It was always an obligation of Christianity to provide for the poor. With the loss of monasteries and other such institutions it became necessary for the State to intervene and provide for their welfare. In 1562, Justices of the Peace were authorised and empowered to raise compulsory funds for the relief of the poor who were put into different categories:
- those who could work but would not: the idle poor.
They were to be whipped through the streets, publicly, until they learned the error of their ways.
- those who would work but could not: the able-bodied or deserving poor.
They were to be given help either through outdoor relief or by being given work in return for a wage.
- those who were too old, ill or young to work: the impotent or deserving poor.
They were to be looked after in almshouses, hospitals, orphanages or poor houses. Orphans and children of the poor were to be given a trade apprenticeship.
In 1601, all earlier legislation was consolidated into one law and it was ordered that a compulsory poor rate was to be levied on property owners in every parish. An Overseer of the Poor was appointed to collect the rates and distribute alms. This legislation, with some tinkering, was the basis of English Poor Laws until 1834.
Now, to my mind these laws have a certain merit. They were designed essentially to keep the Poor Rates down by ensuring that only those who genuinely could not work were cared for and that those who would not work were given short shrift. They also provided employment, where possible, for those who wanted to work and tried to give poor youngsters a trade whereby they could support themselves later in life. I have one such orphan in my family who became a weaver in Gateshead and who was, incidentally, the only literate member of the family from the 1600s to 1870 when education became compulsory (seven generations).
In 1662, the Act for the Better Relief of the Poor of this Kingdom was passed, otherwise known as the Act of Settlement and Removal. This Act dealt with the problem of people moving into a parish and claiming Parish Relief . Strict guidelines were established as to who had the right of Settlement in any parish and, therefore, who had the right to claim relief. After 1662, if a man left his settled parish, he had to take with him a Settlement Certificate which guaranteed that his home parish would pay for his ‘removal’ costs from another parish back to his home parish if he became a claimant on the poor rates. If he didn’t have one, he was examined by the Overseer of the Poor who sought a guarantee from the Home Parish that they would take the man back if he ever ‘claimed’ on the parish. Incidentally, it was the idea behind this Act that led Councils to refuse to house anyone who had not lived in their area for a specified number of years.
There is no doubt that the Settlement laws tended to lead to short contracts so that people did not get Settlement, and I have a case where it is obvious that a very pregnant single woman was thrust over the parish boundary so that mother and child did not became a drain on the Poor Rates, but on those of the neighbouring parish. It was a harsh system, no doubt. But those at the time believed that non-working people should not live at the same standard as those who worked.
In 1793, Britain became involved in the French Wars. Importing foodstuffs from Europe became difficult and the price of bread rose. The food shortages were exacerbated by a series of poor harvests. The correlation between high bread prices, food shortages and riots was well known, and in the hopes of avoiding riots the magistrates of the Berkshire village of Speenhamland held a meeting at the Pelican Inn on the 6th of May 1795. They decided to bring in an allowance scale whereby a labourer would have his income supplemented to subsistence level by the parish, according to the price of bread and the number of children in his family. The Speenhamland System, as it came to be known, spread with variations throughout much of Southern England.
The aim of the Speenhamland System was to help the working poor. But like so many of these schemes it caused more problems than it solved. Landowners often demolished empty houses to reduce the population on their lands and employed labourers from neighbouring parishes so that other parishes paid the subsidy. Employers were quick to latch on to the idea that they could lower wages and the Parish Rates would make up the shortfall so that ratepayers were subsidising the owners of large estates who paid poor wages. To meet the increased demand for Parish relief, the Poor Rates rose, and rose – and it wasn’t the employers who were blamed for the increases, it was the poor.
In 1834, The Poor Law Amendment Act was enacted. Its prime motive was to reduce the cost of providing for the poor and to that end it sought to remove all outdoor relief and only provide relief within a workhouse. The principle architect of this system was Edwin Chadwick who thought that the existing relief, being too generous, encouraged idleness and larger families. He said that the conditions in the workhouses ‘should be made worse than the worst conditions outside of the workhouse so that …. only the most needy would consider entering them.’ And indeed they were.
