Canny lass

Thanks Eggy! I've had another look at the death certificate after reading your reply and I think it is only one word 'Chargeman' but the handstyle isn't the best so I can't be certain. Myself, I was wondering if "charge" could be anything to do with explosives.

Don't thank me Vic! Thank the corona viruset that's forcing me (and many others) to find ways of keeping track of the days, weeks and months when the usual landmarks have been obliviated by restrictions. The usual group activities that divided up my week: water aerobics on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Spanish group on Mondays and OAP group on Friday are no longer fixed points. We've had to find other landmarks. For me that's become: Letter writing on Tuesdays (I've adopted two elderly people in residential care and they both get a letter in the post on Wednesday/Thursday). I hope that's a landmark for them as well, now that visiting is restricted. Thursday I prepare a quiz for friends and family and post the answers to the previous week. Friday I post the new quiz. Wednesday night has become 'Tapas night'. We are steadily working our way through a Tapas recipe book I got from a spanish friend. Mind you, some of the ingredients are hard to get here. There doesn't seem to be any great demand for bull's testicles (sliced and fried are delicious apparently) or pigs blood. I wonder why!! We reckon we'll get another 10 Wednesday nights out of the book then we'll have to fill the slot with something else. I'm glad you like the quiz. It's not a bad idea to keep the grey cells active, particularly in these trying times.

Can any of you miners help me? On a death certificate dated 1913 the profession of the informant is given as "Coal miner (Charge man)". Previously the same person has been recorded as Coal miner, Hewer (underground) so there seems to have been some sort of change. Can anyone tell me what a "Charge man" is/was?

I can't help you there i'm afraid. I've never heard of it. I think it's an odd name - honey and sack are not two words I'd automatically put together. 'Money Sack' might be better. H and M are sometimes hard to distinguish in old handwriting. There's a farm and a place at Stannington called 'Make me rich' and I understand that it's an old name, so Money Sack sounds feasible. I do know that the second Lord of the manor married into a coal-mining family and bought land all over the area which probably included many farms. I have a book somewhere about the Ridley estate. Heaven knows where but I'll see if I can find it. It might give a clue.

New reports today indicate that covid restrictions here will probably continue for a few months at least! There are endless problems with obtaining vaccines and endless changes to the priority listing of recipients of said vaccine. Looks like you'll have to put up with my quiz a while longer. It breaks the week up for me and provides a fast point in my existence as well as polishing the old bumps of knowledge. I hope it's doing the same for you! This week I am asking: 1. William the Conqueror ordered the compilation of which historical log? 2. What is the Medieval Latin name for Wales? 3. What type of animal lives in a holt? 4. Why was the coronation of Edward VII delayed for six weeks? 5. When Ronald Reagan was President who was his vice president? 6. What is David Frost’s middle name? 7. What binding medium is used in gouache painting? 8. Which king married and divorced an Englishwoman name Toni Gardiner? 9. Which ingredient, vital to choux pastry is missing from puff pastry? 10. Which German motor car manufacturer produced the first motorcycle by fixing an engine to a frame in 1885? 11. Who wrote Watership Down? 12. Who had a dog called Gnasher? I’ll bet you didn’t know …. Tutankhamen’s coffin weighs 2 450 lb. Answers on Thursday next week.

Well, I for one, can't agree with that. I get a greater quantity of intelligible information from your reports than I get from some other sources - the operative word here being 'intelligible'. A (comparitively) short, plain, no nonsense, down-to-earth text that simply tells it like it is, gets more points from me than a long-winded, multi-page report full of tables, figures, and terminology - and I say that as a woman with a master's degree in English.

I'd like to make a slight change to that last sentence - 'Some of us ARE making things happen' would be more accurate. OK, some of these things are not moving mountains but even the little things - like easy access to a shovel full of grit, can make a real big difference. It's great that somebody realizes that and gets to grips with the problem. Keep up the good work Malcolm. PS I'm loving these video reports. More like this please!

