Hello, I'm Gary, a museum assistant fascinated with the local history and folklore not only of my home city of Stoke-on-Trent, but the surrounding area of North Staffordshire. The city is known mostly for it's pottery and mining industries, but in my blog I largely leave those stories to others and delve instead into the more obscure tales of local individuals and otherwise forgotten events. And there are more than people think. Did you know that the Captain of the Titanic came from Stoke, or that the world's first mid-air rescue happened overhead, or that basketball's first professional player came from the city? It's tales like that that grab my interest.