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Hi Damien,welcome aboard!..I knew your Dad very well,you wouldn't have known,but in the mid 1960's he also worked at Choppington High Pit till it closed,in 1966.He might only have been there for a year,maybe two,he was coalfilling in the Top Busty with Harry [Harper] Dawson.Miners played pranks,and one day,in around 1964, I came off the very wet ,low,atrocious coalface to find your Dad and Harry ,stitching my jacket together with Conveyor belt metal hook fasteners.I remember them being startled by me shouting at them and swinging my jacket,still with the heavy zipping machine attached,round my head and hurling it at them!If it had hit them it would have really hurt,maybe even broke a bone or two..I was seething,but they thought it was funny..well by the time I got outbye to the shaft bottom we were all laughing at the state of my ripped old jacket..miners were like that..no fallouts..lose your rag for five minutes..Marra's just the same five minutes later. I was about 20 yrs old at the time that happened...Me and Mixer used to crack on for hours on the CB Radios from 1981 when they were legalised.In those days,I was into Electronics from 12 years old in 1956,so by 1981,and hooking up with Mixer on the air after not seeing him for years,was great cos he built power supplies for CB'S as his other hobby.So we talked transformers and resistors etc!!..Later he came to Bates ,and when he parked his new Lada in the car park,it always stood alone..he told me..there's no way anybody is gonna park too close to my car and block me from getting in .!![Waxoyl and dust kept not only rust away..it everybody away..including thieves!!] Mixer was the nicest lad you could wish to work with..please tell him Wilma is asking after him..if he remembers..he just might.Everybody knew Mixer..just like they knew Wilma!!Take care Damien.

Our ex-pats might like this....................

Hi again @Pegwoman. I think you may be right about that meaning. I’ve searched the archives and Internet and cannot find any mention of a PSFR, which Tony suggests (that’s not to say that it doesn’t exist, only that I can’t find any mention of it anywhere). My earlier idea that the medallion may have had something to do with the food office or rationing, I have totally abandoned. I’ve viewed several dozen ration cards over the past couple of days and all use the personal National Registration Number allotted to every person following the completion of the 1939 Register, in preparation for the pending war, ie: GCEV 310: 1 (the reg. nr of Vic’s late father-in-law) or GCCI 154: 2 (allocated to Ada Robson in Ashington). Looking again at the medallion, I’m still inclined to think it reads G. F. S. 2 376 and that would equate nicely with the ‘Girls Friendly Society’. In 1942, during the war, the Girls Friendly Society branch in Bedlington actively maintained local, parish-based youth work and community support for young women, 14 – 18 years old. The Bedlington Branch operated under the framework of the local Anglican Church. According to what I’ve been able to find out, groups like the GFS in industrial and mining communities kept young women connected through community work, assisting in local war efforts, Red Cross Support and regular meetings as well as providing safe recreational spaces. Members received an annual membership card, pin, or “stamped metal disc/token” which could feature the society’s emblem on the reverse. I don’t suppose you have a picture of the reverse of Elizabeth Gibson’s medallion? There were, as far as I can see, two types of members, the working- class girls, known as ‘members’ and the ladies, who were called ‘associates’. They both paid an annual subscription, tailored to their income, and the associates often provided recreation rooms in parish facilities or even in their own homes where the members could meet, read, sew etc. There may still be some records available at the Northumberland Archives and, if you’re lucky, they may document meetings and member’s activities. Alternatively, the GFS is still active in both Blyth and Cramlington and they may be able to throw some light on the matter.

100% correct, Vic. The 1939 register codes used are: GCE enumeration district Bedlington Urban District Council. V the area within the enumeration district where he lived. 310: 1 is his registration district: sub-district. You can read Ada and Ethel’s info in the same way. GCC is the enumeration district code for Ashington.

Hi Wilma, thank you for the info regarding my dad. I didn’t know he worked at Choppington High Pit, which was about 3 years before I was born and dad would have been about 21. The amount of times I’ve walked Choppington woods and didn’t know about the antics which went on under my wandering feet. Someone once told me when down the pit, he could be stubborn, un-cooperative and would sit down in protest if things weren’t done his way. I only wish I could sit down and talk with him about the past but now has dementia and hardly speaks a single sentence. He doesn’t remember who I am or much of anything anymore. I remember his loft was a shack with CB and amateur radio's. As a kid, I remember the tv picture going crazy when DXing on amateur radio and CB am, this was before CB was legalized later on fm. Dad still has an amateur radio setup, which he never sat the test for, he was a bit of a rebel when it came to things like that. Dad looked after his things, especially the Lada, having coating it with Waxoyl to keep it from rusting. I got the impression he didn’t care much for the Lada in its later years. There was one time someone blocked his exit in a carpark so he just forced the other car out the way using the car's bumper. Lada cars were relatively cheap to buy and very basic, Russian engineering which was probably built in the same factory they made their tanks lol. Regards, Damian.

