STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
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A lyrical evocation of pre-industrial Calderdale
END OF AN EPOCH: The earliest known image of a cotton mill dates to 1746. Mills like this one - converted from a corn mill in Northampton - proliferated through the valleys of Calderdale
CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity
The bard mourns the loss of comrades and troubadours, and looks for consolation with Black Country Jess
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, Parthenope, Where Dragons Live and Thunderbolts* reviewed by MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE
Where the Skylark Sings
By Lee Garratt
Dimensionfold Publishing, £12.99
IN THIS slim novel, Lee Garratt takes us on a historical journey through the hills and valleys of Calderdale in Yorkshire and introduces us to the people who lived there.
He begins in 1790, and through the lives of one weaving family, he charts the devastating destruction of the old-style cottage weaving industry with the coming of mass production mills during the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Despite the attempts of the cottage weaving families in the area to prevent the mills destroying their livelihoods and way of life, the inexorable march of the wealthy mill owners is relentless.
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