Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)

Champion🙂

QVC - I don't have any info that your require. All I have is photos, with some basic info, posted in one of the Gallery albums = 'Local Football 2'. This is a direct link to that album that has 42 photos of local teams and includes a few of West Sleekburn Welfare :- There is one member who has fully researched The Bedlington Mechanics team and may have come across some info that might help you. That member is @Ovalteenyand I have 'Tagged' him via the '@ + name' method

Now you have me thinking Vic - how we did our paste eggs? My memory says our mam would boil the ones to be used for japping with the brown outer skins of onions making the egg shell stain a patchy brown. On half of the eggs to be boiled for japping my dad was allowed to put designs on them by using a candle. He would draw out a pattern, with the candle, on the egg shell and the egg would then be wrapped with the onion skins, secured onto the egg with cord/twine, and then the egg boiled. When the onion skins were removed, after boiling, the wax from the candle had protected the onion skins from staining the pattern that had been drawn with the candle. We all had one hardboiled egg to paint = competition and the winners egg was kept on display for months, or until one of the loosing children accidently😇 knocked the winning egg over and cracked the shell. Being the youngest of the 3 lads my head was a place where the other two would crack open a hard boiled egg😬

No chance - our choclate in the 1950's was Co-op or 'Stop Shop With Pop' mobile van Clouston☺️

Thanks for that CL - I will pass on your thinking and research to John. It will be awhile before John gets back to work and gets a chance to do some research at his place of work - Woodhorn Museum temporarily closed because of Covid- but hopefully he will remember to update me on his findings. I promise, when the world gets back to normal, I won't drop any more research, of this nature, on to you - I'll stick to gardening questions.☺️

1. William the Conqueror ordered the compilation of which historical log? Answer = 2. What is the Medieval Latin name for Wales? Answer = Cambria 3. What type of animal lives in a holt? Answer = Otter 4. Why was the coronation of Edward VII delayed for six weeks? Answer = Abdominal abscess 5. When Ronald Reagan was President who was his vice president? Answer = 6. What is David Frost’s middle name? Answer = 7. What binding medium is used in gouache painting? Answer = 8. Which king married and divorced an Englishwoman name Toni Gardiner? Answer = 9. Which ingredient, vital to choux pastry is missing from puff pastry? Answer = 10. Which German motor car manufacturer produced the first motorcycle by fixing an engine to a frame in 1885? Answer = 11. Who wrote Watership Down? Answer = 12. Who had a dog called Gnasher? Answer = I’ll bet you didn’t know …. Tutankhamen’s coffin weighs 2 450 lb. Answer = I did.

CL - the Durham Mining Museum site has a section - Mining occupations in alphabetical order :- http://www.dmm.org.uk/educate/mineocc.htm What I don't know is if the profession 'Charge Man' refers to the same as 'Chargeman' as list on the DMM. I don't know if there is also a connection to the miner in charge of the 'Shot Box' as shown, and briefly described, in James's photo in the Dr Pit & Roes album. I'm sure @James or @HIGH PIT WILMA will fully ex[plain Chargeman 1894: Person in charge Chargeman tunneller 1894: Foreman in charge of men driving a tunnel Hewers 1825: persons that hew or cut the coal from its natural situation. 1849: A man who works coals. His age ranges from 21 to 70. His usual wages (1849) are from 3s. 9d. to 4s. 3d. per day of 8 hours working, and his average employment 4 or 5 days in the week. He also has, as part of his wages, a house containing two or three rooms, according to the number in his family, and a garden, of which the average size may be 6 or 8 perches ; also a fother of small coals each fortnight, for the leading of which he pays sixpence. 1892: The hewer is the actual coal-digger. Whether the seam be so thin that he can hardly creep into it on hands and knees, or whether it be thick enough for him to stand upright, he is the responsible workman who loosens the coal from the bed. The hewers are divided into "fore-shift" and "back-shift" men. The former usually work from four in the morning till ten, and the latter from ten till four. Each man works one week in the fore-shift and one week in the back-shift, alternately. Every man in the fore-shift marks "3" on his door. This is the sign for the "caller" to wake him at that hour. When roused by that important functionary he gets up and dresses in his pit clothes, which consist of a loose jacket, vest, and knee breeches, all made of thick white flannel; long stockings, strong shoes, and a close fitting, thick leather cap. He then takes a piece of bread and water, or a cup of coffee, but never a full meal. Many prefer to go to work fasting. With a tin bottle full of cold water or tea, a piece of bread, which is called his bait, his Davy lamp, and "baccy-box," he says good-bye to his wife and speeds off to work. Placing himself in the cage, he is lowered to the bottom of the shaft, where he lights his lamp and proceeds "in by," to a place appointed to meet the deputy. This official examines each man's lamp, and, if found safe, returns it locked to the owner. Each man then finding from the deputy that his place is right, proceeds onwards to his cavel†, his picks in one hand, and his lamp in the other. He travels thus a distance varying from 100 to 600 yards. Sometimes the roof under which he has to pass is not more than three feet high. To progress in this space the feet are kept wide apart, the body is bent at right angles with the hips, the head is held well down, and the face is turned forward. Arrived at his place he undresses and begins by hewing out about fifteen inches of the lower part of the coal. He thus undermines it, and the process is called kirving. The same is done up the sides. This is called nicking. The coal thus hewn is called small coal, and that remaining between the kirve and the nicks is the jud or top, which is either displaced by driving in wedges, or is blasted down with gunpowder. It then becomes the roundy. The hewer fills his tubs, and continues thus alternately hewing and filling.

