JAMES DEAN, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE & CULTURAL ICON

Today, The Grandma is resting at home. She has decided to watch some films interpreted by James Dean, the cultural American icon who died on a day like today in 1955.

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931-September 30, 1955) was an American actor.

He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark.

The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).

After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male film star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list.

James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables flat on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower.

Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School.

The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was the only person capable of understanding him.

In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, here he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried. 

More information: Old Soul Retro

Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus.

Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).

While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a car park attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.

In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly.

He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg.

In 1952, he had a non-speaking bit part as a pressman in the film Deadline-U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.

Dean's career picked up, and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode Glory in the Flower, saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

This summer 1953 program featured the song Crazy Man, Crazy, one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page.

In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of Cal Trask, for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.

Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst.

More information: American Legends

Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The film portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair grey and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.

Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the Last Supper because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.

Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.

The death of James Dean occurred on September 30, 1955, near Cholame, California. Dean had previously competed in several auto racing events, and was travelling to a sports car racing competition when he crashed his car at the junction of California State Route 46 (former 466) and California State Route 41. He was 24 years old.

More information: Speedster Dreams

Being a good actor isn't easy.
Being a man is even harder.
I want to be both before I'm done.

James Dean

THE METROPOLITAN POLICE OF LONDON IS FOUNDED

Today, The Grandma has been reading some Arthur Conan Doyle's books, and she has enjoyed Sherlock Holmes and his relation with Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police of London that was founded on a day like today in 1829.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard, is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement in the Metropolitan Police District, which consists of the 32 London boroughs. The MPD does not include the square mile of the City of London, which is policed by the much smaller City of London Police. The Met also has significant national responsibilities, such as co-ordinating and leading on UK-wide national counter-terrorism matters and protecting the Royal Family, certain members of Her Majesty's Government and others as deemed appropriate.

As the police force for the capital, the Met has significant unique responsibilities and challenges within its police area, such as protecting 164 foreign embassies and High Commissions, policing London City and Heathrow Airports, policing and protecting the Palace of Westminster, and dealing with significantly more protests and events than any other force in the country, with 3,500 such events in 2016.

The force, by officer numbers, is the largest in the United Kingdom by a significant margin, and one of the biggest in the world. Leaving its national responsibilities aside, the Met has the eighth-smallest police area (primary geographic area of responsibility) of the territorial police forces in the United Kingdom.

More information: MET

The force is led by the Commissioner, whose formal title is the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The Commissioner is answerable, responsible and accountable to The Queen, the Home Office and the Mayor of London, through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. The post of Commissioner was first held jointly by Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne. Dame Cressida Dick was appointed Commissioner in April 2017.

A number of informal names and abbreviations are applied to the Metropolitan Police Service, the most common being the Met. In colloquial London (or Cockney) slang, it is sometimes referred to as the Old Bill.

The Met is also referred to as Scotland Yard after the location of its original headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. 

The Met's current headquarters is New Scotland Yard, situated on the Victoria Embankment.

The Metropolitan Police Service was founded in 1829 by Robert Peel under the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 and on 29 September of that year, the first constables of the service appeared on the streets of London.

Ten years later, Metropolitan Police Act 1839 consolidated policing within London by expanding the Metropolitan Police District and either abolishing or amalgamating the various other law enforcement entities within London into the Metropolitan Police such as the Thames River Police, which had been formed in 1800, and the end of the Bow Street Runners and Horse Patrol.

Since January 2012, the Mayor of London is responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Police through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC).

More information: National Archives

There is no crime to detect, or, at most,
some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent
that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.

Arthur Conan Doyle

CONFUCIUS, THE TRANSMITTER WHO INVENTED NOTHING

Today, The Grandma has visited the Conficius's Center in Barcelona when she has learnt more things about this Chinese philosopher, who was born on a day like today in 551 BC.

Confucius (551–479 BCE) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who was traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages.

Widely considered one of the most important and influential individuals in human history, Confucius's teachings and philosophy formed the basis of East Asian culture and society, and remain influential across China and East Asia today. His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity.

Confucianism was part of the Chinese social fabric and way of life; to Confucians, everyday life was the arena of religion.

His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era, only to be suppressed in favour of the Legalists during the Qin dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction in the new government. During the Tang and Song dynasties, Confucianism developed into a system known in the West as neo-Confucianism, and later New Confucianism.

Confucius is traditionally credited with having authored or edited many of the Chinese classic texts, including all the Five Classics, but modern scholars are cautious of attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death.

Confucius's principles have commonality with Chinese tradition and belief. With filial piety, he championed strong family loyalty, ancestor veneration, and respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives, recommending family as a basis for ideal government. He espoused the well-known principle Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself, the Golden Rule.

The name Confucius is a Latinization of the Mandarin Chinese title Kǒng Fūzǐ (孔夫子), meaning Master Kong, and was coined in the late 16th century by the early Jesuit missionaries to China.

More information: The Conversation

It is thought that Confucius was born on September 28, 551 BCE, in Zou (鄒, in modern Shandong province). The area was notionally controlled by the kings of Zhou but effectively independent under the local lords of Lu, who ruled from the nearby city of Qufu. His father Kong He (or Shuliang He) was an elderly commandant of the local Lu garrison. His ancestry traced back through the dukes of Song to the Shang dynasty, which had preceded the Zhou. Traditional accounts of Confucius's life relate that Kong He's grandfather had migrated the family from Song to Lu.

Kong He died when Confucius was three years old, and Confucius was raised by his mother Yan Zhengzai (顏徵在) in poverty. His mother would later die at less than 40 years of age.

