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The poem is by John Edward Fitzgerald Black, better known as Jack Black. It is from a book called Reflections on Life at Netherton and was published in his memory by his wife Petra in 1994. Petra was a German prisoner of war and remained here when she married Jack. I will always remember her going about, first, on her bike, and later on her moped in her nurses uniform and cape. The book is written in poetic Pitmatic,and the Forward is one of the most inspirational piece of writing I have come across and it is entitled "Six netties past the tap", the tap being in Howard row where he was born but lived most of his life in 2 Second Street.

The Netherton Ghost, umm, I think if you had gone around the duckets on a Saturday afternoon and mentioned that I think the reply would have been "howay man wat goest in ee's reet mind wid wanna waak aroon doon a pit? Gidda way an divvint taak see stupit"

Noel got job on bank at Netherton searching miners for "contraband" (cigarettes, pipe baccy etc.) He got the nickname of a siger who was popular at the time - Tab Hunter..................

Cavels. Lots. Casting cavels, casting lots is referred to as a Northumberland term in Francis Grose's Provincial Glossary of 1787. The son of Francis Grose was governor of New South Wales 1792-1794.

What a beautiful beautiful world when all the sane and stable pillars of the community show so much concern for the terminally unhinged?! Pop stars Jarvis Cocker and Bob Geldof to speak at Brexit fallout event First she cares about our fledgling democracy, and now she's caring about our mental health. Is there no end to this woman's humanity?

Not to worry it will be all over soon, and no matter what is said the outcome is certain. 1 Mrs May will win 2 The luvies will hold protests and marches against the democratically elected Governments plans 3 The Ruskies will be blamed for hacking something 4 Jerry will be replaced by someone who looks and talks different but thinks the same way.

The book that would solve al these cavil questions is a book called Pitmatic, The Talk of the North Eastern Coalfield compiled by Bill Griffiths Northumbria University Press, Price (or mine was!)£9.99

Why don't they just say Vote Corbyn and we will ensure that you get Blair?

There's never an "End of" to the democratic process for thinking people Eggy. But, your right to continue to cast a meaningful vote wherever you wish, and your right to make a mistake and your right to correct it later, is what the majority of us voted for in the referendum. If you've any doubt that this right was about to be progressively removed from us then take a look at the internet censorship proposals coming out of Brussels this week. When they try to abuse the word "populist" they are in fact targeting the British notion of democracy.

..and the Telegraph and DM saves the Labour Party printing costs by publishing the leaked Corbyn Labour Party manifesto detailing a return to 1983 chaos, and disastrous spend spend spend economics. How could this possibly have happened, unless... some senior figure(s) inside the Labour Party wanted them to lose the election badly! Naahh... what a silly thought!

... "cyek" there's another lovely example of that same sound changing characteristic which is so typical of the North East dialect.. The long 'ai' sound in cake and cavel becomes a short 'e' sound, as in egg. Then we stick a 'y' sound ( y as in yacht rather than y as in fairy). Lovely! Maybe the word went to Australia and then on to New Zealand before returning as dialect to England. That happened to the English word 'cake' which started out as Scandinavian 'kaka' and returned back to Scandinavia as 'keks'. Recycling at it's best! I did a search but can't find any trace of it as 'Queens English'. It only seems to have been a dialect word in Britain and only since the 18th century. Brian Cross, can you help? Have you heard the word 'cavel', or anything similar, anywhere down under?

This morning we hear May asked if she knows what a mugwump is. Now you or I (and maybe Corbyn and/or Farage) would have given an honest yes or no answer, but <groan> she gives the usual politician's diversionary "I only know that [insert current political buzzwords]". Slippery politico we all think, and of course she is! But it's is a pretty irrelevant question, and either a yes or no answer would have sparked off columns of garbage by the scribblers, and hours of TV "political discussion". Her strategy was to kill off the dumb and irrelevant question. The answer she gave is near instantly forgotten, and has minus zero news value. Above all that IS her strategy in this election, because everyone else is doing her campaigning for her (particularly the EU apparatchiks). All she needs to do is to present an image of competence and confidence and it's a landslide. There are going to be no "bacon sarnie" moments for May this year!

Me neither but Dougie was a master of the art of story-telling (I mean that in the nicest possible way). He could keep us amused - and sometimes terrified - at birthday parties with tales of all sorts. I remember once, blindfold, putting my finger in the long-since dead 'King Tut's eye'. Turned out to be a teaspoon full of strawberry jam when I'd stopped screaming and got the blindfold off!