Canny lass

Would he have had a sister called Christine?

Maggie, you ask when Netherton became Nedderton. I've Always known it as Nedderton, or to be more accurate as 'the village". That's how it was always referred to when I was a Child. I recently found a photo of a programme for a musical evening held in Netherton Colliery 1948 where the' main act' was a Choir from Nedderton. In charge of proceedings was no other than the Rev. Osgathorpe from St. Cuthbert's Bedlington so it's definitely 'our' Netherton. You'll find the photo at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/131522258@N07/17042919922/ Seems we were quite a sophisticated bunch!

Does anybody know anything about this? http://donmouth.co.uk/womens football/soup kitchen soccer.html I'm particularly interested in the Netherton Team. I remember football matches between men and women at Netherton in the fifties. The women were in full gear but the men wore long nighties and wellies. I'm not sure but I Think it had something to do with raising Money for the yearly outing to Whitley Bay.

Get the kettle on! You'll be needing a cup of tea. This might just be a wee bit long. First of all I give my apologies to Mawer. His name was Allen - not Alan, as I previously wrote. Having now read the complete work I think we have to knock any ideas of the Venerable Bede's involvment on the head. Sorry Maggie! Firstly, it wasn't only he who had the name Bede. It appears to have been quite a common name at the time. Secondly, -ing would appear to be purely genitive in function and monks didn't own anything. Thirdly, as Bede entered the monastery at the age of seven he was unlikely to have set up any homestead and place names of the era were topographical or denoted ownership. Mawer's work is a tough read, not least because of the compositor's interpretation of the original work, which was almost certainly hand written. I give you a synopsis of the relevant points: Mawer, in discussing the -ington names of Northumberland, refers to an article on the early settlement of Northumbria written by one Dr. Woolacott. This appeared in the Geographical Journal (year of publication unknown to me). According to Woolacott the effects of the glacial period had a great bearing on the location of early settlements. Glacial surface deposits, he claimed, lay thickest "along the washes" and "on higher ground escarpments rise like islands from beneath the superficial deposits ". In Northumbria especially, this had considerable influence in determining the location of minor settlements as it was easy to obtain water in these places. With reference to Topley (no information as to who Topley may be) he says that the Northumbrian villages with -ing "are old settlements and either stand on sand and gravel hillocks lying on the boulder clay, or on exposures of sandstone which rise above the uniform level of the surface formations. A large number of the pit villages, which are in many cases merely enlargements of the ancient settlements belong to the latter class". Mawer tested this theory by completing a fresh survey of the topography. The theory, he said, "would appear to hold good for Acklington, Bedlington, Cramlington" and half a dozen other named places. All were situated on high ground where the geology of the area favoured the occurance of springs. However, this could not be applied to Choppington, he said, as it had a nearby stream from which water could be obtained. Taking all the evidence into consideration Mawer concluded that this theory was proved, at least for East Northumberland, where the number of -ington names on this type of ground was far too large to be due to pure coincidence. As for the genitive (posessive) nature of -ing Mawer names three different types: -inga - genitive plural, -ingas - genitive singular and , by far the most common - simple -ing. Various theories, ranging from number of syllables in the personal name to loss of inflectional suffixes have been put forward to explain the differences but all have subsequently been rejected in favour of one Professor Moorman's explanation that -ing denotes posession. According to Mawer the theory has been "confirmed beyond a doubt" by the examination of Old English evidence. Such place names, he says, are simply the farm, clearing or whatever it may be, of or belonging to a man bearing a certain name. So, there we have it. If you fancy wading through the whole book you'll find it at: http://archive.org/stream/cu31924028042996/cu31924028042996 djvu.txt

Anglo Norman it was Fourgee! It became clearer later in the book.

Bede in Old English = Baeda or Beda Bede in Latin = Beda It's the ing that puts a damper on the theory as it means belonging to. But it's interesting so don't give up hope!. Bede himself has never noted the exact whereabouts of his birth. He says only "on the lands of the monastry" (meaning Monkwearmouth) However, monasteries owned vast amounts of land so it could have been anywhere. Somewhere on the internet I've also read Sunderland and a Place called Tyne.

OR if you want the black sticky type try this: 8 oz plain flour 2 oz sugar 1 tsp mixed spice 1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda 1-2 tsp ground ginger 4 oz lard or butter 6 oz black treacle 2 oz golden syrup 1/4 pint of milk 1 egg Set the oven to 300-325f,150-170c or gas mark 2. Grease and line a 7" Square cake tin. Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl. Put the lard/butter, black treacle and syrup into a saucepan and heat until the fat melts. Cool slightly and add to the dry ingredients. Warm the milk in the same saucepan. Pour over the ingredients in the bowl and beat thoroughly. Lastly, beat in the egg. Pour into the tin and bake in the middle of the oven 1½ hours but test after an hour. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Turn out onto a rack and allow to cool - preferably under the up turned tin. The longer you can keep it in an airtight container Before eating the stickier and better it gets. I keep mine a couple of Days Before cutting. Let's know how you get on!

Thank you Eggy! I'll definitely be giving this a go!