At age 19 he married Qiguan (亓官), and a year later the couple had their first child, their son Kong Li (孔鯉). Qiguan and Confucius would later have two daughters together, one of whom is thought to have died as a child.

Confucius was educated at schools for commoners, where he studied and learned the Six Arts.

Confucius was born into the class of shi (士), between the aristocracy and the common people. He is said to have worked in various government jobs during his early 20s, and as a bookkeeper and a caretaker of sheep and horses, using the proceeds to give his mother a proper burial. When his mother died, Confucius (aged 23) is said to have mourned for three years, as was the tradition.

In Confucius's time, the state of Lu was headed by a ruling ducal house. Under the duke were three aristocratic families, whose heads bore the title of viscount and held hereditary positions in the Lu bureaucracy.

The Ji family held the position Minister over the Masses, who was also the Prime Minister; the Meng family held the position Minister of Works; and the Shu family held the position Minister of War.

In the winter of 505 BCE, Yang Hu -a retainer of the Ji family -rose up in rebellion and seized power from the Ji family. However, by the summer of 501 BCE, the three hereditary families had succeeded in expelling Yang Hu from Lu. By then, Confucius had built up a considerable reputation through his teachings, while the families came to see the value of proper conduct and righteousness, so they could achieve loyalty to a legitimate government. Thus, that year (501 BCE), Confucius came to be appointed to the minor position of governor of a town. Eventually, he rose to the position of Minister of Crime.

The Shiji stated that the neighbouring Qi state was worried that Lu was becoming too powerful, while Confucius was involved in the government of the Lu state. According to this account, Qi decided to sabotage Lu's reforms by sending 100 good horses and 80 beautiful dancing girls to the duke of Lu. The duke indulged himself in pleasure and did not attend to official duties for three days.

Confucius was disappointed and resolved to leave Lu and seek better opportunities, yet to leave at once would expose the misbehaviour of the duke and therefore bring public humiliation to the ruler Confucius was serving. Confucius therefore waited for the duke to make a lesser mistake. Soon after, the duke neglected to send to Confucius a portion of the sacrificial meat that was his due according to custom, and Confucius seized upon this pretext to leave both his post and the Lu state.

After Confucius's resignation, he began a long journey or set of journeys around the principality states of north-east and central China including Wey, Song, Zheng, Cao, Chu, Qi, Chen, and Cai, and a failed attempt to go to Jin. At the courts of these states, he expounded his political beliefs, but did not see them implemented.

According to the Zuozhuan, Confucius returned home to his native Lu when he was 68, after he was invited to do so by Ji Kangzi, the chief minister of Lu. The Analects depict him spending his last years teaching 72 or 77 disciples and transmitting the old wisdom via a set of texts called the Five Classics.

During his return, Confucius sometimes acted as an advisor to several government officials in Lu, including Ji Kangzi, on matters including governance and crime.

More information: National Geographic

Burdened by the loss of both his son and his favourite disciples, he died at the age of 71 or 72 from natural causes. Confucius was buried in Kong Lin cemetery, which lies in the historical part of Qufu in the Shandong Province. The original tomb erected there in memory of Confucius on the bank of the Sishui River had the shape of an axe. In addition, it has a raised brick platform at the front of the memorial for offerings such as sandalwood incense and fruit.

Although Confucianism is often followed in a religious manner by the Chinese, many argue that its values are secular and that it is, therefore, less a religion than a secular morality. Proponents argue, however, that despite the secular nature of Confucianism's teachings, it is based on a world view that is religious.

Confucianism discusses elements of the afterlife and views concerning Heaven, but it is relatively unconcerned with some spiritual matters often considered essential to religious thought, such as the nature of souls.

In the Analects, Confucius presents himself as a "transmitter who invented nothing". He puts the greatest emphasis on the importance of study, and it is the Chinese character for study (學) that opens the text. Far from trying to build a systematic or formalist theory, he wanted his disciples to master and internalize older classics, so that their deep thought and thorough study would allow them to relate the moral problems of the present to past political events, as recorded in the Annals, or the past expressions of commoners' feelings and noblemen's reflections, as in the poems of the Book of Odes.

Confucius's teachings were later turned into an elaborate set of rules and practices by his numerous disciples and followers, who organized his teachings into the Analects.

Confucius's disciples and his only grandson, Zisi, continued his philosophical school after his death. These efforts spread Confucian ideals to students who then became officials in many of the royal courts in China, thereby giving Confucianism the first wide-scale test of its dogma.

More information: The Atlantic

 I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

Confucius

THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION OF MOUNT ONTAKE IN JAPAN

Today, The Grandma has been following the latest news about the eruption of Cumbre Vieja in La Palma. She has remembered another one occurred in Japan when Mount Ontake erupted tragically on a day like today in 2014.

Mount Ontake (御嶽山, Ontake-san), also referred to as Mount Kiso Ontake (木曽御嶽山, Kiso Ontake-san), is the 14th highest mountain and second-highest volcano in Japan, after Mount Fuji, at 3,067 m. It is included in 100 Famous Japanese Mountains.

Mt. Ontake is located around 100 km northeast of Nagoya, and around 200 km west of Tokyo, at the borders of Kiso and Ōtaki, Nagano Prefecture, and Gero, Gifu Prefecture. The volcano has five crater lakes, with Ni no Ike (二ノ池) at 2,905 m being the highest mountain lake in Japan.

Ontake is a major sacred mountain, and following older shamanistic practices, actors and artists have gone to the mountain to put themselves into trances in order to get divine inspiration for their creative activities.

Ontake was thought to be inactive until October 1979, when it underwent a series of explosive phreatic eruptions which ejected 200,000 tons of ash, and had a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 2. There were minor non-explosive (VEI 0) phreatic eruptions in 1991 and 2007.

