Their Day — Lincoln in Manchester, and what time the Americans should arrive.

Nobody in Heywood has noticed it's the fourth of July. The bins went out as normal.

But Stanley has reason to think about America. After leaving the force, he spent some years as security advisor to an American scientist — which meant collecting his colleagues from Manchester Airport and explaining England to them on the way. None of them knew there was a statue of Abraham Lincoln in the middle of Manchester. None of them knew why.

It's quite a story. It involves cotton, a blockade, a hall full of starving millworkers, and a vote that Lincoln himself wrote to thank them for. There's a cobbled road above Rochdale that's still there if you don't believe him.

Also in this episode: what a moor actually looks like, how a young Texan in cowboy boots got on at the local, the tradition of women dancing together and where it comes from, and Mrs C answering the only question the Americans ever asked about VE Day.

A follow-up, of sorts, to last week's episode about the man who called Manchester a town.

If you know an American, send them this one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome back to the shed. There's a shed at the air I've been giving some thought to the man across the pond who called Manchester a town. Well this weekend, it's America's birthday, the fourth of July, their Independence Day. Now it turns out there's a statue in the middle of that town he might want to know about. Kettles on. Sit yourself down. Last week I mentioned the President of the United States. He was asked what he knew about the man most likely to be sitting in Downing Street before the summer is out. He said he didn't know much. He thought he'd been the mayor of a town. The town in question has a population of around three million people. It has a ship canal, a space of its own in the history of the Industrial Revolution, and a statue of Abraham Lincoln in the city centre. But we'll come back to that. As I post this, it's the fourth of July, and round here nobody's noticed. The bins went out as normal. The man two doors down is jet washing his drive the way he does every weekend. No flags, no bunting. If you stopped someone in here would market and ask them what today was, they'd tell you it was Saturday. Then spend ten minutes complaining about the Mexico England game starting at one o'clock in the morning. It is their day, of course, the Americans. The day they signed a paper that said they'd had enough of us. A whole country started by people who wanted to get away from us. You'd think we might take it to heart. We don't. We don't think about it at all. That's not exactly true in my case. I do have reason to think about it. After I left the police force, I spent some years as a security advisor to an American scientist, a quiet, serious man who did work I was not always told about. His colleagues were pleasant, curious, enormously good company. They asked about everything. They wanted to understand, and the particular sort of American who ends up in our part of the world tends, in my experience, to be just a little bit in love with this country. They'd have preferred to have been born in a village with a green and a church, and a pub with arms in the name. But they weren't. But they'd have liked it. Part of my job was collecting them from the airport, Manchester Airport. Into the car, up through the city. I'd port things out to them, the ship canal, opened in eighteen ninety four, thirty six miles long, turned Manchester into an inland port. The mills, the streets, more mills, the names on the buildings. It was generally news to all of them. They recognised some of the names. They were interested, not embarrassed, and sometimes they'd write things down. But there was one morning I pulled over in the city centre, and I'd like to describe what happened next. There's a square in the centre, and in that square there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln, their president standing in the middle of Manchester. I let them look at it for a moment before I said anything. Manchester, I told them, was once the cotton capital of the world. Most of that cotton came from America, grown by enslaved men and women, shipped across the Atlantic, spun into cloth in these streets. When the American Civil War began in eighteen sixty one, and Lincoln imposed a blockade on the Confederate ports, the cotton stopped, and the mills closed. Sixty percent of them eventually. Men and women in this city and all the towns around it, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Oldham. They were put out of work in their thousands. They were hungry, some of them were starving. They were asked to choose. The mill owners and Liverpool traders lobbied to break the blockade, to throw in with the Confederacy, to get the cotton moving again. And on the thirty first of december eighteen sixty two, the working people of Manchester met in the Free Trade Hall and voted to support Lincoln and the Union, to support the abolition of slavery, despite everything it was costing them. A terrible time round here, a time that became known as the Cotton Famine. Lincoln wrote to thank them in january eighteen sixty three. The letter is on the back of the plinth. Up in the moors above Rochdale, there's a cobbled road. They built it during the famine. Put the unemployed men to work laying stone. They call it the Cotton Famine Road, but its official title is Ruly Moor Road. You can find it on Google Maps, you can even see the stone sets. It's now a popular hiking trail, five miles over the moors towards Bake Up. Now none of this story was ever known by anybody in the car. They got out, stood round the statue for a while. One of them read the inscription. Nobody said much, which was probably the right response. We had other excursions. They loved the history of the area, all of it. They were particularly taken with the moors. The Bronte connection was one that they'd come across. Wuthering Heights and the wilderness and all of that. One of them asked, very earnestly, whether I could take them to see a moor sometime. I pointed out the window and said, That's one. The green bit, the one with no trees. They appeared genuinely surprised at the extent of the moorland round Manchester. They particularly seemed to like the life in the pubs. We were in the local one day. There was a bit of a do on and a DJ, and I should say, for those who don't know occasions of this kind, you will find women dancing together. Now this surprises visiting Americans. It surprised these. I explained it. The tradition begins more or less during the last war, when there were no men to dance with, because the men were fighting. Women danced with women, the music played, the evening passed, and by the time the men came home it had simply became how things were done. We had a young Texan in the group that summer, six foot three, built like a film poster, wearing cowboy boots that added another inch and a half. He was a very affable lad. He pulled me to one side and asked how we ought to speak to British women. What was the form? I told him, tongue in cheek, you should probably just get a bye by saying hello. He wandered over to a young woman at the bar, and I watched him introduce himself. Howdy, ma'am, he said. Would you like to dance? It appeared to work. They left together. He went missing for the better part of a week. There was an old gentleman sat at the bar. He had his dunkat veterans blazer on and his ties, and he was watching all of this from his corner stool. He leaned over to me with the look of a man completing a thought he'd had some decades earlier. Overpaid, over sexed, and over here again. He sloped off to buy himself another pint. One of the group noticed a poster in the corner. VE Day, a nineteen forties themed night. One of the Americans asked her to be welcome. And what time did it start? Mrs. C who happened to be with us. She didn't look up. Just said half seven. Though if you want to keep it in theme for the night and be accurate, you best come about ten. Any road up, kettle's gone cold. Always does when I start going. If you know any Americans, send 'em this one. I think they'll like it. Happy fourth of July to them, from your longtime friends in this town. And keep your chins up. What goes round comes round. As we know around here.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

So before you say there's nothing left, no reason left to try. Come and sit beside this old man, let me tell you.