Keith Scantlebury

I made reference to this speach not so very long ago Merlin in relation to the recent riots. Enoch Powell was spot on with his own predictions and only doing his job as a member of parliament in voicing the views and experiences of his constituants, this , after all is what he was paid to do. They say that "hindsight is a fools wisdom". It turns out that, in this case, the fools are those who ignored the words and predictions of Mr. Powell and derided his views, and those of his constituants as being hateful and racist. Enoch Powell lived a long and (often) colourful life, (into his nineties I believe), it is just a shame that he is not with us to this day so that he could stick two proverbial fingers up to those who mocked him and badgered him to retract his well publicised views. I think that if his views and predictions had been taken to heed and acted upon positively, we may well be refering to him as LORD Powell, the man who saved Britain from its own generocity. No forward thinking nation, in this day and age , will have a totally indigenous population, but, the people who are indigenous to a country (in this case Great Britain) should, BY FAR, outnumber the ammount of immigrants,(legal OR illegal) and their families. A number of years ago I had an application to emigrate to Canada refused on the grounds that the job that I was offered could be offered to and filled by a native Canadian (had I stuck with the application and appealed I may have succeeded), if the same rules had been in place in this country, and adhered to, I dont think that we would even be having this discussion or refering to a speech controversially made more than 40 years ago and thinking "if only we had listened" and "if only we had acted upon it". I do not think that Enoch Powell was a racist or a bigot, I just think he was a man who suggested that this country should first and formost look after itself and those who are native to it and not fill it with freeloaders and cheap labour from other countries, wether they come from those countries within the British Commonwealth or not. We have long since ceased to be the "land of hope and glory", but does that deter the deluge of unwanted immigrants looking for a better life at the expence of the DWP and the british taxpayer? I think not.

Ham and jam

How much are the tickets?, Neil

Riots and looting have spread to Ireland, Seamus has smashed his computor monitor trying to rob e-bay

Was it as late as the late 70's ? when it was pulled down. I lived in the Market Place as a kid, moving to Waverley avenue about 1965/6 [ish] We lived at number 5, down the alley between Johnsons shoe shop and what was then Carricks the bakers, we knocked around with the kids that lived in Rosella place. Sebastians, just a couple of months or so.

Give it to Merlin, he'll deliver it for you at home time......... maybe not he might get a smack off an angry granny

They have had more changes than Danny La Rue !!, Wilson. The Millfield also has the name Sebastians [i think ] and it was connexions once. Kings has been the Grapes for some time. The Neuk was the area [some houses were there ] in the corner below Peter Bacci's shop, they must have named the pub after that, Market Tavern for obvious reasons. By the time you read this , one of them may have changed again.

As did mine Malcolm. She used to do one on a Thursday. When I was doing my apprenticeship in Ashington I used to pedal like hell to get back home after the afternoon milking, Ashington to Bedlington on a pushbike in record time.

True Brian but I would change the word "slid" to "slithered"

Hello Wilson, nice to have you onboard

It may get the money Toffo, but the thing is, where will the money be spent?. Will the Station even get a sniff of the dosh?. Well, I don't think anyone should hold their breath waiting for a shower of cash to hit this part of the world.

As you say Toffo the coast and castles route is a huge draw for people from outside the area, we want them to keep coming. First impressions are important to how people re-act. We do not want people to go away and tell their mates to avoid Bedlington stn. You said you enjoyed being fed at the butty shop, good, the proprietors would have welcomed youre business [as long as youre rubbish was disposed of properly, which I am sure it was]. The area you mention is popular with the kids from the high school, where they eat their lunches bought in the local takeaways, as you may have noticed.

Don't know how you can say that it was clean and tidy then Beddie, not with a great big pit there at that time, but I'm sure we all know what you mean though. I don't know where you are now but to be honest mate if you had a look at the station in its current state, I don't think you will be overly impressesd with it. To answer your earlier question, I would have thought that the Percy Arms may have been called the High House, locally, because it is further up the road, from the other pubs, away from the the Station, towards Bedlington

You're right Merlin, the thing is you should be able to see for yourself instead of relying on texts. The schools are on holiday, which means you can get out of your back lane. :whistle:

I bet they would be easy enough to make Mr.D. I know the Mrs got some fabric chaps for our daughter fro Keith Muter on the Barrington road. They have velcro fastenings. Just an afterthought, have you tried Go Outdoors at Westerhope. They seem to stock pretty much everything and there may be some walking/hiking chaps that may be of some good, or adaptable

The xmas lights last longer than the flowers!!! sad isn't it. I do agree, the tubs etc. do look nice, but as I said they don't detract from the tatty state of the buildings.

