Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)

Canny Lass - another one to show the grandchildren what life was like, before your time, in Netherton

Posted by Graeme Ogle in Bygone Bedlington :- 

and a couple of comments posted with it were~:-

Graeme Ogle Something to do with the miners strike

 

Graeme Ogle I was young but I remember going to my Uncle Ernies and Aunty Dollys they lived at the end of one of the streets, do those names ring any bells

Eggy, some of those old photographs can have a great resolution, have a look at this Shorpy site, I get a lot of Model T pictures from there, you can blow them up and see tremendous detail. The cameras used big plates and lonnnnng exposure!

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/20254

It's just me Vic - Shorpy = good pics, hadn't seen that site before. 

Now we just need names for this lot :-

Barrington CP c1920

Barrington CP Class n 1954 

Barrington CP Class 6 1955

Posted in Bygone Bedlington as Barrington School c1920. I know with most digital imaging packages the photos can be made 'black and white' &  'sharpened' from 'antique' images but this photo just doesn't look right to me. I'm probably just being too sceptical of an extremely clear image from a bygone era!

Previous posting of a 1930 Barrington School photo

First time I've seen one of these - Northumberland News - Autum 2015 - from Norhumberland Labour Group, Blyth delivered through our door yesterday.

Headings within the two pages are :-

Free at last (car parking and council telephone number across the county) 

It's a CAPITAL PLAN (construction boom in Northumberland as council tackles years of underinvestment)

Labour welcomes 'new beginning for Bedlington' as LIDL annouce multi million investment in new store - apparently there are over 100 'likes' on local councillor Alison Wallace's Facebook page following the post she made - I can't find one with that loads have 'liked'

Dr Pitt Park secures green flag thumbs up 

AND

Moves afoot to develop old Bedlington school site :-

I thought here we go again, but at least this season I expect to get something out of this derby fixture, the Mackem's are definitely worse than us.

Bloody sods law.

Put the lottery on Malcolm, you can't lose!.

Still open - 5 of us went today - all enjoyed all the home cooked food - even Mrs Eats (a non meat eater) commented on how fresh the veg was. Only place I have ever been asked - Do you want chips or veg with your bangers & mash?

 

And if you got kids just out the pub door and across the bridge used to be an excellent place for conkers. If I had of been fit I would have gone that 50 yards to the river wansbeck and collected some conkers for Canny Lass.

Forgot to say - It's a country pub, with two dogs, and customers dogs are allowed in.

However the two people who rode up to the pub on horses had to sit outside with their pints, and horses - don't know if there is a place for tying a horse to.

Anybody got any idea how long I should let my conkers soak in vinegar? The grandchildren are nagging me to get on with the competitions.

Never a defined period for conker hardening via soaking in vinegar so I would say soak for a couple of days and then allow to dry out. If you haven't drilled a hole in, for the string, before soaking then don't even no if the vinegar would soak through to the nut.. If you have drilled hole then I guess the drying out of the nut.

According to  http://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/html/conkers_about.html in the section 'All about conkers' one of the weirdest methods of hardening is :- 

"There are many underhanded ways of making your conker harder. The best is to pass it through a pig. The conker will harden by soaking in its stomach juices. Then you search through the pig's waste to find the conker.â€

No photos of this method.

Jp Brewis of John,s Car Parts (was the Bed. Station Post Office) posted this aerial photo of his shop & the YMCA grounds with the date of c1973.

Still open - 5 of us went today - all enjoyed all the home cooked food - even Mrs Eats (a non meat eater) commented on how fresh the veg was. Only place I have ever been asked - Do you want chips or veg with your bangers & mash?

And if you got kids just out the pub door and across the bridge used to be an excellent place for conkers. If I had of been fit I would have gone that 50 yards to the river wansbeck and collected some conkers for Canny Lass.

Monday 12th October 2015 - the 50th World Conker Championships were held in Southwick, Northhamptonshire, a village in Northamptonshire, where spectators watch competitors from 10 countries do battle with a nut and a 12in piece of string

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/oct/12/50th-world-conker-championships-ashton-conker-club-southwick-in-pictures

We would steep in vinegar, for as long as the smell could be tolerated. Even those in the weshoose weren't allowed to stink it oot too long.

If no vinegar available, one had had ones chips, then it was the airing cupboard. We always worked on the theory that you shouldn't let them dry out too much as the inners would shrink and the outer shell would therefore have no support and crack easily when whacked by the opposing conker.

In the 60's one of the hobbies was model making with plaster of paris and often heard of kids boring a 1/4" hole in the top of the conker; scooping out the innards; make a small hole for the string/shoe lace/leather strip.... in the bottom of the conker; feed the string through and knot the end of the string on the bottom and then filling with plaster of paris. Rub brown shoe polish onto the exposed plaster of paris to camouflage it.

Our rules were - toss a coin to see who went first to belt the opponents conker - whoever lost had to hold his arm out straight, conker dangling from it's string from his hand - each player carried on swinging until he missed the dangling conker and then they switched roles. 

If any one of the conkers, dangler or basher, came off it's string then the other was deemed the winner and the winning conker was awarded a point to be added to the number it had already smashed. So after win number one your conker was a 'oneser', then twoser et.seq.

There were always arguments over conkers that had not smashed to bits but were just come off their string. Was it classed as a defeat or were they allowed to re-string the conker and continue the fight = local rules apply.

