Canny lass

Point of clarity: This statement refers to the average human brain and does not, therefore, include the brains of several politicians.

Answers to last week's quiz: 1. Massachusetts 2. Orion 3. John Merrick 4. Baritone 5. Nine 6. UB40 7. Belmopan 8. Cornwall 9. Urdu 10. Parakeet 11. Australia 12. Gopher New quiz tomorrow.

It took me a minute or two ut the penny eventually dropped! hahahaha!

Sorry, Walsham Wonderer! I should have said "Charles, I believe" not John. I was looking at the wrong line of the census form.

Hello Walsham wanderer and welcome to the forum! One way to move forward in your research would be to obtain a birth certificate for either Julia or Charles. There you will find both the occupation of the father, John I believe, and more importantly the family's address at the time. It wasn't uncommon for farm workers at that time to be 'contracted' för X number of months with housing provided. Once the harvest was safely in the contract ended and the worker was free/forced to find another contract. Once you have an address I may be able to help you further. BTW Is there any chance that Charles has been married twice?

Welcome to my birthday world, Vic!

Happy Birthday, young man! I hope the Corona restrictions aren't getting in the way of any celebrations!

Get your thinking caps on. Here's this week's quiz: 1. According to the Bee Gees where did all the lights go down? 2. In which constellation is Rigel the brightest star? 3. What was The Elephant Man’s real name ? 4. Which adult male singing voice is lower than tenor and higher than bass? 5. How many players are there in a baseball team? 6. Which pop group derived their name from an unemployment benefit form? 7. What is the capital of Belize? 8. Prince Charles is Duke of which English county? 9. What is the official language of Pakistan? 10. What type of bird is a budgerigar? 11. In 1930 which country did Amy Johnson fly to from England? 12. Which type of wood did Noah use to build his Ark? I’ll bet you didn’t know …. The average human brain uses as much electricity as a 10-watt electric light bulb. Answers on Thursday next week.

Ten minutes left before my Thursday comes to an end! I thought I wasn't going to make it but here are the answers to last week's quiz: 1. Nirvana 2. Mozart 3. Scatterbrook 4. Big Daddy 5. Wilfred Pickles 6. Jerusalem 7. Ambrosia 8. Blackburn 9. An apple 10. Parish 11. Cambridge University 12. Orange New quiz tomorrow,

Time to get those grey cells ticking over! 1. What is the supreme goal of Buddhists? 2. Who composed the tune to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? 3. On which farm did Worzel Gummidge live? 4. By what name was the popular wrestler Shirley Crabtree better known? 5. Who hosted the radio quiz show Have a Go? 6. In which Middle Eastern city is the Dome of the Rock? 7. In Greek mythology what did the gods eat? 8. What was Barbara Castle’s home constituency? 9. What is a Laxton Superb? 10. What is the Church of England’s smallest administrative unit? 11. At which university did Prince Charles study? 12. What is the usual colour of the flight recorder in a modern aircraft? I’ll bet you didn’t know …. The desert rat can have sex as many as 122 times per hour. Answers on Thursday next week.

Answers to last week's quiz: 1. Four 2. France 3. A water beetle 4. Everly Brothers 5. England and France 6. Cherries 7. Standing jumps 8. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar 9. George Orwell 10. Existence 11. Toto 12. Hair New quiz tomorrow.

It's late but it's still Friday so here is this week's quiz: 1. How many sides has a parallelogram? 2. Which country won the 1998 World Cup? 3. What sort of creature is a Whirligig? 4. Which US duo asked us to Walk Right Back in 1961? 5. Which two nations fought at the Battle of Agincourt? 6. From which fruit is the spirit Kirsch made? 7. In which discontinued event did Ray Ewry win his ten Olympic gold medals? 8. Which dictator ruled Portugal from 1932 to 1968? 9. Who wrote the novels Animal farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four? 10. Which word is spelled correctly: existence or existance? 11. What is the name of the dog in The Wizard of Oz? 12. Which part of your body would suffer from trichosis? I’ll bet you didn’t know …. The Spanish word ‘esposa’ means both ‘wife’ and ‘handcuffs’. English gets the equivalent word ‘spouse’ from the same Latin source. Answers on Thursday next wek.

Answers to last week's quiz: 1. The Cheviot Hills 2. Chicken 3. Lacrosse 4. Pontefract 5. John Galsworthy 6. Lord Nelson 7. Capuchin monkey 8. Lawyer 9. Kenny Dalglish 10. Crust 11. Clock 12. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation New quiz tomorrow.

Are you sure this is not the old pit-heap?

Regular, organized (and not so organized) events on the frozen lakes here as well. all of which are well attended. Most lakes clear a patch for amateur ice-hockey, driving schools and the police organize lessons for skid control for any driver who feels the need and most popular of all is stock car racing - sometimes dangerously close to the ice-hockey area, in my opinion. Then there's wind surfing, ice-skating (of the long distance type rather than the dancing type) when you can take yourself out to small islands with a picnic. I tend to keep myself near the edge as water below 13c degrees should not be allowed to come above the knees if the ice should break.

