The Nottingham Cheese Riot - 2nd October 1766

The Nottingham Cheese Riot, also known as the Great Cheese Riot, started on 2nd October 1766 at the city’s Goose Fair.

Coming at a time of great food shortage and rising prices in England, violent scenes took place to stop Lincolnshire merchants taking away Nottinghamshire cheeses bought at the fair. 

That summer was not a particularly good one for agriculture in the British Isles. Ireland had undergone a famine and production was well down in England, causing a major hike in food prices. Usually the Goose Fair was a time of celebration and revelry amongst the local people, but things were very different that year with food shortages and price rises. 

Indeed the price of cheese had pretty much doubled overnight and there were rumours that traders were on their way from Lincolnshire to buy the entire stock of cheese to take back with them. This infuriated the locals who considered that it should only be sold to Nottinghamshire people or at least they should get first refusal.

When the visiting merchants arrived they were accosted by a group called the “rude-lads” who demanded that the cheese remain locally which led to all-out chaos. They began attacking and ransacking the stalls and distributed the cheeses to the crowd. 

Being barrel-shaped the cheese could easily be rolled, and soon they were being propelled down the street. Generic looting took place with windows being broken and general damage to property. 

So the cheese owners set up a posse who arrested many of the “rude-lads” putting them in prison. This angered the mob even more who stormed the jail insisting upon their release and they did not disperse until they were all let go.

The next day the army were brought in to try and quell the riot, but the unrest continued for several days. Eventually wagon loads of cheese were removed from Nottingham under armed escort to keep the rioting crowds at bay.

In 2016 the city of Nottingham proudly celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Great Cheese Riot.

King Edgar - Ascended the English Throne on 1st October 959.

On 1st October 959, Edgar ascended the English throne upon the death of his brother Eadwig.

Edgar was King of Marcia from 957 while Eadwig ruled Wessex, the border being the route of the River Thames. It is unsure whether the differing kingdoms was because of unrest within Edgar’s supporters of Eadrig’s incompetence or if it had been previously agreed between them. 

It is most likely that Eadwig’s death prevented civil war breaking out between the rival followers of the two brothers and subsequently Edgar took control as King of all England with his former tutor Ethelwald becoming very powerful at court.

Edgar has been described as enigmatic and elusive, mainly because of the little information that has been handed down about his reign. It is known that it came during a lull in Viking attacks and is considered as a golden age when England was free from attack and internal disorder. He was considered a stern judge and England underwent an unlikely period of stability throughout his reign.

He died in 975, having ruled for 16 years, but was only in his early 30s at death. Known as Edgar the Peaceable, he is regarded as a saint by the Catholic church and is buried at Glastonbury Abbey.

National Chewing Gum Day - 30th September

National Chewing Gum day takes place this coming Monday on 30th September. But chewing gum is certainly nothing new having been around for longer than you think.

There is evidence of its use by ancient civilisations with the oldest piece discovered being found in Finland dating back to around 5700 years old. 

Apparently it was a wad of birch tar that had been chewed by a young girl who had recently consumed a meal of duck and hazelnuts!

North American Indians chewed resin eminating from spruce trees while eskimos used to chew a product made from blubber.

The first commercial chewing gum was introduced in the mid 19th century in the US state of Maine and bubble gum first appeared in 1906 being invented by Frank Henry Fleer. The product went by the name of  Blibber-Blubber!

In 1888 Tutti-Frutti became the first gum to be sold in vending machines on the New York subway system and in 2012 the EU approved sugar-free gum as benficial to dental health.

So I hope you enjoy National Chewing Gum day, but please  remember to dispose of your used gum sensibly!

Marks and Spencer - Founded 28th September 1894

The retail store Marks and Spencer celebrates its 130th birthday today after being founded when Michael Marks acquired his first permanent stall in Leeds covered market and invited Thomas Spencer to be his business partner.

Marks, a Polish Jew who was born in Belarus, worked for a company based in Leeds (Barran) which employed Jewish workers. He borrowed £5 from Isaac Dewhirst to set up a penny bazaar on Kirkgate market in Leeds.

Dewhirst’s cashier was Thomas Spencer whose wife Agnes had helped Marks improve his English and in 1894 Marks invited Spencer to become his business partner.

A history of M&S

As we all know, M&S became, and remains one of the most famous names in every UK high street.

Gracie Fields - died 27th September 1979

45 years ago today, Dame Gracie Fields passed away aged 81. Born Grace Stansfield in Rochdale, Lancashire in January 1898, she went on to become a mega-star of cinema and music hall. 

One of the top 10 movie stars of the 1930s and the highest paid film star in the world in 1937, she was affectionately known as “Our Gracie” and “the Lancashire Lass” as she never lost her broad Lancashire accent. 

Her health deteriorated in 1979 after performing an open-air concert on the Royal Yacht, which was docked in Capri’s harbour (her island home) at the time, and after a spell recovering in hospital she passed away. She was laid to rest in Capri’s protestant cemetery in a white marble tomb.

The Death of Coco the Clown (25th September 1974)

Nicolai Poliakoff, better remembered as Coco the Clown, died on this day in 1974.

Born in Latvia in 1900 to a very poor family, the young Nicolai started his performing career, singing for money at the local theatre to avoid starvation after his father was conscripted to the Russian army to fight in the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05).

He ran away at age 8, travelling over 300 miles into the depths of Belarus to join the circus telling the circus owner he was an orphan. Put under the charge of Vitaly Lazarenko an acrobat and clown  who was later to become a major star in post communist Russia.

Later in his career Nicolai served with the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps of the British Army in World War II, going on to appear as Coco with the Bertram Mills Circus for many years. His clown persona had two distinctive visual features that endeared him to TV audiences: his enormous boots, and his trick hair with hinges in the centre parting, allowing it to lift when he was surprised.

On 25th September 1974 he passed away in Peterborough after a short illness and was laid to rest in St Mary's Church, Woodnewton in Northamptonshire.

Coco the Clown, arguably the most famous clown in the United Kingdom in the mid-20th century, was a genius and a total master of his trade. 

                     Coco on a hospital visit with his son in 1971

I vaguely remember going to see the great man perform in person at a circus in the Bournemouth area of the UK back in the early 1960s. 

The Gresford Colliery Disaster

90 years ago at the Gresford Colliery, near to Wrexham in Wales, an explosion and underground fire killed 261 men. 

Being one of Britain’s worst coal mining disasters, failures in safety procedures and poor mine management were contributing factors to the sad loss of life

After the event the damaged sections of the colliery were sealed permanently resulting in only 8 bodies ever being recovered.

The disaster took place in the Dennis shaft of the colliery at approximately 2am on 22nd September 1934. The exact cause was never determined and 253 bodies remain entombed to this day.

The mine was re-opened six months after the disaster and coal production resumed early in 1936, however, the Dennis section never reopened and the bodies of the victims there were sealed in. The colliery closed in 1973, the site was cleared and is now occupied by Gresford Industrial Park.

                                                              Pathe news clip

The Gresford Disaster is a folk song which has been widely recorded by artists such as Ewan MacColl (link below), the Hennessy’s and the Albion band and the song “The Colliers” on Seth Lakeman’s 2006 album Freedom Fields is also about the disaster.