Canny lass

Congratulations gentlemen, well done and good luck, I hope you make a difference!

Same goes for me! Give it six nowt Malcolm & Adam.

can anybody remember the cardboard milk bottle tops. we used to play a spinning game with them

I remeber those. You pressed out a circle in the middle to open the bottle. We used to make pom-poms with them by placing two tops together and wrapping wool around them through the hole in the middle. When the hole was filled you cut around the outside edge, between the two tops and tied a piece of wool around the centre Before tearing away the bottle tops.

Good stuff. Using the bottle tops for Christmas tree decorations in hard times is a nifty idea.

Not only the bottle tops were used Paul. I've worked in many hospitals where money for Xmas decorations was always a problem. We used to cadge the off cuts from the dairy. You could get rolls of foil, about 2 inches wide, with circles cut ot (the milk bottle tops). If you folded the foil in half lengthways you got strings of "icicles". Very pretty but you cut your fingers to ribbons making them.

voted too but it's harder to muster up votes when you have to register, people are just too lazy.

It only took a minute!

Isn't it Joan Crawford?

So it is!

I can manage 3 Keith: Bette Davis, Peter Sellers and Jimmy Stewart

No but I think there is way too much coincidence.....

Bedlington was probably the centre of nail production in the NE at one point and in the same town we see a monument nicknamed the 'nail' and we hear a saying, "paid on the nail" where the 'nail' in questions marks the tradable area or market place so commerce must have taken place there.

It appears that the expression 'pay on the nail' isn't peculiar to Bedlington and doesn't have anything to do with nail production. It was in general use in the English language as early as the 16^th century and has been noted as early as the 14^th century in Anglo-Norman 'payer sur le ungle' - literally translated ' to pay on the nail'. The nail in question appears to have been a nothing more than a finger nail.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cash-on-the-nail.html

Any budding writers on here?

Virtual Literary group formed for Bedlington writers, want to become part of it…….

Any ability and any writing style, even collaborative projects………

Please contact pics@bedlington.co.uk in the first instance.

Keith 2 and Merc, go for it!

I think certainly given your proposition about market places being marked with a 'market cross' of whatever form.

Also I think we shouldn't ignore John's supposition neither, it might have been one thing led to another?

If you had already built a marker for a temporary interment, or resting place for a famous body, and it was in a suitable position couldn't they have used that to impose a market place? It would have to be in a prominent position to be noticed anyway or why else do it?

Absolutely not ignoring John's supposition - just adding an alternative supposition.

No but I think there is way too much coincidence.....

Bedlington was probably the centre of nail production in the NE at one point and in the same town we see a monument nicknamed the 'nail' and we hear a saying, "paid on the nail" where the 'nail' in questions marks the tradable area or market place so commerce must have taken place there.

Wouldn't that make it eligible as a market cross?

That must be from when Bedlington was a huge nail manufacturer, surly CL?

Is there some specific connection between the market cross and nail production?

It is said that it was a medievil custom to erect a cross marking the place where the coffin of an important person rested each night

on its homeward journey.

Its very interesting to know, but could the body of St. Cuthbert have been laid where the Market Cross was originally.

We may never know, but this medievil custom gives a interesting point of discussion.

You never know, we can't say for sure, but it does look plausible to me now.

What do the members think of this now.

It was also a common practice to mark out a place for exchange and sale of goods - a market place, hence the 'market cross'. This marker didn't always take the form of a cross. I've read somewhere that these market places were usually beside the church but for the life of me I can't find a reference just now. A market cross, according to Wikipedia, is a structure used to mark a market square in market towns. They are often elaborately carved and can be found in most market towns in Britain. They are not, however, all elaborately carved. Wikipedia informs us that:

"These structures range from carved stone spires, obelisks or crosses, common to small market towns such as that in Stalbridge, Dorset to large, ornate covered structures, such as the Chichester Crossâ€

The word obelisk, which comes from the Greek language, is particularly interesting for me. Liddell and Scott (1940), still a valid work of reference today, say this;

á½€bελ-ίσκος , á½, Dim. of á½€bελός I,

A. small spit, skewer, Ar.Ach. 1007, Nu.178, V.354, Av.388, 672, Sotad. Com.1.10, X.HG3.3.7, Arist.Pol.1324b19, PEleph.5.2 (iii B. C.), etc.

2. pl., spits used as money, Plu.Lys.17, Fab.27 ; cf. ὀbολός fin.

3. nail, IG12.313.141 (prob.), 11(2).148.70 (Delos, iii B. C., pl.).

