Betty and Hal were sitting in a small seafront caf\u00e9 in Eastbourne<\/p>\n
They had spent the day walking and were taking a well-earned break<\/p>\n
Betty was reading a newspaper that had been left on a nearby table<\/p>\n
I see he is returning <\/i><\/p>\n
Who is returning?<\/i><\/p>\n
Engels he is returning to Manchester <\/i><\/p>\n
Has he not been dead for a number of years?<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes he died in August 1895 <\/i><\/p>\n
They pray tell me how Engels in returning to <\/i>Manchester <\/em><\/p>\n He was exiled to a town called Engels in Russia<\/i><\/p>\n Ok I am still with you although I have always believed that he died in London <\/i><\/p>\n He did on the 5th<\/sup> of August 1895 <\/i><\/p>\n Then what was he doing in Russia?<\/i><\/p>\n Do you know much about his love life?<\/i><\/p>\n No <\/i><\/p>\n Well two sisters played a large part in his life <\/i><\/p>\n Together?<\/i><\/p>\n That is a remark that I expected from you<\/i><\/p>\n I am a working class intellectual or so you tell me <\/i><\/p>\n I am not sure about the second part but you certainly fulfil the criteria for the first part <\/i><\/p>\n Is that all your posh school taught you? <\/i><\/p>\n To look down on the working classes<\/i><\/p>\n May I continue?<\/i><\/p>\n Go ahead <\/i><\/p>\n Good<\/i><\/p>\n Well Engels met a woman named Mary Burns in the 1840s and stayed with her until her death in 1863 <\/i><\/p>\n She died quite young then <\/i><\/p>\n Sadly yes <\/i><\/p>\n Marx\u2019s daughter Eleanor did note that in her later years that she drank to excess although I am led to believe that she succumbed to heart disease<\/i><\/p>\n But both Marx and his daughter noted in their correspondence that she was very good natured and witty and also rather pretty in her younger years <\/i><\/p>\n Before the drink took hold of her<\/em><\/p>\n There was very little written about her and all we have to rely on is the references in the letters of Marx and his daughter \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n So what about the other sister was it a sort of secret m\u00e9nage a trois? <\/i><\/p>\n Not to my knowledge and I know where you are going<\/i><\/p>\n Lydia was their housekeeper that\u2019s all<\/i><\/p>\n Lydia I thought her name was Lizzie?<\/i><\/p>\n You know about this<\/i><\/p>\n Bits and pieces <\/i><\/p>\n Well although her name was Lydia she was known as Lizzie <\/i><\/p>\n It appears that when Mary died that Lizzie became his partner until her death in 1878<\/i><\/p>\n They never married<\/i><\/p>\n Well yes and no <\/i><\/p>\n As you know Engels considered marriage a bourgeois institution <\/i><\/p>\n However Lizzie became morally ill in the September of 1878 and out of respect for her religious beliefs he married her a few hours before she passed away<\/i><\/p>\n Her death shattered Engels <\/i><\/p>\n He said this about her <\/i><\/p>\n Betty reached into her jacket pocket and took out a small notebook<\/p>\n My wife was a real child of the Irish proletariat and her passionate devotion to the class in which she was born was worth much more to me (and helped me more in times of stress) than all the elegance of an educated artistic middle class bluestocking <\/i><\/p>\n So good old Engels would not have fancied your input then <\/i><\/p>\n I am not a blue stocking <\/i><\/p>\n You went to Oxford <\/i><\/p>\n That does not make me a bluestocking <\/i><\/p>\n With a slight irritation Betty handed her notebook to Hal<\/p>\n Here you are smart arse everything you wanted to know about Friedrich Engels <\/i><\/p>\n You have not answered my main question <\/i><\/p>\n What is that?<\/em><\/p>\n Whether I want another cup of tea<\/i> or not <\/em><\/p>\n Well there\u2019s the tea pot and I think you know where your cup is <\/i><\/p>\n Slowly and with a hint of theatre Hal poured himself a cup of tea<\/p>\n My question is how can a man who died in 1895 be returning to Manchester?<\/i><\/p>\n It is his statue you fool <\/i><\/p>\n A statue of Engels is being transported from the town of Engels in Russia to Manchester later this year <\/i><\/p>\n Engels in Russia? <\/i><\/p>\n Yes it is a port city on the Volga and is connected to the city of Saratov by a three kilometre long bridge <\/i><\/p>\n You have heard of Saratov?<\/i><\/p>\n Yes it was closed city until the fall of the Soviet Union <\/i><\/p>\n What else do you know? <\/i><\/p>\n That Engels was renamed in 1931<\/i><\/p>\n I wish somebody would name a city after me<\/i><\/p>\n You were the mad computer in 2001 <\/i><\/p>\n Given but they could have hardly called it Betty could they? <\/i><\/p>\n Well going back to the newspaper article it appears that the statue is being transported from the city named after him to the city that meant so much to him<\/i><\/p>\n Why are the Russians giving Manchester the statue? <\/i><\/p>\n They have decommissioned it for some reason<\/i><\/p>\n Shall we go and see it?<\/i><\/p>\n It has not been unveiled yet <\/i><\/p>\n I believe it will be unveiled at the end of the Manchester International Festival later this year <\/i><\/p>\n Shall we attend the ceremony?<\/i><\/p>\n If you want to <\/i><\/p>\n Then that\u2019s a date\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n Yes that will be nice <\/i><\/p>\n Betty looked at the counter of the caf\u00e9 which had become busier<\/p>\n Stay here and I will settle the bill <\/i><\/p>\n Hal watched his friend as she walked toward the counter<\/p>\n When he thought she was not looking he pulled a small piece of stone from his pocket<\/p>\n Shortly afterwards Betty returned and began to put her anorak on<\/p>\n What is that?<\/i><\/p>\n A piece of stone <\/i><\/p>\n I can see that <\/i><\/p>\n Where did you get it?<\/i><\/p>\n At Beachy Head earlier today <\/i><\/p>\n I wondered what you were doing near the edge of the cliff <\/i><\/p>\n You thought I was going to finish myself off No such luck <\/i><\/p>\n This stone would have been in the area in 1895 <\/i><\/p>\n If you say so <\/i><\/p>\n What happened at Beachy Head in 1895?<\/i><\/p>\n Engels ashes were scattered off of Beachy Head as per his wishes<\/i><\/p>\n Well there you are <\/i><\/p>\n Here is a stone that was there on that sad day<\/i><\/p>\n It would have been touched by the dust of the great man <\/i><\/p>\n That stone you see on this table has traces of Friedrich Engels within it <\/i><\/p>\n Over one hundred and twenty years later? <\/i><\/p>\n Yes there will be traces of your hero within that stone <\/i><\/p>\n His DNA could be found <\/i><\/p>\n Here do take it with you to Manchester so that he can be there at the unveiling ceremony <\/i><\/p>\n Betty kissed Hal lightly on the cheek and blushed slightly<\/p>\n Do not think I have forgiven you<\/i><\/p>\n But it was thoughtful of you Hal <\/i><\/p>\n Come on lets hurry as we have train to catch <\/i><\/p>\n Our day is nearly complete <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Betty and Hal were sitting in a small seafront caf\u00e9 in Eastbourne They had spent the day walking and were taking a well-earned break Betty was reading a newspaper that had been left on a nearby table I see he is returning Who is returning? Engels he is returning to Manchester Has he not been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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