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Didn't know whether to post this on here, or in the chat central, or at all, but decided to in the end. Many of you probably know that Charlie Kyle - AKA Charlie the Parky and a local character of the highest order - died earlier this week after being ill for some time. That he died in his regular spot in Breakers Bar was fitting indeed. Charlie was a great friend to me, a good man and one with a sense of humour. For any who do not already know but may be interested, his funeral is at Blyth Crematorium, 2.30 next Friday. I, for one, will miss him a great deal.

I first meet and became friends with Charlie in the early seventies when I worked in Morpeth, he was a well known and well liked lad who enjoyed a drink but never caused any trouble or had a bad word to say about anyone. He had a brother called Geoffrey (Geoff) but Geoff and Charlie were like chalk and cheese, total opposites, Geoff died very young I think he would be in his thirties, he contracted some tropical parasitic disease while i think he was working in Africa . Charlie’s favourite drinking dens in those days would have been the old Grey Bull , the Earl Grey, the George and Dragon and the Queens Head, (all long gone) , I can well remember one particulate night after a lock in at the George and Dragon Charlie rather worse for wear after a good day on the hoy left the Dragon to go home in the early hours and on exiting the front door of the Dragon turned a full circle and walked through the large plate glass window of the Abbey National Building Society , he ended up sitting among the window display covered in glass but did not have a mark on him, we still had Bobbies on the beat then and it was not to long until an amused looking copper arrived to de-tangle Charlie from the window display. I did not know Charlie had passed away until I read it here today , He will be missed by those that knew him (and by the pubs he drank in ). God bless Charlie mate, and rest in peace.

Not at all what we voted for, and approaching a complete sellout. In fact she has compounded earlier mistakes and allowed room for even more subterfuge. Why on earth should British taxpayers shore up the anti-democratic EU for several more years? Further proof - if any were needed - that our country is run for the benefit of London-based international bankers and not British citizens.