Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)

@Symptoms - All NI cards were delivered from the benefit offices to Longbenton where they were sorted and delivered to the 100 NI sections. The number of NI Stamps, or Credits, for each year, on a workers NI card were entered clerically onto each workers NI Record Sheet by the Clerical Officers (CO's) in the 100 NI sections on the Longbenton site. So the NI clerical records for 1948 to 1970 were added to the first NI Recording System = ICL 1906A mainframes by 'Punch Card' operators.The Punch Card sections recieved the clerical record sheets and typed the data from the Record Sheets into the Punch Card machine and a Punch Card was output. All the Punch Cards were 'Batched' and sent to the Mainframe where to cards were fed into a Punch Card Reader that read the data and and the data was written to Magnetic Tapes (MTs) and the MTs were read into various data validation programs and then written to the relevant persons NI record that was held on MTs = either 2 or 3 reels of 6260bps, 2400 foot of MT for each NI section. And the NI Main File (MF) was created. Following that massive exercise the yearly NI contributions paid were delivered to the National Insurance Recording System (NIRS) on every type of media that an employer used = MTs (9 Track or 7 Track) - computer Discs (Amstrad - ICL - IBM etc. etc) or paper. There was an Input Program that read all formats of MTs. Anything that wasn't sent in on MT's was converted by the Punch Card Sections to MTs. The Input program that read all the records coming into the system was named FORTAP = FOReign TAPe and it passed the converted data onto a set of additional input programs that would sort all the records into NI order to be passed forward to be added to the MF records held on the 2 to 3 hundred MT reels.

No problem HPW - my mistake -jumped into me fading memory after I had closed down and I meant to correct it the next day - but I forgot.. I've updated the info below so it now has MPNI - DHSS - DSS - DWP and HMRC.

1. Which household appliance was patented by Cecil Booth in 1901? Answer = Vacuum cleaner 2. In bookmaker’s slang what odds are denoted by ‘double carpet’ Answer = 33/1 3. Who did Bjorn Borg defeat in 1976 to win his first Wimbledon singles title? Answer = Ilie Năstase 4. What is the more common name of the chemical Ethylene Glycol? Answer = (CH2OH)2 - antifreeze 5. In what year were dog licences abolished in Britain? Answer = 1987 6. On a Monopoly board, which property clockwise is situated after the Water Works? Answer = Regent Street = UK Marven Gardens = Canada Sturplan = Sweden 7. In which part of the British Isles would you find bailiwicks? Answer = Channel Islands 8. In which war was the battle of Gettysburg? Answer = American Civil War Lasting three days in 1863, from July 1-3, Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil, with up to 10,000 Union and Confederate troops dead and another 30,000 wounded. But surprisingly, this tremendous battle was a purely unplanned accident that grew out of a desperate need for soldiers' shoes! 9. By what name is the plant Lonicera better known? Answer = Honeysuckle 10. Which Archbishop of Canterbury seized the devil’s nose in a pair of red-hot tongs? Answer = Dunstan Dunstan immediately seized the devil's nose with his redhot tongs, causing the devil to leap the eight miles to cool his proboscis in the Tunbridge spring, thus lending the water its celebrated chalybeate qualities. 11. What is the longest river in Scotland? Answer = Tay 12. What is the medical name for Rabies? Answer = before I jumped into the cold water at Humford Baths I had Hydrophobia. I’ll bet you didn’t know …. In 1877 a wealthy widow promised Russian composer Tchaikovsky a generous annual allowance – on condition that they never met. Answer = I didn’t. Does that mean that Tchaikovsky and Władysław Pachulski invented Texting?

Unfortunately not @Odin Dunne If you know what part of Bedlington ie, Top End or Bedlington Station/Sleekburn your relatives lived there narrowing what school they might have attended, or if they worked at one of the pits in Bedlington we might be able to give you info or photos about the area.

Thank you Vic - the cool air in the computer halls was heaven to me☺️. We moved from Cramlington =North facing living room to Seghill = South facing living room. At Cramlington the wife was always turning the heat up and now at Seghill she basks in the sun streaming in through the South facing window and I hide in my little cool room in the middle of the bungalow.