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562_33 | Coaching career
In 2021 Mustafina began working as a coach for the junior national team. In February she was announced as the acting head coach of the junior national team.
Influences
When asked about being compared to Khorkina following her success at the 2010 World Championships, Mustafina said, "I have no idols and never have. Svetlana was, of course, an amazing gymnast."
In response to a question about her gymnastics role models, Mustafina praised Nastia Liukin's "elegant and beautiful performances with difficult elements" and Ksenia Afanasyeva's "strong and beautiful gymnastics".
Personal life
Mustafina began dating Russian bobsledder Alexey Zaitsev in autumn 2015. They met at a hospital where both were recovering from sports injuries. They married on 3 November 2016 in his hometown of Krasnodar. |
562_34 | In January 2017, it was reported that Mustafina was pregnant and that the baby was due in July. Mustafina gave birth to her daughter, Alisa, on 9 June 2017. She was reported to have divorced her husband in April 2018.
Skills
Selected competitive skills
Eponymous skills
Mustafina has two eponymous skills listed in the Code of Points.
Competitive history
Junior
Senior
International scores
See also
List of multiple Olympic medalists at a single Games
List of Olympic female gymnasts for Russia
List of Olympic medal leaders in women's gymnastics
List of top female medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
References
External links
Aliya Mustafina Profile |
562_35 | 1994 births
Living people
People from Yegoryevsk
Russian female artistic gymnasts
Gymnasts at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Gymnasts at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Olympic gymnasts of Russia
Olympic gold medalists for Russia
Olympic silver medalists for Russia
Olympic bronze medalists for Russia
Olympic medalists in gymnastics
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics
World champion gymnasts
Medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
Gymnasts at the 2015 European Games
European Games medalists in gymnastics
European Games gold medalists for Russia
European Games silver medalists for Russia
European champions in gymnastics
Originators of elements in artistic gymnastics
Universiade medalists in gymnastics
Tatar people of Russia
Universiade gold medalists for Russia
Universiade silver medalists for Russia
Medalists at the 2013 Summer Universiade |
563_0 | Till Death Us Do Part is a British television sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1975. The show was first broadcast as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, then in seven series until 1975. In 1981, ITV continued the sitcom for six episodes, calling it Till Death.... The BBC produced a sequel from 1985 until 1992, In Sickness and in Health.
Created by Johnny Speight, Till Death Us Do Part centred on the East End Garnett family, led by patriarch Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), a reactionary white working-class man who holds racist and anti-socialist views. His long-suffering wife Else was played by Dandy Nichols, and his daughter Rita by Una Stubbs. Rita's husband Mike Rawlins (Anthony Booth) is a socialist layabout from Liverpool who frequently locks horns with Garnett. Alf Garnett became a well-known character in British culture, and Mitchell played him on stage and television until Speight's death in 1998. |
563_1 | In addition to the spin-off In Sickness and in Health, Till Death Us Do Part was remade in several countries including Germany (Ein Herz und eine Seele), and the Netherlands (as Tot de dood ons scheidt in 1969 and as Met goed fatsoen in 1975, the latter was never broadcast; In Sickness and in Health was adapted as in 1991-1997). It is also the show that inspired All in the Family in the United States, which, in turn, inspired the Brazilian A Grande Família. Many episodes from the first three series are thought to no longer exist, having been destroyed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as was the policy at the time.
In 2000, the show was ranked number 88 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes list compiled by the British Film Institute. The title is a reference to the Marriage Liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer.
Series |
563_2 | Success years
The series became an instant hit because, although a comedy, in the context of its time it did deal with aspects of working-class life comparatively realistically. It addressed racial and political issues that had been becoming increasingly prevalent in British society. Mitchell imbued the character of Alf Garnett with an earthy charm that served to humanise Alf and make him likeable. According to interviews he gave, the fact that some viewers overlooked Alf's racist views and regarded him as a "rough diamond" disappointed Speight. |
563_3 | The show captured a key feature of Britain in the 1960s—the public perception that the generation gap was widening. Alf (and to a lesser degree his wife) represented the old guard, the traditional and conservative attitudes of the older generation. Alf's battles with his left-wing son-in-law were not just ideological but generational and cultural. His son-in-law and daughter represented the younger generation. They supported the aspects of the new era such as relaxed sexual mores, fashions, music, etc. The same things were anathema to Alf and indicative of everything that was wrong with the younger generation and the liberal attitudes they embraced. |
563_4 | Alf was portrayed as the archetypal working-class Conservative. The subjects that excited him most were football and politics, though his actual knowledge of either was limited. He used language not considered acceptable for television in the 1960s. He often referred to racial minorities as "coons" and similar terms. He referred to his Liverpudlian son-in-law as "Shirley Temple" or a "randy Scouse git" (Randy Scouse Git, as a phrase, caught the ear of Micky Dolenz of the Monkees who heard it while on tour in the UK and used it as the title of the group's next single—though their record label renamed it 'Alternate Title' in the UK market to avoid controversy), and to his wife as a "silly [old] moo" (a substitute for 'cow' which was vetoed by the BBC's head of comedy Frank Muir). However, Michael Palin writes in his diary for 16 July 1976 that Warren Mitchell told him that "silly moo" was not scripted, "It came out during a rehearsal when he forgot the line 'Silly old mare'." |
563_5 | Controversially, the show was one of the earliest mainstream programmes to feature the swear word 'bloody'. The show was one of many held up by Mary Whitehouse as an example of the BBC's moral laxity. |
563_6 | In a demonstration of Speight's satirical skills—after a successful libel action brought against Speight by Mary Whitehouse—he created an episode, first broadcast on 27 February 1967, in which Alf Garnett is depicted as an admirer of Whitehouse. Garnett was seen proudly reading her first book. "What are you reading?" his son-in-law asks. When he relates that it is Mary Whitehouse, his son-in-law sniggers. Alf's rejoinder is "She's concerned for the bleedin' moral fibre of the nation!" The episode ends with the book being burnt. |
563_7 | Ultimately "silly moo" became a comic catchphrase. Another Garnett phrase was "it stands to reason", usually before making some patently unreasonable comment. Alf was portrayed as an admirer of Enoch Powell, a right-wing Conservative politician known particularly for his strong opposition to the immigration of immigrants from non-white countries. Alf was also a supporter of West Ham United (a football club based in the East End) and known to make derogatory remarks about "the Jews up at Spurs" (referring to Tottenham Hotspur, a north London club with a sizeable Jewish following). This was a playful touch by Speight, knowing that in real life Mitchell was both Jewish and a Spurs supporter. |
563_8 | In interviews, Speight explained he had originally based Alf on his father, an East End docker who was staunchly reactionary and held "unenlightened" attitudes toward black people. Speight made clear that he regretted that his father held such attitudes, which Speight regarded as reprehensible. Speight saw the show as a way of ridiculing such views and dealing with his complex feelings about his father. |
563_9 | However, it was later claimed in the book about the series, A Family at War by Mark Ward, that the only similarities between Alf and Johnny Speight's father was that his father was a hard-working East End working-class docker and manual labourer who voted Conservative, revered traditional British values, and was very polite to everyone he met, no matter their background. It is claimed that Johnny picked up the idea for Alf's bigoted personality from railway station porters he met when he had worked in temporary jobs for British Rail in the London area. The political views of both Alf and Mike were reflective of Speight's own perception of people both on the left and the right, with the ignorance and bigotry of those on the right represented by Alf and the idealism of many sections of the left represented by Mike. |
