Our Celebration of the Britannia Coconut Dancers!

Bacup Nutters

NORTHERN VOICES support for the Bacup Nutters stretches back to a 4-page article in the print edition of NV number 9 (Summer 2008) celebrating the incredible story of dancer Stanley Wainwright.  The tale concluded with a short verse;

Let's 'ave a Nutters statue in town centre

With fountain gushin' under his feet

Dancing on top of the watter

An' lit up every neet

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Black Lives Matter Movement: A New Inquisition?

 a Spaniard questions new craze
by  Carlos Figueroa [Madrid]

Diego Mateo López Zapata in his cell 
before his trial by the Inquisition Court of Cuenca

IT IS VERY interesting to hear in the post below about this dance in Lancashire, related to Moors in UK!!!  Of course [in Spain] we have many traditions related to this 7 centuries, Santiago Matamoros, the parties in the East Coast called Moros y Cristianos...  My opinion is that this fight is related to the Black Lives Matter Movement, anti-slavery demonstrations and this sort of thing.  I know they threw Colton statue in Bristol... I don't like these new forms of "Inquisicion".

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Will Po-faced Politics Trump Local Custom?

Britannia Coconut Dancers

by Brian Bamford

BELOW is a news report this month by Stuart Pike , the 
Rossendale Free Press Deputy Editor, which claims
that the public up Bacup and beyond, are backing
the rights of the Britannia Coconut Dancers* to
continue to black-up to do their traditional clog dancing. 
Meanwhile Northern Voices has spoken to Gavin McNulty
for the Britannia coconutters and he says that the motion for
them to wash their faces has come from 'down South' 

*  The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers or Nutters are a troupe of Lancastrian clog dancers who perform every Easter in Bacup, dancing 7 miles (11 km) across the town.^[1] There are eight dancers and a whipper-in, who controls the proceedings.^[2]

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In an e-mail Derek Pattison asks:

'After toppling statues, the woke / trendy left, have now got the Rossendale coconut dancers in their cross hairs. Should the Nutters remove their black face paint which they say has no racial connotations but is connected with the mining industry and is a Lancashire tradition.  Northern Voices writers, Brian Bamford and Chris Draper, have fond memories of the anarchist Julian Pilling who was a celebrated and legendary Lancashire Nutter.  What do they think?'

Chris Draper replies:

'Definitely not! The whole "Nutter" tradition is demonstrably laced with irreverent humour and irony - it is not an unwarranted celebration of dominance, celebrity, exploitation and savagery as exemplified by the memorialisation of Colston, Hawkins, Churchill, Gladstone et al.  It is an eccentric historical anachronism that reminds all true Northerners of those glory days when off-duty, unwashed miners laboured in the vast Rossendale Coconut Plantations.'

Row over use of face paint for Britannia Coconut Dancers routines

The [Irwell] Valley public are firmly behind the Britannia Coconut Dancers in a row over the use of face paint, the group has said.

The popular dance troupe say they are among folk dancing groups affected by a potential ban on the use of full-face skin tone makeup - in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Coconutters, which date back to the mid-19th century, say their full-face black makeup has no racial connotations and reflects the origins of the dance in the mining community.

Three Morris [Dancer] organisations issued a joint statement this week calling on the use of full-face black or skin tone makeup to be eliminated by member groups.

A motion will be put forward to the AGM in September moving that the Morris Federation should not renew membership for teams that do not comply.
Group secretary Gavin McNulty told LancsLive they are working with their Morris governing organisation, but said if they were unable to agree “a compromise” the Nutters would be forced to go “on our own”.
He said: “There’s been a lot of strong support for the team to carry on as it is. It’s infuriating that people think they don’t like something or don’t agree with it and they want to change it.
“It’s a tradition that’s been going and will be kept going. We move forward how we think is best. Teams like ourselves have been there for hundreds of years. Our tradition is going to remain.”


He said they would know more once they have been able to convene a meeting - probably next month.

The Coconutters website states: “The dances the team perform are ‘folk dances’ and the custom of blackened faces are thought to reflect a pagan tradition as a disguise from the evil spirits / and part of the mining connections.”

