Review of Winster Local History Group's book Winster, a Peak District Village Remembers, by Julie Bunting
This review is by Julie Bunting, and was published originally in
The Peak Advertiser, the Peak District's local free newspaper,
on 14th August 2000, and is reproduced with Julie's kind permission.
Since setting up its Oral History Project in 1996, Winster Local History
Group has assembled an archive of some fifty tape recordings of residents
and former residents of the village. These have now been transcribed and
published in Winster, A Peak District Village Remembers.
That the project has tapped into the spirit of togetherness which has
always lain at the heart of Winster life is not in doubt - well over 200
people attended the book launch on 17 June - and this feeling comes fully
to life in the book. It is tellingly described in one lovely phrase by a
lady who moved to Winster as a child and was immediately accepted into the
fold by the local children who, she says, 'seemed to be more one-together'
than those at her previous schools.
The combined age of just four of the interviewees totals 370 years but the
reader is taken back far beyond their lifetimes, with tales passed down from
earlier generations. For instance, the occupants of a house on West Bank
must have been astonished to learn that a bear used to sleep there, off duty
from bear baiting at the nearby pub. Then there is the cottage, once a
shop, where a man and his wife ran two very different businesses side by
side - she sold sweets while he used the room as a burial parlour and for
making coffins. Another anecdote tells of Ben, who bought a coffin from
Stanton at a bargain price, keeping it in his front room for about twenty
years 'waiting for him to die'.
Some secrets are now beyond whispering: dubious goings-on at the Den of
Iniquity, the scandal of the vicar and a piano, and the bamboozling of the
Town Clerk. There are recollections of earth closets that were 'regularly
piggling' because they weren't dead level and, on similar themes, the merits
of newspaper versus Izal, or how poor 'Jobby' Marshall got his nick-name.
Mentioned too are earthquakes, the monkey run, 'beautiful' tasty fried
maggots and how the coming of mains gas made it so much easier to singe your
pig 'so you didn't get hairs in your brawn'.
Because the entire text is left almost exactly as told, the naturalness of
the speakers shines through. Better still, one contributor has such a rich
local dialect that it has, quite rightly, not been 'poshed up' at all. Other
willing interviewees are already waiting to add their voices to the archive,
since the project is ongoing. Says Geoff Lester, representing Winster Local
History Group, 'We were fortunate to receive a Millennium award, which meant
we could make a really good job of the book and give a free copy to every
household in Winster. We're also making a "talking book" version for the
visually impaired'.
The quality of the 160-page book is exceptional, with photographs, line
drawings, and a hard-back cover in full colour. Copies are on sale at
Winster Post Office priced £6.95.
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[Created 8 Oct 2000. Last updated 20 Dec 2007 - 13:13 by Rosemary Lockie]