bluebarby

Just returned from holiday and must apologise for ruffling a hair or two (it was intended) but I needed to know exactly where you, and your followers, politically stood, now I know I shall leave you in peace. ‎You shall hear of me no more.

I'm still trying o get my head around who these 'honest Tories' are of whom you speak? Surely your not talking about 'may or may not be good at dodging questions and changing my mind May are you? Surely not "she who speaks with more forked tounges than a John Wayne movie". Surely not the one that a year ago was adamant that leaving the EU would cost thousands of British jobs but now believes that leaving the EU would be the best thing since sliced bread, if you can get any that is and production of it hasn't been moved to Poland along with Kit-Kat. Surely not the May who thinks that she can get a better deal out of the EU than we have now, because it is a dead cert that any deal she gets is bound to be worse than we have now. It can't be anything else. (Cos if she does get a better deal there will be a line of 26 countries long wanting the same deal) "Trying to give our country away"? Just where have you been living? The good old solid industrial base of our country that really mattered wasn't "given away" it was sold by those so called honest Tories and dishonest Labour years and years ago. All that is left of our industrial base could be lifted up by its owners and dumped to Europe as easy as transfering footballers from one club to another. Unless you have worked in it and seen for yourself you have never witnessed anything so fragile. Its not a case that May may be in for a shock, she is in for a shock, along with 52% of the British population. She wants to think herself lucky that her old man has a bob or two stashed away, probably in a non EU country, they are going to need it, It's no good hiding behind a screen of failing NHS, failing schools, failing this, failing that, failing the other you need an economy that is capable of supporting all those things and its the gutless leadership of that economy that is failing. Noo tell is agyen mister, why shudda vote Tory?

Oh aye..............we said owt aboot honest rich men????? The questshun a asked wis why I shud vote tory. Seesh .......Yull be takin aboot stong and styeble next.

Tell is again why a shud vote consorvative mister

Right street, near neighbours, right surname but wrong Johnson. The one we are interested is is Geordie Johnson not Raffie. I am still digging!

I know of only two deaths at Netherton pit in my time at the colliery. I think the accident you refer to here would be George Johnson who lived in First Street. I was good friends with both his sons, Ken and Eric, Eric who later worked in a butchers opposite Keenlysides at the station is sadly no longer with us. I still see Ken on the odd occasion. Ken was slightly older than me and Eric slightly younger and along with Jimmy Blake, also sadly no longer with us (He was killed in a tragic bus accident on the M1 that was witnessed by the Queen and his wife has a wonderful sympathy card from her) Anyway the four of us as kids used to go to the Newcastle matches on one Saturday and the Sunderland matches the next. But when push came to shove we where all Sunderland fans! When we went to the Sunderland games we got Raisbecks to the top end then the 3 or 3A to Newcastle, invariably when we got the 3 non other than Cecil Irwin would be in the back seat of the decker. Who is Ces Irwin? You have never lived. Look up Sunderland football club on the net. Here was Ces, 16 years old, going to play in front of a crowd 30,000 plus and we just two or three years younger going to watch him and here we were travelling on the same bus! Can you imagine that happening now? I still see Ces on the odd occasion at the Newbiggin Golf Club and he recons the sprint dodging shoppers between the Haymarket and Worswick Steet to catch the bus to Sunderland was the best training he ever had! As an aside, we used to get 5 bob pocket money to go to Newcastle and 7 and a tanner to go to Sunderland. The other death was Alan Stappard that lived 2 Third Street. I think he was crushed by a coal cutter, I am sure the details are in the Durham Mining website. Nice lad Alan, liked his motorbikes.

Where she worked I don't know, I just remember her nurses uniform, light blue dress with black belt and a darkish blue cape. She used to wear her nurses cap on the bike then she had a 'punding basin' helmet when she got the moped.

The poem is by John Edward Fitzgerald Black, better known as Jack Black. It is from a book called Reflections on Life at Netherton and was published in his memory by his wife Petra in 1994. Petra was a German prisoner of war and remained here when she married Jack. I will always remember her going about, first, on her bike, and later on her moped in her nurses uniform and cape. The book is written in poetic Pitmatic,and the Forward is one of the most inspirational piece of writing I have come across and it is entitled "Six netties past the tap", the tap being in Howard row where he was born but lived most of his life in 2 Second Street.

The Netherton Ghost, umm, I think if you had gone around the duckets on a Saturday afternoon and mentioned that I think the reply would have been "howay man wat goest in ee's reet mind wid wanna waak aroon doon a pit? Gidda way an divvint taak see stupit"

Noel got job on bank at Netherton searching miners for "contraband" (cigarettes, pipe baccy etc.) He got the nickname of a siger who was popular at the time - Tab Hunter..................

