Blackburn Billy (The Road to Nab End - William Woodruff)

Member Name: William Ferguson

Product:	The Road to Nab End - William Woodruff
Date:	31/05/02 (188 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: About Boyhood

Disadvantages: None

William Woodruff is the boy from Blackburn. He made good in the United States and became a writer of history books. Around 1992 he revisited Blackburn Lancashire, his birth place. He tells a fantastic story of his boyhood in this Lancashire Cotton Town.

He was born in 1916 so the story he tells occurred in the 1920's. His Blackburn is in decline, the cotton business is failing and against this background his story unfolds.

The Woodruffs came to Blackburn sometime in the middle of the 19th Century from the Lake District and settled to a life in the textile trade. At this time Blackburn was a very important place.

We are with William has he grows up. We feel that we live as neighbours in his street. We could be fellow kids playing outside the Griffin Pub as our parents are spending Sunday evening having a free and easy.

A late night but one is not latre for work because the knocker-up comes ealy the next morning to awaken your parents. Should they over lay themselves well they had better run or once the gatekeeper closes the gate there is no work that day.

We are with Bill as he goes to school and the school yard code of being bullied didn't last long. Not when their Brenda came and shorted out the big lads where thought young Bill was a softee. She shorted them out all right as she did years later when she joined the Sally Army.

Schools days were had between two schools St Phillips and St. Peters. The angry nun caught him sliding down the bannister and instead of showing fun and humour and enjoying the escapade with him caned him to an inch of his life. What a rotter. So the book goes on to tell about the first visit to Blackpool and visits into the surrounding countryside.

This book is a most for all Blackburnians living in the far corners of the world. It will bring back to them the thoughts of their home town. At its end they like William will remember their roots. Blackburn Lancashire. It is a
lso a good read for anyone else who wants to learn about the Town the Countess of Blackburn represented in the British Parliament for so long.

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