Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Saddleworth, where I live, was in Yorkshire for 800 years. I shall have lived 90 of them this year, and I claim to know a little about what goes on in that part of the world. The planners got busy to tidy us up, because we are on the Lancashire watershed side of the Pennines. They said that they were going to put us into a county called SELNEC – SELNEC being the initials of South East Lancashire North East Cheshire. Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to the change, and we had meetings galore. One of them, which I remember very well, was organised by some young people. When I got to the civic hall they said “Will you take the chair?” I agreed. Then they said, “Will you get a motion negatived that is put on the table?” I said, “I’ll try.” The motion was “That the best interests of Saddleworth would be served by going into SELNEC.” Of course, that had a resounding defeat. On going down the steps after the meeting was over, I saw Joe Cartwright, who used to work for me. I said, “How did tha’ vote, Joe?” He said, “How dost tha’ think? Agin!” He said, “I wouldn’t have been so shocked or surprised if we had been going in with Oldham or Manchester, or even Lancashire, but I’ll be jiggered if I want to go in with a set of initials.” The meeting broke up on those terms, and Joe Cartwright’s story went round Manchester like a prairie fire. His ridicule forced the powers that be to adopt my suggestion of “Greater Manchester.”

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

My Lords, Saddleworth, where I live, was in Yorkshire for 800 years. I shall have lived 90 of them this year, and I claim to know a little about what goes on in that part of the world.

The planners got busy to tidy us up, because we are on the Lancashire watershed side of the Pennines. They said that they were going to put us into a county called SELNEC—SELNEC being the initials of South East Lancashire North East Cheshire. Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to the change, and we had meetings galore. One of them, which I remember very well, was organised by some young people. When I got to the civic hall they said “Will you take the chair?” I agreed. Then they said “Will you get a motion negatived that is put on the table?” I said “I’ll try”. The motion was “That the best interests of Saddleworth would be served by going into SELNEC”. Of course, that had a resounding defeat. On going down the steps after the meeting was over, I saw Joe Cartwright, who used to work for me. I said, “How did tha’ vote, Joe?” He said, “How dost tha’ think? Agin!” He said, “I wouldn’t have been so shocked or surprised if we had been going in with Oldham or Manchester, or even Lancashire, but I’ll be jiggered if I want to go in with a set of initials”. The meeting broke up on those terms, and Joe Cartwright’s story went round Manchester like a prairie fire. His ridicule forced the powers that be to adopt my suggestion of “Greater Manchester”.

279 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Cheshire (5) ·
• Conservative Party (1834-) (22) ·
• Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (1) ·
• Greater Manchester (1) ·
• Heath ministry (4) ·
• Heath, Edward (4) ·
• Labour Party (UK) (17) ·
• Lancashire (34) ·
• Local Government Act 1972 (1) ·
• Manchester (18) ·
• Oldham (2) ·
• Pennines (11) ·
• Rhodes, Hervey (1895-1987) (3), Baron Rhodes of Saddleworth, WWI DFC and bar, mill-owner, Labour politician ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (147) ·

All tags.

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