Canny lass

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?

Answers to last week's quiz: 1. Prunella Scales 2. Vauxhall Cavalier 3. Space Shuttle 4. Tower of London 5. Hydrogen 6. Diana Dors 7. 1960 8. Boeing 747 9. True 10. Stethoscope 11. Little John 12. Right New quiz in the making for posting tomorrow.

I hope that's because your good lady never buys frozen, bottled, processed or pre-cooked veg.

Same problem persisting on other sites. Andy, thanks for this link. It's a massive document and will probably take time to read all the parts that are relevant to me but it's not too difficult to understand - even for me. I've already learned that I need to improve my passwords and there are some good tips for doing so. I'd advise everyone to read it - or at least those parts that apply to just them personally.

Got it! I think ... Should it be;

That one might take even longer!

Friday Night Quiz ( but it's OK to participate any time of the day or night .. and the day is flexible as well). 1. Which actress played Basil Fawlty’s wife in Fawlty Towers? 2. Which model replaced the Vauxhall Victor in 1975? 3. What name is given to a reusable spacecraft such as Columbia or Challenger? 4. Prior to 1810 where in London was all British coinage made? 5. Which element has the atomic number 1? 6. Born with the surname Fluck, which popular British actress died in 1984? 7. In what year was Princess Margaret married? 8. What type of aircraft crashed over Lockerbie? 9. Sb is the symbol for Antimony. True or false? 10. Which medical device was invented by Dr Rene Laennec to preserve the modesty of female patients? 11. Who was the tallest of Robin Hood’s men? 12. With which hand does Def Leppard’s drummer, Rick Allen play the drums? I’ll bet you didn’t know …. Lettuce is the only vegetable that is not sold frozen, bottled, processed or pre-cooked. Answers on Thursday next week.

If you only knew just how much time I've spent trying to solve that rebus!😠

I'm afraid I spoke too soon! It's logged me out again and asked if I want my password saved again when I logged in!!

Yippee!!!! Success. It didn't log me out this time. Let's hope it continues. Now I'll try some other log-ins elsewhere. Thanks for all your patience and help guys!

Same problems until 5 minutes ago when I got a notification from Bedlington.com.uk regarding another account with the same email as my google account and asking me to link them. Done! and now seems to be working fine on this site. I'll just switch off and switch on again to see if it continues. No. I was logged out and had to sign in again. I've saved my password AGAIN on request and will see what happens next. Grandson coming on Sunday to have a look at the problem.

... but it's close, so I'll let you have a point.

Answers to last week's quiz: 1. Hades, sometimes called Pluto 2. Captain Sensible 3. Ozzy Osborne 4. Spandau 5. Green 6. Krone 7. Canadian 8. The Bible 9. Asia 10. Low gas pressures 11. One 12. Sapodilla New quiz tomorrow!

The ostrich I understand - but the Under 15s Football Team?????? Where do they fit into the rebus?

Today another pop-up appeared: We need to fix your Microsoft-account (your password has presumably been changed). Click here to fix it in Settings for Shared experiences. (my translation). Could this have anything to do with it?