563_10 | Original decline
Johnny Speight gained a reputation for late delivery of scripts, sometimes unfinished and still in the form of rough notes (which would be finished and finalised as a script by the script editor and cast during rehearsals), either close to, on, or occasionally past the deadline. This was claimed by Speight to ensure maximum topicality for the series, although this was disputed by the programme's first producer, Dennis Main Wilson, who stated that Speight was frequently found late at night in a regular selection of West End bars, and that on more than one occasion the writer had to be physically dragged out of such establishments by Wilson and driven home to get the scripts typed up and finished. |
563_11 | This was the reason for the second series being 10 episodes long rather than the commissioned 13. As three scripts that were scheduled to be recorded and broadcast towards the end of that series were not ready and actors, crew and Speight had already been paid in advance for 13 episodes, it was decided that an Easter Monday Bank Holiday special – "Till Closing Time Us Do Part" – would be made and that this would mostly be made up of the cast and crew ad-libbing within the broad confines of a plot. For accounting reasons, this would be considered an 11th episode of the second series. At double the usual length, it also made up for screen time of a 12th episode. The addition of this episode meant that only one week's worth of pay was wasted, rather than three. Normally, a sitcom would have plenty of time (ranging from several weeks to several months) between recording and transmission to iron out any such script delivery problems. However, to ensure maximum topicality, most episodes of |
563_12 | the second series of Till Death Us Do Part were recorded less than seven days before their intended transmission date, and as all studios would be booked on other nights for other – sometimes more important – productions, this meant that the recording of Till Death Us Do Part episodes could not be moved to another night or another studio should the script not be ready in time for rehearsals or recording. Should this happen (which it did towards the end of the second series), this would mean no episode ready for transmission that week and – because of the less-than-seven-days gap between recording and transmission, no ready-made stockpile of new, untransmitted episodes to replace them. Other programmes had to be used to fill in the schedule in the last three planned weeks of the second series' 13-episode run. It is because of these problems of topicality delaying (sometimes cancelling) scripts that the third series is noticeably less topical than the second and had some weeks between |
563_13 | recording and transmission to act as a "cushion" to ensure continuity of the series should one or more episodes fall through. |
563_14 | The late delivery of scripts had been a problem that had first reared its head during production of the first series. The second series got off to a good start in this respect with the first four scripts being delivered ahead of the deadline, but it became clear as that series wore on that Speight was having these problems again. Amongst a myriad of other problems (detailed below), the final straw for the original run appears to have been a script in the final (third) series of eight episodes not being delivered in time for rehearsals to begin and thus losing one episode. This confirmed to the BBC their suspicions that Speight was not an ideal writer to be writing for a topical sitcom like this. |
563_15 | To combat these problems, it was suggested by the production team that there be "windows" or "spaces" within the script that could easily be excised and replaced with more topical jokes (a frequent tactic used in other topical sitcoms like Yorkshire Television's The New Statesman 20 years later), a suggestion that was initially refused by Speight in the 1960s run of the series but which was taken up during the 1970s run. This came to be particularly useful to ensure maximum topicality during the 1974 series, some episodes of which reflected and satirised the UK Miner's Strike and the Three Day Week. However, Speight's initial refusal to accept these suggestions, combined with his constant demands of pay increases (eventually becoming the highest-paid comedy writer and then - after another increase - the highest-paid TV writer, during a time of strict public-sector pay restraints imposed by the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which was a source of particular embarrassment to the |
563_16 | BBC) and the increasing clashes he and the BBC were having with Mary Whitehouse came to a head. Over time, Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVLA) had several court cases with the BBC directly or indirectly related to the series, some of which Mrs Whitehouse or the NVLA won. During the first two series, the programme was originally broadcast on weeknights in a 7:30pm timeslot – far ahead of the post-9pm watershed and both Mrs Whitehouse and Speight campaigned for such a change in scheduling – the only aspect of the programme that Whitehouse and Speight agreed upon. The reluctance of the BBC to reschedule the series at first can possibly be explained in the fact that the watershed was a relatively new phenomenon at the time and there was no consensus between the BBC and the ITA over what should and shouldn't constitute family-friendly broadcasting, nor when this "watershed" should start, the responsibility over what constituted family-friendly |
563_17 | viewing being primarily placed with the parents. |
563_18 | Public outcry over the episode "The Blood Donor" as being a particularly distasteful episode and a new Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors – Lord Hill (who had been appointed as Lord Normanbrook's successor when Normanbrook died suddenly in June 1967) – taking a rather different, more conservative approach to the running of the BBC than the liberal and laid-back attitude of his predecessor were two other factors that turned up the heat of criticism against the series. Lord Hill had previously been the chairman of the Independent Television Authority and ensured that the ITV network remained relatively controversy-free. He shared many of the same opinions as Mrs Whitehouse and the wider NVLA, which also clashed with the opinions of the then BBC Director General, Hugh Carleton-Greene (he is quoted as having the "utmost contempt" for Hill), who had been the series' biggest champion and gleefully ignored Mrs Whitehouse whenever he had to. Many other members of BBC management also |
563_19 | voiced their opinions directly to Hill over his appointment, most notably the then Controller of BBC 2, David Attenborough, who compared Hill being Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors to "giving Rommel the command of the Eighth Army". It should be added that neither Hill, nor his predecessor, Normanbrook, had any direct influence over the series itself (as the BBC Charter prohibits this), but their relationship with the Director-General indirectly influenced the programme. Because of his total personality and culture clash with Hill, Greene resigned in July 1968 (soon after the series ended its original run) and, with the series' biggest champion now out of the BBC, it looked like the Garnett family would be making no more new appearances on BBC Television, at least for the time being. Another champion of the series – Head of Comedy output at the BBC, Frank Muir had resigned his post between the second and third series to take up a new, similar, post at David Frost's fledgling new |
563_20 | ITV franchise London Weekend Television, which would launch on 2 August 1968. His replacement – Michael Mills – recognised that the series had enormous potential but didn't understand why it had to be so topical, controversial or full of swearing and blasphemy, which hugely irritated Speight. |
563_21 | The final straw for the BBC at this time came when a script for the third series – which was intended to be made up of eight episodes – was so late that it missed the scheduled beginning of rehearsals. This episode was intended to be between the transmitted episodes 4 and 5, putting a break in the recording dates and leading to one week's less space between recording and transmission of episodes. |
563_22 | Given the problems the series had given the BBC with steep pay increases in the midst of a government-imposed public sector pay freeze, scripts being delivered in varying degrees of completeness (and sometimes not at all), several court cases (usually libel or blasphemy), hundreds of complaints, several run-ins with Mary Whitehouse and the NVLA, the loss of the series' two biggest champions (first Frank Muir then Hugh Carleton-Greene), the new management having different opinions over the programme and the general stress its production placed on staff (primarily down to the incomplete scripts submitted by Speight), all despite its ratings success over ITV (particularly over Coronation Street) in its first two series and its general popularity as a whole, contributed to the BBC getting cold feet over the programme. A planned fourth series, scheduled for autumn 1968, was scrapped.
