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Great British Life •

How two Lancashire literary legends met at an auction

The eight books had a price tag of £275. At first glance this seemed expensive but then I realised they had belonged to another famous Lake District author. They were the copies that had once belonged to the late Postman Pat creator John Cunliffe and included his personal annotations.

I was drawn to them because of fleeting encounters I’d had with both Wainwright and Cunliffe. Also I had worked as a journalist for the publisher of the guides, the Westmorland Gazette.

Alfred Wainwright in the f
Quays Life •

REVIEW: I Should Be So Lucky

If you happened to be listening to a radio in the mid-to late-1980s there was no escaping the sounds of Stock Aitken Waterman.

You knew instantly when one of their records came on.

The trio and their Hit Factory were famous for their driving beats, tinkling instrumentation and soaring melodic hooks that wormed their way into your brain.

At the time, Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman had a tough time from the music press, who never took them seriously.

Yet it was hard to argue with SA
The Telegraph •

How I made Cary Grant’s heartbreaking double life into a drama

I ghost-wrote this article for Jeff Pope after interviewing him at the press screening of Archie, hence his byline.

Cary Grant is, without question, one of the pre-eminent movie stars of the 20th century. To me, he is a cross between George Clooney and Tom Hanks. If you look at the figures, he topped the box office year after year. His films — North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, The Philadelphia Story — were among the most watched in the world. What I never realised was that in 1966, at the age of 62, and at the height of his fame and powers as an actor, Cary Grant gave it all up to become a stay-at-home da

The History Press | Ask the author: Jeremy Craddock on The Jigsaw Murders

On 12 May 1936 Buck Ruxton was hanged in Manchester after being found guilty of murdering his wife, Isabella Ruxton, and their children’s nanny, Mary Jane Rogerson, the previous September. We spoke to Jeremy Craddock, author of The Jigsaw Murders: The True Story of the Ruxton Killings and the Birth of Modern Forensics, about the gruesome crime that shocked the UK and changed the history of forensic science.

Why do you think true crime stories continue to fascinate us, and what was it about this
HoldtheFrontPage •

Eccentric literary giants shaped Westmorland Gazette - Journalism News from

The Westmorland Gazette is celebrating its 200th birthday this year with a series of events and exhibitions across its Lake District patch.

Here, freelance journalist and journalism lecturer Jeremy Craddock, who began his career there, describes how three eccentric and idiosyncratic literary giants helped shape the newspaper.

Poet William Wordsworth never intended to be a newspaperman but in 1818 he was talked into it by influential political figures in his beloved Lake District.

Although he
Warrington Guardian •

Lovely memories of when world famous writer Richard Curtis lived in Warrington

The Love Actually and Blackadder writer even brought comedian Rowan Atkinson to stay in the family home in Appleton.

Writer Jeremy Craddock takes up the story of when the Curtis family was in Warrington, with help from a chat with Barry Jones.

His dad Jack was Mr Curtis' senior chaffeur from his time working at Crosfields.

The Curtis family lived at Merricourt on Windmill Lane, Appleton, in the 1970s and early 80s when Richard’s father, Tony, was chairman of Crosfields.

Barry tells me his da
Express.co.uk •

How Buck Ruxton committed a double murder

The case that appalled millions of newspaper readers worldwide began with the discovery of dismembered human remains in the Scottish Borders in 1935. It culminated in the execution of a charismatic and popular Lancashire doctor, Buck Ruxton, convicted of murdering his wife and his children's nanny. The landmark case is still remembered almost 90 years on because of the incredible forensic breakthroughs made by investigators. Some of these pioneering techniques are still in use today. A key aspec
The Mill •

The Jigsaw Murders: How a sensational Manchester trial gave birth to modern forensics

Friday March 13 in 1936 was a cold, clear day. Britain was emerging from a mild winter but it was still overcoat-and-gloves weather in Manchester.

There was a buzz of activity at the High Court of Justice on Great Ducie Street, a stone’s throw from the cathedral and Victoria station, where the Manchester Winter Assizes were sitting. The imposing Venetian Gothic Revival building peered down in judgement on Manchester’s scurrying citizens. Over its shoulder, the equally austere, smoke-grimed Stra
Lancashire Evening Post •

How infamous Lancashire murder changed policing forever

Ruxton fell under suspicion when Scottish police saw a newspaper report of a young woman missing from Lancashire. It was Ruxton’s nanny, Mary. Acting on a hunch, the Chief Constable of Dumfriesshire called Lancaster police station. And so began the ground-breaking investigation which would send Ruxton to the gallows at Strangeways Prison on May 12, 1936.

The story of these Agatha Christie-era murders has been told many times in newspapers, magazines and true crime books. But these accounts rake
Manchester Evening News •

The story of the Jigsaw Killer and the Manchester trial that made history

Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the day's biggest stories sent direct to your inboxSign up for our daily newsletter to get the day's biggest stories sent direct to your inboxOn the morning of September 29, 1935 Susan Haines Johnson glanced over an old stone bridge and down into the Gardenholm Linn stream in Moffat, Scotland and saw a gruesome sight. Her eyes caught a bundle rocking slightly in the water with the shocking and unmistakable shape of a human arm sticking out where the fabric...
Warrington Guardian •

Tributes to Warrington's winner of New Faces who appeared with The Beatles

Nicky was best known for winning ITV’s New Faces in the 1970s. He died peacefully at home in Appleton Thorn with his family by his side on Monday, June 15, after a brave battle with cancer.