More information: The Atlantic

September, 27 2014. The volcanic eruption happened at 11:52 Japan Standard Time (UTC+9). There were no significant earthquakes that might have warned authorities in the lead up to the phreatic eruption -caused by groundwater flashing to steam in a hydrothermal explosion.

The mountain is a popular tourist attraction for hikers, being considered good for beginner climbers and relatively safe, and the weather was also good, so there were several hundred people on its slopes at the time.

The police said that they were searching for people remaining on the mountain. By 17:00 the police reported that three people were missing and were believed to be under ash. Another person was rescued from under the volcanic ash, but remained unconscious. Six people were injured, one by flying rocks.

By 19:30, the number of people believed to remain buried in ash rose to six. Nine people had been reported to be injured, five of whom had fractured bones. Later, at least 40 people were reported to be injured, and another 32 were believed to be missing. The JSDF began carrying out helicopter searches for missing people. One woman was reported to have died from the eruption.

On September 28, the police reported that over 30 people had been found in cardiac arrest near the summit. Japanese emergency services often refer to people who show no vital signs, and are apparently dead, as being in cardiac arrest, as legally, only an authorized physician can pronounce a person dead.

More information: Smithsonian Institution-Global Volcanism Program

By September 29, a total of 36 bodies had been found, and 12 people had been pronounced dead; the search was suspended due to dangerous conditions, including hydrogen sulphide gas spewing from the mountain.

On September 30, fears of escalating volcanic activity on Mount Ontake continued to hinder rescue efforts.

On October 1, 2014, eleven new bodies were discovered by rescuers on the slopes of Mount Ontake after searching in previously unexplored areas of the ash-covered peak, bringing the total body count from 36 to 47; a revision after an erroneous initial count of 48.

On October 4, 2014, four new bodies were discovered by rescuers on the slopes of Mount Ontake after searching in previously unexplored areas away from trekking roads. Those four were confirmed to have died.

Typhoon Phanfone prevented searching activities from October 5 till 6.

On October 7, three more bodies were discovered, bringing the total of confirmed deaths to 54.

As of October 11, the death toll was at 56. The victims of the Mount Ontake eruption were mourned on October 27, as authorities and residents marked a month since the volcano killed 57 people and left 6 others missing.

The Mount Ontake volcano eruption was an extremely rare phenomenon, which made it difficult to take precautionary measures. 63 people were killed; five bodies were never found. The Japan Self-defence Forces began carrying out helicopter searches for missing people after the eruption.

More information: The Conversation

I have seen so many eruptions in the last 20 years
that I don't care if I die tomorrow.

Maurice Krafft

THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT, MODERNIST POETRY IN ENGLISH

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to practice one of her favourite hobbies, reading poetry. She has chosen T. S. Eliot, the American-English poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor, who was born on a day like today in 1888.

Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 1888-4 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. One of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on to settle, work, and marry there. He became a British citizen in 1927 at the age of 39, subsequently renouncing his American citizenship.

Eliot first attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in 1915, which was received as a modernist masterpiece. It was followed by some best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1943).

He was also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.

The Eliots were a Boston Brahmin family, with roots in England and New England. Eliot's paternal grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, had moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to establish a Unitarian Christian church there. His father, Henry Ware Eliot (1843–1919), was a successful businessman, president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St Louis. His mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns (1843–1929), who wrote poetry, was a social worker, which was a new profession in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Eliot was the last of six surviving children. Known to family and friends as Tom, he was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Stearns.

More information: Poem Analysis

Eliot's childhood infatuation with literature can be ascribed to several factors. First, he had to overcome physical limitations as a child. Struggling from a congenital double inguinal hernia, he could not participate in many physical activities and thus was prevented from socializing with his peers. As he was often isolated, his love for literature developed. Once he learned to read, the young boy immediately became obsessed with books, favouring tales of savage life, the Wild West, or Mark Twain's thrill-seeking Tom Sawyer.

From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attended Smith Academy, the boys' college preparatory division of Washington University, where his studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and German.

He began to write poetry when he was 14 under the influence of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He said the results were gloomy and despairing, and he destroyed them.

His first published poem, A Fable For Feasters, was written as a school exercise and was published in the Smith Academy Record in February 1905. Also published there in April 1905 was his oldest surviving poem in manuscript, an untitled lyric, later revised and reprinted as Song in The Harvard Advocate, Harvard University's student magazine.

He also published three short stories in 1905, Birds of Prey, A Tale of a Whale and The Man Who Was King. The last mentioned story significantly reflects his exploration of the Igorot Village while visiting the 1904 World's Fair of St. Louis. Such a link with indigenous peoples importantly antedates his anthropological studies at Harvard. After working as a philosophy assistant at Harvard from 1909 to 1910, Eliot moved to Paris where, from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne.

In 1915, he taught English at Birkbeck, University of London.

In 1916, he completed a doctoral dissertation for Harvard on Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley, but he failed to return for the viva voce exam.

Eliot worked as a schoolteacher, most notably at Highgate School in London, where he taught French and Latin: his students included John Betjeman.

Charles Whibley recommended T.S. Eliot to Geoffrey Faber. In 1925 Eliot left Lloyds to become a director in the publishing firm Faber and Gwyer, later Faber and Faber, where he remained for the rest of his career. At Faber and Faber, he was responsible for publishing distinguished English poets, including W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Charles Madge and Ted Hughes.

More information: Poetry Foundation

Eliot died of emphysema at his home in Kensington in London, on 4 January 1965, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were taken to St Michael and All Angels' Church, East Coker, the village in Somerset from which his Eliot ancestors had emigrated to America.