I don’t think we can do better than Elizabeth I’s government in defining the ‘poor’, except, of course, we no longer do: the idle poor and the deserving poor are all lumped together and treated alike. Perhaps it’s time that we returned to providing work for those willing to work, proper education for their children and penalties for those who refuse to work. Perhaps, also, it is time to ensure that ‘big business’ stops relying on the tax-payer to subsidise obscene wages and bonuses to top management, high dividends to shareholders and low wages to their employees by the strategy of income support. And it is, perhaps, time to rethink who is entitled to benefit from the welfare state.
I sincerely hope that the very natural antipathy towards those who are unwilling to work does not extend to those who are willing, but unable, and that the inevitable backlash in times of economic difficulties does not lead to the sort of harsh treatment enacted in the so-called ‘Reforms’ of 1834.
Footnote:
Chadwick’s plans to stop people entering the workhouses did not work. After a very short while he came to realise that many people were unable to work through ill-health, caused by insanitary conditions. In 1842, he published a report on The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. It is due to Chadwick that hospitals for the poor were attached to Workhouses, and that a concerted effort was made to improve sanitation.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Thank you for another excellent, detailed blog, Boadicea. It may indeed be time to start differentiating again between the “idle poor” and others. Not sure about the whipping through the streets though! Britain cannot afford to go on as it is doing at the moment. It is not alone. France too finds its welfare system a great burden on the economy.
Thanks Sheona.
I’m not too sure about the ‘whipping through the streets’ bit either. But I do think it about time to pull the rug out from those who believe that they have the right to live, without any effort on their own part, at the same standard of living as those who do work. A bit of name and shame might do some good, although I doubt it!
Very interesting. Will read it again, with a sound head.
Thank you, a pleasure to read.
‘I sincerely hope that the very natural antipathy towards those who are unwilling to work does not extend to those who are willing, but unable, and that the inevitable backlash in times of economic difficulties does not lead to the sort of harsh treatment enacted in the so-called ’Reforms’ of 1834.’
I rather think that the current government’s lavish distribution of largesse guarantees there will be a harsh backlash. Not from the government but the population.
I recall that my parents occasionally referred to Coventry’s workhouse, which closed with many others in 1930. It had been located in a now listed building, an old monastery and more recently in what was to become a city hospital after 1945. I have the impression that few people lodged there from choice; and the necessity brought shame on them and their families. Such attitudes seem to have disappeared from the social scene.
I remember mum having a conversation over the garden fence with a similarly apron clad matriarch when I were knee high to a grass hopper.
“I see her at number 18 has a colour telly”
“Yes” says Mum “They say she got it on the ” hushed whisper ” never never.”
I wonder if we should have the same distaste for debt now as then. Maybe we wouldn’t be in such terrible shape.
Made me laugh ferret, one of my father’s favourite expressions too. Never never hear it these days!
I’ve never understood people that go into debt, anything untoward happens in their lives and they are in a very bad way indeed. Most of the time they only spend it on consumer trash anyway!
Quite beyond me why they actually want half of it.
Interesting post, Boa; thanks…it is at heart, a sound argument. But it is also worth remembering that there is a fine line, and many people right now are being forced into being ‘undeserving poor’. SIngle mums, poor people and so on are of course, costly to the tax payer…but they are also human beings. I would not want to see a return to some of history’s more draconian ways of dealing with them, because I believe that tolerance and enlightenment are vital for any civilised society.
How do you all feel about the ‘single-mum’ scam, whereby young women have children with no visible means of support and milk the system for evrything?
I think it’s very sad, Janus, for the girls and for society. It’s sad that there are girls so badly educated that they consider sponging off the taxpayers is a career; that there are girls who are so unhappy that they want “someone of their own to love”; that there are girls who seem to have no idea of a what a family should be. The solution is to not hand out council accommodation, but to have the girls stay with their “family unit”, usually at least mother. Too often the single mum will not continue her relationship with the child’s father, but having council accommodation makes her a target for other men who just want somewhere to live rent free and have no feelings for the child. Statistics show child abuse is much more likely in such situations. Then there’s another child on the way and the father disappears because he doesn’t want to have to pay maintenance. And so it goes on. Remove the incentives and the whole idea becomes much less attractive. I don’t think Boadicea mentioned what happened to unmarried, pregnant girls under the workhouse system. Perhaps she could tell us.