@Canny lass - John Krzyzanowski posted on the Facebook group - Bygone Bedlington - was this comment :- 'Typing a list for work and came across somewhere I hadn't heard of before. It's a lease from 1739 for "Honey Sack Farm" Bedlington. Does it still exist or has anyone heard of it before. Unfortunately I can't look at the document as we are working from home. The document is part of the Ridley collection.' --------------- I know the year 1739 well before the first UK census but has the name 'Honey Sack Farm', in Bedlington, ever jumped out, and stuck with you, during your searches of the census records?

1. What would you keep in a cresset? Answer = anything flammable 2. In which English county is Charnwood Forest? Answer = 3. What do we call a boat with an oval, wickerwork frame covered with a leather skin? Answer = 4. On which horse did Fred Winter win the Grand National in 1957? Answer = 5. Which footballer made a record with Lindisfarne? Answer = 6. How many children does Donald Duck have? Answer = 7. Who said “it’s not the men in my life that counts – it’s the life in my men? Answer = 8. Who, in 1907, was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit? Answer = 9. Which metal is extracted from sphalerite? Answer = Zinc 10. What was Charles Conrad the third person to do, in 1969? Answer = 11. Which member of the royal family abseiled down a dam without a safety helmet in 1998? Answer = 12. What make and model of car was James Dean driving when he crashed and died in 1955? Answer = I’ll bet you didn’t know …. The table fork was introduced to England by Thomas Coryat in 1608 Answer I didn’t

@Walsham Wonderer - whereas Facebook's default used to be for notifications to be automatic this groups default is the opposite so you have to set it up - @Andy Millne will put me right if I'm wrong😇 If you select the bell shape - top right hand corner next to your user Id - you can set notifications to be sent when other members select the 'Quote' (next to the + sign when you want to reply to anyone's comment. Once you have 'read and inwardly digested the info see if you can place which area of Bedlington your relatives may have worked and lived and hopefully we should be able to post photo(s) of the area, from the mid, or slightly earlier, but 20th century of the area they lived.

It's the remembering what I've been told that gets me☺️- I need pictures

I couldn't swear to it but I would say Blackbird - extract from Wikipedia = The adult male of the common blackbird (Turdus merula merula which is the nominate subspecies), which is found throughout most of Europe, is all black except for a yellow eye-ring and bill and has a rich, melodious song; the adult female and juvenile have mainly dark brown plumage. This species breeds in woods and gardens, building a neat, mud-lined, cup-shaped nest. It is omnivorous, eating a wide range of insects, earthworms, berries, and fruits. So that description doesn't fully match yours but my ageing eyes detect a 'yellow eye-ring' in two of your photos🧐

I just can't remember having seen a Yellowhammers egg. I know it's illegal now but in the late 1950's we spent most of the spring searching for nests, with eggs, all over the Bedlington area. Down the woods, across farmers fields searching the hedgerows. I suppose I should be pleased I never found one to add to the birds egg collection my brothers and I kept.

@Walsham Wonderer - some info on the Bedlington area and as you find out more about your family when they were in Bedlington we should have some photos of the colliery rows that we could add to these comments :- Bedlington had two mines – The Doctor Pit and Bedlington/Sleekburn ‘A’ Pit. When researching the Bedlington area, especially the coal mines, you will see that the town of Bedlington built its railway station next to the ‘A’ pit that opened in 1850 and the ‘A’ pit was next to the town of Sleekburn - West & East Sleekburn can still be seen on current maps. I do not know when the area name changed from Sleekburn to Bedlington Station but you can see that the people of Bedlington had to travel from Bedlington to Sleekburn to get to Bedlington’s railway station. So it’s more than likely that everyone said they were going to Bedlington station. When you find out the address of where your family was living in Bedlington we should be able to give you a bit more detail on the housing etc. in that area. So when I grew up in Bedlington in the mid 20th century everyone referred to the two areas of Bedlington as The Top End & The Station. This link to the ‘Disused Stations’ site has details good info + maps on the area of Sleekburn and the ‘A’ pit. I would be guessing that your relatives got to Bedlington via train – the Bedlington railway station was linked to the Newcastle Central Railway Station, to the South of Bedlington, and the Morpeth Railway Station to the North. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/bedlington/index.shtml This map is from the Disused stations site and it has the name Sleekburn but it doesn’t have a date. This 1859 map (not very clear) shows the railway line – Wagonway - between the two pits. There are no colliery houses marked on the map for the Doctor Pit area. The ‘A’ pit area has colliery houses and they were – South Row (2 terraces) – North Row and Shop Row. The pit rows for the Doctor pit are not on the 1866 map and first appear on the 1896 map. This is a compilation of the maps. There is a row marked as Old Colliery Row on an 1897 map but it was at the East End of the town and the Doctor pit was at the West End. James posted that this row, known as ‘The Aad Pit Raa’ was built in 1840.

Champion - I didn't know that - it's a few years since I sent off for a certificate. 😊👌