Eliot was commemorated by the placement of a large stone in the floor of Poets' Corner in London's Westminster Abbey. The stone, cut by designer Reynolds Stone, is inscribed with his life dates, his Order of Merit, and a quotation from his poem Little Gidding, the communication / of the dead is tongued with fire beyond / the language of the living.

More information: Grade Saver

For a poet of his stature, Eliot produced a relatively small number of poems. He was aware of this even early in his career.

Eliot also made significant contributions to the field of literary criticism, and strongly influenced the school of New Criticism. He was somewhat self-deprecating and minimizing of his work, and once said his criticism was merely a by-product of his private poetry-workshop.

T.S. Eliot influenced many poets, novelists, and songwriters, including Seán Ó Ríordáin, Máirtín Ó Díreáin, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Bob Dylan, Hart Crane, William Gaddis, Allen Tate, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Trevor Nunn, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heaney, Russell Kirk, George Seferis, who in 1936 published a modern Greek translation of The Waste Land, and James Joyce.

T. S. Eliot was a strong influence on 20th-century Caribbean poetry written in English, including the epic Omeros (1990) by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, and Islands (1969) by Barbadian Kamau Brathwaite.

More information: Archive

 Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion,
but an escape from emotion;
it is not the expression of personality,
but an escape from personality.
But, of course,
only those who have personality and emotions know
what it means to want to escape from these things.

T. S. Eliot

ROSALÍA, GREAT TALENT FROM SANT ESTEVE SESROVIRES

Today, The Grandma has decided to stay at home listening to some music. She has chosen one of the best artists of the last decade, Rosalía, the Catalan singer and songwriter who was born on a day like today in 1992.

Rosalía Vila Tobella (born 25 September 1992), known mononymously as Rosalía, is a Catalan singer and songwriter from Sant Esteve Sesrovires, Barcelona.

After discovering Spanish folkloric music at an early age, Rosalía graduated from Superior School of Music of Catalonia (ESMUC) with honors by virtue of her collaborative cover record with Raül Refree, Los Ángeles (2017) and the baccalaureate project El Mal Querer (Sony, 2018), which was co-produced by El Guincho on a low budget and contained modern interpretations of flamenco mixed with pop and urban.

The album, which would later win the Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year and be listed in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2020, was released to critical acclaim and started the ascent of Rosalía into the international music scene.

Her first hit single came in 2019, when she collaborated with J Balvin on Con Altura, a reggaeton-inspired track that marked Rosalía's journey to urban music. Selling over seven million copies, it was named one of the best songs of the year by Billboard and Pitchfork and Best Urban Song by the Latin Recording Academy.

It also spawned her signature lyric and nickname La Rosalía. She later collaborated with other musicians such as Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, Ozuna, Arca and Travis Scott, achieving multiple accolades and breaking many records.

Throughout her career, Rosalía has won a Grammy Award, eight Latin Grammy Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, an MTV Europe Music Award, two UK Music Video Awards and two consecutive Premio Ruido for both of her studio albums, among others. In 2019, Billboard gave her the Rising Star Award for changing the sound of today's mainstream music with her fresh flamenco-influenced pop.

More information: Rosalía

Rosalía was born on 25 September 1993 at the General Hospital of Catalonia in Sant Cugat del Vallès, and was raised in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, a small town in northern Barcelona.

She is the youngest daughter of Pilar Tobella, a businesswoman who has been running the family company for decades, as well as managing Motomami S.L., her own artist representation agency since late 2018. The company was created specially to manage her daughter's image, management, financial state and patrimony. Rosalía's father is José Manuel Vila, who was born in Cudillero, Asturias. She has a big sister, Pilar Vila, who works with Rosalía as her stylist. 

She began her professional musical education at the age of 16 at the Taller de Músics. She did a six-year course at the academy. She began attending class at the Raval school but due to her high grades and multiple recommendations she transferred to the Superior School of Music of Catalonia (ESMUC) in order to finish her studies.

In 2012 she became the vocalist of Kejaleo, a flamenco music group featuring Jordi Franco, Roger Blavia, Cristo Fontecilla, Diego Cortés and Xavi Turull.

They released an album, Alaire, in 2013. That same year, Rosalía worked as a duo with Juan Chicuelo Gómez at the 2013 Panama International Film Festival and at the Festival Grec de Barcelona for the contemporary dance work De Carmen.

In 2013, she participated in the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Conference in New York, and was the lead voice in the culmination of the Any Espriu 2014 at the Palau de la Música.

In 2015 she collaborated with La Fura dels Baus on a show that premiered in Singapore. She was the opening act for Catalan flamenco artist Miguel Poveda, accompanied by Alfredo Lagos, at the International Music Festival of Cadaqués, and also at the 2016 Jerez Jazz Festival. She worked with Rocío Márquez on the presentation of her album El Niño, produced by Raül Refree, at Primavera Sound 2015. In 2015, she also worked with clothing brand Desigual and sang the single for their campaign jingle Last Night Was Eternal. 

That same year, she released Un Millón de Veces. The song was part of the benefit album Tres Guitarras Para el Autismo. All proceeds benefited studies on autism. Through her teenage years and early twenties, she performed in musical bars and weddings. At 20, she worked as a flamenco teacher and vocal coach.

In 2016, she collaborated with Spanish rapper C. Tangana on Antes de Morirme. The song was a sleeper hit and entered the Spanish Singles Chart in 2018, after the success of Rosalía's other work. The collaboration received international attention when it was featured on the soundtrack of the first season of Spanish Netflix show Élite (2018).

In 2016, Rosalía performed to a crowd of a hundred people at the Tablao del Carmen, a flamenco specialized venue at the Poble Espanyol, in Barcelona. In the audience was Raül Refree, whom she invited to the show.