The book that would solve al these cavil questions is a book called Pitmatic, The Talk of the North Eastern Coalfield compiled by Bill Griffiths Northumbria University Press, Price (or mine was!)£9.99

"No such thing! My daughter, for one, was concerned for the future of the grandchildren and voted accordingly." Quite possibly but did she ask their opinion first? (have you seen the latest age group referendum figures? Most Brexit voters, or at least the ones that shaffed the nation, including you and me, will be either buried or burnt by the time we finally get rid of the EU) "There is clearly something lacking in their lives that they feel a need to belong to such a dysfunctional and outdated concept" I think the answer to that is that they know full well which side their bread is buttered on and have no desire to cut their nose off to spite their face! Fighting the good fight is much better fought from from the inside than chucking stones into oblivion on the outside, any fool knows that. "Ordinary people might not be able to express their hopes and fears as eloquently as the Guardianista mob (and they are a mob), but that in no way indicates that their hopes and fears are any less moral, or less grounded in reality." Sheesh! You are back to talking gobbledegook - again. By contrast, many of the Europhiles I've talked to display a sort of religiosity about all things EU (which they deliberately conflate with Europe), and are incapable of taking part in a rational discussion Sheesh, Sheesh, Yet more and bigger gobbledegok - yet again. The diminishing number of EUphiles will shortly be likened to the people who, even today, long for the return of the former Soviet Union. Sheesh, sheesh, sheesh. Unbelievable gigantenormus Gobbledegook - again. (Yes, I know there is no such word as "gigantenormus" - I just made it up- but lets face it, 3g, it does make a lot more sense than all your rantings put together this evening) Tonight I have been waiting (well, I tell a lie, not all the time. I have to admit I did watch the football, it wasn't very good though, so poor in fact that me and my missus watched an episode of Vera we had taped during the first half.) with baited breath of some gems of 3g wisdom and all I have is total and utter text book Brexit gigantenormus (there you go I have used that word again, catching innit?) gobbledegook, I am disappointed, I expected better, much better. 8/10 must try harder. However as much as I too dislike the EU I will not go away until you and your ilk have admitted that you have shaffed this nation not just for a short while but for the next 50 years. That is a lot of guilt to for cowards likes of Fararge and Johnson (plus the other conservative geek that I have already forgot the name of) to carry. The description of rats leaving the sinking ship is much to much good for them. BB ps where is this Merlin bloke has he not finished thinking yet?

OOOOOOH I do seem to have hit a nerve! Threeegee, you know as well as I do that the number that voted to leave the EU for the reasons detailed here are as rare as draughtsmans sweat. BB

Just wait until their pensions begin to shrivel up. I see the pound has even gone below the Argentine peso as the most under performing currency in 2016 BB

I think this quote just about sums up the Brexit thinking:- "The thinking of the leave side is magical. It plucks at a dimly remembered but glorified past (that was never as good as nostalgia makes it) and offers a future that is imaginary."

I think the best inquest I have read so far into this referendum mess and it's dire consequences is this Canadian one, well worth a read. opencanada.org A Brexit post mortem :17 takeaways for a fallen David Cameron A recommended read but not just before bedtime for the vote leave and a realistic forecast of the future.

Well Malcolm that is quite an impressive list of 'swings' but why do you not make any mention of 'roundabouts'? Are you saying, in true UKIP style that it was all one way? We gave a lot and got nowt back, is that what you are saying or implying? Or is it a poor, as it seems to me, feeble attempt at an apology to the younger citizens of our nation that a generation of well past their sell by dates shafted their aspirations of a promising future? Am I wrong? Why not balance things up and give us a list of 'roundabouts'. Yes there are 'roundabouts', as a design engineer I personally worked on 4 that enticed approx 9000 jobs into the NE plus ancillaries and there were a lot more, some small and some big. Strikes me if all the jobs lost on the 'swings' on your list were added up then the question has to be asked why is our unemployment rate not twice what it is? Ummmmmm! As someone with an interest in what Hornby used to make I seem to remember that they ditched the UK for China years ago. Nothing to do with the EU and what patents are they supposed to have/had? But enough, there are non so blind as those that refuse to look past the end of their nose. However, speaking as some one who is also well past his 'best before' I can sleep peacefully in my bed at night knowing that I discussed all the 'swings' and 'roundabouts' with my grandchildren and their friends then voted in the referendum accordingly. That is why I voted to stay in the EU.

Yes you are right I think it is just pointing to Glebe Road and nothing else. Have a look at http://www.keystothepast.info/Pages/pgDetail.aspx?PRN=N13980 Not a lot down Glebe bank in the early days BB

So............ I posted 'The Arcade Glebe Road Bedlington' into Google and there it is - right on the old picture hall! BB

I have had a look at the old ordinance survey maps and there is nothing c. 1938 marked Arcade. There is a mission building and the 'Picture House'. Could that have been the 'arcade' before it was called the 'Prince of Wales'? BB

http://trimdon.com/trimdon-history/trimdon-snippets/mining-work-page-13/local-mining-terms-pages-29-30-31/ There are some good web sites but I like its simplicity for simpletons like me! There is also a good book that is worth getting a hold of. Pitmatic - the talk of the north east coal field by Bill Griffiths. BB

You have just made me realise why I much prefer D H Lawrence to Shakespeare ....................... BB

If Pauline Pearcey is No 14 on 'middle remove' then she is No 21 on Julius Wasisname.