Hi again
I was wondering if anyone could shed a bit more light on something that may relate to my family.
I am lucky enough to have a copy of a book called Adam Brunskill by an author Thomas Armstrong which was written in around the late 1940s to early 50s.
It is centred on the tale of a Lead Mining Agent/Engineer that comes to Winterings in fictional Skewdale.
Word in (what remains of) the family is that the central character of Adam Brunskill is in ways based upon Francis Taylor of Blades (b. 1812) who was a mining agent for the Old Gang Mines: and that Skewdale is based upon Swaledale and the area around Gunnerside.
Whether this is the case or not I wouldn't like to say but there are some similarities in the book and there are some Brunskills in our family lineage so this lends some support to the claim.
I'm pleased to have a copy of the book and it makes good reading regardless of the claim. It's obviously long out of print although there are a few copies available on the net it seems.
I was wondering though if anyone out there knew anything more about the book, the author on anything related? Does anyone know if the author stayed locally to research the novel, or does anyone feel it's unlikely?
Cheers