On Bedlington.uk Now...

Oh! ... I have to have a go at this. 1. The most fragrant Kier will sweep into No10 having slaughtered the Tory scum by a monster margin - 500 seats to a rump of opposition parties. He will be singing Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice as he goes through the black door. 2. The glorious Labour Party will sweep all the crazy SNP out of office up in chillyjockoland. 3. The devine Angela will co-ordinate the rounding-up of all those corrupt and swivel eyed Tory/Reform/Brexit nutters and house them in re-settlement centers before shipping them off to Rwanda in cuffs ... this will be broadcast during prime time on the wonderful BBC. 4. An arrest warrant will be issued for Boris Kerfuffle Johnson for crimes against public decency. He'll be captured in some upstairs room in a Soho knocking shop. After a lengthy trial at the Old Bailey he'll be found guilty and sent down for a 10 stretch at the Scrubs where he'll become the 'plaything' of a brutal lifer. 5. Tony Blair should join Johnson at the Bailey but will instead spearhead Blighty's re-entry into membership of the EU. 6. Manchester City are found guilty of all that financial naughtiness and stripped of all their silverware and relegated to the Northern Counties Sunday League. The mighty Toon sweep all before them and cement their place as UK/Europe's top dogs. 7. The Yankees elect Trumpet in November and he declares war on China/Russia/North Korea and the World as we know it ends.

Using your 7 predictions I go for :- 1. I will be avoiding the first 15 minutes of the start of every BBC news broadcast for at least the next 42 days 2. Anthony Charles Lyton Blair will resurface and make Donald John Trump and Nigel Paul Farage joint executives of the Institute for Global Change to ensure the UK is flung into the depths of depression and the UK population will have trouble doing normal day-to-day activities and will sometimes feel as if life isn’t worth living. (However I will still be singing and dancing in the rain doo be do do, do be doobe dodo, doo be do do, do be doobe dodo, doo be do do, do be doobe dodo, .................. ) 3. The congregations of all religions will swell as the UK’s population prays for Angela Rayner to be a convert to the Scottish National Party before the Labour short term government is embarrassed by Lorna Kuenssberg Sunday morning politics show. 4. Richard James Sunley Tice will have no seats in government and will return to making millions from real estate. 5. Rishi Sunak will stay as opposition leader. 6. Donald John Trump will be sentenced to four years. Is the White House the finest building in America or the crown jewel of the prison system (Bill Clinton 1993). 7.By the end of 2024 Sir Kier Rodney Starmer will not have communicated with Joseph Robinette Biden. One out of seven is a win, for me, and 7/7 means I will start my own party ready for the 2028 general election.

Wow, I'd never considered there might be a FHF (female hormones factor) in this election: Many women risk falling for Reform UK's bad boy boss Richard Tice in this election -- By Nichi Hodgson So all that's really needed for Reform to take a sizeable chunk of the vote is some beautifully framed pictures of Mr T? And.. we all doubtless thought that manifestos mattered, Nichi!

Sunak will lose over 150 Tory seats on July 4th. Tony Blair will resurface in some capacity (Starmer owes him, and he owns Starmer). We will get a one-term Labour government that will be in total disarray within 3 years. (maybe less) The Reform Party will win some seat(s) despite the huge FPTP disadvantage. Sunak and his wife will decamp to the USA, tempted by some plumb position. Donald Trump will practically sweep the board in the USA elections. By year-end, Nigel Farage will be appointed US special ambassador to the UK, and Starmer will be forced to go through him. Five out of seven is a win, and 7/7 would cement my pure genius! Feel free to add your own predictions. Go on, you know you want to! BTW Trump does support Starmer already, and I think I can probably see why.

Now I see it -

Miss Cambois 1960. 14.58. Got to love the "happy dancer" Zoom and freeze brings all the families back, slower simpler times, times were much harder then but you wouldn't think so looking at the faces, especially the kids. Most of these people have left us now but with the magic of cinematography we can enjoy their company again.

Hey, it's the modern BBC: you simply can't expect inclusivity, diversity, and getting the year right - all at the same time! OK, try 3:35 for the peek at the calendar. It's the time difference here, you see!

Is the year 1961 just refering to when the film was broadcast? Picnic 1960 was Saturday 11th June & 1961 was Saturday 10th June. @threegee I think I need a cup of tea and a lie down - I can't see any calendar at 4:35

I've watched that several times over the years, but there's always something I previously missed. Ken Russel's stuff always tends to the surreal after a while, and the rain-off plus carousel at the end deliver beautifully for him here. Far too many things I recognise to comment on, but the shot down into the council yard at 3:46 adds a bit to last week's discussion about The Shirt Factory. How do we know it's actually 1960 and NOT 1961? Well... look at the peek at the top corner of the calendar at 4:35 - Sundays were on the 19th and 26th of June in 1960, but if it were 1961 these would have to read 18th and 25th.

That brought back a few memories!

Great watch, x2, Looking for my then fiancé, family and tons of relatives (they came from far and wide) at my first picnic. Just re read the intro and see it was 1960, one year before we met, everyone except me would be there!

