Clog Shop Chronicles

MP3 Audio CD. Clog Shop Chronicles by John Ackworth is a collection of twelve stories about the life of a Methodist community in a small village named Beckside, located halfway between Bolton and Manchester. John Ackworth is the pseudonym of Reverend Frederick R. Smith, a Methodist minister from Lancashire.

The characters that appear in the stories are all complex and very entertaining, mostly factory workers who perceive life from a very practical angle, but adopt a very wise approach towards the events in their life as well. The events depicted are taken from the day to day life of the community. They are not religious stories, but the standards of values they revolve around are very strict and clearly delineated. The situation from which the stories stem is a stage typical of 19th century village life: villagers gather at Jabez Longworth?s clog shop. To make the stories even more life-like, Ackworth uses the Lancashire dialect in the stories, making the tales not only entertaining, but also a little bit challenging to read.

As a preacher, the Reverend was characterized as a powerful, original, always thought-provoking and fearless in expressing his ideas and the same characteristics apply to his prose as well. Published in 1896, Clog Shop Chronicles is the first in the line of many volumes written by the Reverend under the name John Ackworth ? the sincerity and the quotidian character of the stories brought the author huge success and prompted him to continue writing.

His other fictional works include Beckside Lights, published in 1897, The Scowcroft Critics (1898), another Clog Shop Chronicle entitled Doxie Dent published in 1899, The Mangle House(1902), From Crooked Roots (1903), Old Wenyon?s Will (1904) and a final volume, entitled The Partners, published in 1907, and he was also known as the author of several essays and theoretic works.