A new Gallery is up containing photos of various Miners Picnics through the years. Hopefully, there will be videos added soon too.

If anyone has any old photos or videos of the Bedlington Miners picnics, you can share them on this thread and they will also be added to the gallery.

You can view the photos here:

http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/index.php?app=gallery&module=user&user=694&do=view_album&album=92

Wow great work Blank, some real gems in there. What was the "Coronation Shelter"?

A new Gallery is up containing photos of various Miners Picnics through the years. Hopefully, there will be videos added soon too.

If anyone has any old photos or videos of the Bedlington Miners picnics, you can share them on this thread and they will also be added to the gallery.

You can view the photos here:

http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/index.php?app=gallery&module=user&user=694&do=view_album&album=92

You`ve found some great photo`s there Blank

It would be handy if we could `zoom in` on them, we might be able to identify a few people.

Looking forward to some videos too

Wow great work Blank, some real gems in there. What was the "Coronation Shelter"?

I was wondering the same thing. I`ve been searching Google for info but couldn`t find anything.

Sorry, I don't know what the 'Coronation Shelter' was, but I intend to find out pretty soon. Will let you all know then.

I know quite a few photos are a small but this is all I could find. I'll see if I can get any bigger ones but I can't promise anything yet.

Wow great work Blank, some real gems in there. What was the "Coronation Shelter"?

The top budge. The most luxurious of all the budges.

The top budge. The most luxurious of all the budges.

AB -  have you see the photo in the Gallery - 'Bedlington Miners Picnics..' by Blank , when it was 'unveilled' - in 1953 for the coronation, with The Picnic Queens?

AB -  have you see the photo in the Gallery - 'Bedlington Miners Picnics..' by Blank , when it was 'unveilled' - in 1953 for the coronation, with The Picnic Queens?

Yes, it's definitely the top budge. I remember the plaque. I recognise Wilf Halliday who used to come to my Grandads a lot when I was a bairn. My dad used to design sashes for some of the picnic queens including the main one. He used to paint the lettering and badges and his aunt, Maggie Baxter, who was a seamstress, used to sow them but I think the ones in the picture might have been earlier than when he started doing them. There are some of his in Woodhorn. Do you know how budges got their name. Quite a few of them had the initials of the council, Bedingtonshire Urban District Council "BUDC" on top. At some stage someone put a line across the C and added an E. Hence BUDGE. AB  

We're not sure of the year but here's a Miner's Picnic photo featuring Harold Wilson.

1958

I think any male with a hairdo like the younger guy on the extreme right would have been an object of extreme derision in 1958!   I remember being mocked for having a rather nice, and quite modest, floral tie, not more than spitting distance form there right around that time!

 

The location looks outside The (Old) Vicarage and the year must be in the 1960's.  The lady to Harold's right would appear to be his wife Mary, who amazingly still seems to be going strong, having recently celebrated her 98th birthday.  So... why doesn't someone ask her?

 

Anyway on the quite sound basis that Labour leaders only came to Bedlington when an election was looming, and certainly not after they got elected, it's likely 1964, 1963, 1962, etc... in decreasing order of probability.

Looks mid-sixties to me,haircuts,"modern" carry-cot and wheels,demountable for putting on the back seat of the car,[for those people who had cars ti put thi bugga's on....like!],in the mid fifties it was scalped short back-and-sides![for the lads...i.e...]