Fantastic bit of detective work!

1961: The delight of the MINERS' BRASS BAND PICNIC | Monitor 54 | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive John Gibson introduces us to the brass band carnival and the colliery band contest at Bedlington, Northumberland which occurs each year - as a grand occasion for the family - mixing politics, beauty queens and, of course, music. John was representing Pegswood Colliery in Morpeth, Northumberland, which as he predicted was to soon close, doing so in 1969, some 101 years after it first opened. This short film was directed by Ken Russell. Clip taken from Monitor 54, originally broadcast on BBC Television on Sunday 3 July 1960.

part 2. Sorry you've had to wait but my geraniums, fuchsias, dahlias and vegetable patch couldn't! Part 2 The Gibson family When Henry and Hannah Gibson experienced the sorrow of losing a child, albeit an adult child, in 1808 they probably couldn’t begin to imagine the sorrow which their son, Philip, and his wife Ann would start to endure just seven years later. Together, Philip and Ann had at least ten children. The firstborn, Henry born 1814, was followed by son James in 1815 but James lived only one day. The next child, daughter Barbara, was born 1816 and died at just 39 days old. The following year, 1817, a third son is born. He is named William but dies before reaching the age of four. As if this wasn’t enough, Philip’s father, Henry, also dies in 1818 and a further son, John born 1824, dies at the age of ten months. The children James, Barbara, William and John are also remembered on their grandfather’s gravestone, shown in my previous post. What a start to a marriage! Four infant deaths and Ann was probably pregnant on the occasion of each. She must have been a really tough woman – which later history in fact confirms. However, it’s not all doom and gloom for Philip and Ann. As well as the firstborn, Henry, there are five other survivors. Ann born 1820, lives to be 58 years old and Philip, born 1822, lives to be 36. At the time of his death, in Keekle near Whitehaven, Cumberland, he was unmarried and engineer to the Whitehaven Cleator and Egremont Railway. His sister Elizabeth, born 1827, dies also in Cumberland unmarried at the age of 69. Brother James, born 1829, reaches the age of 49 and the youngest, another Barbara* born 1916, attains the great age of 85 years. (*it was then common practice to re-use the names of children who had previously died. These were family names intended to ’live on’ in the family). Where in Bedlington the family lives is initially difficult to determine as postal addresses were almost non-existant but here is ample evidence that the family resided in Bedlington’s East End where the family business is recorded as early as 1814 and by 1841 it is evident that Philip and Ann lived in a house on Front Street in Bedlington’s East End and adjacent to the entrance to Bell’s Place – the house which now has a blue plaque. About the time of baby Henry’s birth in 1814, Philip’s entrepreneurial side comes into evidence when he, a grocer and draper, branches out into the world of iron goods – more specifically, nail making. His location on Front Street East is perfectly situated for this enterprise, just a stone’s throw from the Bebside slit mill which could provide materials (shown below on Greenwood’s map of 1828) and the river Blyth which provided a means of transport for the finished product by keel boat to the port of Blyth for further distribution nationwide – and perhaps even world wide, as the British Empire grew. Just where Philip’s workshop was located isn’t known and initially there may not have been any workshop. Nail-making was, at least in the Midlands, predominantly a cottage industry and I can find nothing to suggest that it wasn’t so even in Bedlington. The master nailer would purchase rods of iron from the slitting/slit mill. These were then distributed to nailers who hammered a point at one end and a flat head at the other. The finished article was then collected for shipment and the nailer was paid for his work which more often than not took place in a lean-to shed at a simple two up one-down nailer’s cottage which probably housed two families. This had the benefit that even wives and children could help in the work. Well worth a read is https://bromsgrovenailmaking.wixsite.com/nail-making/untitled-c139r a graphic description of the nail trade in Bromsgrove. The type of trade described there had it’s negative aspects in regard to payment of nailers though I am not suggesting that the Gibson family were engaged in anything of that nature. However, at some point Philip did have a workshop and it is documented that his son Henry ”after leaving school, served his apprenticeship as a chainmaker with his father” and worked at his trade for many years in ”his father’s workshop” (Morpeth Herald 12 APR 1902). In 1941 Philip, then about 50 years old, gives his occupation only as ”grocer” and his sons Henry and Philip, appear to have become involved in the industrial side of the business which has developed to include chainmaking. The youngest son, James, is still at school but will, on leaving, join the firm. Sadly, some five years later in 1846, Philip passes away after a short illness, aged 59 years. He is also buried in St Cuthbert’s churchyard. The business falls to his widow, Ann who continues to run it with the help of sons Henry, Philip and James. By 1855 the nail and chain manufacturing side of the business has expanded to include a blacksmith’s shop. The drapery side of the business has ceased to exist but in its wake appears an ironmonger’s business. Philip and James are named as managers of all aspects of the business. While Henry seems to concentrate on chain-making. The family clearly has a goodhead head for business and now has a finger in several of Bedlington’s trade and industry pies. To be continued. Note: It’s always difficult with ages and dates unless birth and marriage certificates are obtained. It is therefore advisable to think +/- 2 years on everything.