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

Who was Mona Taylor?

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.

Just a supplementary thought about tarly toot. One of the reasons why there was so much lino available back then for bonfires was the increasing popularity of fitted carpets in the 60s. The old, ubiquitous, and cheap lino was being ripped-up and being replaced by fashionable shag-pile. The lino was so easy to tear into 12" squares for easy chucking onto the fire ... often followed by lumps of asbestos*.

I remember in the 50s my Mum & Dad painting the wooden floorboards with a 16" strip around the edges of the room then the unpainted centre section would have lino or often a home-made carpet. My Dad had a carpet-making frame and made rugs; he even made a stair carpet once. I remember going with my parents to a huge wool store in Byker to regularly pick-up wool supplies which was sold in gigantic hanks which once we got home had to be rolled into balls for convenience. Anybody now living in an old house will often discover those painted edges around rooms as it must have been a very common practice.

I also remember my Granny telling us to go a breath the tar fumes when the 'road men' were repairing the road - she said the fumes were "good for our chests".

*exploding asbestos on bonfires has featured in previous posts here.

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

Tarly Toot = oil cloth/lino (the original lino was patterned, bitumen impregrated linen used for floor covering). It fell out of favour when vinyl floor covering emerged but has gone through something of a recent renaissance in posh interior design.

Frog Spit = the froth produced by the nymph of the froghopper (Cercopoidea). This froth hides, insulates and keeps moist the nymph.

Monkeys' Blood = the raspberry flavoured dribble Mr Whippy squirted over your ice cream cornet.

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?

Maggie,

Do you mind if I use that picture of the bottle? Plus what's Invalid Stout? Maybe ginger beer or sarsaparilla?

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.

Hope these come out!

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.

I remember when you used to huddle round the fire as you were frozen down the back of you. You ran into the next room and ran back it was so cold no central heating, and all the women had mottled legs with being that close to the open fire. Those were the days.

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

The worst experience we ever had was when a brick worked loose in the chimney. (It might have been the chimney sweep's brush that did it.) Anyway, every time we lit the fire a bank of smoke would billow back into the room so we couldn't have a fire on - and it was in the middle of winter. The council workman turned up the next day and said he wasn't allowed to go on the roof on his own - carrying bucket of cement, trowel etc etc. I told him in no uncertain terms that we were'nt going another night without a fire, so he bent the rules and allowed me to go on the roof with him. The term brass monkeys applies. We got the work done and had a fire on that night. BUT - I would never never never never have a coal fire again. All the heat went up the chimney and you had to be sitting practically on it before you could get warm. Me and my bro argue about this - he would have one tomorrow.

But anyway, back to chimney sweeps, can you remember them burying the soot in the garden!!! You would be putting plants in the next month and hit a soot spot.

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

During nearly 40 years living in London I wasn't allowed to burn real coal fires due to the London Clean Air Act even though some of the houses I lived in retained the fireplaces. The place I now live in allows coal burning and as a result I light one every evening - it's all very satisfying and brings back those memories of being a kid.

I've got a coal man who delivers bags of Black Diamond coal in big sacks humped on his back from the lorry just lke the old days ... sadly not the hessian jobbies of old but polypropylene ones. Crumpled newspaper, sticks, coal and a paper bleezer, but you're right about the size issue ... only Mrs Symptom's Sunday Times is the correct 'old' size; I've been meaning to get a lump of steel sheet to make a bleezer since I moved here but haven't got around to it yet so the flaming bleezer usually goes up the chimney.

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.

Keith, that brings back some memories, the claise horse and the burns in the carpet in front of the fire, still it protected the oil cloth

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.