There's No Getting Away From It

“I see too plainly custom forms us all. Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief, are consequences of our place of birth” wrote Aaron Hill, dramatist, 1685-1750. I came across this quote while I was reading Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keillor’s story of a mythical settlement somewhere in Minnesota, and it seemed apt insofar as the settlers brought to that place, where they had no history, their cultural baggage from Europe. They began to build a community on the various foundations of Norwegian Lutheranism, German Catholicism and an obscure but specific branch of Plymouth Brethren Protestantism. Over the years they beavered away, isolated from the main centres of population, farming the land pioneer-style while the broader American society developed its cultural identity, eventually sucking in their descendants.

Of course there were no museums in Lake Wobegon although, over time, I imagine one may have been founded. It might have contained examples of horse-drawn ploughshares in the Nowegian, German and English styles, for example. Children would be taken there by their grandparents to understand their history and how it formed them. Here, in NW England, we have quite a few museums since this is where momentous cultural change was brought about by the rapid industrialisation of the wool and cotton industries. But now Lancashire County Council is now so short of money (because of cuts in Central Government grants) that it will have to cease funding five of the local museums so that it can continue to provide more critical services. It’s hard to believe that in this, the world’s fifth richest economy, publicly funded museums have become unaffordable but the fact is that the billions of pounds generated by UK plc are being resolutely diverted away from any public or social enterprise. Privatisation is the only option the Government will contemplate and, despite consequences such as widening social inequality, housing shortages and crises in healthcare, education and the justice system, the money earned by the economy accumulates to relatively few individuals who preside over the cultural impoverishment of the country as a whole. Perhaps one of them will step forward and donate the measly £1.13 million needed to replace LCC’s annual contribution?

Failing that, Lancashire stands to lose historic buildings like the Judges Lodgings in Lancaster, Queen St. Mill in Burnley and Helmshore Mills – all of which will soon become vulnerable to developers hungry to convert them into flats. If that happens then, according to Aaron Hill’s theory, it would mean that the next generation of Lancastrians, living in buildings bearing names from a forgotten history set in a cultural desert, would grow up as scions of unreconstructed capitalism. We must surely battle to save them from such a bleak future. My contribution – apart from making a fuss – is to visit the museums, pay my (concessionary) entrance fee and buy tea-towels from the gift shops. I urge all who can to do the same and, once we have built a sufficient head of steam, we can take to the streets waving our tea-towels in unison.

I have already been to some of the museums but continue to work through the remainder. This week it was Helmshore Mills, where staff maintain the Victorian machinery and run it at regular intervals. They demonstrate just how horribly dangerous it was to work there, which is not a heritage to be proud of, but I suppose such working conditions did induce a sort of stoicism which lingers today in the older folk, such as the grandfather who was there with his three grand-children. Every now and then I overheard him explaining how things were done “in the old days” though, to be honest, the children’s response was mute. Perhaps it’s too late for them: they may already have been sucked into capitalism’s unconcern for their past.