The Morris Dancer's Federation statement said:  “While no morris dancer wants to cause offence, we must recognise that full-face black or other skin tone makeup is a practice that has the potential to cause deep hurt.
“Morris is a living tradition and it is right that it has always adapted and evolved to reflect society.
"We want people from all races and backgrounds to share in this pride and not be made to feel unwelcome or uncomfortable by any element of a performance.”

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Hate Crime: Mother welcomes film

THE MOTHER of Sophie Lancaster, Sylvia who lives in Haslingden, Lancashire, has welcomed a new film on hate crime stimulated by her daughter Sophie's ghastly murdered in Bacup's Stubbylee Park.  Sophie was killed by a vicious gang alienated because of her Goth clothing, as she heroically defended her boy friend Robert Maltby on the 11^th, August 2007.  The film 'And She Cried' is a fictional adaptation by Leaky Shed Films that is inspired by the events surrounding Sophie's death.   

In the Spring of 2012, Northern Voices' interviewed Sylvia Lancaster some months before a play Black Roses by Simon Armitage about Sophie's murder was staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester staring  Julie Hesmondhalgh (CORONATION STREET).  This play was a great success, and this year another radio play 'Porcelain - The Trial For The Killing Of Sophie Lancaster' was performed about the trial of Sophie's teenage killers, two had been jailed for murder, the other three were sent on lesser offences.  

In 2012, Sylvia told us at that time that being a 'Goth' for Sophie 'was not just a fashion to her, I think she was challenging convention.'   She told NV No.13 in the Spring issue of 2012: 

'She  was definitely different!  From an early age she always had empathy with harmless people.  So much so, at times, she would sometimes sleep in a bedding box rather than a bed...  After about the age of three she'd just wear whatever she wanted such as a grey tee-shirt and black sweat pants.'   

Last week, the new film was premiered at the Odeon in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.  The film was put together without a budget and with £100,000's worth of gear provided by major cinematic companies.  A whip-round at the film's showing raised £200 for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. 

Last Saturday's Rochdale Observer reported that at the opening of the film:
'All eyes were on a glamorous group of people at Rochdale’s Odeon cinema when they arrived to be given the red carpet treatment.   They hadn’t gone to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Transcendence or Pompeii, but 150 of them dressed to impress went to watch the world premiere of Rochdale-made And She Cried.  The audience of cast, crew and friends, including the Mayor Councillor Peter Rush, packed into Screen 9 for the special All Across the Arts premiere of the Rochdale-based Leaky Shed Filmsproduction of the movie inspired by the hate-crime killing of Sophie Lancaster.'

Anyone who has followed the story of Sophie Lancaster as we have, and having read the book 'Weirdo, Mosher, Freak: the murder of sophie lancaster' of the background to Sophie's death by the Bacup journalist Catherine Smyth, might welcome all this 'glamorous group' attention, while at the same time wondering about how, given Sophie was a ' "Punk Goth" like... Adam Ant's "New Romantics",' she herself would have taken to this kind of 'glamorous' backdrop. 


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NORTHERN VOICES 13 - the printed / physical version of N.V. - deals with some of the issues that the others on the so-called British left won't touch. Starting with an interview with Sylvia Lancaster, mum of the murdered 'Goth Girl' / 'New Romantic' Sophie Lancaster, who was kicked to death up Bacup, in Lancashire, in August 2007.  How do you feel about a new 'Hate Crime' on the statute book? Previously, Northern Voices has given you 'The Gangs of Manchester' dating back to an early 20th Century, but that was about lad's gangs: does the merciless killing of our sublime Sophie represent a step into a darker age?  To be up-to-date and understand the way Northern Voices thinks and is different from other publications you should read the real and physical N.V.



The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows:
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included)
Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at
c/o 52, Todmorden Road,
Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com
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Greater Manchester Police Adopt 'Hate Crime'

Twenty-year-old goth Sophie Lancaster was kicked and stamped on by youths in a Bacup park

GREATER Manchester Police (GMP) have become the first force in the UK to treat the recording of attacks on members of subcultures, such as goths and emos, as hate crimes offences. Previously hate crimes were only registered for offences against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity. GMP has worked with a charity set up following the murder of 20-year-old 'Goth' lass Sophie Lancaster in 2007. 