They began working on two albums together. Rosalía signed with Universal Music later in 2016, and she relocated to California. She went on to only release Los Ángeles. The album talks about death in a dark way with aggressive guitar chords by Refree. It presents reworks of flamenco classics receiving several accolades.

She was nominated for Best New Artist at the 18th Latin Grammy Awards. The album was released on 10 February 2017 through Universal Music and spawned two singles, Catalina, released in October 2016, and De Plata, released in August 2017. The album was very well received by critics.

More information: Instagram-La Rosalía

Rosalía and Raül Refree embarked on a concert tour, Los Ángeles Tour, supporting their first studio album together. The tour began on 11 February 2017 in Granada and ended on 1 March 2018 at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.

During the tour, in 2018, Spanish singer Bebe attended one of their concerts alongside Juanes, who became immediately obsessed with Rosalía and asked his manager Rebeca León to work with her. She agreed to manage her as she felt like she was a once in fifty years kind of artist.

The recording cycle for Rosalía's second studio album, El Mal Querer, began in early 2017 as her baccalaureate project, graduating from the Superior School of Music of Catalonia (ESMUC). She personally chose to work alongside Spanish musician El Guincho and spawned its concept alongside friend Ferran Echegaray, who bet on the Romance of Flamenca to follow the album's storyline. Thus, every song on the album would be a chapter of the story narrated in the anonymous Occitan novel.

Despite having no budget to produce the record as she was an independent artist working on a university project, Rosalía invested a lot of her own money, to the point of almost going bankrupt. However, she continued working on it, stating that my goal was to find a way to explain this tradition that I'm obsessed with in the most personal way without fear and with risk. Before releasing the album I was in debt and had no guarantees that this would work but I had the hope that, since I was making it from my heart, whether it was a few or many, that those people that liked it, would like it for real.

The album was almost completely recorded at El Guincho's apartment in Barcelona with a computer, a microphone and a sound table. It would mix traditional flamenco with today's pop and urban music. 

Later, she released the album's lead single, Malamente. Due to its intense promotion and novel sound, it caught the attention of international personalities and music critics, who all praised the track to the point that, in August, Rosalía was booked to perform at Madonna's 60th birthday bash but cancelled the gig after many logistic conflicts.

Personalities such as Kourtney Kardashian and Dua Lipa also showed their appreciation for Rosalía's new song, sharing it on social media. Malamente was promoted at several award shows like the 2018 MTV Europe Music Awards as well as the Latin Grammys. Its music video, directed by Canada, went viral on the Internet and was named Video of the Year by Pitchfork.

The song was nominated for five Latin Grammys, out of which Rosalía won two, for Best Alternative Song and for Best Urban Fusion/Performance. Malamente is certified five times platinum in Spain for selling over 200,000 copies and is also platinum in the US. The album's second single, Pienso en tu Mirá, was released on 24 July 2018 through Sony Music. Its music video also went viral on social media, with praise for its aesthetics and poetic symbolism.

El Mal Querer was released on 2 November 2018 and debuted at number two on the PROMUSICAE chart. It is presented as experimental and conceptual, revolving around a toxic heterosexual relationship, inspired by the anonymous 13th-century Occitan novel Flamenca.

Rosalía revealed that she had already presented the project and that she had finally earned her degree in music, with a mention in flamenco, with honors. The album also entered the charts in Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United States, where the album debuted at the top of the US Latin Pop Albums chart.

El Mal Querer was universally acclaimed by music critics. Writing for The Guardian, head critic Alexis Petridis highly commended the album, giving it the highest rating and describing it as the calling card of a unique new talent. He praised Rosalía's vocals for giving the album a head-turning freshness, noting that her singing style is audibly rooted in a different musical tradition to the usual styles in which pop vocalists perform.

It ended up winning all Latin Grammy awards it got nominated for: Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Album, Best Engineered Album and Best Recording Package. Therefore, Rosalía became the first female recipient of the Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year since Shakira in 2006.

Later, she released the single Fucking Money Man, which includes two money-themed tracks: Milionària"(which she sang in Catalan) and Dios Nos Libre del Dinero. It was well received by linguists, who praised Rosalía for singing in Catalan for showing the world her roots because, with her, the Catalan language is able to cross borders.

More information: Twitter-Rosalía

On 26 January 2020 she performed at the 62nd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, and she ended up winning the Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album.

After Rosalía's increase in popularity with the release of Malamente in spring 2018, her music was described as a heavily exciting fusion of flamenco and modern arts. American magazine Pitchfork called the singer's voice a soft liquid velvet and wrote that Malamente consumes the listener with drums and soft synthesizers that drag you to their world completely. After releasing El Mal Querer in November 2018, The Guardian scored it with 5/5 stars and said: the Catalan singer's potent, smart second album is more complex than any Latin pop currently in the charts.

Rosalía has been accused of cultural appropriation by some Romani people because she adapts Romani customs into her style, and she draws from the flamenco music tradition, which is often thought to be from Romani people in Andalusia. However, the origin of flamenco music is not known precisely, and it probably fused musical practices from three sources: Moorish, Jewish and Romani cultures. Responding to this criticism, Rosalía said, flamenco does not belong to the Gypsies.

Rosalía has cited Camarón de la Isla, James Blake and La Niña de los Peines as her major musical influences.

When she was asked about her biggest fashion influence, she cited Lola Flores. In an interview with Billboard she said: I love her. I love the attitude and the strength she had. She also mentioned Carmen Amaya; she used to wear masculine clothes in a moment that any woman was dancing in typically-man clothing.

She is of paternal Asturian and maternal Catalan heritage. Her paternal grandparents were of Galician and Andalusian origin. Her great-grandfather was Cuban. She is fluent in Catalan, Spanish and English.