Janus; I agree that for some it is obviously a means of making a living. But for so many teenage mums, it is simply a vicious circle of low expectations, poor self esteem and education…But sometimes I think our society is not making it tough enough for people… Personally speaking,I am entitled to grand total of two weeks’ redundancy pay – but a year’s statutory maternity pay for getting pregnant. It pays better to play the system; it’s a good job I’m not the unscrupulous type : )
Most interesting. Thanks Boadicea. I’m thinking of the same period of time in Turkey. And (this part is too ignorant) the relevancy with feudalism.
Janus
You are quite right Janus. One of my aunts was so ashamed that her birth certificate showed the address of the local work-house that she refused to show it to anyone. She allowed me to have a copy since I was compiling the family history. I researched further and found that she had, in fact, been born in the ‘free’ hospital attached to the workhouse because her mother had been so very ill at the time of her birth. The letter of thanks for dispelling her 70 odd years of ‘shame’ was the most touching epistle I have ever received.
Claire
No one is forced to become an ‘undeserving’ poor. There is a very clear distinction between those who cannot work and those who will not work, just as there is between those who are on benefits for a short term to get themselves on their feet and those who consciously choose to live on benefits for the whole of their life. The former need every bit of help that there is… including free adult education if necessary; the latter need, as you so rightly put it #11, to have ‘it made tough’.
I don’t buy into this low esteem, etc, etc. It’s just another way to avoid taking responsibility for one’s actions. Nor, in fact, do I blame people for playing the system. It is the system that needs changing so that it is no longer nearly as or more profitable to do nothing than to do something. Providing for themselves would benefit their self-esteem no end!
Regarding unmarried mothers.
From what I can see there were many couples who sampled the goods before tying the knot – but then it was expected that they would.
What has surprised me is the number of cases where an illegitimate child was cared for by the grand-parents and when the mother subsequently married the child was then brought up in the marital home. My own research has been principally among the rural working classes, but it’s reasonably extensive and I’ve only come across two instances of a single mother being sent to a workhouse.
Thanks for that info, Boadiceea. There was quite a stigma attached to having a child out of wedlock, wasn’t there? And remember the Lady Flora Hastings scandal.
I think the low self-esteem is an important factor. If a child has not been properly taught to read and write at primary school and is then unable to cope in secondary school, but falls farther and farther behind, then that pupil feels very stupid and worthless. It’s a bit like depression – a difficult state of mind to get out of, I should think.
Sheona
So we’re told. But, I’m almost tempted to think that it was a middle-class upwards stigma. As I said, it amazed me how few of the rural labourers packed their wayward daughters off to a workhouse, and how almost all of them married later and took their love-child with them.
I’m rather of the opinion that we give people too many crutches to hobble on. If the system were not set up in such a way that these girls could, as Claire said, make a living out of producing further generations of the same, I rather think that some of them might learn and stop at one… but just at the moment we are providing financial crutches as well as emotional ones. But I guess I’m just hard-hearted!
Thanks for an interesting blog. I have often meant to look into the “Poor Laws”, having heard of them but never knowing anything of their history. With regards to the ‘Idle Poor”, if they wont work and so don’t get looked after by the system, it strikes me their only alternative is to turn to crime. Is forced labour then the solution? Not a bad idea.
I have just been listening to Jezza Vine on Radio 2. They were talking about the poor burials. Where babies, children and adults were buried several to a grave, and the plot left open until it was at full quota before being earthed over.
The process meant that sometimes the grave was open for up to two years and the cardboard coffins having degraded in days left body parts open to scavenging wildlife and carrion feeders.
Where and when was all this workhouse atrocity I asked myself. It is current practice for most London boroughs, Islington being the biggest subscriber at present. I am shocked.
Interesting that you should show Bermondsey workhouse Boadicea. Nearby, the members of the Browning Settlement were major players in the campaign to introduce an old age pension. Elderly people whose families could not support them would be begging for any type of work to keep them out of the workhouse where the sexes were segregated and so couples were split.
Re children born out of wedlock – perhaps rural families covered it up and coped, but it seems a different story in towns, especially where the child was the result of a rape by the girl’s employer. Parish registers record babies being routinely left on doorsteps of churches.
However, the cost of a wedding was prohibitive (sound familiar?) and in some parishes the rectors introduced ‘penny wedding’ to encourage the poor not to cohabit outside marriage. At these penny weddings, several couples would be married at the same time. I’ve read of twenty couples marrying in one service.
Perhapss not forced labour however some form of community service should be a pre-requisite to obtaining welfare.
