A victim of centralisation

This rather stylish building is the Old Fire Station, built in Fenton (part of Stoke on Trent) in the first decade of the twentieth century. It's now in the possession of a ceramics company.

The initials on it - FUDC - foxed me for a while, but they must stand for Fenton Urban District Council, which was abolished in 1910 when it was merged into the much larger city government. The fire station had the same fate - within ten years the city's fire services were 'centralised' and this building sold.

It's a shame that such smaller councils were stood down; I honestly think that neighbourhoods miss that sense of local control. 

Salt Pepper and Vinegar

These three bottle ovens are known locally as Salt Pepper and Vinegar, because they are as long and slender as table cruets.  And yes, they are different in shape to most of the squat, fat bottle ovens in north Staffordshire.  They have a different function – being used not to fire pottery ware, but to calcine flint, so that the flint could more easily be ground down for use in various processes.

Their heyday was the 19th century of course, and now they are preserved (as Grade 2 listed) memories of the past, as part of the Bottle Ovens Conservation Scheme. James Kent Pottery now owns the site, and they have occasional open-days when the public can get a little closer.

Olde worlde tavern?

Why this pub was ever given such a daft name - 'Ye Olde Manor Inne', complete with antiquated spelling - is beyond comprehension.  Such a title might well be suited to a country tavern in a quaint village, but this is a no-frills pub built slap bang in the centre of an industrial area.
Yes, there was a Fenton Manor once upon a time, but I suspect (I could be wrong) that it had been pulled down long before this building was erected in 1895.
I'd like to know for sure though...

Occupy! ... to save war memorial

Heritage issues can, and do, cause emotions to get to boiling point - much to some people's surprise.

The case of the War Memorial inside the old Fenton Town Hall is just such a case.  For over a year, local feelings have seethed.  The town-hall building (in which the memorial is installed) has been sold off by the government to a business; but local people are unhappy that 'their' war memorial - which cannot be moved for fear it would break up - will be cut off from them, away inside a private building.

Anyway, it all came to a head this Remembrance weekend - and thirty local residents have 'occupied' the site, and are holding out against the police even now.
What will happen next?

See: Protesters inside Fenton hall (BBC News) / Protesters claim Magna Carta rights (Staffs Live News) / Save Our Memorial group (Facebook) / Fenton Memorial Human Chain (YouTube)

Inspired (not) street name

This road-name sign makes me laugh…

You can just see the city-planners - seated round a table at the end of a long day where they have been having a meeting about what to name the ‘new’ streets which have been created after old parts of the city have been pulled down and rebuilt.

They obviously were running out of inspiration when it came to this street in Fenton…!

Tranny with attitude

There are zillions of drag shows, all doing roughly the same thing – big dresses, big hair, risqué jokes, outrageous actions, tributes to the devastated divas (from Judy Garland and Doris Day to Amy Whitehouse and Whitney Houston) and over-the-top renditions of ‘I Will Survive’ and ‘I Am What I Am’. It’s a formula. And it’s barely changed in forty years. But...

This evening I was walking through Fenton (an abandoned industrial town if there ever was one), and I heard the disco noise coming from a pub. Drawn in, I entered the Sparkle Lee show.
Sparkle does exactly the same as any other drag show, but somehow… the act was imbued with a kind of reality and pathos that made it special.

S/he (a “tranny with attitude”) knew everybody in the function room – by name. Because … unbelievably… s/he lives in the next street.
This was the first night that this version of the show had been put on - and it looked like everybody in the street (young and old, man and woman) had turned out to see their favourite son’s debut. It was kinda like … Coronation Street meets La Cage Aux Folles!!

Yes, there was ‘I Am What I Am’, of course - but who would put ‘Working Man’ into their show, except a boy who lives slap-bang here, in dirty old Stoke-on-Trent? 
(For those that don’t know, the lyrics of this song go: “And the coal dust lies heavy / on your lungs / It's a working man I am. / And I've been down underground” – and all this, sung in a big Shirley Bassey dress!). I expect you don’t often get that song in a Las Vegas-style show. It was a tear-jerker moment, believe me.

Sparkle will now go on a string of dates to venues around Wales and the North of England, but who knows if s/he will be able to repeat the emotion of that show?  After all, the first show before a home crowd is always special – for performer and audience alike.

But, s/he’s already booked for the Xmas Eve 2012 show back in Fenton; and … I think I’d want to be there.

Link: Sparkle Lee

Spiritualism lives on

One of the most successful churches in the Potteries is this one.
I had thought Spiritualism declined out of sight after its heyday in the late nineteenth century (famous names including Oliver Lodge and Arthur Conan Doyle were believers then) - but I am clearly wrong.

The church here has a sort-of open service on the afternoon of October 1st when some new mediums are being inducted.