Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)

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. 😊👌

The images I posted above are from a site called Family_Search. They are a free site and handy for checking for old records. Using the info from that site I input the details for the two children, Julia and Charles into another free site = FreeBMD. The FreeBMD site is very basic but it uses volunteers to transcribe registration records, Births - Marriages & Deaths, onto their Database. So if you have any success searching on the FreeBMD site if gives you registration info so you can apply to the Registrars Office to obtain B,M & D certificates. I'm guessing you already know most of this.. The main problem with the FreeBMD site is that you only get a name + registration reference and you have to hope you have the right person when you apply to the Registrars Office for a copy of a certificate. they used to be £9.50 per certificate but don't know what the cost is now. The FreeBMD site is :- https://www.freebmd.org.uk/ I did a very basic Birth search for Julia & Charles Hunt -= First name - Surname - Date Range Mar 1985 to Dec 1880 and the following records were returned :- The local registry office for Bedlington would be the Morpeth area so I would assume that the two records returned with the Morpeth entry could be the records that would give you the info, address etc, you are after. I will add another comment after this one with some maps of the Bedlington area showing where the the two Bedlington collieries were sited and the colliery rows that existed.

Walsham Wonder - I will see what I can put together to give you a picture of the area + coal mines where you grandparents were born. I won't be able to give you any info on the 'whys or wherefores' of your great grandparents move.

Extract from Wikipedia- ..........Breeding commences mainly in April and May, with the female building a lined cup nest in a concealed location on or near the ground. The three to five eggs are patterned with a mesh of fine dark lines, giving rise to the old name for the bird of "scribble lark" or "writing lark"......... Is that your photo @Bedlingtonian? You could start an album of bird species & sightings in Gallagher Park in the https://www.bedlington.co.uk/gallery/category/5-and-the-rest-gallery/