Loose end

Sunday, December 22nd., Waterloo Road, Burslem.

We came down to the Potteries yesterday afternoon. Seemed to have better ideas as to the scientific causes of provincialism.

Hanley Road, Sneyd Green 1910

I went for a walk this morning up Sneyd Green. Untidiness; things left at loose-end. Broken walls, deserted entrances to what had been spacious gardens. Everything very misty. Curious enclosed 'ash-court' place, with an iron device in the middle. Pit shafts - one only fenced in, another with a wall 12 or 15 feet high, and a low wooden door in it. Men in bright neckties sallying forth, rather suspicious, defiant, meanly-shrewd look. Mean stunted boy crouching along smoking a pipe which he hid in his hand while holding it in his mouth. Complete waste of Sunday: deserted goalposts in gloomy mist. Mild wind. Cold, chilly, clammy. Idea: public baths never bring in great profits to relief of rates like gas ... I was forgetting to note the sound of hymns from chapels and schools. People going into Catholic chapel. Kids waiting outside school-room door (Sneyd Green), evidently while first prayer was being said.