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TIU: Hi Iain, welcome to This is Ulverston! You are, I believe, a lifelong Ulverston resident?
I: Yes, and I see no reason to move, I like it here. I went to a rural university in west Wales – quite wooded and valleyed as much of Wales is but by about six or seven weeks into the first term I was screaming for the big skies and the fell scenery of home. I used to try and get it out of my system because you went over a bit of fell if you took a bus to Aberystwyth but it was at that point I realised how much I liked the landscape around here. A classic take it away and you miss it thing.
TIU: I recognised that myself, living in the city. You don’t register Lakeland so much when you grow up with it but as soon as it’s not there… So what were you studying?
I: Ancient History and Archaeology.
TIU: And you ended up graduating?
I: Yes I have a BA Honours.
TIU: What did you do on return from university?
I: I was working part time as a lifeguard at the swimming pool in Ulverston and in the Spring after I graduated one of the teachers at Urswick school asked if I could give a talk about the Celts. Then she asked if I could “be one”. So I turned up as an iron age inhabitant and the kids were that transfixed that I felt there was something in it and so that’s been the basis of my work ever since. Over the years I’ve covered virtually everything from the ice age to the 1960s. Being a character from the times fascinated me. One time I was a teacher from the Georgian period – trying to get a clash going between the 18th century and the 1960s which they were studying at the time. The thing that really freaked me out was the gradual realisation that if you were a conservative teacher of the 1960s you had much more in common with an 18th century teacher than with a teacher nowadays. Real change has happened over the last fifty or sixty years.
TIU: What other things are you involved with? Obviously I know you do a lot with Heron Corn Mill in Beetham?
I: My association with Heron Mill actually goes back to about a month after it opened in 1975. We heard about this new historic building that had opened and had to go and see it. I never then dreamt how much of the last twenty years I would be involved with that site. The building is fantastic. The fact that you are creating a legally saleable foodstuff in the 21st century from a 1740s mill frame – that’s just ridiculous. The wheel is from the 1850s and it all produces good food. Also of course the projects associated with the site. My favourite one was probably way back in about 2006, I think it was? I got paid to build and then set fire to an 18 foot high wicker man. That was amazing.
TIU: That would have been under the watchful eye of Dan Gibson…
I: Yes! They still show about thirty seconds of the burning wicker man in one of the films that we project into the cafe area.
TIU: Definitely my favourite era and memories of my time there.
I: I remember turning to Dan and asking him what the concept behind the harvest festival that we did for the village was and he gave a fantastic grin and said, “League of Gentlemen meets the Wicker Man”, which really kind of worked for the event. I’ve seen seen the odd bucking bronco machine but I’ve never seen a bucking sheep like the one that he managed to hire for the day.
TIU: There were a lot of great elements at that time.
I: When David Blandy did his Man Who Fell to Earth – the dance on the stage in the evening…
TIU: Not sure I remember that I was drinking a lot of the strawberry vodka. I remember a fire…!
I: If you get amongst the Heron Mill archives you will find a film of him doing an absolutely spectacular dance to Starman – he jumps off the stage and vanishes to girls screaming. It’s quite funny. Find it, it will bring back a lot of memories.
TIU: I’ll get on it.
I: More recently at the Mill we had the birthday celebrations where I co ordinated and directed about seven human sized crows to be pecking around the site, looking intimidating.
TIU: I remember that one too I was in a tent telling fortunes.
I: Yes, we do all sorts of projects there. The guided refugee walks are fairly recent.
TIU: Are there many refugees in Beetham?
I: We were working with a group based in Lancaster. The environment around Beetham is high tourism so it is sometimes difficult to tell who is local and who is visiting.
TIU: Tell me more about your guided walks…
I: This summer we are doing a walk and talk discussing the uses of wild plants. For instance it’s claimed that if you put a sage leaf between your foot and the sole of your shoe you will never get foot sore. Not a lot of evidence it actually works of course!
TIU: Do you do similar walks in Ulverston and surrounding areas?
I: I could do but I haven’t as yet. There was a bit of talk about me getting involved in the walking festival but it was quite a quick chat we had about that up Hoad on Boxing Day. I’ve never really led any guided walks around here. I used to do them for the Lake District National Park. They were fun. One series I did as an 18th century visitor. The sheer joy of going up Castle Crag in Borrowdale in full Georgian kit with twenty people behind me not having a clue what was going on.
TIU: So there is a lot of theatre in what you do…
I: There is. Particularly in the classroom, it really helps. It’s something different that certainly helps to get the kid’s curiosity going. I’ve done it dressed as an archaeologist – just as normal – and it doesn’t have the same mystique about it.
TIU: Several heightened moments remain from my school days when we had similar visits.
I: I have developed certain tricks that enhance the memory of the event. One particular one is if I am doing a pre 18th century show – Tudors, Medieval or Romans I get a piece of nettle thread and dye it with a mixture of blackberries, sloes and elderberries. It comes out looking black although its an incredibly deep purple. You get the kids to hold it and ask them how they might keep the colour in when washing? In answer to that we tell them it’s boiled up in wee as they are holding it. As a result of this on a number of occasions I’ll be doing a completely different show and a member of the audience usually in their late 20s or early 30s will come up to me and tell me they remember me making them hold wee. A WW2 one I do is to pull the pin out of a grenade. You explain to the kids that as long as the clip is held in place then the weight cant drop so it doesn’t smash the acid that would eat the metal that would blow the grenade. But then I will pull the clip away and hopefully the weight will drop on somebody’s lap and they get the shock of their lives but they will never forget the day.
