Convenience Big Store: Bleak and brutish world beneath our feet

3 October, 2021

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Jon Connell

Editor-in-chief

Books

A woman and boy in a Lancashire coal mine, 1848. Print Collector/Getty Images

Bleak and brutish world beneath our feet

The story of coal is the story of Britain, says Jeremy Paxman in Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain (William Collins £25). Coal gave us railways, an industrial revolution and entire towns and villages. So it's surprising that, these days, we don't often discuss it. "Much of what went on in the dark beneath our feet is already almost forgotten," says Paxman. "Such is the story of coal."

It's a gripping story, says Kate Hubbard in The Oldie, told with plenty of "Paxmanian indignation and scorn". His descriptions of the "brutish business of mining" are bleak. Until the 1840s girls as young as five did 12-hour shifts in the pitch black. Men dug on their hands and knees, often naked because of the heat. "Scabs studding their vertebrae were known as 'buttons down the back'." Accidents were frequent and often deadly – 85,000 miners died between 1873 and 1953.

Above ground, meanwhile, landowners only grew richer, says Dominic Sandbrook in The Sunday Times. In 1848 the 3rd Marquess of Bute inherited so much Welsh mining land that at six months old he was one of the richest people in the world. For his 20th birthday, 10,000 local children sang "God bless Lord Bute" while thousands of men toiled beneath them. But landowners are not the only villains in Paxman's tale. Arthur Scargill, the leader of the miners' strike, is a "weaselly faced communist" who only looked out for himself. When Margaret Thatcher died in 2013, an ex-miner texted Scargill: "THATCHER DEAD." He replied: "SCARGILL ALIVE!"

Still, mining communities were not just places of dirt and desperation. They were places "where you slept and ate, visited the doctor, fell in love, had your children and entertained yourself". These towns were bursting with life – "allotment associations, pigeon and poultry clubs, brass bands, choirs, youth organisations, whippet racing and eagerly contested giant-vegetable competitions". It is strange to think that in a few decades all of that was gone. One day we may forget it was ever there. But this book "does a fine job of bringing it alive, and deserves the widest possible readership".

Available as an audiobook on Audible, narrated by the author.

Staying young

We're often told to feel grateful for our jobs, friends and pets, says Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times. Yet we mustn't forget the extraordinary gift of our existence. "To be alive when we might never have lived – isn't this the greatest mystery and most confounding gift?" Richard Dawkins once wrote: "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born." He's right. We must embrace the preciousness of life while there's still time.

Noted

The author Evelyn Waugh had strict demands for letters. "A letter need not be a bald chronicle of events," he wrote to his wife Laura in 1945. "I know you lead a dull life… But that is no reason to make your letters as dull as your life. I simply am not interested in Bridget's children." The columnist Dolly Alderton agrees. Consider this "a gentle reminder to all my WhatsApp contacts", she wrote on Instagram.

Property

THE HIDEAWAY Get off the grid at this eco-friendly eight-bedroom farm in the Spanish countryside near Girona, which has 500 olive trees, 200 fruit trees, a pool and a vineyard in its 21 acres. There's a private water supply and electricity comes from solar panels. As well as the main farmhouse, built in 1805, there are several stylishly restored outbuildings. €1.95m.

Eating in

Polish football star Robert Lewandowski follows a "backwards eating" plan to keep trim, says Alice Hall in the Telegraph. The Bayern Munich striker will have a chocolate brownie as a starter, followed by rice or buckwheat, then meat or fish, and finally salad or soup. The idea is to separate carbohydrates and proteins so the body does not "become overwhelmed" by a mix of ingredients. While many nutritionists are sceptical about Lewandowski's "dessert first" regime, they can rest assured that he only eats chocolate made from pure cacao, and doesn't have lactose or wheat flour.

Podcast

The library that lends human "books"

At the Human Library in Copenhagen, the books are "flesh and blood", says Claire Bates in the BBC's People Fixing the World podcast. Rather than ink and paper, each "open book" is someone who has faced prejudice in their lives. Visitors get to talk to them for half an hour about whatever they want.

"The aim of these face-to-face chats is to break down our assumptions and prejudices," says Ronni Abergel, who opened the library in 2014. The "titles", or volunteers, are posted on a blackboard by a librarian, and vary daily: "Muslim"; "Giving up a child for adoption"; "Polyamorous".

There are now similar "book depots" in more than 80 countries. "I'm not out to change the world in a 30-minute reading," says "Gay". "If I can get them to go away with a little food for thought for a conversation with a friend later, I consider that a win."

Listen to the podcast here.

Tomorrow's world

Jones Food Company

Vertical farming is on the up

The world's largest indoor "vertical farm" will open next year in Gloucestershire, says Joe Pinkstone in the Telegraph. Sixteen workers and a team of robots will grow fruit and veg in 17 layers of trays, stacked nearly 40ft high – the equivalent of a 3.4-acre field. The Jones Food Company already has a vertical farm in Scunthorpe; if you've got any basil in your larder, there's a good chance it was grown there, says James Lloyd-Jones, who founded the business in 2017 and teamed up with Ocado to fund the forthcoming farm.

Stacking produce means every acre becomes 17 times more productive, he says, with water use reduced by 95%. The plants don't need full-spectrum light; low-energy LED lights bathe the warehouse in an eerie magenta glow. No pesticides are needed, either. Lloyd-Jones has big plans for vertical farming. "We plan to be able to supply 70% of the UK's fresh produce within the next 10 years," he says.