Long Road from Jarrow: A Journey Through Britain Then and Now

by Stuart Maconie

Overview

Three and half weeks. Three hundred miles. I saw roaring arterial highway and silent lanes, candlelit cathedrals and angry men in bad pubs. The Britain of 1936 was a land of beef paste sandwiches and drill halls. Now we are nation of vaping and nail salons, pulled pork and salted caramel.

In the autumn of 1936, some 200 men from the Tyneside town of Jarrow marched 300 miles to London in protest against the destruction of their towns and industries. Precisely 80 years on, Stuart Maconie, walks from north to south retracing the route of the emblematic Jarrow Crusade.

Traveling down the country’s spine, Maconie moves through a land that is, in some ways, very much the same as the England of the 30s with its political turbulence, austerity, north/south divide, food banks and of course, football mania. Yet in other ways, it is completely unrecognizable.

Maconie visits the great cities as well as the sleepy hamlets, quiet lanes and roaring motorways. He meets those with stories to tell and whose voices build a funny, complex and entertaining tale of Britain, then and now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785030543
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.75(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stuart Maconie is a writer, broadcaster and journalist familiar to millions from his work in print, on radio and on TV. His previous bestsellers have included Cider with Roadies, Pies and Prejudice and Adventures on the High Teas, and he currently hosts the afternoon show on BBC 6music with Mark Radcliffe as well as weekly show The Freak Zone. Based in the cities of Birmingham and Manchester, he can also often be spotted on top of a mountain in the Lake District with a Thermos flask and individual pork pie.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

'The Town That Was Murdered' 19

Pre-Amble 33

Stage 1 Jarrow to Chester-Le-Street 5 October, 12 Miles 51

Stage 2 Chester-Le-Street to Ferryhill 6 October, 12 Miles 62

Stage 3 Ferryhill To Darlington 7 October, 12 Miles 79

Stage 4 Darlington to Northallerton 8 October, 16 Miles 93

Stage 5 Northallerton to Ripon 9 October, 19 miles 105

Stage 6 Ripon to Harrogate 12 October, 11 Miles 117

Stage 7 Harrogate to Leeds 13 October, 15 Miles 132

Stage 8 Leeds to Wakefield 14 October, 9 Miles 144

Stage 9 Wakefield to Barnsley 15 October, 10 Miles 158

Stage 10 Barnsley to Sheffield 16 October, 13 Miles 170

Stage 11 Sheffield to Chesterfield 17 October, 12 Miles 186

Stage 12 Chesterfield to Mansfield 18 October, 12 Miles 197

Stage 13 Mansfield To Nottingham 20 October, 14 Miles 211

Stage 14 Nottingham to Loughborough 21 October, 15 Miles 224

Stage 15 Loughborough to Leicester 22 October, 11 Miles 238

Stage 16 Leicester to Market Harborough 23 October, 14 Miles 252

Stage 17 Market Harborough to Northampton 24 October, 17 Miles 264

Stage 18 Northampton to Bedford 26 October, 21 Miles 279

Stage 19 Bedford to Luton 28 October, 19 Miles 295

Stage 20 Luton to St Albans 29 October, 10 Miles 310

Stage 21 St Albans to Edgware 30 October, 11 Miles 325

Stage 22 Edgware to Marble Arch 31 October, 9 Miles 334

Postscript 350

Post Postscript 357

Thanks 365

Further Reading 367

Editorial Reviews

"Footsore in spacetime, hiking simultaneously through memory and landscape, in Long Road from Jarrow Stuart Maconie shadows the defiant, desperate and dignified crusade of 1936 through a modern world where everything has changed except for the austerity, the poverty, the national and global instability, the worrying ascendancy of fascism, and the resilient decency of ordinary people. This is a necessary book; a necessary journey through English identity, and one which you’ll be glad that you embarked on. Now, yes, now is the hour." —Alan Moore

From the Publisher