The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

1375
The Hetton Railway Clay Lane

The railway earned a special place in history as the first to be designed for steam locomotives only.

The railway at Hetton-le-Hole in County Durham, opened in 1822, was the first to be built entirely with steam locomotives rather than horses in mind. The new technology helped to create thousands of jobs and bring tremendous prosperity to this corner of northeast England.

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1376
The Story of Pentecost Clay Lane

Jesus’s apostles receive the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, and the startling effects quickly draw a crowd.

In Jesus’s day, the Roman Empire did not enforce Jewish law but the authorities in Jerusalem did. They required all Jews to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for certain major feasts, one of which was the Feast of Weeks, fifty days after Passover.

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1377
The Music of the Spheres Clay Lane

Sir William Herschel not only discovered Uranus and infrared radiation, but composed two dozen symphonies as well.

William Herschel (1738-1822) came to Britain from Hanover hoping to avoid war with France. He became not only one of the country’s greatest astronomers, but also one of its most prolific composers, and his son John was, like William, knighted for services to astronomy.

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1378
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Clay Lane

Hermia and her lover Lysander elope from Athens, only to become tangled with squabbling fairies in the woods.

The action opens in Athens, where (supposedly) there was a law saying that a father whose daughter had refused the husband he had chosen for her could be put to death.

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1379
The Gift of the Gab Clay Lane

There was one form of power that self-taught engineering genius George Stephenson never harnessed.

Robert Peel, the Prime Minister, had to invite Stephenson to his private residence three times before the Tyneside engineer accepted, pleading that he was not suited to fancy company. His visit, when it finally took place, only confirmed something he had long suspected.

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1380
The Siren ‘Greatness’

In encouraging women into music, Alice Mary Smith thought promises of ‘greatness’ counterproductive.

‘Why are there no great female composers?’ asked the Victorians. But Alice Meadows White, née Smith (1839-1884), never afraid to voice a challenging opinion, believed that the excited demand for a ‘great’ female composer was actually discouraging a potential host of good ones.

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