What is it with humans and history? It seems you have half demanding an apology from the other half for things that happened centuries ago. And the row has spilled over into Windermere’s dark and shadowy past.
When I was a child, British Rail, as it then was, ran the steamer service on Windermere. It all began, many years before when the Furness railway opened its branch line to Newby Bridge/Lakeside and bought shares in the Windermere Yacht Company so that Victorian travellers could arrive by steam then cruise the lake to see the majesty of Lake District.
No doubt, while they surveyed the shoreline dressed, men, in their three-piece suits and top hats and women with their bustles, and petticoats, they would look wondrously on the magnificent Storrs Hall built in the late 18th century by a Yorkshire landowner, who wanted a summer retreat a little closer to home than his one in the Swiss Alps.
Well, you would, wouldn’t you, when getting to Switzerland meant days in a carriage pulled by horses. How he must have dreamed of Ryanair and EasyJet!
But I am sorry, I digress.
In 1808, Storrs Hall was bought by local lad – from Ulverston – John Bolton, a Liverpool shipping magnate, who made his fortune as a slave trader. And here lies the problem.
Now, we all know, or should know, that slavery is wrong and if John Bolton had managed to defy the Grim Reaper, we would jolly well expect him to repent and apologise for making money from something that was accepted business practice in the 18th century. Indeed, slavery has been and still is, a blight on the intelligence of the human race.
Let’s move forward almost 250 years, to the lake steamers of today, still, happily plying their trade shunting less well-dressed visitors around the lake. As well as admiring the views, they have been treated to a commentary by the boat’s skipper who will point out local landmarks, including but not exclusively, Storrs Hall.
And in said commentary, one skipper actually mentioned the previous owner of Storrs Hall and his links to the slave trade. That opened a proverbial can of worms.
The owners of the lake cruisers didn’t want their clients, genteel folk, no doubt, and maybe unable to understand the context of history, reminded of this abhorrent trade while they licked their lollies and clicked their cameras.
So, they banned skippers from mentioning Bolton and his links to slavery and have even gone so far as to now have recorded commentary so they can completely own the narrative as their boats run up and down the lake.
Fine, it’s their boats and they can do what they want but why do we airbrush out of history the things we find uncomfortable? Are folks today so sensitive that we cannot make passing reference to terrible events long ago? And why do we keep seeing demands for those around today to apologise for things their ancestors, quite legally, at the time, did?
In 2007, we celebrated the bicentenary, 1807, of the end of slavery in the then British Empire (sorry, shouldn’t utter the word ‘empire’) albeit actual slavery in the West Indian colonies didn’t end until 20 years later.
At the time there were calls for the then Queen to apologise for something that happened over 100 years before she was born. The Royal Family have often said that they regret that slavery happened and that people, families, communities, and whole ethnic groupings were blighted by this vile trade, but they can hardly apologise for something they, individually, did not do.
If I, while being a high wire acrobat, knock a vase off ‘she who must be obeyed editor’s’ shelf, then I must apologise for my clumsiness and may even make reparations by having my Dreamie allowance cut. But I would not expect my yet unborn kittens to have to apologise every time the loss of Aunt Edith’s prize Doulton piece is brought up.
I don’t expect today’s Germans to apologise for the Holocaust, but I admire their continued determination to recognise how it was allowed to come about and to ensure those conditions are never given oxygen again. They don’t forget what happened, but they don’t apologise.
On the other hand, if we find that it was some mistake in a lab in Wuhan, that foisted Covid onto us, then I would expect those responsible, as they may well be still alive, to apologise but once those who may have been the cause of the pandemic are long gone, apologies are not required.
There is a wonderful exhibition in Liverpool, The International Slavery Museum, where people can learn about and be challenged by slavery. Indeed, there are slavery museums and reminders across the globe. In Senegal, Angola and on Guadeloupe they have the Memorial ACTe, a very moving reminder of slavery and the slave trade.
But we shouldn’t hide away the past in specific museums to be visited only by those inclined to do so, we should recognise it wherever there are reminders, be that Storrs Hall, or the great buildings of Liverpool, Bristol or London built, in part by money made from the slave trade. To pretend there are no links conceals the suffering and the hurt.
Slavery was appalling and shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and we need to make sure that human beings are never subjected to such degradation. And to do that, we must never forget or airbrush it from history.
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and, now, back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t. After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county. I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.