Answers to last week's quiz: 1. Oil, pitch or anything flammable. ‘Fire’ is also acceptable. 2. Leicestershire 3. Coracle 4. Sundew 5. Paul Gascoigne 6. None 7. Mae West 8. Florence Nightingale 9. Zinc 10. Walk on the moon 11. Prince Harry 12. Porsche Spyder New quiz tomorrow.

Welcome to the club!

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

Thanks John! The BNA seems like a good research site. I haven't come across it before. Would you recommend it?

Mental ill health is not a hinder to retaining integrity and good manners. We must remember that at the time of Ned's admission to the madhouse one could be deemed 'mad' for simply back-answering a parent, being pregnant outside of marriage or a host of other things totally unrelated to mental illness as we know it today. May I ask which newspaper that is? It seems to cover a wide area from South Shields and Sunderland to Alnwick and Bedlington.

A huge thank you from me for all your dedicated work, Malcolm. As you know, I no longer live there but I still take a keen interest in the area that, to a large extent, made me who I am today. It's nice to see that it's in such good hands and that, despite the trials and tribulations which you describe,it is growing and developing along the right lines. Thank you again for all your hard work.

Pencils poised? ready, steady, GO: 1. What would you keep in a cresset? 2. In which English county is Charnwood Forest? 3. What do we call a boat with an oval, wickerwork frame covered with a leather skin? 4. On which horse did Fred Winter win the Grand National in 1957? 5. Which footballer made a record with Lindisfarne? 6. How many children does Donald Duck have? 7. Who said “it’s not the men in my life that counts – it’s the life in my men? 8. Who, in 1907, was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit? 9. Which metal is extracted from sphalerite? 10. What was Charles Conrad the third person to do, in 1969? 11. Which member of the royal family abseiled down a dam without a safety helmet in 1998? 12. What make and model of car was James Dean driving when he crashed and died in 1955? I’ll bet you didn’t know …. The table fork was introduced to England by Thomas Coryat in 1608 Answer's on Thursday next week.

Yes, they certainly do.

Thanks Jammy! We get loads of blackbirds here. I'll be watching them more closely under the bird table now (they never eat on the table, but only pick up the spill from others on the ground). I'll see what I can identify.

You might find this interesting, taken from Trade and Empire in Early Nineteenth-Century Southeast Asia by G.R.Knight (pages 85-86). It gives some insight into the brother’s William and Henry’s life (and death) in Java and Bangladesh. Read even the footnotes as they give quite a bit of information. https://books.google.se/books?id=5AY3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=Reverend+henry+Cotes&source=bl&ots=DGSX0Cz0dB&sig=ACfU3U2jylbFFZEScWxPZ5Cy9Nir_pW2-Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn7IKgx7zvAhVkoosKHWW1BBI4ChDoATAGegQIBRAD#v=onepage&q=Reverend henry Cotes&f=false

Thanks Eggy! I think you're right! I never thought about a blackbird I've always assumed that blackbirds are always black - as the name implies. This is the only colour I've ever seen. Now I've had a look at them in my bird book and the adult female is described as 'olive grey' on the back and red/brown on the breast. It seems one is never too old to learn!

My research has only ever come across a couple of local newspapers which can be accessed through the Northumberland Archives. Unfortunately none of them go back as far as 1835. Blyth and Wansbeck Telegraph and East Northumberland Advertiser 1894 Blyth Examiner 1888 Morpeth Herald 1854 They also have the Newcastle Courant from 1828 but it seems a bit far away for a Bedlington person. It's worth remembering that your average Joe Bloggs didn't often have a newspaper obituary way back then. That was something reserved for the more affluent who could afford it.

Jammy and Eggy, you seem to know quite a lot about birds (of the feathered variety). Have you any ideas about what this might be? There's a pair of them here for a few days now but they don't seem to get along very well as the one is constantly chasing the other away. These are the best photos I've been able to get and they aren't the best. Both birds have a reddish brown breast but their back seems to have a strange greenish tint. Brown eyes and orange beak and about the size of a large thrush.

Sorry! I forgot to post the address: General records Office (GRO), Southport (for BMD certs): https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/