Page 84 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

CHAPTER VIII. —
First Years at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Northern England—The Lancashire and Yorkshire beginning nearly Antici-
pated—Codlin, Short, and another—Fovmding the Newcastle Branch
Years 1862-74.
" "T" OOK there, Willie, yon chap's down from what they call the
-I— ^ Wholesale Co-operative Society of Manchester. I don't
know such a place. Newcastle is our market. We couldn't think
about dealing there." So said a Northumbrian co-operative
manager to his apprentice some time in 1868, as together they
watched the retreating figure of a C.W.S. representative. In all
likelihood it was the honorary traveller, Mr. Henry Pitman, who had
thus reached a frigid zone. Such complete discouragement may
have been exceptional, yet, here in the North, frequently he v/ould
be led to realise his distance from Manchester.
Northumbria, as represented by Newcastle and Durham, hke
" the delectable duchy " at the other extreme of the country, or even
East AngHa, or Mr. Hardy's Wessex, still remains a definite province
of England, with its own dialect, manners, and local customs. In
that moderation which is the spice .of all things there is much in this
to be thankful for. The traveller who is swung round the curve
from Gateshead high over the " turbulent Tyne " finds a richer
interest in the proudly-placed city on the northern bank when he
realises that it is not simply a duplicate of Liverpool or Bristol or
Hull. And the Tynesider, however he may value the opportunity
of seeing exactty the same films at exactly the same kind of picture
theatre as he would find in Manchester or Leeds, has a better heritage
in the special history and characteristics of his bracing district.
The industrial North-East forms a compact inner province,
separated by a wide and thinly-peopled countryside from that busy
area which begins near Leeds and Bradford, and stretches by
Manchester and the Potteries, or Sheffield and Nottingham, almost
continuously through Birmingham, to Bristol, Cardiff, and Swansea.
Co-operation in the locality owes much to the mechanics' institutes
of the fifties and sixties, and to the activity of the miners' unions in
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