More information: Youtube-Rosalía

Everything is in flamenco. Spirituality, loyalty, humility, valor.

Rosalía

'PROCURADE 'E MODERARE BARONES SA TIRANNIA'

Procurade’ ‘e moderare,
Barones, sa tirannia,
Chi si no, pro vida mia,
Torrades a pe' in terra!
Declarada est già sa gherra
Contra de sa prepotenzia,
E cominzat sa passienzia
In su pobulu a mancare.

Mirade ch'est azzendende
Contra de ois su fogu;
Mirade chi non est giogu
Chi sa cosa andat a veras;
Mirade chi sas aeras
Minettana temporale;
Zente cunsizzada male,
Iscultade sa 'oghe mia.

No apprettedas s 'isprone
A su poveru ronzinu,
Si no in mesu caminu
S'arrempellat appuradu;
Mizzi ch'es tantu cansadu
E non 'nde podet piusu;
Finalmente a fundu in susu
S'imbastu 'nd 'hat a bettare.

Su pobulu chi in profundu
Letargu fit sepultadu
Finalmente despertadu
S'abbizzat ch 'est in cadena,
Ch'istat suffrende sa pena
De s'indolenzia antiga:
Feudu, legge inimiga
A bona filosofia!

Che ch'esseret una inza,
Una tanca, unu cunzadu,
Sas biddas hana donadu
De regalu o a bendissione;
Comente unu cumone
De bestias berveghinas
Sos homines et feminas
Han bendidu cun sa cria.

Sardinian Poem

 

More information: L'Alguer, A Little Catalan Place in Sardinian Lands

SANTA TECLA, ENJOYING LOCAL CULTURE IN TARRAGONA

Today, The Grandma wants to congratulate the people of Tarragona, who are celebrating Santa Tecla, their major festival. If you have the opportunity of visiting this wonderful and ancient city, do not doubt it and you will enjoy its Catalan culture and its charming people.

The Santa Tecla Festival, in Catalan Festes de Santa Tecla, is a festival held in Tarragona, Catalonia.

Plunging into the festivities of Santa Tecla of Tarragona unavoidably involves becoming impregnated with fragrances that link the present times with history, with heritage legacy.

This is precisely the route, maintained through the centuries, that defines the personality of the festivities are rock music, jazz, drama plays, music-hall, movies, parties, sport activities and so on. However, the essence of it still is the collection of dances, the bestiary, the entremesos, interlude or short farce, the spoken dances and the human castles, all of which shape the Popular Retinue of the city, as a genuine corpus, particular of the celebration.

It has been named as a Traditional Festival of National Interest (Festa Tradicional d'Interès Nacional, in Catalan), by the Government of Catalonia.

Although in Tarragona the cult to Santa Tecla has existed since ancient times, it was not until the period of the Reconquest that the festivities outline the embryonic structure that will be perpetuated, and that adopt the streets of the city as the essential physical space in which such festivities are to take place.

In 1091, the Pope Urban II restored, if only juridically, the metropolitan seat of Tarragona and declared the festivities of Santa Tecla as a day of obligation and main celebration of the year. However, this was only a phase previous to the effective restoration, which took place several years, later, in 1118, when the count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer the Great offered the city to the bishop Oleguer of Barcelona. It was from that moment on that we refer to a real repopulation of Tarragona.

The pontifical bull of Gelasius II ratified the day of Santa Tecla as the main festivity of the year and, of course, as a day of obligation.

The relevance of the path which had been started was confirmed in year 1239 at the first Provincial Council, presided by the archbishop Pere d'Albalat, and in year 1277, at the Council, of archbishop, Bernat d'Olivella. Until that moment, however, the festivity is confined within the strictly liturgical framework.

The increasing popularity of the celebration leads to a fact that will become extremely important for the evolution of the Festivities.

More information: Tarragona

On 17 May 1321, the relic of the arm of the patroness saint arrives in Tarragona, from Antioch, located in the Orient. The city carried out an absolutely spectacular and overwhelming welcome reception, in such a way that this would become the point of reference for the subsequent structuration of the festivity.

For the first time ever, the population, by means of all of its integrating social classes or strata -political, ecclesiastical, soldiers or military men and working class- fills the streets and takes possession of it. Space is filled with the new dances performed by the local guilds which, in a process of syncretism of pre-christian and Christian rituals, are always made functional the service of the sacred.

The civic significance that this ceremony had, as well as the comparison of the festivity of Santa Tecla to that of Corpus Christi -which was already the object of an outstanding celebration since 1357, at the request of the archbishop Sanç López d’Ayerbe- will lead to the establishment of the solemn celebration of the octave of Santa Tecla from 1359 onwards, and to the publication of a document which is essential to understand the Festivities: the Bylaws of Santa Tecla, which on 26 July 1370, archbishop Pere Clasquerí establishes at the request of the consuls of the city.

The philosophy of the text puts on the same level the festivity of Santa Tecla and that of Corpus Christi, the essential dates of the local calendar. The structure of the Festivities established for the eve and the day of the patroness saint is maintained until the present times.

22 September is the date set for the singing of vespers at the Cathedral, which is the centre of the festivity, as well as the performance of dances by the guilds throughout the city, that is, the Cercavila (the big parade in the streets) of nowadays.

On 23 September, the attendance to religious service is to take place, with the dances and the establishment of the Procession of the Holy Arm, under a canopy, through the streets and preceded by the dances.

Besides, according to the bylaws, the streets of the city should be cleaned up and decorated, particularly those through which the procession is to pass by. The bylaws in question also mention the attendance of the clergy to the procession and the carrying of twenty candles bearing the signal of the city, that the consuls of the town council are to pay for, in order to keep the Arm illuminated.