Interesting post and comments, Boadicea.
Hi Boa.
I understand and sympathise with a lot of what you say…I saw a lot of deprivation and benefit scammers when growing up. And still do, actually, now in Blackburn; my mum says exactly the same as you about them.
But it’s very easy to tar everyone with the same brush, and there are many, many unseen stresses and strains behind every stereotype. Sorry if I come over a bit ‘touchy’ about the undeserving poor/single mums thing; I’ve had many clashes on MyT over this. But personally speaking, I would be the last person to cast the first stone, not least because I think it is very hard to judge what’s really going on in people’s lives. And, because I think fate is a fickle creature; who’s to say some of us are not within a hair’s breadth of becoming the same?
I must stop this eternal wittering on about goings on on MyT. But you were absolutely bang on, last night, by the way ; )
Many Thanks for all the comments.
I’m shocked, too, Ferret. See below for earlier times.
Isobel
It’s hardly surprising that I chose Bermondsey Workhouse. One side of my family are Londoners from way, way back… and this is a web-site that I use frequently. You might enjoy it.
http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/
I recently read some London parish registers, and was almost tempted to write a blog on MyT for those who believe that society managed very well without the NHS for centuries. As you say, almost every baptism page has a ‘child found in the Churchyard’, and virtually every burial page contains ‘Unknown Man / Woman found…’. Ferret’s story has shocked me, since these people were buried ‘on the Parish’.
Another side were rural labourers in Lincolnshire, and it is those families that I was talking about. For reasons which I won’t go into here, I extended my research to cover around 2,000 people. I’m inclined to think that it was probably the proximity to family that was the deciding factor in these cases. The fact that so many of the women subsequently married and took the child with them into their marriages seem to suggest that there was a slightly different attitude to that prevailing in urban areas.
KM
You have picked up on what was intended to be a follow up post. I would argue that some form of community service should be a pre-requisite for benefits. I am not talking about those who are genuinely unable to work, but certainly for the rest. The State is paying them anyway, and there are many things that could be done. It might have the effect of inculcating the novel idea that with Rights also comes Responsibility, and that if one takes one should also give back.
Claire
#11 It pays better to play the system; it’s a good job I’m not the unscrupulous type : )
#21 who’s to say some of us are not within a hair’s breadth of becoming the same?
Your first comment shows that you will never become the second!
I think you may still be missing the point that I’m trying to make, which is that it’s the system which is at fault and needs remedying. As I frequently say, I really cannot blame people for taking what’s on free offer.
No society can call itself civilised if it does not care for the impotent poor, I also happen to believe that it is equally important to provide a safety net for those who have ‘fallen on hard times’, and to extend whatever help is needed to get them back on their own feet. But I do also believe that it is equally important that society teaches people that they have an obligation to take care of themselves and theirs. And I see the present system is signally failing in that respect.
I watched a ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ with my mother. I cannot remember who it was, but she wanted to know about her grandfather who had abandoned three children. The three ‘abandoned’ children, now adults, spoke of their poverty, their hunger, their cold, their ragged clothing, the lack of furniture, the dirt, the mice, and the bed-bugs with pride.
My mother was incandescent. Her mother was widowed at exactly the same time and left with five small children… She sent the Relieving Officer on his way, she sent the Barnardo’s Man on his way and she went out to work cleaning offices. My mother says that they never went hungry, they were never cold, and their home was spotlessly clean…
It is a matter of attitude. I am quite certain that you will bring your children up with the same ethics that you have, but we now have several generations who have been brought up to believe that they have All Rights and No Responsibility. And the system encourages that belief – it needs to be fixed before it breaks.
Boadicea, Thanks I’ll look at the page. Did your family have a particular Bermondsey connection?
The WDYTYA was Kim Cattrell I think.
Circumstances are different for every family and widowhood is different to abandonment. My mother had a childhood that makes Cinderella look like a spoiled brat. The stories she and her surviving siblings tell are horrific. All grew up and worked hard, making good despite severely curtailed educations. But that childhood left terrible scars and I wish someone had been on hand to help the children my mother, my aunts and uncles once were.
Boa; yes, good point, very well said. I was brought up in the conservative era, and while I remember the strikes etc etc, the main thing it instilled in me, along with my mum’s hard working attitude, was a sense that you could get where you wanted as long as you were prepared to work your ass off for it…
Maybe it’s just the process of ‘growing up’, but I’m not sure I believe any of it any more…
But still, yes rights come with responsbilities. I have heard kids say to me so many times in school, ‘I’ve got rights’…as if they had some sort of entitlement to things.
