‘THE PEOPLE’S STUPIDITY IS FANTASTIC’

DURING THE Bolton observation experiment Tom Harrisson was joined by an army of friends — many of them middle-class intellectuals from the South — who acted as his observers, chronicling everything from the contents of sweet shop windows to how people held their teacups. These included the future MPs Richard Crossman and Woodrow Wyatt.

Most of his followers had no idea what to expect from Bolton. ‘I travelled north on the Manchester night train with all the excitement of a true explorer en route for North Borneo,’ wrote medical student Brian Barefoot, who spent his summer vacation on the project.

But many were agreeably surprised, with one early visitor reporting that ‘most people are sane, pleasant and straightforward, without Southern sophistication.’

The artist Graham Bell, who undertook a series of sketches of Bolton for the project, was not so charitable. The town, he wrote to his fiancee, was ‘more undistinguished than words can describe, small and squalid and utterly unspectacular. The people are all very nice but their stupidity is fantastic. When I hear them talking I simply bury my head in my hands.’

For many, the strong local accent was a stumbling block. ‘I was fascinated with the Lancashire people because I couldn’t understand a word they said at first,’ noted London artist Barbara Phillipson. ‘It was just like a foreign language.’

Another volunteer agreed. ‘The dialect is, initially, unintelligible to the stranger, full of reversed grammar and regular good humour.’ But Phillipson concluded: ‘I loved Bolton. I thought it was an absolutely darling little town.’