Revival |
563_23 | The programme was revived in 1972, during a time when the BBC were reviving some of their more successful sitcoms from the 1960s for colour production (Steptoe and Son being an example). A contributory factor to this decision may have been that, since the ITV franchise changes of the summer of 1968, ITV had paid a lot more attention to making sitcoms, particularly those featuring, and appealing to, the working class, which had previously been the preserve of the BBC during the 1960s. This can be attributed as a direct effect of the popularity of Till Death Us Do Part, The Likely Lads and Steptoe and Son, which were the first sitcoms to truly depict the realities of working class life in Britain, and were not set in typical "middle-class sitcom suburbia". In amongst these programmes, Till Death Us Do Part would not look as out of place as it did in the late 1960s, particularly now as the show would be less topical (bar some 1974 episodes) but no less political or controversial, as it |
563_24 | had originally been. This was of great help to Speight, as it now meant that he did not have to wait until the very last minute to submit completed or half-completed scripts. |
563_25 | Second decline
However, this was also the series' downfall, as viewers noted the increasingly less-topical plots and the satire was much less vicious than it had been in the 1960s, with the style of the series in both 1975 series bearing little semblance to those transmitted in the late 1960s. Speight has put this down not only to reducing the pressures of working on a topical sitcom but also to his own personal declining interest in politics, which may be an explanation of why in Sickness and In Health was much less political, and not as vicious as its predecessor could be. |
563_26 | Additionally, towards the end of the series Dandy Nichols fell ill and was unable to attend the live-audience recordings. So in a later episode Else was seen leaving for Australia, to Alf's dismay. Her scenes were recorded separately from the rest of the episodes. The plan was for Nichols to tape scenes from time to time set in Australia where she would phone Alf or Rita in 1–2-minute segments. But only one episode featured such a scene and the idea was dropped as Nichols' health was poor.
Patricia Hayes, who had been seen from time to time previously as next-door neighbour Min, became a starring character along with her husband Bert, previously played by Bill Maynard and now by Alfie Bass. The show's rating began to suffer and when it was clear Nichols was not returning as hoped by the writer, in 1975, the series was dropped. The final episode saw Alf lose his job and receive a telegram from Else asking for a divorce. |
563_27 | Production
As with most BBC sitcoms Till Death Us Do Part was recorded before a live studio audience. The programmes were recorded onto 2-inch quadruplex videotape. From 1966 to 1968, the show was transmitted in black and white. When the series returned in 1972, it was transmitted in colour. The opening titles/end credits of the first colour episodes originally used the black-and-white sequence from the 1960s tinted in red, as seen on UKTV Gold repeats in 2006. |
563_28 | The house seen in the opening and closing titles to the 1960s episodes was located on Garnet Street in Wapping (from where writer Johnny Speight took the Garnett family name). This terrace was demolished in June 1968 for road widening (which is why the street used in the 1969 film and the opening titles to the colour episodes do not match with the houses used in the original opening sequence). Subsequent to this, in the 1980s, a terrace of newer multicoloured homes and an estate agents took the places of the terraced estate. They are located on Garnet Street in close proximity to the local Wallace James shop, St Peter's Primary School, Gastronomica bar, Docklands General Store and Crane Wharf. |
563_29 | Missing black and white episodes
Some of the show's 26 episodes from series 1–3 that were videotaped in black and white and broadcast 1965–68 no longer exist; they were wiped by the BBC during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Currently, most material from twelve episodes still survives, with one episode on the original tape and the rest on film or domestic formats. The surviving 1960s B&W episodes are: "Arguments, Arguments"; "A House With Love in It"; "Intolerance"; "Peace & Goodwill"; "In Sickness and in Health"; "State Visit"; "Alf's Dilemma"; "Till Closing Time Do Us Part"; "The Phone"; "The Blood Donor"; and "Aunt Maud". Sequences exist from: the pilot episode; "The Bulldog Breed"; "A Wapping Mythology (The Workers' King)"; and "The Puppy". |
563_30 | The public appeal campaign the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt continues to search for lost episodes. In 1997, the long-lost episode "Alf's Dilemma" was found in a private collection on a 21-minute 16mm telerecording. This is the episode featuring Garnett reading Mary Whitehouse's first book. The episode was rebroadcast in 1998 on UK Gold. In August 2009, two more black and white episodes, "In Sickness and in Health" and "State Visit", were returned by a film collector.
The episode "Intolerance" was recovered in August 2016. It was screened at the BFI's annual "Missing Believed Wiped" event on Saturday 16 December 2016 at their Southbank venue. Network's late 2016 complete DVD box set contains off-air audio recordings of what was then every missing episode. In autumn 2017, a copy of "Sex Before Marriage" was recovered. |
563_31 | Controversy
Although Speight said he wrote the series to challenge racism, it was felt by some critics that many people watched it because they agreed with Garnett's views. Anthony Clark of Screenonline stated, "Sadly, Speight's defence was far from watertight—having a white actor, Spike Milligan, black up and don a turban in one episode is clearly questionable", and added that "In Till Death Us Do Part, Alf's lengthy rants go largely unchallenged; his wife does little more than raise an eyebrow, while the responses from daughter Rita and the wholly unsympathetic Mike are often little more than impotent quips or frustrated laughter." However, John Cleese defended the series in 2020, saying "We laughed at Alf's reactionary views. Thus we discredited them, by laughing at him. Of course, there were people—very stupid people—who said 'Thank God someone is saying these things at last'. We laughed at these people too." |
563_32 | The linguist Alan Crosby has argued that the constant use of the phrase "Scouse git" with reference to Anthony Booth's character spread both the word "Scouse" and negative stereotypes of Liverpudlians.