In a long career that began playing drums in bands in Warrington, he appeared at the Cavern in Liverpool with the Beatles, and at the London Palladium, as well as making many television appearances.

Nicky is survived by wife Edwina, daughter Phillippa, her partner Dave, and grandchildren Chloe, Tom, Ryan an
Medium •

Stan & Ollie and me

What follows is a piece of arts journalism I wrote for a competition that, having failed to win the prize, has been gathering dust on my computer’s hard drive, so I thought I would give it an airing here.

Those of you who know me well know I have been a Laurel and Hardy fan since I was a young lad.

This piece is a review of the excellent John Connolly biographical novel about Stan Laurel, he. It also makes a passing reference to the movie Stan & Ollie starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly.
Medium •

Age shall not weary them

In September 1914, Laurence Binyon was visiting Cornwall. His trip had been overshadowed by what was happening in Europe. The Great War (as the First World War was known at the time) had only recently broken out. The first casualties had been suffered after the British Expeditionary Force clashed with the Imperial German Army at the Battle of Mons on August 23, followed by the First Battle of the Marne in early September when the British fought with the French Army against the Germans.

These we
Medium •

It was 55 years ago today

On Monday, November 4th, 1963, The Beatles were to all intents and purposes imprisoned.

They were inside the Prince of Wales Theatre near Leicester Square in London preparing to perform at that evening’s Royal Variety Performance in front of Her Majesty the Queen Mother. Their manager Brian Epstein refused to let them outside for fear of causing a riot.

In a few heady months the band had gone from playing in the bowels of a Liverpool cellar to become a teenage national craze that had been labe
Warrington Guardian •

How booking the Beatles helped pay for a great holiday to Vegas

Pete Rigby is now 76 and still lives in the same house on Grosvenor Avenue where a letter from Brian Epstein arrived all those years ago.

Dated July 17, 1962, it confirmed that John, Paul, George and original drummer Pete Best would appear at the Bell Hall in Orford three days later, on July 20.

In a characteristic Epstein flourish, the letter stated: “I would remind you that The Beatles’ spot is for a duration of one hour only.”

Bands usually played two 45-minute sets at Bell Hall.

Already
Warrington Guardian •

How booking the Beatles helped pay for a great holiday to Vegas

Pete Rigby is now 76 and still lives in the same house on Grosvenor Avenue where a letter from Brian Epstein arrived all those years ago.

Dated July 17, 1962, it confirmed that John, Paul, George and original drummer Pete Best would appear at the Bell Hall in Orford three days later, on July 20.

In a characteristic Epstein flourish, the letter stated: “I would remind you that The Beatles’ spot is for a duration of one hour only.”

Bands usually played two 45-minute sets at Bell Hall.

Already
Leigh Journal •

The rise and rise again of our seaside holidays

Can you hear me?

I’m writing to you from my holiday in Cornwall.

The weather’s been kind and we’ve made some sandcastles on the beach. Are you getting away this year? You are? Where are you going? Oh, very nice. Well, send me a postcard.

You might think the seaside holiday is a modern advent, well, modern as in the past hundred years or so.

Wealthy Romans living in Colchester are thought to have treated Mersea Island in Essex as a seaside resort.

Certainly until the mid-19th century a trip
The Westmorland Gazette •

Statue to honour Stan Laurel...

FORTY years ago an elderly man turned to his nurse and said: "I wish I was skiing right now".

"Oh, I didn't know you were a skier," replied the nurse.

"I'm not. But I'd much rather be doing that than this."

It was the last punch line Stan Laurel delivered. He died of a heart attack, aged 74, on February 23, 1965.

Ulverston-born Laurel, and his screen partner Oliver Hardy, may be gone, but seven decades after their heyday, the world is still laughing.

The only difference now is we watch them
The Westmorland Gazette •

Cumbria Has A Ten-year Anti-drugs Strategy

The county boasts various anti-drugs agencies, a community-wide drugs programme run by Morecambe Bay Health Authority, and a visionary Chief Constable in Colin Phillips, who is leading the fight both locally and in the national arena.

The government-appointed drug tsar Keith Hellawell's much-publicised ten-year strategy on drugs is about to come into force. How it will work at grass roots level in Cumbria will be revealed at a special meeting on July 10, attended by Sean McCollum, leader of Cum
The Westmorland Gazette •

'Wordsworth Was A Spy' Claim

The BBC will make the film, Pandemonium, to be shown in the cinema before being screened on television.

Emily Woof - daughter of Wordsworth Trust director Dr Robert Woof - is to play Dorothy Wordsworth, while Ian Hart, who played John Lennon in Backbeat, is considering playing Wordsworth.

The script is by former Coronation Street and Brookside writer Frank Cottrell Boyce, whose previous films include Welcome To Sarajevo and Butterfly Kiss, about a lesbian serial killer. The director will be Ju
The Westmorland Gazette •

Store Giants Aim For Market Town Trade

Booths is making a fresh bid to open a food store in Kirkby Lonsdale and has submitted a revised and scaled-down application to South Lakeland District Council following the failure of an earlier scheme.

Meanwhile, Safeway's efforts to trade in Carnforth come under the spotlight on Monday when Lancaster City Council considers plans for a store on Lancaster Road.

But despite massive support for the scheme from residents and traders, LCC's planning committee is set to refuse the application on t