Paws around the Potteries: More about "Me Town"

Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here, with a post I meant to write back in the summer, except I've been a busy bear and have only just got around to doing it.

I wanted to share these photos Polar and I took of the pretty umbrellas over Piccadilly in Hanley ("Me Town", the city centre of Stoke-on-Trent), which looked bear-illiant back then, but aren't looking so good now after all the rain and gales we've had lately.

I'd gone into Hanley with Polar for a Festival of Archaeology, to help launch the new exhibition about the Staffordshire Hoard - a famous stash of Saxon treasure unearthed by metal detectorists near Lichfield.  I got to pose with some actors who were telling Saxon tales to an audience of grown-up and human cubs, and were really good. 

Then we went to see the treasure!  It is mostly in quite small pieces because lots of it had been broken up and taken off things like swords, shields and helmets, so there isn't a whole helmet like the one in the photo - just one of the cheek pieces and some of the trimmings.

Although the pieces are tiny, there is so much fine detail on them that, even if you are a sharp-eyed small bear, it helps to have a magnifying glass to see it all.  Some of the pieces of gold have jewels set into them, including garnets that came all the way from India!

The Staffordshire Hoard is amazing and anyone can visit it free if they come to Stoke-on-Trent and the Potteries Art Gallery and Museum in "Me Town", but the museum isn't open on Mondays and Tuesdays anymore (booo!).

The City Archaeologists had lots of other ancient things to show people that they had dug up all over the county, including Roman and Saxon pottery, but my favourite thing was a Roman shoe!  The archaeologist said they found more than sixty of them dumped in a disused well, so they think it must have been near a cobbler's shop and people threw their broken shoes away down it when they got new ones.

Another day, I went to "Me Park" with Polar, Grizzly and some of their pensioner friends, as Polar and her friend Mrs Pat organised some walks there.  Mrs Pat is part of a group called the "Friends of Hanley Park" (and so are me and Polar now!) and she knows lots about it.

There are great flower beds, lots of them looked after by the Friends - and play areas for human cubs, including one with special swings, slides and other play equipment for disabled human cubs to use safely.

The best thing about it, for a boating bear, is that the Caldon Canal runs right through the middle of it.  I found a milepost and saw that it had been renovated by our Inland Waterways Association branch.

There are mooring rings so boats can stop there, and their humans can go to the cafe or have nice walks - like we did!

Mrs Pat showed us a birdbath that had once been a drinking fountain for human cubs, made by a kind local plumber whose own little cub had died when he was very young.

I wanted a good look at it, so I climbed up and jumped onto the little island in the middle - but then I slipped and fell in!  Polar fished me out and Mrs Pat found some tissue paper and a little plastic wallet to wrap me up in.

I had to stay in the Bear Bag for the rest of the walk, but Polar and Grizzly stopped for lunch on the way home at the bear-illiant cafe at the Mitchell Memorial Theatre (named after Mr R J Mitchell, the famous aircraft designer who came from Stoke-on-Trent).

I felt much better after eating some cake - served on a proper Potteries plate with a little Spitfire on it!

I've been to other great places around the Potteries since then, so I'll do some more blogs when Sonning lets me - he's got lots of his own to write first!

Catching Up

 

I have been such a busy small bear in the last few months that I have been neglecting my blog, which is very bad of me, as I know lots of my friends like to read about my adventures.

 

So I thought I would start catching up with a post about a little boat journey we made last month, through Stoke-on-Trent and down to Tixall Wide, near Great Haywood and Stafford.

 

Journeys through Stoke always begin with a trip through the Harecastle Tunnel, which is a bit scary.  Our human guardian Grizzly steers the boat, because he is shorter than Polar and the tunnel roof gets very low in places, but Polar keeps an eye on him and he always wears his life-jacket.

We stayed in our bear basket beside the radiator, which warms up when the engine is running and keeps us cosy.  The little cubs didn't like being in the tunnel, but I gave them plenty of hugs and soon we were out in the sunshine again.

On our way to Stoke, we saw that some new warehouse or factory buildings had been built beside the canal.  They did not look too ugly, but we thought it was silly that none of the offices looked out over the canal for a nice view, especially as we saw a kingfisher here for the first time - instead, they all faced the car parks and loading bays.  Polar was cross and said they should have put them further away from the canal and made a nice park beside the water.

We stayed in Etruria on the first night aboard Uppie and worked down through the Stoke locks on Tuesday afternoon, planning to moor near the Bet 365 football stadium that evening.  Grizzly and Polar were going to watch a Stoke City game that evening and Hanley Bear and I were going with them.