Besides the dances, which are the embryo of the Popular Retinue, there will be a whole collection of elements which will become core complicated and will progressively complete the spectacular dimension of the festivity.

From 1381, we find documentary evidence on the fantastic and popular bestiary; since year 1385, biblical characters; since year 1399, the lifeless hagiographic characters; since year 1402, the games or allegorical performance representations, which already bore a certain dramatic action; from the second quarter of the 15th century, the roques or castles -moveable platforms in the fashion of the current floats of the Holy Week- and the entremesos. Often enough, the ludic purposes and the catechistical purposes are mixed up with the struggle to exteriorize the municipal and the archiepiscopal powers, and generate an overwhelming growth of the spectacular nature and complexity of the Festivities.

The onset of the 16th century and the outbreak of spoken dances -some of which are new while others are redefined from ancient entremesos and dances- shaped the last part of one of the structures of the festivity that essentially survived without any outstanding alterations until the onset of the 19th century. In any case, we must point out its increasing significance, which is provincial council that is held in Barcelona in year 1564, under the chairmanship of the patriarch of Antioch, D. Fernando de Loazes, who ratifies the feast day of Santa Tecla as an obligation day in all of the ecclesiastical province of Tarragona.

The 19th century will be decisive for the analysis of the evolution of the festivities of Santa Tecla. During the first half of the mentioned century, the morphology, of the castells (human towers) will be defined, as well as the role that these play within the celebration. That relatively new moment, in spite of the fact that the writer Rafael d’Amat, Baron of Maldà, regretted its absence as early as year 1794, will become essential in the festivities of Santa Tecla. In his novel entitled La familia dels Garrigas, Josep Pin i Soler makes a magnificent description of the festivity in the middle of the 19th century.

At that time, besides the performances and elements that still survived from the Middle Ages, the extremely significant role played by the groups of human towers was undeniable, and the same applies to the activities that nowadays are essential, such as the Matinades (Early Mornings), with the grallers and the drummers, or the fireworks display of the celebration day of Santa Tecla, or even activities which remain more unknown such as the general chiming of the bells or the chanting of the goigs, in the Cathedral. Also, an emblematic character has been shaped, formed in the festivity: the Magí de les Timbales, the Council drummer.

The second half of the 19th century entailed a new amalgamation of the festivities. On one hand, the Town Hall introduced its own defining elements in the Popular Retinue with a highly impressive artistic level.

In this sense, the Moorish Giants, the Negritos Giants (Black Giants) and the Old Nanos, all of them chiselled by Bernat Verderol, seem to want to separate from the most simple and popular elements: dances, which will suffer a remarkable recession, particularly due to the upheaval undergone by the institutions that supported them; guilds, during the first half of the century, as well as the constant attacks that they suffered from the wealthier classes or strata.

On the other hand, pyrotechnics become more relevant in the festivity. Noise and rustle play a great role as opposed to that of colour, and this is the reason why the firing of storms increase.

 More information: Tarragona Turisme

The Ball de Diables (Devils' Dance) seems to balance the relationship between light and noise, and is performed for the first time during independent exhibitions, out of the retinue, and is undoubtedly a precedent of the current correfoc. In the last instance, the sardana dance is imported from other Catalan region (Empordà), which will thus be on its way to becoming a national symbol.

The 20th century, until the establishment of the democratic town halls which took place during the seventies and the eighties, will be a somewhat dark period for the collection of the festivities of Santa Tecla.

In 1911, Pope Pius X abolishes the festive quality of the saint's day, which becomes a labour day. It was not until 10 July 1917 that pope Benedict XV restored it, upon request of the Town Hall presided by the mayor Robert Guasch, and with technicians as outstanding as Emili Morera. On 3 September, the Spanish government of Eduardo Dato consented to the restitution of the festivity.

The Spanish Civil War of 1936 and the subsequent postwar period cast a dark and gloomy outlook on the main festivity, to the extreme of consigning it to a secondary condition. The authorities of that period distorted and misrepresented the history of the city and promoted the small festivity of Sant Magí to the condition of main festivity, with the idea in mind of using it for attracting tourists in the summer season and thus, to the detriment of the inhabitants of Tarragona.

The arrival of democratic town halls has entailed the vindication of the festivities of Santa Tecla as the celebration of and for the inhabitants of Tarragona.

Nowadays, the recovery of the Popular Retinue, which until then had been almost banished, the restoration of the thundering displays, the redemption of the manual tolling of the bells, the diffusion, spreading and improvement of the playing of the gralla and of the drum, the manifoldness of the traditional instruments as well as their application, are some of the peculiarities of the festivities of Santa Tecla that will be noticed when listening to the recordings that we hereby present. In short, the recovery of a city heritage which begins with the use of streets as a space for entertainment.

More information: Visit World Heritage

Culture is the process by which a person becomes
all that they were created capable of being.

Thomas Carlyle

GRESFORD COLLIERY, A COAL MINING DISASTER IN WALES

Today, The Grandma is still relaxing at home. She has decided to read about Gresford Collery, a Welsh coal mine where a terrible disaster occurred on a day like today in 1934, after an underground explosion.

Gresford Colliery was a coal mine located a mile from the North Wales village of Gresford, near Wrexham.

The North Wales Coalfield, of which Gresford was part, runs from Point of Ayr, on the Flintshire coast, to the Shropshire border. Although coal mining records date back to the 15th century, it was not heavily exploited until the 18th century. By 1900, more than 12,500 miners produced three million tonnes a year.

Industrialist Henry Dennis of Ruabon, and his son Henry Dyke Dennis, began the colliery near Gresford in 1907.

