A Dedicated Man by Peter Robinson Page B

home, being in the Yorkshire countryside. It was best when Harry and Emma came to stay for their annual holidays. I’d walk for hours, sometimes
alone, sometimes with Harold or Penny.’
    ‘Penny?’ Banks cut in. ‘Would that be Penny Cartwright?’
    ‘Yes, that’s right. We were very close until I went off to London.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘We used to go out together, in a casual sort of way. It was all very innocent. She was sixteen and we’d known each other nearly all our lives. She’d even stayed with us for a
while after her mother died.’
    ‘How old was she then?’
    ‘Oh, about ten or eleven. It was tragic, really. Mrs Cartwright drowned in a spring flood. Terrible. Penny’s father had a nervous breakdown, so she stayed with us while he recovered.
It seemed only natural. Later, when . . . well, you know, we were a bit older . . . Anyway, Harold was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the area. He took to Swainsdale immediately, and
pretty soon he was teaching me more than I’d learned living there all my life. He was like that. I was impressed, of course, but as I was about to study English at university I was
insufferably literary – always quoting Wordsworth and the like. I suppose you know he bought the house when my mother couldn’t afford to keep it on?’
    Banks nodded.
    ‘Yes,’ Ramsden went on, ‘they came every year, Harry and Emma, and when father died they were in a position to help us out a great deal. It was good for Harry, too. His work at
the university was too abstract, too theoretical. He published a book called The Principles of Industrial Archaeology , but what he really wanted was the opportunity to put those principles
into practice. University life didn’t give him time enough to do that. He fully intended to teach again, you know. But first he wanted to do some real pioneering work. When he inherited the
money, all that became possible.
    ‘When I graduated, I went to work for Fisher and Faulkner in London first. Then they opened the northern branch and offered me this job. I missed the north and I’d always hoped to be
able to make a living up here some day. We published Harold’s second book and he and I developed a good working relationship. The firm specializes in academic books, as you can see.’ He
pointed towards the crowded bookshelves, and most of the titles Banks could make out had principles or a study of in them. ‘We do mostly literary criticism and local
history,’ Ramsden went on. ‘Next Harry edited a book of local essays, and since that we’ve been working on an exhaustive industrial history of the dale from pre-Roman times to the
present. Harry published occasional essays in scholarly journals, but this was to be his major work. Everybody was looking forward to it tremendously.’
    ‘What exactly is industrial archaeology?’ Banks asked. ‘I’ve heard the term quite often lately, but I’ve only got a vague idea what it means.’
    ‘Your vague idea is probably as clear as anyone else’s,’ Ramsden replied. ‘As yet, it’s still an embryonic discipline. Basically, the term was first used to
describe the study of the machinery and methods of the Industrial Revolution, but it’s been expanded a great deal to include other periods – Roman lead mines, for example. I suppose you
could say it’s the study of industrial artefacts and processes, but then you could argue for a month about how to define “industrial”. To complicate matters even further,
it’s very hard to draw the line between the subject as a hobby and as an academic discipline. For instance, if someone happens to be interested in the history of steam trains, he can still
make a contribution to the field, even though he actually works nine to five in a bank most days.’
    ‘I see,’ Banks said. ‘So it’s a kind of hybrid area, an open field?’
    ‘That’s about it. Nobody’s yet come up with a final definition, which is partly why it’s so