Hi Soreofhing,
Thanks for sharing a chapter of your book - I'm sure lots of the members here will take great interest in reading it. And hopefully you'll get some constructive criticism on some of the details you were inquiring about, in your OP?
Bolton Street, Liverpool:
"Chapter 2 1847, Bolton Street, Liverpool
The steam whistle screamed and he knew it was time to get up. It must be five o?clock already.
Every morning was the same. That was the trouble of living ?round the corner from the station---the constant chuff, chuff, chuff of the steam engines and the slamming of carriage doors. The piercing whistles. The smoke?thick, black and choking, it descended on all the buildings and people like big, sooty snowflakes."
Fourteen years earlier [1833], it would have been the sound of Cattle drovers, and cattle stock, as they moved to market. Lime Street Station was built on land purchased from the council for ?9,000, the site of a former Cattle Market in 1833 [full reference here.] Lime Street was one of the first public railways to open in the country [in Aug 1836] to the paying public. So if you wanted to, you could contrast this, as an illustration of the speed in which people's lives changed within the industrial revolution [1750-1850] landscape?
Bolton Street is featured on Jonithan Bennison's 1835 map of Liverpool, which can be viewed at the leverpoole web site here. Lime Street Station didn't open to the public until August l836. The map view above shown here. shows the Cattle Market market, numbered "94" [I think?]
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Chris's comments above, about the 'modern' attitude to his wife. Well, certainly the commentator's voice [yours] can be modern, in telling the tale, and perhaps this is how you deal with the difference in moral values over the 160 year span the novel bridges? As illustration
Her Benny, by Silas Hocking, [pub. 1879 - which you can downloaded free, as a pdf below.] offers the contrasting kindness of Joe Wragg [the night watchman], with that of Benny's violent and dunken father Richard Bates "Come out here, you young vermin; quick! do you hear?" It might be worth consulting on the following link:
http://www.archive.org/details/herbenny00hockgoog
Also the Liverpool History Society has a great online resource, with much of the material downloadable free as a pdf, or text file. Link as follows:
http://www.liverpoolhistorysociety.org.uk/olbooks.html
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Well, Soreofhing, good work, so far, descriptive and atmospheric, and moves along at a nice pace. If you have anymore, we'd be happy to review for you, in what ever capacity we can help?
Many thanks again.
Daz
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