Another debate would be over how many wins were attributed to a winning conker. If a sixer beat a fiveser then did it become a sevener or were the two totalls added and the winner became a twelveser = local rules again apply.

Just for fun I Google the subject and the method of hardening from a 212evser was :-

 THE ONLY way to actually harden conkers, despite what many people say, is to store them in a cool, dry place for at least one year. It is best to store about twenty or more in a shoebox in a garage. Many of the conkers will go mouldy and the insides will become full of a green dusty substance, but one should survive. In play it is normal that the shell will break off - this is because the inside will have dried out and shrunk. Do not worry if this happens, as it is the inside that is the strongest. It is also helpful to have a good quality string. This should be an old shoelace, preferably a round one, with a small amount of give to absorb the shock. With your now invincible conker you will be able to defeat the unbeatables: the "oven-baked", the "vinager-soaked" and any other strange methods that your friends may come up with. Be prepared to destroy everyone else's conkers! N.B. It may be advisable to make holes in your conkers before storing them, as it will be extremely difficult to drill through your Super-Conker.

Two more Netherton, and 1 Nedderton, for Canny Lass, said to be early 1950s -  

Netherton Colliery School

Netherton Colliery School2

Nedderton village school

Photos posted on Bygone Bedlington by Andrea Warner.

Threegee - can these 2 photos of the old Naval Club be added to the album 'Netherton/Nedderton old photos' created by Carole?

I can only confirm your memories. I remember the building. Never went, we just used to pass it coming through that cut from Steadlane past the Ambulance station, on the left. My memory has the 'Youth Club' building on the right hand side just before you came out of the cut onto Millbank.

http://bit.ly/1OwX4EG

Here's another one for Eggs 

 

OB.jpg

I did not work out from the partial photo where this photo was taken - onky ever knew a Traveller's Rest pub at Scotland Gate but now I know there used to be one at the Top End :-

Here's another one for Eggs 

 

OB.jpg

Don't recognize the name or any features in the photo Foxy. The sign on the building to the left says Traveller's Rest and the only Traveller's rest pub I know of, or in Reedy's dads list is the one at Scotland Gate.

I have never heard of Millbank House. Can someone enlighten me please?

Millbank - the identification of Millbank House, by Ovalteeny, was the first I had heard of it. Remember Millbank Road & Millbank Place, still there of course, what we used to pass to get to me granny's in Beatty Road but got no history on Millbank House. 

Aye Eggy, well done you had us all wondering when you knew all along.

Guess you bought or sold the postcard

Not me Maggie - see previous posts by Ovalteeny & Bayardm.

Thank you all - to keep it simple 1) the photo was taken from the west of the Bedlington Bank, between Atlee Park and Millfield - 2) Bedlington bank & Furnace bank are not in the photo and 3) the building on the skyline of the photo is Millbank House(just East of Beatty Road).

Screen shot

 

The red circle is where I think the photo was taken from, the other 2 red shapes are the 2 houses in the shot.

Cheers Ovalteeny & Bayardm - my eyes were focused on the Bedlington Bank, Millfield, Mill Farm & Bank Cottage. So focused I had forgot about the Millbank estate!

Ovalteeny - I'll update the Cambois lot. 

It looks as if the photo was taken, looking north, from the small field at the bottom of Bedlington bank where they used to have whippet racing, and which was crossed by the trellis bridge and access road during the opencast years.

Bayardm - I am now thinking that if this is Bedlington, and The Bedlington Bank in the top right, then the photo would have to be taken from somewhere down Church lane, on the way to Humford. Had another look at the river Blyth, via Google maps and there is another turn in the river that could fit in with the photo. That would also put your theory of the house at the top as part of the Bedlington Mill buildings. However when you look at the OS maps in the communities.northumberland.gov.uk site they all show a Bank Cottage, on the right side of the bank as you would drive up it, and I can't make out a building, on the right, in the original photo.

My current thoughts using the images available are:- 

Absolutely Deja Vu, all over again.

But it's not all bad news for me.

I just thank my lucky stars that I had Sergio Aguero as captain in my Fantasy Football team. 

I dropped Aguero from my Fantasy Premier League team as they had him down as only 70% likely to play! Thought they would rest him as no matter what team they turned out we would get thumped. Dropped over 400,000 places after this weeks results! 

This postcard has just been sold on ebay :-

 

£0.75 Standard Delivery

 

 

Initial thought was the photo was taken from west side of the Bedlington bank from the outskirts of what is know the Millfield estate. Being an Oval lad that very rarely ventured through the woods along the river bank up to Atlee Park I can't recall any twist and turns in the river, down our end, until just before the Bedlington Bank bridge. So although it would appear it's looking East from the Millfield area the road in the top, approx middle, of the photo would therefore be the Furnace Bank - Bank Top. However the buildings in the photo at the top of the bank don't fit in (in my mind) with other photos of Puddlers row- River View - Bank Top Hotel etc. I remember there was a  cottage/house that was in the woods as you walked along the path from the Free side bandstand area up to Beatty Road but the one in this photo, again to me, doesn't fit. It could just be the perspective of the photo and there is nothing showing at the top of the bank and the buildings are closer to what are now Know Road-Dene View West & East.

 

 

Anyone any thoughts on this photo and could positively identify something that would prove it was Bedlingto Free & Hapenny woods from Atlee Park - Millfield area?