Clog Shop Chronicles

About this film

LibriVox recording of Clog Shop Chronicles, by John Ackworth. Read by Phil Benson. John Ackworth was the pen name of the Rev. Frederick R. Smith, a Methodist minister who was born in Snaith, Yorkshire, but spent much of his career as a circuit preacher in Lancashire. Clog Shop Chronicles was the first and most successful of his works. Set in the fictional 19th-century village of Beckside (said to be somewhere between Manchester and Bolton), the book consists of 12 tales of everyday life in a close-knit Methodist community, which continue into Beckside Lights (1897) and Doxy Dent (1899). Based on an entertaining group of characters who gather round the clog shop fire, the stories are sentimental at times, but Ackworth has a nice sense of irony and refrains from Methodist proselytizing. Ackworth was also a student of the Lancashire dialect and the spoken passages in his books are mostly written in a phonetic version of late 19th-century Bolton speech, which I have done my best to reproduce. (Summary by Phil Benson) For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page fo…

Directors & creators

John Ackworth

Subjects

LibriVox; audiobook; fiction; Lancashire; Methodism; village life

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