Episodes
Sequels
In 1980, the ITV company ATV picked up the series and produced a solo show starring Alf—titled The Thoughts of Chairman Alf at Christmas, transmitted on 26 December. The master copy has been wiped; however, a home video recording is currently available to view at the National Media Museum in Bradford. |
563_33 | In 1981, ATV made six episodes under the title Till Death.... The series had Alf and Else sharing a bungalow with Min (Patricia Hayes) in Eastbourne following the death of her husband Bert (Alfie Bass). Although Rita remained in the cast, Anthony Booth declined to return. Rita's son Michael was now a teenager and a punk rocker (even though he was born in 1972 and therefore should only have been about nine or ten). The series was not a success and when Central Television were awarded the contract for the Midlands region from 1982, it was decided that Till Death... was not to return. |
563_34 | Alf Garnett returned to the BBC in 1985 for In Sickness and in Health. This took Alf and Else (who was now in a wheelchair) onward into old age, and some of Alf's more extreme opinions were found to have mellowed. Una Stubbs made some guest appearances but Anthony Booth was not interested in reprising his role. Eventually, Mike and Rita divorced, and Rita began dating a doctor. After the first series, Dandy Nichols died, and subsequent episodes showed Alf having to deal with life as a widower.
The loss of Else (and later, Rita) as regulars in the cast meant that new characters had to be brought in as antagonists for Alf. These notably included his home help, Winston (played by Eamonn Walker), who was both black and gay, and Alf's prim upstairs neighbour, Mrs. Hollingbery (played by Carmel McSharry), who eventually agreed to marry Alf. |
563_35 | In 1988, Speight was warned about the use of racist language; after discussion, it was decided that Alf's racist language was to be discontinued and the character of Winston was to be written out. With such improvements helping to update the basic concept, In Sickness and in Health ran until 1992.
Warren Mitchell also appeared solo on stage and TV as Alf Garnett, dispensing variations on Alf's homespun reactionary philosophy and singing old music hall songs, most notably in the London Weekend Television show An Audience With Alf Garnett.
After Johnny Speight's death in July 1998, Mitchell decided to retire the character of Alf Garnett.
Cast
Warren Mitchell – Alfred 'Alf' Garnett
Dandy Nichols – Elsie 'Else' Garnett
Una Stubbs – Rita Rawlins, née Garnett
Anthony Booth – Mike Rawlins
Joan Sims – Gran
Patricia Hayes – Mrs. Min Reed
Alfie Bass – Bert Reed
Hugh Lloyd – Mr. Wally Carey
Pat Coombs – Mrs. Carey
Will Stampe – Fred the barman |
563_36 | In the Comedy Playhouse pilot, Alf's family name was 'Ramsey' but the BBC changed his name to Garnett for the subsequent series, not wishing to have a character with the same name as England's 1966 football World Cup winning manager.
Film adaptations
Two feature films were made based on the series – the first was Till Death Us Do Part (1969), whose first half dealt with the younger Alf and Else during World War II, and whose second half dealt with all the Garnetts in the present day being moved from their East End slum to the new town of Hemel Hempstead, and the adjustments and changes that brought on the family. It gave a nuanced glimpse of British life at the time. The second film, The Alf Garnett Saga (1972), had Adrienne Posta playing the part of Rita and Paul Angelis playing Mike. It is notable for featuring Alf Garnett on an LSD trip. |
563_37 | DVD releases
In the UK, Network previously released the first two colour series (4 and 5) on DVD, but these releases are now discontinued, as the licence has since expired, and rights have reverted to BBC Worldwide, who release their titles through 2 Entertain. On 5 December 2016, Network, under licence with BBC Worldwide and 2 Entertain, released the whole colour series (4 to 7), along with every surviving episode from the black-&-white series (1 to 3) and off-air remastered audio recordings of all lost episodes, on DVD as an eight-disc box-set included with a detailed booklet which includes black-and-white and colour photographs, a "story of" and a full list of episode synopses. The episode Sex Before Marriage, recovered in 2017, was included as an extra on Network's 2019 release of the first film on both DVD and Blu-Ray. |
563_38 | The fourth series was available in the United States and Canada, having been released before the Network edition and featuring some title sequence variations. The 1969 movie is available in both the UK and the US, but the 1972 movie is only available on DVD via bootlegs.
All six series and the Christmas specials of In Sickness and in Health have been released on DVD by 2 Entertain.
See also
List of films based on British sitcoms
All in the Family
For Richer...For Poorer
Love Thy Neighbour
Bless This House
Kingswood Country, an Australian comedy with a similarly intolerant protagonist.
References |
563_39 | External links
Laughterlog – Detailed article and episode guide on Till Death Us Do Part and all other Alf Garnett spin-offs
G. Schaffer ‘Till Death Us Do Part and the BBC: Racial Politics and the British Working Classes 1965–75’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 45(2), 454–477. .
Lost Shows on Till Death Us Do Part
Encyclopedia of Television
BBC Treasure Hunt
Till Death Us Do Part at British TV Comedy
1960s British sitcoms
1970s British sitcoms
1965 British television series debuts
1975 British television series endings
BBC television sitcoms
British satirical television series
Comedy Playhouse
English-language television shows
Lost BBC episodes
Mass media portrayals of the working class
Race-related controversies in television
Social realism
Television controversies in the United Kingdom
Television shows adapted into films |
564_0 | KDNL-TV, virtual channel 30 (UHF digital channel 31), is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The station is owned by the Hunt Valley, Maryland–based Sinclair Broadcast Group. KDNL-TV's studios are located on Cole Street in the Downtown West section of St. Louis, and its transmitter is located in Shrewsbury.
History |
564_1 | As an independent station (1969–1986) |
564_2 | Channel 30 first signed on the air on June 8, 1969 as the first UHF television station in the St. Louis market after more than a twelve year gap, and the first new station since 1959. Though its construction permit was awarded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1966 to a group of local investors under the banner Greater Saint Louis Television Corporation, the station was signed-on under the ownership of Evans Broadcasting, a New York City-based company which acquired the permit in 1968. Initially KDNL-TV ran a format of business news, religious shows, rejected network programs from NBC affiliate KSD-TV (channel 5, now KSDK) and then-ABC outlet KTVI (channel 2), and classic movies. By 1976, the station's schedule became more of the then-standard for independent stations of the era, including cartoons, westerns, sitcoms, religious shows during the early mornings and movies in primetime and late nights. Also in 1976, KDNL began televising St. Louis Blues hockey games, |
564_3 | which ran on the station for five seasons. |
564_4 | In 1977, the business news block was gradually eliminated, making way for the addition of a few more second-hand classic sitcoms. It also phased out English dubs of Japanese programs. By this time, the station had evolved into a more conventional general entertainment independent, but its viewership was far behind that of established independent KPLR-TV (channel 11), as KDNL's big disadvantage that at the time was it was the only UHF station in St. Louis. |
564_5 | In March 1981, Evans Broadcasting agreed to sell the station to Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises. Programming during this time continued to consist of classic sitcoms, a couple of rejected network shows, and some religious programs during the day. Also in 1981, Channel 30 began carrying business news programming from the Financial News Network. On June 1, 1982, not long after Cox took control of the station, KDNL-TV began running subscription television service Preview during the nighttime hours, leaving KPLR-TV as the only full-time independent station in the St. Louis market. Preview failed in St. Louis due to poor economic conditions and a lack of sports rights, in addition to a faster-than-anticipated wiring of the area for cable. After losing an estimated $100,000 a month, Preview was dropped nine months later, and the station resumed running the usual primetime fare of movies and classic sitcoms until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. Channel 30 regained the broadcast rights to the Blues in 1983 |
564_6 | for an additional three seasons. In 1984, cartoons were added to the lineup and the station reduced the number of religious programs on its schedule. Also under Cox ownership, the station won bids to acquire stronger off-network sitcoms. |
564_7 | As a Fox affiliate (1986–1995)
On October 9, 1986, KDNL-TV and Cox's other two independent stations, KTVU in Oakland and WKBD-TV in Detroit, joined the Fox Broadcasting Company as charter affiliates. It eventually began branding as "Fox 30" by the early 1990s. However, the station was still programmed as an independent, as Fox would not air a full week's worth of programming until September 1993. Still, during this time, it began edging closer to KPLR (which had turned the Fox affiliation down before the network approached KDNL) in the ratings after having been well behind channel 11 for most of its first two decades on the air. In 1989, Cox sold channel 30 to St. Louis-based River City Broadcasting, a new company formed by two former KPLR employees.
