Cinderloo News -June 2019

As we move within 2 years of the 200th anniversary of Cinderloo the project is continuing to gather momentum and has some exciting new developments to announce.

We are linking up with Townsend Theatre company who some of you may have seen their recent work. Neil Gore’s one-man performance of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and ‘Rouse ye Women!’ about the Cradley Heath women chain makers have both recently been on national tours to tremendous reviews and Louise Townsend and Neil Gore are coming to Dawley on 29^th June to discuss how we might collaborate with them on a production to commemorate the 200^th anniversary.

We are holding an afternoon get together with Louise and Neil and would like to invite as many of our supporters as possible to come along to meet them to discuss your ideas for what we might do together. We are also inviting friends and our many talented supporters to help put together an afternoon and evening of music, dance and poetry over a pint of our Cinderloo ale on tap at the Elephant and Castle in Dawley.

If you would to come along select your chosen instrument of choice and help create some sounds as part of the annual Dawley Day that would be fantastic. No charge but let us know if you have any expenses that you incur and we will be happy to make sure everyone can participate.

Also as part of Dawley Day in the morning we will have a stall with a map that we are creating as part of our ‘Mapping Cinderloo project’ supported by the Wrekin Housing Trust. We will be using the old boundary of the Dawley Urban District Council to find old photos and memories using a large scale 1902 map of the area. Dennis Athersmith from Dawley Memories will be along with us to help use some of the great photos and memories of lost communities in Dawley that he is collecting together on the brilliant Dawley Memories Facebook site.

We hope to produce a large collage celebrating the lost communities and industries of the area which we would love people to get involved in creating as a lasting memorial to the town.

We are continuing to work with the Granville Boys on their project to erect a memorial to the mining industry in the borough and the men and women who have lost their lives working in the mining industry over the last 200 years.

Malcolm Peel has recently produced a pamphlet for the project detailing the 3 men who lost their lives at Cinderloo and with details of their births and deaths which is a brilliant resource for anyone wanting to find out if their relatives were involved at Cinderloo.

We are working with schools on our Heritage Lottery Funded project and we have a number of local primary schools starting to plan projects on Cinderloo over the next 2 years . We very much want to hear from teachers and schools if they would like to be involved in this aspect of the project.

We have planned activities in Oakengates as part of our mapping lost communities using a brilliant map that has been created by local artist Amanda Hillier supported by Nigel Neat. Which shows the route that the marching miners took in 1821 around the industries and communities that existed at that time. We have contacted  all of the Town and Parish Councils in the area to ask them to get involved and really want to hear from people from across Telford who can help us spread the word at the project.

We have a walk planned with St Georges Community Group as part of the History on foot programme organised by the Wrekin Local Studies forum on 13^th July and would welcome people to come and join us retrace some of the paths that men and women from north Telford would have taken to join the battle at Old Park .

We have linked up with the Battle Fields Trust to investigate the events that took place in February 1821 and the involvement of the local yeomanry which the Military Museum in Shrewsbury are also interested in working with us in developing a display that can be used at then museum.

We have also spoken with Regional Trades Union Council through Telford and Shropshire Trades Council to ask them to assist us in spreading the word and they will be visiting Telford in July to hear more about our plans.

We have also received individual offers of support from people wanting to research the political and social history aspects of the project, more musicians and poets creating content for us and  are keen to involve dance groups and local theatre groups interested in performing as part of events we are planning as part of the commemorations.

At the heart of our project is a commitment to social justice and we continue to make contact with groups who are still fighting injustice 200 years after Tom Palin was hung for standing up for his community and those without a voice. It was great therefore to undertake a workshop recently on the site of the old Horseway works with a group from the Enterprise Hub who took part in art and craft activity to help us create more visual interpretations of what Cinderloo means today.

Finally, we are continuing to campaign for the new rail footbridge to be called the Cinderloo bridge and have received positive feedback from the council on the idea. We were dissapointed recently to hear that a bullet hole had been put through one the glass panels and have heard the rumours circulating that this might have been from a musket fired by one Colonel Cludde’s men. If anyone has any further information on this rumour, we would love to hear from you!