That's very popular here as well though I've never seen any huts or tents. Kit usually consists of nothing more than a small camping stool and a thermos of coffee (at least they say it only contains coffee) together with the rod and bait. Is the fishing done with a small 9-12 inch rod, Vic, like this one? If so what is the English name for it?

Haha! That brought back memories! I loved the Benny Hill shows on TV. I must have a look on Youtube and see if I can find any of them.

About -20 here until last week then up to -10 but more snow. It's been hard work this week. We also have a big problem with drifting living on a hill where the wind swirls the snow around quite a lot. The one flat roof on the premises began to sag so it was one on the roof throwing it down and one shovelling at ground level. My shoulders were beggared after a couple of hours as it was too wet and heavy for the blower. It's definitely getting a new roof this summer - of the pointed variety!

... but the vegetables were wonderful!

It'll have to be a Saturday morning quiz this week! A crisis with snow on the roof didn't leave much time for anything yesterday. 1. Which range of hills stands on the border between England and Scotland? 2. If you ordered pollo in an Italian restaurant what would you get? 3. Which team game has the positions first defence, in home and second attack? 4. In the castle of which West Yorkshire market town was Richard II murdered? 5. Who wrote The Forsyte Saga? 6. A musket ball fired from the French ship Redoubtable killed which famous Englishman? 7. What type of monkey is used as an organ grinder’s monkey? 8. What was Hilary Clinton’s job prior to entering politics? 9. Which former player tried to buy Celtic football club in 1998? 10. What is the name of the earth’s outer layer? 11. In Cockney rhyming slang what is meant by ‘dickory dock’? 12. What does the acronym UNESCO stand for? I’ll bet you didn’t know …. Two million pigs are used in the manufacture of Spam each year. We're xpecting a huge thaw this week so hopefully things are back to normal by next Friday. Answers on Thursday next week.

You've got a goodun there!

Hello Diana, welcome to the forum! I’m quite certain that 1st Colliery Row, Bedlington Colliery is undoubtedly one of the rows belonging to Bedlington A pit, that is the pit at Sleekburn and not the pit at the top end of Bedlington. I had a look at the 1861 census and it covers only that area. To be really sure, I’ve compared it with the 1851 census which covers the same area and your relatives are still there. However, in 1851 the streets have no names. The rows are simply called ‘Bedlington Colliery’. This was quite common practice and the rows changed their names several times throughout history – presumably as the postal system developed. First-, Second- and Third Row, etc were extremely common names all over the area. Even the neighbouring Barrington Colliery had these names. Following the census through the years you can see that 1st Colliery Row became North Row (it has much fewer houses than the seemingly later 2nd Colliery Row with double so many). 2nd Colliery Row seems to have later became South Row. Here is a map from 1896 where you can see the rows in more detail and I can use it to answer your question about sanitation and gardens. I’m not as good as Eggy when it comes to making additions to these maps but I hope you’ll be able to see what I mean. The houses would undoubtedly have had outside toilets of earth closet type and across the road (dirt track) from the back door of the house (yellow) and these can be seen on the map marked in red. I’ve marked the gardens in blue. Because of the close proximity of the railway sidings there wasn’t room for a garden behind the toilet which was the usual in this type of housing. The contents were emptied, by the owner, through a small door at the rear of the toilet and used as fertilizer in the gardens. Gardens were generally speaking large and bursting with vegetables but with some flowers. I have seen this in reality in other mining communities as late as the 1950s. This can be seen in 2nd Colliery Row on the map. If you look closely at 1st Row there is some sort of building adjoining the garden. The garden and the building may be a later addition to bring the houses up to the standard of the later 2nd Row. If you zoom in on the first photo posted by Eggy in reply to your query you can just make out the roofs of these toilets (built two by two) in both South Row and North Row. As for ‘night-life’ in Sleekburn there was no shortage of pubs in the immediate vicinity. Here you can see the Percy Arms (red), The Clayton Arms (Blue) and the Railway Tavern in Green. I don’t know if these are the original names. You’d need to search the census for that side of the road. And, of course, the Rose and Crown was only a five minute walk away.

I think they were still there in the very early sixties. I remmeber attending the funeral of a YMCA member - young lad by the name of Routledge (Pete would probably know better). He lived there.

In the late fifties - early sixties, the nearest library was at Bedlington Station. I'm pretty sure of this because pupils at Westridge School were given - if they wished to participate - the chance to earn house-points during the summer holiday by completing as many questions as they could in a general knowledge quiz set by the teachers and covering various subjects. A good friend of mine from a family with limited means (father deceased) was given by the school, at the start of the holiday, 3 return tickets for Raisbecks bus from Netherton to Bedlington Station in order to be able to use the reference library. We always travelled and worked together on our questionnaires. If there had been a library at Bedlington surely she would have got a ticket to Bedlington?