On 24 August 2007, Sophie Lancaster was brutally attacked in Stubbeylee park in Bacup, Lancashire, along with her boyfriend Robert Maltby, because of the way they were dressed.  She was kicked and stamped on as she cradled her badly beaten boyfriend.  Mr Maltby made a partial recovery from his injuries, Ms Lancaster slipped into a coma after the attack and died later in hospital.  Last year, Northern Voices'* published an interview with Sophie's mother Sylvia Lancaster, and last September The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester put on a play related to the incident entitled 'Black Roses'.

Today Sylvia Lancaster, who helped set up the foundation and who has fought to make attacks on sub-cultures like the Goths a 'Hate Crime' said: 'It is a very proud day for me personally and the rest of the team.  It is a validation of the work we have undertaken in the past five years and hopefully other forces will follow GMP's lead.  A big thank you to Greater Manchester Police and all our supporters.'   Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said:  'People who wish to express their alternative sub-culture identity freely should not have to tolerate hate crime.'  The Manchester police said the change would enable officers to give more support to victims of anti-punk or anti-Goth crime.  But it won't necessarily mean tougher sentences.

The ex-director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, said he had reservations about changing the legal definition of a hate crime.  He said:  'People's racial origins, their religion, their sexual orientation, people's dignity in the face of disability - these have been lines in the sand with the law saying, look, these are crimes that threaten social cohesion as a whole and therefore national life.  I'm a little cautious about watering down this concept.' 

Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris, both from Bacup, were jailed for life in 2008 for Miss Lancaster's murder and for causing grievous bodily harm to Mr Maltby.   When sentencing them, Judge Anthony Russell QC said:  'This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours.' 

The Goths emerged as a youth subculture in the 1980s and the term was initially used to describe a form of music.  Since then it has come to cover literature, art and fashion, with its exponents often dressing in dark clothing.
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There are still a few copies of the printed version of NORTHERN VOICES No.13*, available for sale with the Sylvia Lancaster interview, it can be obtained as follows:  
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
 
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.

email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

Bacup Goes Barmy on Easter Saturday!

COMPETING with the Seville's Semana Santa in Andalucian Spain, Bacup in Lancashire this Easter Saturday will have its usual good turn out for the annual 'Nutters' Dance around the town.  Or, as one web-site describes it:
'Another peculiarly English traditional dance performed at this time of year is the appropriately named Nutters dance in the town of Bacup in Lancashire, where the dedicated Nutters dance their way down the streets of this small town performing a variety of local traditional dances.'

A program of action has been agreed so that when the Britiannia Coconut Dancers parade through the town there will be a host of attractions to entertain and keep visitors in the area.  The Coconutters will be on stage at the Royal Court Theatre on Rochdale Road at 12 noon approx, and there'll be an Open Day there between 10am until 1pm with coffee and refreshments.   The Nutters will be at the Rose & Bowl pub from 5pm, despite a complaint from the police that they disrupt the traffic in the town.

A Bacup Traditional Market, craft stalls and local produce stalls will be open in the town centre from 10am until 4pm.  Bacup Natural History Museum on Yorkshire Street, will have an Open Day from 10am to 3pm and Bacup Consortium Trust on Burnley Road will be opening a Community Cafe, and having an Easter Egg Hunt and Owd Bacup Quiz.      

Black Roses' Review: Killing of Sophie Lancaster

AS we entered the last week of the play 'Black Roses - The killing of Sophie Lancaster', I chatted with the father of the actress of the young lass Rachel Austin who took-off Sophie in the play in The Studio at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.  He had just bought a copy of Northern Voices 13, with an interview with Sophie's mother, Sylvia Lancaster.  One woman had just said to me how awful it was, the more so for where it took place in a town called Bacup, that is so much a part of traditional Lancashire.  It is hard to believe that a town like that could have led to a crime of such bloody proportions as she and her boyfriend were kicked by a mob of local lads.  In the end she died of her wounds and her lover, Robert Maltby, was left traumatised and physically damaged. 

