Daily Archives: January 8, 2017

by

I’m a Kindle virgin . . .

594587Robert Blincoe. Not, I suggest, a familiar name. Somewhat unusual, as well.

However, in the early decades of the 19th century, the story of Robert Blincoe was told in an 1828 memoir by Lancashire-born writer John Brown, which appeared as weekly instalments in a radical working class newspaper, The Lion. It was re-published in a widely-disseminated pamphlet in 1832.

Born illegitimate in London in the early 1790s, never knowing his parents, he entered a workhouse at the age of four, but by his sixth birthday had been ‘apprenticed’ far away in the Peak District of Derbyshire to a brutal cotton spinner, along with dozens of other workhouse or work’us children. An image of his twisted and deformed body appears on the cover of the 1832 pamphlet.

They toiled under the most appalling conditions, up to 18 hours a day, subsisting on the most meagre of meals, going to bed each night tired, cold and hungry. Working among the dusty and dangerous spinning mules, these children were subjected to savage beatings, and risked life and limb crawling among the machinery. It’s no surprise that many of these children did not survive beyond their teen years, if that long.

Robert Blincoe was different. Not only did he survive, but prospered, married Martha Simpson, and had three children, and the youngest, Robert Blincoe, Jr, graduated from Queen’s College, Cambridge University, and became a celebrated Anglican preacher in London. His middle child, Martha, married into the gentry, and it was in her house in Macclesfield, Cheshire that Robert Blincoe, Sr. died in 1860, just a year after his wife.

It took decades for the law to be enacted that prohibited the employment of children in factories, or even reduced the hours they (and adults) were permitted to work.

blincoeBlincoe’s story is both appalling and inspiring, and I’ve just finished reading an account of his life and times in a 2005 book by historian John Waller of Michigan State University. Waller suggests that celebrated novelist Charles Dickens based the character of Oliver Twist (in his second novel, published in 1837) on Robert Blincoe. Perhaps, or not maybe. In an interesting article published in The Guardian in 2005, Blincoe’s great-great-great grandson Nicholas Blincoe examines the case for this proposition. Dickens must have been aware of Blincoe’s story. He was a reporter in parliament, and the political campaign to reform working practices in mills and factories was current during this period of Dickens’s career.

dickensSo what has all this to do with Amazon Kindle? Well, Blincoe’s story and the possible Dickens connection has inspired me, given me the challenge even, to work my way through his 15 novels¹, most of which were originally published as weekly instalments in one publication or another.

So yesterday, I downloaded David Copperfield on to my wife’s Kindle (a gift from Hannah and Michael in 2015). This is the first time I have used a Kindle, and it takes a little getting used to. I much prefer the feel (and smell) of a book. But the Kindle is very convenient, I must admit.

David Copperfield was, apparently, Dickens’s favourite novel, but I’ve never read it. I am familiar with many of the novels and their campaigning themes, mainly through TV or films. However, it was quite common when I was in high school in the 1960s to have one of Dickens’s novel as the set text in the English Literature syllabus. Great Expectations appeared on the list quite a few times.

Among the best film and TV adaptations of Dickens’s work must surely figure the 1951 film Scrooge (starring Alastair Sim), based on A Christmas Carol (a short story published in 1843), and A Tale of Two Cities (1958) with Dirk Bogarde starring as Sydney Carton. One recent TV adaptation of Great Expectations (first broadcast in December 2011), starred Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham, a slightly controversial casting but, in my opinion, an inspired one. Then from 26 December 2015, the BBC broadcast an innovative 20 episode series, Dickensian, based on the characters in his novels, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Anyway, I’ve set myself my own Dickensian challenge for 2017. Wish me luck!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
¹The novels (and other works) of Charles Dickens:
The Pickwick Papers – 1836
Oliver Twist – 1837
Nicholas Nickleby – 1838
The Old Curiosity Shop – 1840
Barnaby Rudge – 1841
Martin Chuzzlewit – 1843
Dombey and Son – 1846
David Copperfield – 1849
Bleak House – 1852
Hard Times – 1854
Little Dorrit – 1855
A Tale of Two Cities – 1859
Great Expectations – 1860
Our Mutual Friend – 1864
The Mystery of Edwin Drood – 1870

 

 

 

by

No longer screaming like a badger . . . thank goodness

I can hardly believe it. Today is exactly one year since I slipped on black ice and broke my leg. So how did things pan out over the subsequent 12 months?

20161118-015-hanbury-hall

Enjoying a walk at nearby Hanbury Hall on my birthday in mid-November 2016, sans walking stick!

It all happened in the blink of an eye,  at 08:35 on Friday 8 January, and was taken to Redditch’s Alexandria Hospital, where I received excellent attention and treatment (in contrast apparently to this year in Worcestershire hospitals). Late on the following night, I had an operation to repair the displaced fracture in my right fibula, and strengthen the ankle. I was allowed home late on the following Monday afternoon.

Over the course of the next three months I made three more outpatient visits to the Alex, and had several physiotherapy sessions at the local  Princess of Wales community hospital here in Bromsgrove.

For a couple of months I was not allowed to put any weight on my leg whatsoever, and I spent all that time downstairs, sleeping on the sofa. Fortunately we have a downstairs toilet and washroom, and our kitchen was close by as well. I got around using a walking or Zimmer frame.

Once my third cast was removed and replaced with a support boot, I was able to get around using crutches, and started to get out and about on a short walk each day. Once the boot came off, at the end of March, I was given the all clear to drive once again. I had expected to be given some sort of certificate. All the surgeon said was that if felt confident and able to brake the car in an emergency (since that would use my damaged leg), then I could get behind the wheel again.

Freedom! And also to start walking more positively using a walking stick, which I used for the next eight months. Since mid-November, more or less, I have been stick-less, although I have occasionally resorted to my stick when I thought conditions outside might be a little precarious. Another fall is the last thing on my agenda!

It will still take time for my leg to heal ‘completely’. Actually I doubt it will ever get back to normal. Although it doesn’t swell as if did a few months back after every walk, it has felt quite heavy and uncomfortable; not really painful, but not entirely pain free. When I was having physiotherapy sessions last March I mentioned to my therapist that the scar tissue was itching quite fiercely, and persistently, almost like an allergic reaction. The surgeon had warned me that, in a minority of cases, there was sometimes an allergic reaction to the bone plate and screws and if it persisted, then the plate would have to be removed in another operation. But not for at least two years when the bones would be much stronger and healed. I began to fear that would also be my fate. The physiotherapist advised me to take some antihistamine tablets (for hay fever), so I consulted my local pharmacist. The tablets did the job, and quickly. Itching subsided. But there was a down side, which made me stop taking the tablets.

Within an hour of taking a tablet I fell into a deep depression which lasted about 24 hours. Talk about black dog. So I quickly decided to give those pills the heave-ho.

Anyway, one year on, I feel really quite optimistic about the progress made. If you have read my blog during 2016, you will have seen that I have not been constrained from travelling widely, to Germany, Italy (twice), France, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Australia as part of my genebanks consultancy, as well as the USA for our annual vacation with Hannah and family.

Now I’d also like to take this opportunity of thanking all those friends and colleagues who have followed my progress and wished me well. Much appreciated.