4. = subula, Gloss.

5. window bar, ib. (pl.).

II. anything shaped like a spit : the blade of a two-edged sword, Plb.6.23.7 ; the iron head of the Roman pilum, D.H.5.46.

III. obelisk, D.S.1.46, Str.17.1.27, Plin.HN36.64.

IV. drainage-conduit, "οἱ á¼Î½ τοῖς τείχεσιν á½€.†D.S.19.45, cf. IG 9(1).692.14 (Corc., ii B. C.) ; so perh. πεÏὶ τοῦ πιλῶνος (= πυλῶνος) κaὶ τοá½bιλίσκου (= τοῦ á½€bελίσκου) PLond.2.391.2 (vi A. D.) ; cf. "á½€bολίσκος†1.

Henry George Liddell. Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by. Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940. http://www.perseus.t...04.0057:entry=o)beli%2Fskos

Look at 3 - ὀbελ-ίσκος (obelisk) would appear to be synonymous with 'nail'. There's no doubt that our nail is an obelisk it fulfills all criteria – tall, four sided, tapering with a pyramid shaped top. Nail is just another name for this structure.

Anybody know how long it's been referred to as the 'nail'.

Not yet Malcolm but looking forward to it.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE IS STILL UP outside Sleekburn house. Not only is it still up, it is still lit up.

They are leaving it lit :-

1) Because of the difficulty in getting the lights switched on in the first place.... and .......

2) The other lights along Ravensworth Tce were not switched on because the chippy, where the switch is located, is shut down. Nobody had the nouse to ring the letting agent to gain access to the switch.

A (continuing) merry Christmas everyone.

I think it's called supplementary street lighting.

I hope you got some pictures just before they went John.

The Sun INN murders are one of the events we are going to cover in the Heritage project and I was hoping to get pics of you displaying the artefacts you had.

As Kieth 1 would say: ERRRR--

I would never have got it!!

Excellent, and as you say some very nice pictures! Thank you Symptoms.

I came across this site and wonder if anybody knows anything about the flint implement found at Nedderton in 1998 or the burial cists found at Millfield in the 1930s?

www.keystothepast.info/durhamcc/K2P.nsf/K2PDetail?readform&PRN=N13980

Did he say PINK?

Indeed it does, Canny Lass, but I might add that the vast majority of youngsters I know are great. This lot - and others there last night - were a lovely bunch.

I agree whole heartedly. I think the majority are great as well. What was heart warming for me wasn't only what these youngsters did but actually HEARING about it. We 'adults' aren't too good at singing their praises in public. It's the odd few who've gone astray that hit that headlines, unfortunately.

A night out with me! The prize is 75% of the pot, with the other 25% rolling over for 4 weeks; participants get a raffle ticket when they pay, and the raffle is drawn every four weeks for the 'bonus'. Credit must be given, however, to the bunch of youngsters who won last night; they very generously gave their winnings back and asked for them to be aded to next weeks prize as an incentive to others to join in. We hear many tales of 'the yoof of today' etc but these late teens/early 20's lot saw the spirit of the game - to have a laugh an a bit of banter - and I think they deserve a mention for it.

Really warms the heart to hear something good about young people.

Are those buildings used at all now?

Canny - I have a clear memory of the cookery room being near the library on the first floor above the main entrance ... was there another cookery room next to it? There was a classroom up there too - it was my form room when I was in the second year (1963/4), form teacher Mrs Wilson (or it might have been Miss).

I'm sure I have seen a copy of the plan of the school somewhere so will try to find it to confirm matters.

There were two cookery rooms on the landing of the stairs from the main entrance but the library was accessed from the stairs at the righthand side of the building (viewed from the exterior). I can't remember any classroom between these and I can't think how you would get to it, other than through a door leading from the library. There was no door leading in that direction from the cookery room. However, I remember that the corridor downstairs was very long so there would have been room for something between the library and the cookery room. I left in 62 but there was a Mrs Wilson, art teacher, at that time. A small, demure creature with a french pleat hairstyle. She often wore pleated tartan skirts and cashmere sweaters in beiges and browns. Could that be her?

I had no Idea that the catholic school had taken over the premises. When did that happen?

I'll put it in the Gallery

Now that brings back memories. I used to miss assembley at Westridge most Wednesday mornings when I was in my third year and go to Beadnells to do the shopping for the domestic science teacher. She had to have the ingredients before the first class of the day started.

Thank you kind sirs for your warming good wishes.

Foxy, what's a weekend-off? Hasn't your good lady told you that a woman's work is NEVER done?.