As a Fox affiliate, KDNL boasted one of the largest Fox Kids Clubs in the nation, second only to the one operated by WOIO in Cleveland. |
564_8 | As an ABC affiliate (1995–present) |
564_9 | In May 1994, New World Communications bought St. Louis' longtime ABC affiliate, KTVI, and three other stations from Argyle Television. On May 22 of that year, New World signed an affiliation deal to switch the majority of its stations, including KTVI, to Fox. ABC had a fourteen-month leeway to find a new affiliate in St. Louis, as its contract with KTVI did not expire until July 1, 1995; its affiliation contracts expired only one month after as CBS' agreement with KDFW and KTBC was scheduled to expire, giving the networks that were already affiliated with the three former Argyle stations slated to switch to Fox a longer grace period to find new affiliates than CBS, NBC and/or ABC were given in most of the other markets affected by the Fox-New World deal (ABC's affiliation contracts with WGHP and WBRC ended even later, respectively expiring in September 1995 and September 1996). Of ABC's options, four prospects were automatically eliminated: KSDK was in the middle of a long-term |
564_10 | affiliation agreement between its owner at the time, Multimedia Broadcasting, and NBC; KMOV was under a long-term agreement between CBS and Paramount Stations Group (which was in the process of selling KMOV and its four other major network affiliates to focus on its Fox-affiliated and independent stations that were set to become charter affiliates of group parent Viacom's then-upstart United Paramount Network [UPN]); and KNLC (channel 24, now a MeTV affiliate) and East St. Louis-based WHSL (channel 46, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WRBU) were respectively owned by the locally based New Life Christian Church and the Home Shopping Network at the time, and both stations had inferior signals, while KNLC interjected controversial commentary into its programming (which would cause issues for Fox later on when it carried Fox Kids programming for a short time), making either station unlikely choices as even last-ditch options. ABC originally wanted to affiliate with the |
564_11 | longer-established KPLR; that station opted to affiliate with The WB (in preparation for that network's January 1995 launch) instead. In August 1994, ABC cut a deal to affiliate with KDNL; the station would swap affiliations with KTVI on August 7, 1995. However, as KTVI (as did the other New World Communications-owned stations that joined Fox around the same timeframe) chose to decline carriage of Fox's children's programming block, Fox Kids, which KDNL could not retain due to its programming commitments with ABC, the Fox Kids programming rights were acquired instead by KNLC (after a bid by KPLR was turned down), which also acquired much of the syndicated programming inventory that KDNL was not able to retain because of ABC's network-dominated programming schedule; the syndicated programming that channel 30 was able to retain on its schedule consisted mainly of off-network sitcoms and first-run newsmagazines. Ultimately, by the spring of 1996, due to objections to program content and |
564_12 | accompanying national advertising, New Life Evangelistic Center/KNLC owner Rev. Larry Rice began refusing to sell local advertising during the Fox Kids weekday and Saturday blocks ceding local advertising slots to air public service messages from Rice's ministry that discussed various controversial moral issues (such as the death penalty, same-sex marriage and abortion), and reached an agreement with KTVI to carry Fox Kids starting in September 1996, making it the only New World-owned Fox station to carry the block. Soon after joining the network, KDNL began showing UPN programming during the late night hours. Despite its large size, the St. Louis market did not have enough commercial stations at the time to support a full-time UPN affiliate. The station gradually began taking on the look of a major network affiliate, picking up more first-run syndicated programs and reducing its reliance on older sitcoms. Ironically, at the time of the switch, The Walt Disney Company stated |
564_13 | intentions to buy Capital Cities/ABC, the company that owned KDNL's currently affiliated network. The first ABC program to air on KDNL was Good Morning America at 7:00 a.m. Central Time on August 7, 1995. |
564_14 | On April 11, 1996, River City announced that it would merge with the Sinclair Broadcast Group for $2.3 billion. KDNL dropped the secondary UPN affiliation in January 1998, leaving the network without an outlet in St. Louis until religious station KNLC affiliated with the network in May 1999 (the UPN affiliation would subsequently move to KPLR the following year; St. Louis did not have a full-time UPN affiliate until WRBU joined the network in April 2003). In June 1999, Sinclair tried to sell KDNL to Emmis Communications as part of a sale that included six local radio stations that the company also owned in St. Louis at the time – KPNT (105.7 FM); KXOK-FM (97.1 FM, now KFTK-FM); WVRV (101.1 FM, now WXOS); WRTH (1430 AM, now KZQZ); WIL-FM (92.3); and KIHT (96.3 FM, now WFUN-FM); Sinclair later pulled KDNL from the Emmis deal, opting to only sell the radio properties to the Indianapolis-based broadcaster for $220 million in June 2000. Sinclair once again tried to sell the station in June |
564_15 | 2002, as part of the company's eventually aborted attempt to sell all seven of its ABC-affiliated stations to focus on its Fox and WB stations. |
564_16 | For most of its tenure as an ABC affiliate, KDNL has been among the network's weakest affiliates (this is in stark contrast to KTVI, which had been one of ABC's strongest affiliates). Several ABC shows, such as Good Morning America and World News Tonight, have garnered ratings so low in the St. Louis market that A. C. Nielsen cannot even rate them since the sample sizes are too small to generate a rating. As a result, KDNL has typically placed fifth among the St. Louis market's television stations, behind KPLR (a rare fourth-place finish for KDNL in 2013 played a factor in KPLR owner Tribune Broadcasting being able to buy KTVI as part of its purchase of Local TV, which given KDNL's usual ratings performance, would have otherwise not been allowed under FCC duopoly rules). Ironically, given its status, KDNL was actually the local broadcaster for the St. Louis Rams' victory in Super Bowl XXXIV, which had aired on ABC. |
564_17 | The station was also known to preempt ABC prime time programming in favor of paid programming. In November 2004, KDNL preempted ABC's telecast of the film Saving Private Ryan, following the lead of other Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates, over concerns regarding the violent battle scenes and graphic profanity that were left intact as ABC aired the film uncut (this occurred nine months after the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy). |
564_18 | Sinclair refused to allow Charter Communications to carry KDNL's high definition signal until April 19, 2007 (when KDNL-DT began airing on Charter digital channel 780 as part of a three-year national retransmission agreement between Sinclair and Charter), making the station the longest holdout in the area to make its high definition digital feed available on the provider (not counting CBS affiliate KMOV pulling its HD signal from Charter in January 2007). On June 23, 2011, KDNL upgraded its severe weather ticker to be overlaid on high definition programming without having to downconvert HD content to standard definition. |
