Pit Props

[paul mann]

Can anybody mind the pit prop yard at the Doctor Pit and ahl the tunnels and hidey holes the kids made in the stacks of props? Bloody wonder they didn't collapse and kill the lot o' wi.

[threegee]

Yes, indeed. This wasn't a problem because we didn't have H & S in those days - then we had something called common sense!

[Keith Scantlebury]

there was a distinct shortage nearer bonfire night

[Maggie/915]

As I remember telegraph poles and old pianos all helped the bonfire pile.

Picture frames to keep the fire going in emergencies when your potatoes were not quite ready.

I still have fire starter tendencies, now it is all about renewable energy.

Annoying the neighbours can be a problem.

[Symptoms]

i can clearly remember the stacks of props in the pit yard and playing on and in them ... they never seemed to roll away or collapse, I suppose this was due to the guys who stacked them knowing what they were doing. I can also remember the pit pond at the yard - it seemed (at the time us lads) to be huge and deep area of water contained in a massive riveted iron tank. I'm not sure it was used for anything in the 60s apart from housing vast colonies of frogs and spawn ... I suppose it was originally used as a water reservoir for the various steam engines used at the pit in earlier times.

One year for bonfire night we nicked all the new fencing from the back of the council offices (Front St) to build a monster bonfire ... it sure burned well. The earlier fencing boards we had away for our fortified camp which was on my Dad's allotment 'down the cut' ... The Cut was a collection of allotments and waste land which ran from the Council Office's rear car park near Clovelly Gardens and down between the back of East Riggs & Windsor Gardens to Acorn Avenue - there were two rough footpaths running the length of this area, hence 'The Cut' (shortcut). The area is now built over - Windsor Court according to Google Earth. We also used this area as a motor bike scramble track ... down one cut (Riggs side) across the bottom (Acorn) and back up the other cut (Windsor) to the car park and repeated again and again and again. The bikes were things like old James Cadets, Velocettes, and similar - lots of Villiers engines. I have some 8mm film footage (now on DVD) taken by my Dad from a rear bedroom window of us riding the motor bikes - I didn't know this footage existed until quite recently when I converted all the film discovered when clearing my Mum's house after she died.

[Maggie/915]

Our Mums old houses are great for memories.

Mine brought to life a bride doll that I was not at all grateful for in the past and stands as a testament to remind me of her love

[Symptoms]

Maggs wrote: "Mine brought to life a bride doll ..."

Like this ...?

[Maggie/915]

Brilliant Symptoms.

What else could we bring to life?

[Brian Cross]

Is that Keffy on the bench ?

[threegee]

...

One year for bonfire night we nicked all the new fencing from the back of the council offices...

Yet another cold case solved on bedlington.co.uk! I think we probably need a new forum for confessions. Maybe we could enlist some well-past-their-prime actors to moderate it?

[mickypotts]

Right then......................

The camps in the prop yard were a major accomplishment fer Wor gang.

I spent many a night with pencil and paper and some borrowed Technical drawing tools "borrowed " from Mr Davies class at Westridge, I did bring them back.

the designs were erected very quickly from my blueprints with about 10 -12 lads from the lanes, the Watchie was always destroying them when he caught sight of them, the 3 storey versions were the best though since ye hed a lookoot tower to spot trouble before it found you. What a great way it was te just hev fun back then.

[paul mann]

They were a bliddy marvel o' engineerin'

[keith lockey]

Symptoms mentioned the Pit Pond - we were warned away from the place by dearest mama, in no uncertain terms. She used to go ballistic when it was mentioned; she said it was bottomless and that a boy had drowned (disappeared) down there. Any truth to the latter?

[mickypotts]

It wasnt bottomless, but was full of nasty stinky clarts and god know what else, tons of frogs and newts and their eggs, aah nivva hord of neebody droonin in there though, how aboot climbing up on the gas tank and booncin aroond the top???

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

'A' pit pond, not deep as we often found out with failed attempts of securing pit props together to make rafts.

The pit pond was the first place we learned the craft of fishing, for sticklebacks, with strands of grass and a worm. Discovered by watching the girls making daisy chains!

Feed the worm through a split in the the grass. Dangle in pond and when stickleback grabbed the worm yank the grass, and fish, out of the water.