Not too bad here in Sweden. Funnily enough, the worst heat has been in the far northern regions. Here, further south, we've had 3 substantial periods of heat with temperatures in the upper 30s. Naturally, there are bans in place in the whole country regarding, garden fires, BBQs and watering of plants and washing cars- for those with mains water supply. Water reservoirs are apparently quite low. There's the odd idiot who doesn't comply so a couple of small fires have happened near us but nothing dramatic. We felled 5-6 acres of forest nearest the house in May, just after the first heat wave, but it was planned already last year. Never the less, were glad we've done it because we think the problems will get worse.

There appears to be vhave been various identity bracelets with different abbreviations. These are two that were posted on the Ashington FB group :-

Canny lass it is definitely a P not a G it was P for personal F food S supply R ration actually if they didn’t have disc people used to put this information on old spoons & coins removing the royal head of course original information was on the ration cards but people didn’t carry them around to an air raid shelter just this basic disc but definitely not a G on it

First letter any thanks for the information. What you read as a P is a G I always just thought it meant girl. The p and g are hard to distinguish, because of how they were engraved. And the photo is not clear. Found your reply both interesting and informative. Many thanks.

Normal civilians carried these during ww2 incase they were killed during an air raid PSFR is for ration card personnel supply food information 376 is 376 is her personal number that she wood use at the bedlington food office bedlington station was classed as a luftwaffe target as the coal would be transported to river Tyne for merchant ships

Checked on the Facebook Group Bygone Bedlington and the only info I can get is that the photo is pre 1970 :-

No date with the photo. Normally I have the info ie year and who posted it as part of the name the photo is saved under. So in this case I would assume the member of the group I got if from did not comment with any info other than the name.😒

Alan on the same page as the aerial view above its got bank cottage also cornwell crescent. (The not cropped version) There is a few of bedlington and surrounding areas. I found them helpful alongside the maps you had already shared.

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/ Not sure if linking is allowed apologies if not, its historic england Ariel photo explorer

Thank you both, so in photos showing glebe row with what is labeled the tankerville, would the fountain and fountain yard have been on the land you can see between shiney row and the tankerville? Its quite a dark image. Im not sure why my name is coming up kayla (unless it using my google profile) its mikki (researching Thompson and Bank cottage)

Hi @kayla leigh, welcome to the forum. I think you may have misunderstood the meaning of the word "dwelling". A dwelling is any self-contained structure/space used as a home or even as a place of shelter. It's a very broad term covering everything from houses, flats, single rooms, lean-to buildings or even tents. Nowadays you could even add mobile homes and, houseboats. In other words, a dwelling is ANY place you can call home and where you have your regular place to sleep. I explained my use of it earlier in this topic, July 29 2020: "Fountain Yard comprising six ‘dwellings’ each for one household. Numbers 1 and 2, marked in red, were somewhat larger than numbers 3 – 6 which make up the rest of the row. I choose to call them ‘dwellings’ because I’ve no idea how they were. I’ve heard, but never been able to confirm, that they were no more than lean-to buildings against the back wall of the pub yard." The black building, at the western end of Shiney Row in the photo, is not in Fountain Yard. I'll try to show you why. Look at the photo again. I've marked the black building with a yellow spot and the wall opposite, adjoining the outside toilets on the left of the photo I've marked with a red line: Here's a map (from 1897) with those two objects marked in the same manner: Wall - red and building - yellow. The blue spot on Glebe Row is the location of the photographer and the blue arrow shows the direction he was facing - eastward towards the pit head. I've marked the Fountain Inn with a green arrow and marked the boundaries of its yard in the same colour. The Fountain Inn had 5 rooms housing one family and the yard had 6 dwellings (type unknown) housing 6 families each in one room (according to the 1911 census). These were probably located in the small building/lean-to behind the pub and located within the yard which backs onto the gardens of Shiney Row. Both the Fountain Inn and its yard are well out of view to the photographer who took the photo. I personally have always thought that the black building may be some sort of wash-house purely because it reminds me of similar constructions in many back yards in Netherton Colliery - but that's pure speculation on my part. Hope this helps.

That's ok. Thank you Alan. Best wishes. Mike.