paul mann

Anybody who wants to check out my new book can download it free on Kindle today till midnight. It's called Dirty Hit and as the title suggests it's dark and dirty and a good 4 to 5 hour read. Those who want to check out all my books can visit my website at pauljmann.com http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Hit-Splatter-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00DIAAKRW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372080483&sr=1-1&keywords=Dirty+Hit

According to Wikipedia Mona Taylor was the wife of Thomas Taylor, a local benefactor who built retirement homes at Wansbeck.

And Carricks the Cake Shop at the Bottom End.

It used to smell of tabs and piddle.

Old lino, especially from the kitchen, burned really well.

Correct. Well done. Like the cyclepath. We used to find bits of rope that had been tarred at the end to keep them from fraying and you could light it and it would smoulder forever.

We can mind what monkey's blood, frog spit and tarry toot were?

Pure 'bowke' Luvly word. Forgot aboot the spuggies peckin' through the milk tops. Little buggers.

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

Can anybody mind when the milkman would deliver milk wi' different coloured bottle tops? Silver for a pint, I think, or mebbe a haff pint. Because there were gold and green tops too - and ones for orange juice bottles an' all. Some kids used to thread them on strings. I mind in the winter when it was cold and the frozzin cream in the bottle would push the cap up and you could tek it oot an eat it like an ice cream.

The memorial to the murdered policemen is very moving.

Shame. I remember when there was a Midland and a Lloyds. Think there was a Barclays too.

When I used to knock around Bedlington with a few mates from Westridge we knew how to amuse ourselves. Knowing how to hockle well was a talent worth cultivating. Harry Wilson was the undisputed master. He knew how to howk up a pellet of phlegm, shape it to give it just the right heft and aerodynamics and propel it over an amazingly long distance with impressive accuracy. Once lying around on the grass at the tennis courts behind Holymount Square I saw him, from a sitting position, his back against the high chain link fence around the tennis courts, unleash a spectacular hockle straight up into the air and backwards over the fence onto the tennis court. We knew how to have a good time.

I wondered if somebody had meant panackelty when they said pan haggerty, because we used to have that. But never heard of pan haggerty growing up.

There's a chip shop in Brooklyn, New York, says it's the only real British chip shop this side of the pond. http://www.chipshopn...s/atlantic-menu It features something called Northumberland Pan Haggerty, which I've never heard of. Has anybody else?

I remember Muter's, the local pop shop. Used to get four bottles delivered te the hoose every Friday. Lemonade, Limeafe, Dandelion and Burdock and Cream Soda.

Clay pipes - fantastic!

Wee can mind the barbershop at the Top End? Run by two mental brothers, I think. Used to sell baccy, blobs and clay pipes. The ahd gadgies would sit ootside on a bench and smoke tha clay pipes. Wor generation was probably the last te see clay pipes in common use.

I remember my grannie on my dad's side saying she and other wives went down to the railway station in Ashington to meet their lads off the train during the First World War. They'd been given a few days' leave from the Front and they'd marched straight from the trenches to the railhead in Flanders, boarded, put on a cross channel steamer, then up home in the same rail cars. She said they arrived in a dreadful state still covered in mud and from the trenches and all of them lousy, exhausted and famished. They had a few days rest and some decent grub while the wives washed their claes and keks so the army saved some money on food and laundry. Then it was down to the railway station and back to the Front. My grandfather had a shiny piece of shrapnel that looked like a lizard. It buggered his leg when the shell went off and wounded him bad enough to be invalided back to Blighty for recuperation. He kept it a souvenir because it saved his life.

Tha's even a name for the red mottled marks wimmin would get on tha bare elegs - erythema abigne, known as toasted skin syndrome.

An soot was good fo' keepin' slugs an' snails oot the garden.

I can remember the coal being delivered to our house at West Lea loose and by the lorry load. Ye had te shul it in the barra and wheel it up the back te the coal hoose. Me dad was a polis so we had te buy wors. The miners on the estate got a free ton o' coal ivery month ah think. Tha'd be these piles o' coal shinin' in the sun in front o' different hooses on the estate.

Startin the fire wi turps - that's classic!

Ahreet then, wee can mind when the bleeza was full o' holes so ye had te use a double page from The News Of The World to bleeze the fire?

They had fun bills in those days - seven or eight acts, some of whom you never saw again. The top act played maybe 40 minutes.