I've just found a wonderful book on the Internet. It was published as an academic thesis in 1920 and has somehow ended up in the library of Cornell University USA. Despite its age the contents are valid even today. Over a period of 8 years the authors, Alan Mawer M.A. and his professor, Joseph Cowen,(both Durham University) researched the Place names of Northumberland and Durham. This is what they discovered about the changing name of Bedlington. 1050 Bedlingtun 1085 Bethlingtun 1104 - 1108 Betlingtun 1150 Bellingtona 1170 Bethlingtone, Betligtun 1175 Betlingetun 1203 Bellingeton 1228 Bellington 1291 Bedelinton 1315 Bedelington 1335 Bellington 1507 Bedlyngton There was an Old English version "Bedeling(a) tiin of Bedel or of his sons. Bedel is a diminutive of Beda". Mawer goes on to say that those Spellings with double L are probably due to an assimilation that never became fully established. Those Spellings with tl are due to A.N. influence (sorry I don't know what that is as I haven't found Mawer's list of abbreviations too helpfull). And, finally, those Spellings with thl are due to a common interchange of dl in certain Anglian Words.

Wat AMA Waitin For Willicks And Mussels At Wades Fish shop Warkworth And Morpeth Amateur Whale Fishing

I say the same thing Maggie. Bedders is a veritable mine of information.

Foxy Definitely NOT!

It's that Little Word 'for' that makes it confusing Foxy. It's a politicians favourite because it has so many different meanings. That makes it easy for them to wriggle out of things when the going gets tough. That sentence can be read in several different ways. What they want the reader to read is: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver to the benefit of Bedlington. What the reader should read is: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver on behalf of Bedlington. The failure to use the direct- and indirect objects (what's being delivered and to whom) only adds to the confusion. If we now add those the sentence could read: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver, on behalf of Bedlington, all Money intended for Bedlington (direct object), to the people of Ashington (indirect object). Isn't syntax wonderful! Just imagine what could happen if they learned to use the Word to!

If you find it fascinating you'll love a recent book by Barry Hobson Latrinae et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World. There you'll also find that single toilets were not at all uncommon in Roman times. The Word latrinae means just 'single toilet' while foricae is the latin Word for the multi-seaters - as Hobson calls them. Single toilets abound in roman ruins even today (probably because they were built like brick sh*t houses).

Have you been at that Sherry again Maggie!

Netty may not be native to Northumberland. I've Heard it used in both Yorkshire and Wales - but there can be lots of explanations for that. When we try to decipher the meaning of Words today it's all too easy to break the Word down into its modern day morphemes (Components of meaning). However, if we want to get anywhere near the truth we have to go back to the origins of the Word and look at the morphemes as they were when the Word was taken into the language. To give you an example let's take 'Bedlington'. If we break it down into modern day morphemes we'd get Bed,ling and ton and we can read whatever we like into that - hypothesizing wildly we could get something as rediculous as a resting Place for Heavy fish. If we break it down into old English morphemes (700-1100 BC) we get something quite different - Bedl, ing and ton. Then our hypothesis could also be very different. For example, the 'farmstead belonging to Bedla'. Bedla was a well used name during the period, ing was known to be a form of the genitive and ton was a very small plot of land. Language Changes all the time and ton as in Bedlington is, today, most often given to mean Town but when it first came into the English langauge, as tun, it simply meant an enclosure, a garden, or a yard. Over the following centuries it Went on to mean the houses and Buildings on that piece of land. Later its meaning changed to encompass the inhabitants and even later it changed again to include the administrative system in use with that particular piece of land, it's dwellings and it's inhabitants. A similar thing happened with the English Word cabin. If we trace it's origins we find that it has had all sorts of meanings - many of them now obsolete. According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology,it started out as the Latin capanna/cavanna (spellings with -in appeared first in the 16th Century) and it meant, among many other things, cave. By the 14th Century it was being used in the meaning of a ships compartment.and in the 15th Century a rude habitation. First in the 17th Century was it being used when referring to that which we today call a cabin . In the case of our beloved 'netty' and its etymology, much depends on when it came into the English language or one of its many dialects. The net theory, I find hard to accept - but don't rule it out. Earth closets have been around for centuries. So has net. However, I'm doubtful if the two entities were ever to be found in one establishment. They belong to two different social classes, unless of course the Word 'netty, is relatively new. My own theory is still a loan Word from Latin, possibly via French, followed by abbreviation - in this case initial clipping (using the last part of the Word to serve as the whole). Just one Little question - why would anybody add a diminutive ending to the Word net?

Nothing to do with nets I'm afraid. The diminutive suffix in latin is 'ette'. It Changes with noun gender and becomes 'etti'.The diminutuve, as I'm sure you know, implies the meaning 'little' - so cabinetti, Little cabin.

Pete, the idea with the privacy screens in India is to preserve wömen's modesty but equally so to prevent men getting overly excited at the sight of a woman - as they do! So they are about keeping things in the dark, as it were, and preventing undue excitement. I Think I might be beginning to see a Connection here.

Netty = cabinetti. The Roman's name for closet.

Thanks Malcolm, it's Interesting to see that this Word stems from the screen used in the preservation of women's modesty. albeit in Turkey and not in India where I first came across it. I still can't see any Connection with it's use in British politics.

There was also the occasional 'cloot roond the lugs'. They weren't so nice!

I've Heard that name as well but I've no idea what a clooty mat is. Clooty dumplings I remember only too well!

Now that sounds more likely Bayardm. Thanks.

I saw a lot of it in India! Lovely silk or marble screens that hide women from men in public Buildings but I can't see any Connection here.

Just had Another Think about 'cleaky mats'. Could wor Jackie be talking about 'clicky mats'? I remember two sorts of mat making in my home. Proggy mats, using small 'clippings' and a 'progger', and clicky mats using long strips of cloth and a special tool that knotted the strip to the backing - usually hessian.