Lancashire Quotes

“Altogether, a pleasant place, marred by activities of unpleasant people whose qualities, perhaps, are sad reflections of sadder environments.”
― Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole

“It is a Lancashire custom to be on the defensive. We anticipate jokes about rain, "bi gum," and Wigan; we expect people to peer at us through the thin layer of smoke they fancy they see around our heads.”
― Sylvia Lovat Corbridge, It's an Old Lancashire Custom

“Never expect owt for nowt.”
― Sylvia Lovat Corbridge, It's an Old Lancashire Custom

“To us, dinner is a meal eaten at mid-day. Tea is a secondary meal of a substantial nature taken when we get home between five and six o'clock. Supper is a hot drink and "a bit of summat to eat" at bedtime.”
― Sylvia Lovat Corbridge, It's an Old Lancashire Custom

“Tha didn't mek it, did tha, luv,
Our gowden weddin' day.
Wi tried so hard to keep thi,
But tha quietly slipped away.

It's fifty years ago to-day
Sin' ah become thi bride,
Ah'd give everythin' in t'world, mi luv,
To have thi by mi side.

But there, it seems 'twere noan fer t'be
But ah seems to hear thi say,
"Durn't fret, mi lass, just carry on,
We'll meet agen some day.”
― Louisa Bearman, Poems in the Lancashire Dialect

“At the time I had taken the meaning of the tale to be that if you ran fast enough, you could achieve anything.
I was wrong. The meaning of Meg's story is this: men like William Hadoke cannot be trusted, and there is always a black hound.”
― Chris Newton

“Far below him, the River Lune wound its serpentine curves across the wide flood plane: beneath the clear September sky the water shone blue, flowing out to Morecambe Bay, whose golden sands gleamed palely in the western distance. On the opposite side of the valley the ground rose in a series of ridges, wooded in places, but in the main showing the chequered carpet of farm land: intense green of the fog grass in the rich rivers dales, pale gold of stubble on the higher levels, blue-green of unharvested kale and mangold crops, lighter green of pasture. The sun caught the stone farm buildings of the hamlet of Gressthwaite, half hidden among the trees mid-way up the slope across the river. Far beyond to the north, the blue hills of the Lake District stood out clear against the sky - Scafell, the Langdale Pikes, and Helvellyn. Staple had climbed them all, and he knew every ridge and notch of the blue outlines. Behind him, on the farther side of the wall, the fell was clothed in heather, its fragrance heavy with the sweetness of honey. At his feet the rough pasture, in which bracken and bramble and bilberry mingled, sloped down to the richer pasture of the lower levels.

Staple stood very still, his hands gripping his stick, enjoying the keen wind which whistled round him, in his ears the call of peewits and curlews, while his grey eyes dwelt lovingly on the rich valley and embracing hills. His mind was not given to formulating his thoughts in explicit words, and it would have been alien to him to express the facile enthusiasm of the more vocal southern Englishman, but he was conscious of some warmth of comfort which dwelt in the wide prospect, of an unchanging certainty in an unstable and changing world.”
― E.C.R. Lorac, Fell Murder

“I set out this evening to learn something about the district, to study the roads and paths, and to get the hang of it, the feel of the land. It's no use rushing to ask questions when you're ignorant of the place, especially a place like this. As I see it, coming here as a stranger, this crime is conditioned by the place. To understand the one you've to to study the other.”
― E.C.R. Lorac, Fell Murder