564_19 | Because of the station's lackluster performance, there have been recurring rumors about KPLR pursuing the ABC affiliation (despite owner Tribune Broadcasting's strong affiliation ties to The CW, and that group's near lack of any Big Three network affiliates among its stations until it acquired the Local TV station group) after KDNL's affiliation agreement expired due to that station's management agreement with (and now, outright ownership of) KTVI and their downplaying of references to its CW affiliation as part of that station's on-air branding, along with experimentation with The CW primetime schedule to maximize ratings. However, Sinclair has continued to include KDNL as part of affiliation agreement renewals with the group's other ABC-affiliated stations. Most recently, the network extended its affiliation agreement with KDNL and Sinclair's other ABC stations for five years on September 30, 2014, which will keep KDNL affiliated with the network until at least August 2020. As of |
564_20 | 2014, through the company's various station acquisitions over the prior three years, Sinclair is now the largest ABC affiliate group, making it unlikely the station will lose its affiliation with the network in the near future. |
564_21 | On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media—which has owned KTVI and KPLR since 2013—for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. (Sinclair CEO Christopher Ripley cited St. Louis as one of three markets out of fourteen where ownership conflicts exist between the two groups, and the proposed acquisition would likely result in divestitures.) While it also had to comply with rules prohibiting broadcasters from legally owning more than two full-power television stations in a single market, the unique situation between KDNL and KPLR also posed issues for which station combination Sinclair could have direct ownership of. KTVI consistently ranks among the four highest-rated stations in the St. Louis market in total day viewership, but KDNL and KPLR have alternated between fourth and fifth place in total-day ratings since the 2001 shutdown of KDNL's news department, with channel 11 ranking in fourth place and KDNL ranked fifth |
564_22 | at the time of the merger announcement, which hampered a direct acquisition of KTVI unless KPLR was sold. (In contrast, KPLR and KTVI were allowed to be legally co-owned when Tribune acquired former KTVI owner Local TV in December 2013, as KDNL was the fourth place outlet at the time.) |
564_23 | Sinclair originally planned to retain operational stewardship of KPLR-TV through a local marketing agreement (possibly involving one of its partner companies); however, in an amendment to the Sinclair-Tribune merger submitted on February 21, 2018, the group announced that it would keep KDNL, purchase KTVI's license and assets, and sell KPLR-TV to an independent third party. On April 24, 2018, Des Moines, Iowa-based Meredith Corporation announced that it would purchase KPLR-TV for $65 million; the deal would have created a new duopoly between KPLR-TV and KMOV, the latter of which Meredith has owned since February 2014. The sale was canceled on May 15, amid objections by the Justice Department, likely due to similar viewership and advertising market conditions that led the agency to reject the Gannett Company's 2013 proposal to operate KMOV under an LMA with KSDK (now owned by Gannett broadcasting spinoff Tegna) and sell the former's license to Tucker Operating Company LLC; in a revised |
564_24 | filing, Sinclair said it would instead put KPLR into a divestiture trust administered by Rafamedia LLC, led by media broker Richard A. Foreman, for sale to an independent third party that does not already own a television station in St. Louis. |
564_25 | Three weeks after the FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other M&A opportunities. Tribune also filed a breach of contract lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell. |
564_26 | Programming
In addition to the ABC network schedule, syndicated programs broadcast on KDNL-TV include Live with Kelly and Ryan, The Simpsons (making KDNL-TV one of two ABC affiliates to broadcast the show, the other being WAWV-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana), The People's Court, Family Feud, and Maury. For much of its tenure as an ABC affiliate, especially after shutting down its in-house news department in 2001, KDNL's schedule outside ABC programming has more closely resembled that of an independent or minor network-affiliated station than that of a major market Big Three network affiliate. The station's schedule heavily relies on syndication mainstays seen more often on CW and MyNetworkTV stations, along with a heavy schedule of paid and religious programming, leaving the ABC schedule without many solid lead-ins. |
564_27 | News operation
KDNL aired hourly news cut-ins during regular programming for most of its first 25 years on the air. In 1994, around the time that Fox began pushing its affiliates to start airing newscasts, KDNL established a full-scale news department. Initially, KDNL offered a single newscast at 9:00 p.m. that debuted on January 1, 1995. The program's original anchors were Jim Wicks (who came to St. Louis from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) and Leslie Lyles (who had been anchoring in Charleston, South Carolina). |
564_28 | When the station switched to ABC eight months later on August 7, the station moved the 9:00 p.m. newscast to 10:00 p.m.; the late newscast remained the only local program on channel 30 at the time, as it continued to carry children's programs on weekday mornings (with an hour-long block of World News This Morning being added as a lead-in to Good Morning America) and syndicated programming in midday and early-evening time slots. At the same time, the station fired Wicks and hired longtime KTVI anchor/reporter Don Marsh to join Leslie Lyles on the weeknight newscasts. In January 1996, KDNL expanded its news programming, adding early-evening newscasts at 5:00 p.m. daily and at 6:00 p.m. weeknights, along with weekday morning cut-ins during GMA. Ratings for the station's news programming steadily plummeted over the next few years, and did not even approach those of KTVI during its latter tenure as an ABC affiliate; for the first Nielsen sweeps month after the affiliation switch, in |
564_29 | November 1995, KDNL's 10:00 p.m. newscast averaged only a 2 rating and 5 share. KDNL's newscasts were never able to become competitive with KMOV, KSDK (both have garnered at least 20% viewership shares over the years), or even KTVI due to the fact that many of the station's on-air staffers came from outside the St. Louis market and were not familiar to viewers. In KDNL's defense, the station was not able to hire on-air talent away from competing stations within the market, as KSDK, KMOV and KTVI included either six-month or one-year non-compete clauses in the contracts of its anchors, reporters and meteorologists; Marsh was one of the few prominent staffers with any history in the market. The early weeknight newscast had its time slot fluctuate between 5:00 and 6:00, and was even canceled outright for a time. Turnover in the newsroom was very high and this showed in the ratings. |
564_30 | In the spring of 2001, a transmitter failure left KDNL off-the-air for a number of days (or at least broadcasting at a lower power than it did normally). What little audience its newscasts had ended up switching to other sources and never returned. The station finally shut down its news department altogether on October 12, 2001. For the next nine years, KDNL was one of the very few major network affiliates that did not air any local newscasts, with the only news programming on the station consisting of national news programs from ABC News. Until January 2011, the station had been the largest major network affiliate in terms of market size without any local newscasts (CBS O&O WWJ-TV in Detroit was the largest until May 5, 2009, when it launched a now-canceled weekday morning show that was originally produced in partnership with the Detroit Free Press). Most major network affiliates are contractually obligated to air local news, but KDNL's affiliation agreement does not have such a |
