A WIGAN GEM

Yesterday I was fortunate to visit with a group of Wigan engineering enthusiasts the great Trencherfield Mill engine which was put through its paces at a private viewing. This steam engine, the largest in the world has been restored using lottery money (one of the few useful things it has funded) and can be visited on Sundays.

Made in Bolton it is just 100 years old and ran almost continuously for 70 years powering the mill where 400 people worked. It required 500 tons of coal per week to keep going and at the time was at the forefront of modern technology. The design and engineering skills required to produce so magnificant a machine must have been considerable and the workmanship superb.

Nowadays with electric motors and computers it looks old fashioned but at the time when many people abroad were still in the horse age or living in mud huts it shows how powerful our region and country were and how advanced.

Sadly we have lost our lead and in recent years with the collapse of proper education and apprenticeships we are falling further behind. Dance, Drama , Media Studies and the history of slavery are deemed more important, while Maths, Physics and Engineering don't seem to matter.
The fact that we make so little is at the root of many of our present troubles coupled with bad financial management by this government.

One must not forget to feed this monster would have required 80 miners with men toiling to transport it and attend the boilers not to mention the 400 workers whose machines the engine drove.
King Coal and King Cotton together with the hard graft of British workers built this country and not exploitation of foreign countries, let alone slavery.

To regain the greatness symbolised by this machine will be hard but we must still try.
Yesterday was for me an opportunity to forget modern decadence for a couple of hours and to immerse myself in a time when we were truly--

GREAT BRITAIN.