The play, in which Julie Hesmondalgh of Coronation Street plays Sophie’s mother Sylvia, has sold-out of the original tickets, and more space has been provided owing to extra demand for seats.  Last Saturday, at the matinee the audience was mostly female and middle-class.  This play originated on Radio Four, but the austere surroundings of The Studio set serve the theatrical purpose well.  Thus, we have the homely Mum philosophising, while the exotic 'Goth Girl' is hovering round her like a spectre from a different realm.  In an interview with Northern Voices last year, Sophie's mum, Sylvia, had said:  'For Sophie being a Goth was like being a "Traditional Goth", she was a Goth like Adam Ant's "New Romantics" and Boy George'.

Poetry by Simon Armitage and homespun philosophy by Sylvia Lancaster; the exotic and the everyday captured together in the same small space.  Individuality and the ordinary united.  During last Saturday's performance one man collapsed and the play had to be stopped.  Troubled teenager grows up to become an accidental martyr in Stubbylee Park, and an icon of the outsider is created.  The tension in the play thrives between mother and daughter, as the shadows form and the trainers stamp their marks on both Robert and Sophie:  aim for the face seemed to be the general war cry of the five-man mob.

Catherine Smyth in her book 'Weirdo, Mosher, Freak: the murder of sophie lancaster' (2010) price £7.99 available at the Cornerhouse Cinema Bookshop on Oxford Street in Manchester, wrote:  'Personally, I felt Sophie's murder was more akin to a Manchester, Liverpool or London crime, but not Bacup...  High unemployment, crime, alcohol abuse and drug dependency has meant that any beauty in Bacup is often overshadowed and the town's decline is obvious for all to see.'

Play runs until September 29th, 2012.  Tel.: 0161 833 9833 (www.sophielancasterfoundation.com)

NORTHERN VOICES No.13: Out Now!!!

NORTHERN VOICES 13, - the printed / physical version of N.V. - deals with some of the issues that the others on the so-called British left won't touch. Starting with an interview with Sylvia Lancaster, mum of the murdered 'Goth Girl' / 'New Romantic' Sophie Lancaster, who was kicked to death up Bacup, in Lancashire, in August 2007. How do you feel about a new 'Hate Crime' on the statute book? Previously, Northern Voices has given you 'The Gangs of Manchester' dating back to an early 20th Century, but that was about lad's gangs: does the merciless killing of our sublime Sophie represent a step into a darker age? To be up-to-date and understand the way Northern Voices thinks and is different from other publications you should read the real and physical N.V..

Other stories include an apparent attack on the arts in Rochdale by the Link4Life organisation; 'The Strange Burnley story of Philip Morrell: the man who resisted Britain's participation in World War One' by Rev. Father Petty; an interview with a Libyan freedom fighter in Manchester by Barry Woodling; Tameside Eye & Salford Spy; Bribery & Corruption Column covering blacklisting; work-for-dole; allegations of bribery on Bury Council, 'environmental vandalism' at Chat Moss in Salford and  Les May on what he is now describing as 'Backdoor Privatisation' in Rochdale.

Do you think theatres and drama are Crap? Well, if you do or you don't, there's a review of Six O' the Best Northern Theatres by Chris Draper and with 'Miss Julie'* staring one of our northern actresses Maxine Peake, and starting at Manchester's Royal Exchange on the 12th, April, you can decide if it's worth a visit to Theatre -in-the-Round, based on what Chris has to say about the state of our local theatres up North. In our coloured centre-spread there is an image of an anarchist scarf that James Keogh, a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39 and who last November was awarded a Blue Plaque by Tameside MBC, sent to his mum in Ashton-under-Lyne. Did James buy it on the Ramblas in Barcelona after he arrived in Spain in 1937? Then if you fancy a bit of culture you can have a look at our view of the Ford Madox Brown Exhibition, and the tricky business that led to his painting of the murals in Manchester Town Hall: our centre spread includes 'Bradshaw's Defence of Manchester A.D. 1642'.