564_31 | clause. |
564_32 | KDNL occasionally employs its former news set for commentary on sporting events. It also airs local weather cut-ins on weekday mornings during Good Morning America. These updates were formerly compiled and presented by meteorologist Tony Pagnotti at Sinclair's News Central headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland. The forecasts are now compiled and presented from Columbus, Ohio sister operation WSYX/WTTE by those stations' evening meteorologists. |
564_33 | On January 3, 2011, NBC affiliate KSDK began producing weeknight 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts for KDNL through a news share agreement. The newscasts, known as STL Now on ABC 30, aired in high definition from a virtual set at KSDK's Market Street studios in Downtown St. Louis and required the hiring of additional personnel. KDNL general manager Tom Tipton stated that the station did not want to run simulcasted or repurposed newscasts in its efforts to return daily news broadcasts to the station. The KSDK-produced newscasts on KDNL were pre-taped in advance. There was no sports report featured during the program. The news share agreement between the two stations was quite unusual given the rarity of a Big Three network affiliate producing newscasts for another Big Three station. In this case, KDNL and KSDK competed against one another in both timeslots. Although KDNL only aired local news programming on weekdays, the station did air replays of KSDK's entertainment/features program Show |
564_34 | Me St. Louis on weekends. The agreement with KSDK was to end on December 31, 2013, however the last newscast produced by KSDK aired on January 31, 2014. On February 3, 2014, the 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts were respectively replaced with Family Feud and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. |
564_35 | On February 10, 2014, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the station intended to restart an in-house news department, with 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts slated to be anchored by KFTK (97.1 FM) morning host and former KMOV reporter Jamie Allman. On November 24, 2014, KDNL officially announced that it would launch its new news program, The Allman Report, in January 2015. KDNL and Allman described the program as an extension of his radio show, with a conservative, "debate-driven format" that focused on local headlines and issues. The Allman Report originated from the studios of Pelopidas in Brentwood rather than from KDNL's facilities. |
564_36 | The program continued until April 9, 2018, when it was canceled by KDNL amid calls for a viewer and advertiser boycott, two weeks after Allman tweeted a message alluding to him wanting to assault David Hogg, a student who was on campus at the time of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, with a fireplace poker for his gun control activism. Allman was fired from KFTK, and took his Twitter account private. Allman was later re-hired by Salem Communications' KXFN (1380) in February 2019, though the program was short-lived after KXFN's sale to Relevant Radio, which converted it to a Spanish language Catholic talk format in the fall of the same year. After converting his show to a self-distributed podcast, he now hosts mornings on KTLK-FM (104.9) after iHeartMedia converted that station from Urban AC to conservative talk in August 2021.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed: |
564_37 | On October 1, 2010, KDNL began carrying TheCoolTV on digital subchannel 30.2; it carried the music video network until Sinclair dropped TheCoolTV from 32 of its approximately 70 stations at the time on August 31, 2012. On October 28, 2010, KDNL began to carry The Country Network (now ZUUS Country) through a separate affiliation agreement with Sinclair, until some point in summer 2014, it was carried on digital subchannel 30.3. In July 2014, KDNL reactivated 30.2 to carry the classic movie network GetTV. In late December 2014, KDNL reactivated 30.3 to carry the male-oriented network Grit. |
564_38 | Analog-to-digital conversion
KDNL-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 30, on February 17, 2009, the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were scheduled to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (the official date was pushed back to June 12). The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 31. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 30.
As part of the SAFER Act, KDNL kept its analog signal on the air until February 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.
References
External links
Official website
KDNL-TV Collection Finding Aid at the St. Louis Public Library |
564_39 | ABC network affiliates
Charge! (TV network) affiliates
TBD (TV network) affiliates
Stadium (sports network) affiliates
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Television channels and stations established in 1969
1969 establishments in Missouri
DNL-TV
National Hockey League over-the-air television broadcasters |
565_0 | Todmorden ( ; ) is a market town and civil parish in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is north-east of Manchester, south-east of Burnley and west of Halifax. In 2011 it had a population of 15,481.
Todmorden is at the confluence of three steep-sided Pennine valleys and is surrounded by moorlands with outcrops of sandblasted gritstone.
The historic boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire is the River Calder and its tributary, Walsden Water, which run through the town. The administrative border was altered by the Local Government Act 1888 placing the whole of the town within the West Riding.
The town is served by and railway stations.
History |
565_1 | Toponymy
The name Todmorden first appears in 1641. The town had earlier been called Tottemerden, Totmardene, Totmereden or Totmerden. The generally accepted meaning of the name is Totta's boundary-valley, probably a reference to the valley running north-west from the town. Alternative suggestions have been proposed, such as the speculation "maybe fancifully" that the name derives from two words for death: tod and mor (as in mort), meaning "death-death-wood", or that the name meant "marshy den of the fox", from the Old English. From an original ''tod'' (the Saxon name for fox) and ''moor''/''moore'' (a common toponym termination) could have been derivated a significant Deanery of the Moor of the Foxes. From this latest, perhaps the malapropism Todmorden.
'Tod' is an informal, shorthand name for Todmorden, often used in everyday conversation. |
565_2 | Prehistory
In 1898 Blackheath Barrow—a ring cairn monument situated above Cross Stone in Todmorden—was excavated and proved to be a site of "surpassing archaeological interest", according to J. Lawton Russell, one of the men who carried out the excavation. Various Bronze Age items were discovered, including sepulchral urns, a human skull, teeth and hands.
Russell contended that Blackheath Barrow was primarily a religious site, specifically intended for the "performance of funeral rites", as there was no evidence that it had been settled for domestic use. Of particular interest were the four cairns, positioned at the cardinal points of the compass, and it has been suggested that this indicates "a ritual evocation of the airts, or spirits of the four directions, with obvious correlates in relation to spirits in the land of the dead".
The various finds from the 1898 dig are now housed in the Todmorden Library, on permanent display.
