Evolution
Evolution is a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler state to a higher, more complex or better state....
Allen Clarke's book evolved from a love of his own history in the making and a continuance to allow other generations to see his Windmill Land how it was in his day. He wanted to allow the reader to use their senses when entering into his journey around the Fylde and over Wyre reaching as far as Preston and embracing all of the country's windmills in the centre of the book. He even took his research back to the egyptions and the way corn was made into bread by hand held tools as well as crude mills. His heart is in the book you feel his presense as he chatters away to you as a friend and many leagues were covered by his trusty old cycle in pursuit of every mill.
"We must have them all," he said. "Every last one!"
Back then there was very little paper and Allen had to use anything he could lay his hands on and to this day his original copy of Windmill Land,' bound with course string and his other book with their crumbling hand written pages on nothing more than advertisements of the day are enclosed in lime free paper in the Central Library Blackpool. They were handed into the library in Blackpool by Allen's oldest living son Frank to be used in a museum dedicated to Charles Allen Clarke his father. Some day the Clarke family hope this will happen perhaps they may be housed under glass in his Little Marton Windmill so others can see how long it would have taken him to hand write. They, the two original books, 'Windmill Land,' and the sequel, 'More Windmill Land,' remain hidden away and are priceless!
Windmill Land had a brief respite in the 1980s as a reprint but the books are now scarce and cost a lot of money to buy.
I think Allen would be thrilled that his 1916 classic is now available to everyone all over the world to read electronically.
He was a man who studied and diversified in all directions seeing things we now take for granted that were thought of as ludicrous in his day!! He studied the stars, elecrtricity, foriegn langauges nothing escaped his eagerness to learn and advance.
I, as his grandaughter felt when I turned the first page of his original book by means of the computer a rush of pride that my grandfather's work was once again to be read by all, even the near sighted and felt like he truly now has his voice back!!
01 October 2008, shirley