, neither hearing nor seeing anything…’ On Monday October 4th, two hundred and fifteen years ago, this emotional drama was played out at a…
Alice Barnes – The Victorian murder of a young girl
Maggie B Dickinson In 2009 I was in the Reference Library in Blackburn, Lancashire researching a branch of my family, along with a friend who was pursuing his. I completed my task first, and to while away the time until he’d finished I randomly selected a book: any old book would do. The binding was…
Memories of Wartime
Memories of Wartime When I was a kid during WW2 we didn’t have sell-by dates and elf and safety, we just had the war to contend with. It became so much a part of our daily existence that after it was over a friend said ‘I didn’t know wars could end’. Our family had a…
Lakeland’s Last Box Standing – The AA in Cumbria
Lakeland’s Last Box Standing – The AA in Cumbria Originally published in Cumbria magazine July 2015 Braving the elements on Dunmail Raise, an exposed mountain pass between Grasmere and Thirlmere, is the yellow and black Automobile Association ‘sentry’ box number 487 that has stood its ground for eighty three years. If only the box could…
New Forest Snake Catcher
New Forest Snake Catcher Published Countryman magazine June 2011 The old man had a huge forked beard and wore a large hat with an upturned brim. In one hand was a tall pronged stick and dangling from the other were some kind of metal traps. The shabby attire included a substantial long jacket and leg…
The Sage of Chelsea
The Sage of Chelsea A smoke and a talk with Thomas Carlyle by Maggie B Dickinson Published in The London Magazine 2014 The only known surviving diaries of a Victorian regional newspaper editor were penned by my great great uncle Anthony Hewitson who owned the Preston Chronicle in Lancashire. There are seventeen in number which span…
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