The site was on the edge of the Alyn Valley, between the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, later the Great Western Railway's Birkenhead to London Paddington line, and the old main road between Wrexham and Chester.

The Dennis' company United Westminster & Wrexham Collieries took four years to sink two deep shafts, the Dennis (downcast) and the Martin (upcast), located 46 m apart.

It was one of the deepest coal mines in the Denbighshire coalfield, the Dennis shaft reaching a depth of about 690 m and the Martin shaft about 686 m.

The first coal was produced in June 1911 and full production reached before the outbreak of World War I.

Three seams were worked: the Crank, the Brassey (named after engineer Thomas Brassey), and the Main. House coal was produced from the Crank seam, the Brassey seam was virtually gas free whilst the Main seam was very gaseous. Working conditions at the colliery were dusty, and very hot, the temperature often more than 32 °C.

The Dennis section was divided into six districts: the 20s, 61's, 109's, 14's and 29's districts, along with a very deep district known as "95's and 24's". These districts were worked by the longwall system but the 20s and 61's, which were furthest from the shaft, were worked by hand when the remaining districts were mechanized. The coal was renowned as being of very good quality and hot burning.

More information: The National

In 1934, 2,200 men were employed at the colliery, with 1,850 working underground and 350 on the surface.

The government passed the Coal Mines Act 1911 requiring every new colliery to have two intake airways into the mine, to allow air to circulate in the workings and only one air intake be allowed for the movement of coal.

Gresford Colliery was in operation before the law came into force and was exempt. Retro digging a new shaft made little commercial sense, and not much profit had ever come out of the pit, so the Dennis didn't undertake the work.

After the General Strike, cost-cutting measures were introduced in all mines, including in safety provision. Five local collieries -Westminster, Wrexham & Acton, Vauxhall and Gatewen - shut in quick succession during the 1920s and 1930s.

Mechanization, believed by the workers and unions to improve working conditions, created more dust and explosions, in an economic climate where the government were reluctant to enforce regulation.

By 1934, there were two main sections to Gresford Colliery, the Dennis and the South-east, which were both part mechanized. 2,200 miners worked in three eight-hour shifts. Some miners worked double shifts to earn extra money, despite it being illegal. The Dennis family owned a residual 45% stake in the colliery, and wanting additional profitability put manager, William Bonsall, under pressure to increase the productivity of the whole colliery.

One of Britain's worst coal mining disasters occurred at the colliery. The Gresford Disaster occurred on Saturday 22 September 1934, when 266 men died following an underground explosion.

As there was a football match on the Saturday afternoon between Wrexham and Tranmere Rovers, on Friday, 21 September, many miners doubled up their shifts, so they could attend the match. This meant there were more miners down the pit than there ordinarily would have been.

The explosion occurred in the Dennis district at around 2am, the time when the men would be having their mid-shift snack.

Only six men survived the blast. A fire followed the explosion, and the mine was sealed off at the end of the following day.

On 25 September, rescuer George Brown was killed on the surface when another explosion blew a seal off the Dennis shaft, and he was hit by flying debris. Only eleven bodies were ever recovered. The mine owners docked the men half a day's pay, as they had not completed a full day's shift.

Sir Henry Walker, the Chief Inspector of Mines, chaired the inquiry which opened on 25 October 1934, at Church House, Regent Street, Wrexham. Walker was assisted by John Brass, for the mine owners; and Joseph Jones for the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). Both sides employed barristers, Hartley Shawcross for the owners; while the MFGB were offered pro bono publico the services of Labour MP and barrister Sir Stafford Cripps.

Walker wanted access to the evidence, and although the pit was reopened in March 1935, for safety reasons the Dennis section remained closed, and was eventually sealed. Having adjourned the inquiry in December 1934, by December 1936, Walker legally had to make his final report.

The report noted that before the accident, ventilation in some districts was possibly inadequate: in particular, it was noted that 14's and 29's districts were poorly ventilated. The report after the accident, considered that the main return airway for the 109's, 14's and 29's districts was far too small at 4 feet by 4, according to one witness.

Evidence was given that 95's and 24's district, at 792 m deep, was uncomfortably hot. There were numerous breaches of regulations regarding the firing of explosive charges in 14's district, taking of dust samples, and other matters.

The colliery had made an operating loss in 1933, and the manager, William Bonsall, had been under pressure from the Dennis family to increase profitability. He had spent little time in the Dennis section of the pit in the months before the disaster, as he was overseeing the installation of new machinery in the mine's other section, the South-Eastern or Slant.

More information: Wrexham

The disaster left 591 widows, children, parents and other dependants. In addition, over 1500 miners were temporarily without work, until the colliery was re-opened in January 1936. After each newspaper opened its own fund, they and national donations by September 1935 totalled £565,000.

The mine remained sealed off for six months after the explosion. Districts of the mine were gradually reopened, although the Dennis district, where the explosion occurred, remained sealed. Coal production restarted in January 1936, and by 1945 there were 1,743 men employed.

Gresford was officially closed on 10 November 1973 due to a combination of exhaustion of existing coal reserves and geological problems.

To this day, Wrexham Library has the memorial book on display with a list of the poor souls still buried underground. There is also a painting in All Saint's church, Gresford, depicting scenes from the disaster and rescue.

Nine years after the closure of the pit, in 1982 the headgear wheel was preserved as part of the Gresford Disaster Memorial.

On the 75th anniversary in 2009, various memorials took place, including Wrexham Football Club delaying their match by 15 minutes -as they would normally have done in the days when the mine was working.

More information: Wrexham AFC

Mining is a dangerous profession.
There's no way to make a mine completely safe:
These are the words owners have always used
to excuse needless deaths
and the words miners use to prepare for them.

Tawni O'Dell