An Historic Description of Easington

[porschesrule]

From Kynaston's 'Austerity Britain' a description of Easington, Co. Durham in 1946:

http://t.co/SmCDeXNNy4

[Sean]

That was a really interesting post, thank you! Just out of curiosity, any idea, when the author compares Durham to Belsen, does he mean Bergen Belsen, the World War II concentration camp? I wasn't alive during this era, but that really is quite a claim if so.

On a lighter note, I could tell that you were American from the title of this post, because you said "An historic" (silent h), while most British accents would make it "A historic" (pronouncing the h) - I just thought that was an interesting difference between dialects.

[ERinVA]

That's an interesting observation, considering that I would have said the exact opposite. I have never pronounced the word "historic" with a silent h.

[Sean]

It may be down to different regions possibly, or I may be looking into it too much and it could have been a typo.

I should add, in case anyone misconstrues my previous post, that it was in no way an attack on other dialects, just something that stuck out at me because I'd been proof-reading an essay earlier today.

[ERinVA]

I didn't read it that way at all. I just found it interesting, so I looked it up and found this:

http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.c ... h/historic

But the thread is actually about the information in the tweet, not the pronunciation, so I guess we should get back on track.

What a depressing description of Easington!

[Sean]

Yes, back to the post.

I agree, it is a really depressing view of Easington, though it does explain a lot of the sentiments of the time, especially towards Thatcher.

The BBC have an interesting set of images http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wear/hi/peo ... 756184.stm of 1984 Easington. I think the second one, with the soup kitchen, is really powerful given how packed it is, and especially because of the apparently very young age of the people over to the left of the frame.

[Sheepdog]

I am always struck by one image in particular in the newsreel clips that run at the start of the show...

There's a picture of men (and women, if memory serves) picking bits of coal (or non-coal rubbish?) off of a fast moving conveyor belt.

With bare hands, no gloves.

(Anyway... was it beyond the wit of man to automate whatever process was being carried out manually? Or would the unions have kicked up a fuss about people being "put out of work"? There was an excellent BBC documentary about the history of the coal industry, c. 1890-1970. It was very close honours between the owners, the government and the unions. All of them played their part in the death of the industry.)