The autumn colours around the Etruria locks were really pretty in the afternoon sunshine.  We bears watched from the windows as it was a breezy afternoon and not safe for us to be on the roof, even with our little life jackets on.

There are now some good mooring rings near the football stadium, so we moored there and had our tea, then went to the match.  It was very exciting, as Stoke's players had lots and lots of shots on goal, but they didn't manage to score - but their opponents, Rotherham,  did get one, so they lost.  Hanley Bear was sad but pleased his team had played so well and was hopeful that they would do better when we came back for the next game on Saturday.

The next day, we made our way down to the town of Stone.  On the way, we met our friend Mr Rob, and Polar and Grizzly taught him how to steer the boat and showed him how to work the locks.  We all had a very nice lunch at the Crown Wharf, and Hanley was allowed a little sip of Grizzly's beer.

Then we said goodbye to Mr Rob and set off again, but the weather was getting very windy, so we stopped soon after working through the lock at Aston, picking a place where there was a high hedge but no big trees.

The journey down to Tixall Wide on Thursday takes us through some of Polar and Grizzly's favourite boating country, but the weather was still not very nice.  We stayed inside and watched Polar doing some painting, or listened to the radio with Grizzly, depending on who was steering.  Gradually, the day got warmer and drier and, by the time we turned and moored at Tixall Wide, the skies were bright.  We saw another lovely kingfisher and a small murmuration of starlings just as the sun set.

We had to get back to Stone on Friday, so we could reach Stoke in time for Saturday's match, which Hanley Bear was sure his team would win.  It was a showery day but started brightly, so Hanley and I went up on the roof while Endon and the cubs watched from inside the boat most of the time or read the books in our little "libeary".

 

From the roof, we saw a huge field full of pumpkins at Great Haywood and also more kingfishers, plus a red kite and an egret, although they all went past too fast for Polar to get her camera focused on them.

  

We got up all the locks through Stone before it got dark and found some nice moorings with little lights in the towpath by the mooring rings, which left us the four Meaford locks and the one at Trentham to get back to Stoke.

 

Because it was dry and not too windy, we all wanted to go up on the roof, so Grizzly said we could, as long as we were very good, sensible bears.  This was hard for Hanley, as he was getting very excitable about going to football again, but we made him promise and he was as good as his word.

We reached the moorings near the football ground in time to enjoy oatcakes for lunch from the Oatcake Boat, then it was time for Grizzly and Polar to set off for the game.  Endon and I decided to stay on the boat and have naps with the cubs after our busy morning, but of course Hanley was going with them to watch the game.

He waved to the Oatcake Boat (which isn't run by Mrs Kay any more, but still does brilliant oatcakes) and was cheering and singing all the way to his seat with Grizzly.  He kept cheering and singing for most of the first half, as Stoke kept going close, but early in the second half Coventry got their first goal.

Despite Hanley's best cheering and all the bear luck he could send, his team seemed to lose heart then, and Coventry scored again.  He came back to the boat with very sad ears and a big frown, because his team hadn't been trying and had made him ashamed of them.

 

Poor Hanley Bear was still sad in the morning, but it was a sunny start to the day and the rest of us tried to cheer him up by picking our favourite views of Stoke-on-Trent from the canal, as we went up the locks and back towards Harecastle Tunnel.

I reminded Hanley that his town has the marvellous Etruria Industrial Museum and that they would be having a steam day later in the month, which Polar had promised we could go to see.  Hanley's little drooping ears perked up when he thought about that.

Endon Bear told him how much he enjoyed visiting the Middleport Pottery, and that Polar planned to take us to see their Christmas lights and maybe even have a tour to see pots being made and decorated.  Hanley's ears stood up a little bit prouder after hearing that.

Then the cubs pointed out that we were almost passing the Steelite factory, which still makes some of the best and toughest china used in hotels and restaurants all over the world.

 

"That's because Stoke-on-Trent pottery is the best in the whole world!" cheered Hanley, "And it's made by the cleverest potters in the world, who all come from Stoke!"  He did a little dance and gave us all hugs, for being so nice about his home.

 

We moored outside the Harecastle Tunnel that evening, ready to go back through the next morning, when Mr Jay from the boat that moors beside Uppie helped us to get in through the muddy bank and moor back beside our usual wharf.  

 

We hope we might have another cruise soon, maybe at Christmas or even before, but I have lots and lots of adventures from earlier in the summer and autumn to tell you about, with help from my little bear buddies, so look out for more blog posts soon!