Clayton Ballroom

[paul mann]

Wee can mind fight night at the Clayton Ballroom at Bedlington Station?

[Tonyp]

Fun in bedlington. Mmm

[Maggie/915]

Monday night cannot remember many fights .

[Smudgeinthebudge]

It was serious violence, People talk about the kids now but a normal Friday night at the Clayton, if it happened now, would probably make the national news and the fully armoured riot police would be using tasers, baton rounds, cs gas and water cannon to sort it all out. There would be a few hundred asbos handed out and the venue would be immediately shut down. Oh for the good old days when we knew how to enjoy ourselves.

[Tonyp]

Make sure you post this to the Northumbrian tourist board sure you'll get loads a people discovering nothumberland......& bedlington

Nearly as bad as Brixton were they chopped police mans heads off or woolwich were they try to decapatate a soldier plenty of asbos here that would make you frightened to come out is that what you want to promote sad...

[Smudgeinthebudge]

Only telling the truth of what it was like at times then in the early and mid sixties. I have no interest or any point to make except that, in general, society was more violent then than it is now. Solving problems with your fists was socially acceptable at the time. Fights were common in school, violence was used by teachers to keep order, bullying was common, and, as we are still finding out now, child abuse was hushed up and kept quiet about. Do not get me wrong, I love Northumberland which I think is the best county in Britain but I am talking about the past. In my better moments I am able to take off my rose tinted spectacles and look at the past as it really was not as a day dreamy fantasy world where coppers kept you right with a clip across the ear and the teachers were strict but fair. As an ex regular soldier who I abhor the murder of Lee Rigby as much as anyone but I tend to agree with his mother who has publicly stated that she hates the way the rightwing in this country has hijacked his murder to justify their racist views and use his murder as propaganda for their political purposes.

In the sixties I witnessed with my own eyes lots of violence in gang fights, some of which I'm ashamed to say I took part in. However, in the seventies and eighties the extreme horror of the Spanish civil war in the thirties didn't stop people from flocking there in their millions. Just as a now an almost forgotten load of gang fights in the sixties is hardly likely to put people off from coming here. Anyway the Welfare at Ashington could be far worse and Morpeth and Blyth had their own hard lads. The battles closed about every dance in Northumberland. Yes, there has been worse violence in other parts of Britain in the recent past however most of it has been politically or weird belief system motivated not as a way of life for fun. 

[Tonyp]

Isn't it sad though that are all from mining communities a few miles apart that you couldn't enjoy each other's company without beaten the s*** out of everybody & feeling good where's the unity In that...

[Tonyp]

My missus has got a degree with honours in sociology maybe you should take to her...

[Smudgeinthebudge]

Violence among a minority of teenage lads doesn't mean that the mining communities of the area were at each others throats. The older generation of miners tended to be gentle and the people in different villages were friendly to each other. Witness the happy revelry for the majority on picnic day. There were still fights among some of the lads but that didn't stop everybody else from enjoying themselves. Funny enough the mining school at Ashington had fifteen and sixteen year old lads from every pit village in the county there and I remember it as a very happy place with everyone telling jokes to each other. I never saw a fight there. Then, as now, most of the violent crime was fuelled by alcohol and instead of getting someone older to obtain it for them from to drink in a park the teenagers then would get the beer in pubs where certain landlords thought if your voice had broken you must be 18. 

[Tonyp]

You're probably right maybe up the age limit to 25

[Malcolm Robinson]

Morpeth was called Dodge City when I was a teenager!

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Wee can mind fight night at the Clayton Ballroom at Bedlington Station?

 

 

Only telling the truth of what it was like at times then in the early and mid sixties. I have no interest or any point to make except that, in general, society was more violent then than it is now. Solving problems with your fists was socially acceptable at the time. Fights were common in school, violence was used by teachers to keep order, bullying was common, and, as we are still finding out now, child abuse was hushed up and kept quiet about. Do not get me wrong, I love Northumberland which I think is the best county in Britain but I am talking about the past. In my better moments I am able to take off my rose tinted spectacles and look at the past as it really was not as a day dreamy fantasy world where coppers kept you right with a clip across the ear and the teachers were strict but fair. As an ex regular soldier who I abhor the murder of Lee Rigby as much as anyone but I tend to agree with his mother who has publicly stated that she hates the way the rightwing in this country has hijacked his murder to justify their racist views and use his murder as propaganda for their political purposes.

In the sixties I witnessed with my own eyes lots of violence in gang fights, some of which I'm ashamed to say I took part in. However, in the seventies and eighties the extreme horror of the Spanish civil war in the thirties didn't stop people from flocking there in their millions. Just as a now an almost forgotten load of gang fights in the sixties is hardly likely to put people off from coming here. Anyway the Welfare at Ashington could be far worse and Morpeth and Blyth had their own hard lads. The battles closed about every dance in Northumberland. Yes, there has been worse violence in other parts of Britain in the recent past however most of it has been politically or weird belief system motivated not as a way of life for fun. 

 

 

Isn't it sad though that are all from mining communities a few miles apart that you couldn't enjoy each other's company without beaten the s*** out of everybody & feeling good where's the unity In that...

 

 

Violence among a minority of teenage lads doesn't mean that the mining communities of the area were at each others throats. The older generation of miners tended to be gentle and the people in different villages were friendly to each other. Witness the happy revelry for the majority on picnic day. There were still fights among some of the lads but that didn't stop everybody else from enjoying themselves. Funny enough the mining school at Ashington had fifteen and sixteen year old lads from every pit village in the county there and I remember it as a very happy place with everyone telling jokes to each other. I never saw a fight there. Then, as now, most of the violent crime was fuelled by alcohol and instead of getting someone older to obtain it for them from to drink in a park the teenagers then would get the beer in pubs where certain landlords thought if your voice had broken you must be 18. 

Search for 'Bouncers' and you should get a bit about the Clayton Ballroom in the Topic 

Bedlington Miners Picnic 1960

Started by highpitter, Dec 28 2013 12:00 P

[mercuryg]

Smudge raises some interesting points; nothing better than nostalgia to recreate the 'good old days'. I think the reason people believe violence is more prevalent now, and the past was all hippy-gloriousness and peace and love (conveniently forgetting the two World Wars and many other dreadful conflicts) is that the we now have a combination of instant news, in real time, and an ongoing desire by the media to sensationalise and pander to the masses.

 

(By the way, why does this website continually correct my spelling to US English!)

[Malcolm Robinson]

(

[paul mann]

I don't think visitors to Bedlington have anything to fear from violence in the 1950's - unless the ghosts of teddy boys are haunting Front Street. And if that's the case you should promote it.

[keith lockey]

Merc's right. I have this running argument with a friend about violence - past and present. The world seems a more violent place now - but that, as Merc says, is because we have 24 hour TV and mass media coverage. It's a violent planet we live on.

[Symptoms]

The parochial nature of life generally back then meant that we rarely heard reports of crime from elsewhere unless it was something really horrific like the Moor Murders or the Shepherd's Bush Massacre, for example.  My paper round in the 60s was mainly The Journal in the morning and The 'Chronic' in the evening with a very rare national rag chucked in so the emphasis seemed always to be 'local' stuff.