The Infinity Footbridge in Stockton-on-Tees in County Durham. In Walker’s day, Stockton was a busy industrial town and port, prospering from the North East’s coal industry, and it grew through heavy industries such as ship-building, railways, steel and chemicals. When the taxpayer-funded subsidies that kept these industries alive were cut in the 1980s, the town was badly hit; but Stockton has now begun to recover, thanks chiefly to the relocation of service industries. An annex of the University of Durham has also been opened at Stockton.
Introduction
Until 1826, lighting a fire, a candle or a pipe was not an easy business. Matches as we know them were in their infancy, a toilsome affair requiring a man to juggle little bottles of noxious chemicals and perhaps a pair of pliers. But that year, a merry pharmacist from Stockton-on-Tees called John Walker (1781-1859) liberated us from all this, and quite by accident.
IN 1819, thirty-eight-year-old John Walker opened a pharmacy at 59, the High Street, in his hometown of Stockton-on-Tees. He had at one time studied surgery under Watson Alcock, physician to local landowner the Marquis of Londonderry, but after a brief spell in London he had retrained as a pharmacist in Durham and York.
He was little like the spare and haggard apothecary in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The work of a pharmacist could be laborious but Walker was always ready with a joke, and his sunny smile was one of his most trusty remedies. He had an inquiring turn of mind, and like many of his fellow chemists made experiments with the combustible properties of various compounds, perhaps with an eye to the gun trade. One day in 1826, when working with a mixture of sulphide of antimony, chlorate of potash and gum, Walker accidentally dropped his mixing stick onto the hearth. The stick glanced aside and burst into flame, and at the same instant an idea kindled in Walker’s imagination.
Précis
In 1826, John Walker, a former surgeon’s apprentice who now kept a chemist’s shop in Stockton-on-Tees, dropped his mixing stick while experimenting with a combustible paste. Like many others, he was sure chemicals could make tinderboxes a thing of the past, and when his stick struck the hearth and ignited, Walker saw the possibilities at once. (56 / 60 words)
In 1826, John Walker, a former surgeon’s apprentice who now kept a chemist’s shop in Stockton-on-Tees, dropped his mixing stick while experimenting with a combustible paste. Like many others, he was sure chemicals could make tinderboxes a thing of the past, and when his stick struck the hearth and ignited, Walker saw the possibilities at once.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, besides, not, or, ought, since, until, whether.
Word Games
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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