Ramsbottom Grant Arms Hotel in Market Place was the home of William and Daniel Grant, 19th century industrialists closely associated with the rise of the town and reputed to be the inspiration for the Cheeryble brothers in "Nicholas Nickleby" by Charles Dickens. The Grants' employees were paid in tokens that had to be redeemed at a public house owned by the company. The landlord converted the tokens into cash, but only after deducting threepence per person, which had to be spent on beer, a variation on the truck system. A network of roads and railways routed through Ramsbottom allowed for a
Dickens in America rattles off the Republican platform: tax cuts, more conservative judges, drilling in Alaska. Then we see George W. Bush on the ship's television and we hear an actor reading Dickens's words: "I do believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at Liberty's head will be dealt by this nation and the ultimate failure of its example to the earth. See what is passing now." Miriam doesn't report she experienced stormy weather, but Dickens brilliantly described a storm he was in shortly before arriving in America. Miriam disembarks the Queen Mary in New York and then drives north to Boston. Dickens