Early history |
565_3 | The earliest written record of the area is in the Domesday Book (1086). Settlement in medieval Todmorden was dispersed, most people living in scattered farms or in isolated hilltop agricultural settlements. Packhorse trails were marked by ancient stones, of which many still survive. |
565_4 | For hundreds of years streams from the surrounding hills provided water for corn and fulling mills. Todmorden grew to relative prosperity by combining farming with the production of woollen textiles. Some yeomen clothiers were able to build fine houses, a few of which still exist today. Increasingly, though, the area's industry turned to cotton. The proximity of Manchester, as a source of material and trade, was undoubtedly a strong factor. Another was that the strong Pennine streams and rivers were able to power the machine looms. Improvements in textile machinery (by Kay, Hargreaves and Arkwright), along with the development of turnpike roads (1751–1781), helped to develop the new cotton industry and to increase the local population. |
565_5 | 19th century
In 1801 most people still lived in the uplands; Todmorden itself could be considered as a mere village. During the years 1800–1845 great changes took place in the communications and transport of the town which were to have a crucial effect on promoting industrial growth. These included the building of: (1) better roads; (2) the Rochdale Canal (1804); and (3) the main line of the Manchester and Leeds Railway (1841), which became the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1847. This railway line incorporated the (then) longest tunnel in the world, the Summit Tunnel. A second railway, from Todmorden to Burnley, opened as a single line in 1849, being doubled to meet demand in 1860. A short connecting line, from Stansfield Hall to Hall Royd, completed the "Todmorden Triangle" in 1862, thus enabling trains to travel in all three directions (Manchester, Leeds and Burnley) without reversing. |
565_6 | The Industrial Revolution caused a concentration of industry and settlement along the valley floor and a switch from woollens to cotton. One family in the area was particularly influential on the town; the Fielden family. They created a "dynasty" that changed the town forever by establishing several large mills, putting up assorted impressive buildings and bringing about social and educational change. |
565_7 | A double murder took place at Christ Church, Todmorden on 2 March 1868. The victims' graves lie in the churchyard. Miles Weatherhill, a 23-year-old weaver from the town, was forbidden from seeing his housemaid sweetheart, Sarah Bell, by the Reverend Anthony John Plow. Armed with four pistols and an axe, Weatherhill took revenge first on the vicar and then on Jane Smith, another maid who had informed Plow of the secret meetings. Miss Smith died at the scene, while the vicar survived another week before succumbing to his injuries. Weatherhill also seriously injured the vicar's wife. On 4 April 1868 Weatherhill became the last person to be publicly hanged in Manchester, at the New Bailey prison. Local legend has it that the face of a young woman is sometimes seen in the window of the vicarage, now in private ownership. |
565_8 | 20th century
Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the population of the Borough of Todmorden remained constant. The ten-yearly UK census returns show figures of 25,418 in 1901 and 25,404 in 1911. Like the rest of the Upper Calder Valley, Todmorden's economy experienced a slow decline from around the end of the First World War onwards, accelerating after the Second World War until around the late 1970s. During this period there was a painful restructuring of the local economy with the closure of mills and the demise of heavy industry. |
565_9 | On 1 January 1907, Todmorden Corporation became only the second municipality in the British Isles to operate a motor bus service. By the end of that year, the fleet had expanded to five double-deck vehicles: two by Critchley-Norris, two by Lancashire Steam (predecessor of Leyland Motors) and one by Ryknield. In 1931, the service became jointly operated by the Corporation and the LMS railway under the name "Todmorden Joint Omnibus Committee". At its maximum size in the 1940s and 1950s, the undertaking operated 40 vehicles over 50 route miles (80 km) through the rugged South Pennine terrain. |
565_10 | Until 1938, the town was served by no fewer than six railway stations: Todmorden, Stansfield Hall, Cornholme, Portsmouth, Walsden and Eastwood. With the exception of Todmorden railway station, all closed during the middle third of the 20th century although Walsden railway station reopened on 10 September 1990 on a site a few yards north of the original 1845 railway station. In December 1984 a goods train carrying petrol derailed in the Summit Tunnel between Todmorden and Littleborough causing what is still considered as one of the biggest underground fires in transport history. |
565_11 | In 1980, Todmorden found itself at the centre of a celebrated murder enquiry. On 11 June that year police were called to J.W. Parker's coal yard in Todmorden after the discovery of a body, subsequently identified as 56-year-old Zigmund Adamski from Tingley, near Wakefield. The former coal miner had not been seen since setting out on a local shopping trip five days earlier. Although still wearing a suit, his shirt, watch and wallet were missing. A post mortem established that he died of a heart attack earlier that day, and discovered burns on his neck, shoulders and back of his head. These appeared to have been dressed by a green ointment, which toxicology tests were unable to identify. Adamski's case has never been solved, no suspect was ever arrested and in a television documentary the coroner, James Turnbull, described it as "one of the most puzzling cases I've come across in 25 years". Among the explanations to gain currency was that Adamski was the victim of extraterrestrial |
565_12 | abduction, following comments by police officer Alan Godfrey about what he saw on 29 November 1980, described in Jenny Randles' 1983 book The Pennine UFO Mystery. After intense media interest, the Todmorden police force were forbidden from talking further to the press about the case. On 17 June 2017, Blurry Photos host Dave Stecco believes that Adamski could have been a Nazi before immigrating from Poland. |
565_13 | 21st century
In 2008, a group of local residents initiated the Incredible Edible Todmorden project to raise awareness of food issues and in particular local food and food provenance. The project has been responsible for the planting of 40 public fruit and vegetable gardens throughout the town, with each plot inviting passers-by to help themselves to the open source produce. The project has attracted publicity, media attention and visitors and the idea has been replicated in at least fifteen towns and villages in the UK.
Governance
Todmorden has a complex geo-administrative history. It lies along the historic county boundary of Yorkshire and Lancashire. |
565_14 | Until the boundary reformation by the Local Government Act 1888, the Lancashire-Yorkshire boundary ran through the centre of Todmorden, following the River Calder to the north-west and the Walsden Water for less than to the south before turning south-eastwards across Langfield Common. Todmorden Town Hall, which was presented to Todmorden by the Fielden family and opened in 1875, straddles the Walsden Water; thus, from 1875 to 1888 it was possible to dance in the town hall ballroom, forward and back, across two counties of England. |
565_15 | Following the Local Government Act 1894, the Todmorden Local Board became an Urban District Council, comprising the wards of Todmorden, Walsden, Langfield and Stansfield. At the same time, Todmorden Rural District Council, comprising the parishes of Blackshaw, Erringden, Heptonstall and Wadsworth, came into being. Two years later, on 2 June 1896, the town was granted a Charter of Incorporation and the area covered by the Urban District Council became a municipal borough. The number of wards was increased from four to six: Central, Walsden, Langfield, Stansfield, Stoodley and Cornholme. Todmorden Rural District was later renamed Hepton Rural District. Since the local government reforms of 1974, Todmorden has been administered as part of the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, within the Metropolitan county of West Yorkshire. At the local government level, Todmorden, the town, is almost entirely within Todmorden ward although the eastern portion of the town toward Eastwood shares some |
565_16 | of adjoining Calder ward with Hebden Bridge. |
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