Then there's history with 'Peterloo & the politics of Failure' by Dick Dutch and more of Chris Draper on the Sheffield outrages and sucking-up to the bosses by British trade union gaffers.

* 'MISS JULIE' by August Strindberg at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester:
a new version by David Eldridge, from a literal translation by Charlotte Barslund
'I can't run away, I can't stay. I can't live, I can't die. Help me'
MAXINE PEAKE plays Miss Julie. Known for her television appearances in SILK, the BAFTA nominated HANCOCK & JOAN and SHAMELESS, she is reunited with director Sarah Frankcom, whose recent successes at the Exchange include the award-winning PUNK ROCK and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.
'Sweden, 1894. Midsummer night’s celebrations are in full swing but the Count’s daughter, the beautiful and imperious Miss Julie, feels trapped and alone. Downstairs in the servants’ kitchen, handsome and rebellious footman Jean is feeling restless. When they meet a passion is ignited that soon spirals out of control. Strindberg’s masterpiece caused a scandal when first produced – and has been hugely popular ever since – for its searingly honest portrait of the class system and human sexuality.'
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The printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, with all sorts of stuff others won't touch and may be obtained as follows:
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included)
Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at
c/o 52, Todmorden Road,
Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com
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Sophie Lancaster in Stubbylee Park & now it's Ben Moores in a Waterfoot Kicking

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The full Northern Voices interview 'SUBLIME SOPHIE, PRIDE OF OUR ALLEY' with Sylvia Lancaster, Sophie's mum, is now available in the printed version of NORTHERN VOICES 13, which may be obtained as follows:
Postal subscription: £5 for two issues (post included)
Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at
c/o 52, Todmorden Road,
Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com
______________________________________________________

LAST Friday, the Manchester Evening News reported an attack on teenage heavy metal fan Ben Moores behind the Co-op Supermarket in Waterfoot only two miles from Stubbylee Park in Bacup,Lancs, where in August 2007 Sophie Lancaster was murdered and her boyfriend Robert Maltby was left with life threatening injuries. Sophie was beaten to death because she was dressed in the style of a traditional Goth, and Ben was battered as he was reportably abused in the same way as a 'Mosher!' and a 'Freak!' Catherine Smyth, in her book 'Weirdo, Mosher, Freak: the murder of sophie lancaster' (2010) (available at Touchstones Musuem Bookshop, Rochdale) wrote: 'If only they'd stopped at name calling'.

The current printed issue of Northern Voices No.13, also on sale at Touchstones, has an interview with Sophie's mother Sylvia Lancaster. Sylvia told Northern Voices last October: 'For Sophie being a Goth was like being a "Traditional Goth" or "Punk Goth".' It was really about being different or sensitive with a love for the surface of the earth and all its creatures.

An editorial in last Friday's Manchester Evening News, detailing the similarities of the recent case of Ben Moores and the attack on Sophie in 2007, laments that 'if this teenager (Ben Moores) has been put through such an ordeal (as Sophie) at least in part because of the way he looks, then it would be a sad reflection on how little the world has been changed by Sophie's needless and so widely reported death.' It seems that the police are not treating Ben Moores case as a hate crime, and we must await more evidence before jumping to conclusions.

Ben's mum, Gale Moores has said: 'It was awful ... he had blood pouring from his ears and face and bald patches ... it scares me because of what happened to Sophie Lancaster.' Sylvia Lancaster, who as Sophie's mum has tirelessly campaigned for these kind of assaults to be classed as 'hate crimes', told the media that Ben's ordeal implied that the lessons of her daughter's death in Stubbylee Park had not been learned.

Northern Voices strongly believes that the cultural lessons about tolerance of differences of life style and dress have to be learned in our society, but that that will take much more than a change in the law however well meaning. Even some of the parents of the assailants of Sophie seemed to condone the actions of their kids; that suggests that there is a problem that runs deep in modern society. It needs uprooting, and there can't be any quick fix to such a crisis in nature of the human condition.