A few years ago, working in an inner city Leeds school, I remember a French Muslim colleague who was on lunchtime duty with me, in a corridor where the kids were screaming, stamping, fighting and generally behaving like mad animals.
She said; ‘This is the problem when you give young people too many rights.’ I’ve often thought back to that, because I think she was spot on.
Isobel
Yes, there is a Bermondsey connection – the Lincolnshire family moved there and married into the London family.
I believe you are right about Kim Cattrell – altho’ I have no idea who she is!
I think you have proved my point in that at the end of the day it is the ‘family’ ethos which is important. What can I say about childhood scars? People use their experiences as crutches to hobble through life on – or they use them as a ladder to survive. Probably sounds hard – but think about it. 🙂
Clair
I, too was, brought up with that sentiment… you may feel disillusioned, but at least you’ve got further than you would have done without working. 🙂
Boa, yes…I think it’s just a bit of a bad patch, work wise, at the moment…but you have a point there. I’d much rather work than live off the state; I’m not sure the same could be said for many of the young mums around here. 😉
In some Boadicea, but their early experiences damaged and limited them, made my mother determined and fearful. With the right support I believe they would have achieved more and been happier. The ‘family’ was the group of siblings. Their mother died and their father, who drank, got a girl pregnant and married her. She was ignorant, not very bright and couldn’t cope. Her husband beat her, She beat and half-starved the children from the first marriage. That’s just the beginning.
claire
I’m sure you’re right. And why would they? I’ll agree that most of them don’t know of a better way of life, and a lot of them don’t want to know. But just as I hold parents responsible for failing to teach their children the difference between right and wrong, I really hold the State to blame for failing to teach its citizens the difference between short term support and life-style choices.
Isobel
It sounds a horrendous story… and one, unfortunately, that is still being repeated today – even with all the support services now in place.
I’m sure that with good help they might have been happier and achieved more. But, perhaps one should celebrate what they have achieved despite everything. Sorry if that sounds a bit patronising, it isn’t meant to – but I think in some way it’s almost denying their stupendous achievement to say ‘Ah, but what if… ‘ 🙂
Too late for me to engage now Boadicea. I would never deny what they have achieved. SO MAYBE i haven’t expressed myself clearly.
Sorry if I stepped over a line Isobel, you certainly made it clear that you have nothing but admiration for them. 🙂
I’ve noted that you’ve been saying you’re off to bed for some time, I look forward to continuing the debate some other time. Good night!
PS – I hope you enjoy the photos on the web-site as much as I do!
I shall disappear shortly and try to find out some more about my gardeners and cow-keepers on Kennington Common.
Hi Boadicea, sorry about the caps last night, obviously hit them at some stage and didn’t notice. It wasn’t intended as a shout. I had a quick look at the site and found the house of some friends there so I shall pass the details on to them. Next time you are in London do visit the fabulous local studies library in Borough High Street. It is far and away the best of its sort I have ever been to with interested and interesting staff who are, especially Stephen Humphries, extraordinarily knowledgeable about Southwark. It’s just had a refurb, and been temporarily housed in Peckham library, but is moving home about now and reopening any day.
Re my mother’s family. The trials and tribulations and traumas they went through are to numerous for these pages. I have never wanted to read Angela’s Ashes or similar, because from what I heard about them, those stories are too close to the ones I grew up on.
Hi Isobel.
I went to the Borough Local Studies Library a long time ago, they weren’t all that helpful then so I’ll have another try – on your recommendation!
To be honest, I’ve never been able to read any of those books… too much pain.
Stephen Humpries has written a number of books too. He looks like a character from a book himself, but is an entertaining and erudite speaker.
Most of the lot I’m after were baptised, married and buried in St Marys, Lambeth. It’s a beautiful little church, now, sadly, a gardening museum on account of the Tradescants being buried there. I’ve only recently discovered just how many there were in that area – so that’s on my list of visits.
The Minet Library used to be quite good, but it’s a long, long time since I visited there.