TIU: I would have PTSD.
I: There is a number of different ones like that. At a school in Egremont I had just done a step by step mock amputation of a sailors leg. So I ask the kids – he hasn’t died from the injury or shock and we’ve just cleaned it up before infection sets in and he’s probably going to survive. But what’s he going to do for a living now? So they start answering – Carpenter!, Well, how’s he going to sit at the bench? Then Sailor! How’s he going to climb the rigging? It goes on for a while and then one of the kids says “Well does he like, scavenge for a living?” So I say, right. Vagrant. There were a lot of laws in the Elizabethan times about vagrants being serviceman with missing limbs. One kid piped up – “Someone what ratches int bins!” It was the first time I’d heard the word “ratch” in ages. There are these little joke bits in the lessons to help make sure the kids remember the day.
TIU: What is the catchment for your educational work?
I: Anywhere from Cheshire to through to the Scottish Borders and right over to the North East.
TIU: What else do have you going on as well as your classroom talks and your guided walks?
I: Last Thursday I took a bunch of very damp children around Vindolanda as a retired roman soldier up on Hadrian’s Hall. I work with Paul Fussell of Fussell’s Travel and we do Vindolanda, Furness Abbey and we could soon be doing other roman stuff as well. Its great fun, I really enjoy doing those. The people at Vindolanda especially are very nice. I do some street theatre too. We have a show coming up in Ulverston in the summer – a strong woman act with me as the MC but I get a paving stone broken over my chest with a six foot long handled, one foot long bladed, Danish battle axe. That’s this July, part of Ulverston Pride Festival.
TIU: Tell me more about your little Goblems, the miniatures that you photograph on location…
I: That’s a side project. It might get serious. It started just before lockdown. I had been to the railway exhibition by the Railway Modellers Society in Barrow that Autumn and I discovered that you can buy vampires, werewolves and zombies for your railway set. I thought they were great so I bought some and started building scenes in jam jars. I always had this thing about the English countryside or Cumbrian / Lancastrian countryside and trying to capture that eeriness that can develop in certain areas. Certain shady lanes that could really do with ghosts down them. So I decided to try and capture that initially using Warhammer figures but since a year last January I’ve been making my own from scratch. I call them Goblems because I can’t work out if they are goblins or demons. The ones I am making at the moment are dressed in the clothing of the last decade of the 18th century so they coincide with the very first tourists coming into the lakes. The picturesque movement. I was out on Sunday and found a couple of dead sheep so I nicked the bones and did a series of photographs – an excursion to Bonehenge and The Ruined Abbey of St. Bonio. That would have come out on Monday but I had to leave St. Matthews Community Hall in Barrow early as I do Arts & Crafts drop in there every week. I’ve also got a meeting with Ewan from Muncaster Castle about how we are developing Halloween this year. It’s another big thing for us – we set up scare events for Halloween there.
TIU: Is that an adult only event?
I: We state its not recommended for under 13s but we’ve not turned anyone down as long as the parents are with them and have decided they will be okay. It is meant to scare adults and it does scare adults. We try a little League of Gentleman type of black humour. Muncaster can be hilarious its probably the best job of the year. We have our favourite spider, Boris, who has an eight foot long leg span with one of us underneath on a board with casters. We get hilarious results with that. Particularly when you have boyfriends afraid to go back and rescue cornered girlfriends. I think we’ve tested quite a few relationships that way.
TIU: A potential spouse dealbreaker…
I: The regulars know what the rumble of the casters means…
TIU: So if you want a real good scare it’s Muncaster?
I: Definitely. I’ve also been doing bits and pieces with the Barrowfull Festival. I was on the welcome desk in the town hall this year and we had kids literally rolling in paint by the end of it, quite spectacular. The whole day is really good. I also get paid to play Scrooge at the town hall at Christmas. We have a nine foot high dummy on wheels – part animated – as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, chasing me through the building whilst I give out oranges and gold coins. Barrow Town Hall is a delight to work in. The other thing is Playcation during summer holidays. I help out there and its a great team to work with.
TIU: So I always bring residents back to Ulverston at the end of the conversation to discuss their favourite places in the town – do you have any you would like to share?
I: Yes – don’t ask me why but its the roads and fields between Next Ness and the railway viaduct. Something down there calls to me, I don’t know why. It’s just the atmosphere. If you go to the roundabout at Booths and take the junction just before it you will get there. I love the area around the railway viaduct – fantastic landscape. If you go under the rail bridge at Next Ness cottages another footpath takes you along part of the old Plumpton Iron Mines. If I was ever going to do a horror movie I would certainly use the iron mines there. If you are in the right position you can see the trains coming out of Cark station, (normally!). I enjoy sitting there watching that, getting the best view. Another bit I think is amazing is the little bridge over the old Greenodd line – you walk over that and find the track on the left hand side. That will take you through a gate and onto the old line itself. And if you go about fifty yards further you get to a completely abandoned railwayman’s hut, alone in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know what it is about that neck of the woods. I’ve been down so many times but I’ve never got bored of it. Birkrigg is fantastic. I go up Hoad Hill a lot. And other places locals will know like Willington Woods which is at the back of Bardsea Golf Course.
Iain can be contacted on iain870{at}btinternet.com