The gardening museum had a makeover last year and is even nicer now. It’s quite big though! The records should be at the London Metropolitan Library (I suspect you know this already) which used to be called the Greater London Record Office. I’ve always been unlucky in the Minet library with staff who are covering for someone else and not v interested. Buzz me an email when you next coming if you like and maybe we can swap knowledge and stuff.
Thanks Isobel. The Parish Registers from the LMA are virtually all on line on Ancestry. It also has the registers from the Guildhall Archives (City of London) and are making a start on those from the Westminster Archives.
That makes life so easy for people like me. I can sit here, armed with my cup of coffee, any time of the day or night and just work my way through them. The digital images are far clearer than those wretched microfilms and I can make copies of whatever I want.
I will buzz you an e-mail… that would be good. 🙂
Jolly dee. I haven’t done any trawling at the LMA for a while. Is it free to access the parish registers online? I may take a look if it is.
Were any of your Lambeth lot working at Doulton? Just a thought.
There’s a newish book out called Vauxhall, a Little History by Ross Davies. It covers Doulton and the Garden Museum. The book is good, but I went to a talk by the author, and it wasn’t.
No, it’s not free. It costs around £140 a year. It’s not cheap, but the convenience of being able to look in my time and in my space and not have to pay 30p (which is what it was last year – probably gone up again!) for an illegible copy of a microfilm makes it well worth the cost, in my view.
The site also has the census material 1841-1901, soldiers records, criminal registers, shipping lists and a whole mass of other stuff. Every so often the site has a ‘free trial’ for a fortnight – so it’s worth checking it out every so often.
I also subscribe to FindmyPast, around the same price – that has the 1841-1911 census, electoral rolls… I’ve never seen a free -trial on that site.
Thanks. well, if I ever get time to resume family history i may just sign up. Mind you, my interest in london history by area may be enough to justify it.
Have you come across the Booth Notebooks?
I’ll check back tomorrow. The xw calls.
Goodnight.
I have, but not used them. Catch you tomorrow!
My volume may cover Barlow Road. will take a look when I have time.
http://www.urban75.org/london/camberwell-submarine.html
might interest you. I expect you’ll remember it. V close to Myatts Fields.
You didn’t reply to my question about Doulton.
Thanks Isobel. I’d appreciate a look at the Barlow Street entry. I do remember the submarine!
And I missed the Doulton question…
The Lambeth residents (1760s-1830s) were gardeners and cow-keepers on what was then Kennington Common. The map I have of the time shows that the Oval, formerly a market garden, didn’t exist. The family also had property in Westminster. Unfortunately they had a fairly common name so, although I’ve bought some wills on-line, I’m waiting to get to the NLA and LMA to read through the mountains of wills registered under that surname. I’m hopeful, since they seem to be a family who left wills.
One married the son of the licensee of the White Horse on the Brixton Road – it’s still there. I have a picture of it drawn just about the time he died – the inventory of his goods is fascinating!
The Lincolnshire guy worked, when he was fit, at the Brewery in Southwark.
Now I can tell you all about the Oval! But not tonight. I may email you if that’s ok? i’m guessing I’ll see your email address if i look on the dashboard.
Just checked out Barlow Street. It doesn’t say much:
’30th june 1899. Barlow Street. Very much mixed. New 2-st cottages on east are PINK, in map Light Blue. North of them is PURPLE on both sides. South might remain light blue as map.’
The colurs indicate the level of poverty or comfort of the people who lived in each street.
YELLOW – Upper-middle and upper classes. Wealthy.
RED – Middle class. Well-to-do.
PINK – Fairly comfortable. Good ordinary earnings.
PURPLE – Mixed. Some comfortable., others poor.
LIGHT BLUE – Poor. 18s to 21s a week for a moderate family.
DARK BLUE – Very poor, casual. Chronic want.
BLACK – Lowest class Vicious, semi-criminal.
Cheers! E-mail would be fine.
But let me know when you’ve sent it. I have a very high level filter on all my accounts… even Bearsy’s from here was stopped at source!
You could write a post. Oval pre-Cricket… 🙂
OK. There’s some more stuff about the area around Barlow strret. I’ll let you have it too.
Actually as I’m not an administrator on this site I’m not sure I can see your email. I’ve got Bearsy’s as he’s commented on my page.
Removed e-mail address – I’d forgotten it was open to all and sundry.
Thanks I’ll try it and see if it reaches you. So testing in a about one minute!
Got here and I’ve responded – must fly… 🙂