I agree entirely. I don't think there is a single town in the country that has not got a problem with with untidiness on Friday or Saturday night to some extent. The thing is, some of them address/tackle the problem better than others. As far as the empty properties go in the Market Place, I think you could be right Foxy, somebody buys up properties like these then treads water to see how things develop arround them. That in itself would create a run down town centre. Johnsons own the land behind the shop down to the wall by the car park [at least they did when I lived there] so it is potentially a valuable property [does it still belong to Clive Johnson?] As far as I know, nothing is planned for the Station, other than what Malcolm mentioned about the Metro, wether anything comes of that, who knows. The shops that trade on Ravensworth Tce seem to make the best of a bad thing as that terrace does not seem to be in the best of conditions. Other than the Station Cafe [Mario's/Moskies] being turned into a takeaway, nothing much, structurally, has changed along there in decades. I drove past the Clayton yesterday, there are no less than 7 panes of glass broken, the landlord is obviously sick of replacing them [understandably so]. So what is to be done, brick them up?, put caging over them?, employ doormen? ccv. tv.? or simply close the place and have the same thing happen with the Clayton as Jakes bar. Having the flower beds outside the Station building and to the entrance of the car park on Whitley Tce. are pretty, but they are less noticeable to the visitor than the tatty state of the buildings. I mentioned earlier about the approaches to the Top end looking nice, ie entering by the golf course, Nedderton and Choppington. I came in to the Station from Blyth yesterday. On leaving the Spine road there are plenty of grassed areas that would simply benefit from more regular cutting [i have seen mower drivers taking a short cut over the grass to avoid waiting at the lights, could they not cut it while doing so?] Turn left at the lights and drive up St. Johns Road [ John S.N.R.G. lives there, he could confirm?] Weeds are growing on the path on the left hand side the length of the road. Admittedly, some are coming from the gardens on Kings road, in wich case the tennants need telling, but a large ammount are growing between the paving flags. This does not give a good impression to the visitor and it hardly costs a fortune to put right . The sides of the railway line, inside the chainmail fencing are overgrown [very visable through the fence] it would not take much money or effort to tidy it up, whoever is responsible for it. As far as the occupied buildings are concerened the authorities should be telling the owners/tennants to get them tidied up [a lick of paint as doglover suggests]. The takeaway food shops should be made to pay towards the cleaning up of discarded wrappers/boxes, their names are on many of them. If their customers don't act responsibly, [ students from the high school at lunch times are as guilty as anybody ] then they should take the flack [ catering vans in laybys etc. have to] as part of their trading agreements. It does not have to cost a fortune to cosmetically clean the place up and instill a sense of pride of their environment into the People who live and work in Bedlington Stn, and, for that matter, the Top End/Market Place.

The Terrier did not close until about 2009/2010. It may have been between owners in 1990. Is the pub sign outside a bar? I would say you could build up a bit of a thirst in Arizona. A Photo of the Bedlington Terrier pub in Arizona would be good for our gallery.

TomTom, There is NO comparison. The Station is the dreery backwater to the Top Ends freshness. Even though the Village Infant school and Elliotts garage are empty and falling to bits, there is still something planned for them [admittedly it is a ball ache that they are taking their time about it, Foxy's pet subject]. Jakes Bar at he Station however, has been stood empty and rotting for about 10 years now. The shutters have been up at the Clayton news since last year. Shops are closing all the time, Tanyas is the latest. We have had a dellicatessan [is that how you spell it] open in the last couple of weeks, with the help of our butcher, Bobby Cowell. The Station is a kebab and pizza takeaway Mecca, WE HAVE 9 including Chinese,[1] Indian,[1] Fish and Chips,[2] a Sandwich shop,[1] Pizzas and Kebabs. [4]. Many of their custmers do not know how to use a litter bin ,it seems and we have the best fed rat population in the county. We have 3 pubs, The Clayton, The Railway Tavern, The Percy Arms and a club. No matter what the licencees do, smokers will chuck fag ends on the pavement, that is not something that just happens at the Top End, it happens [disgustingly] everywhere. Come to the Station TomTom, it is obvious that it is some time since you have been down here, [if you have, you have had your eyes shut] then you can tell me that I am bleating on about nothing if you then think that the Top End's plight is as bad as ours.

There you are folks, I bet you didn't know our very own Malcolm Robinson is bi-lingual

Malcolm, No matter how it is dressed up,Heritage award or whatever, the "Top end" still gets money to make it look pretty, we get nothing, not even a hanging basket. As I said earlier it is supposed to be all Bedlington now, not two seperate places. You can easily see the difference when you turn left at the finger post [ jeez it's along time since that whent, I'll be calling the Percy Arms the High House next] onto Rothesay Tce/Victoria Tce going towards the Station all you see is a sea of FOR SALE and TO LET boards. It really takes a turn for the worse when you get passed the Spa garage and the High House, oops. I do not begrudge the Top End the money that is spent there, its just that WE want some as well. Putting the Metro station at the end of the Barrington Rd is a fat lot of good to any of us, as you say it should be where the original platform is. I wonder if they are thinking of putting it where the concrete works are, they can build a park and ride to entice people from Ass-ington and New-bogin etc. Well they can bog off and get their own [as in leisure centre]. I suppose we could charge them an extortionate fee to use it, that way , we in the station will get our hanging basket. UMPH

I've signed the petition. Since the closure of the railway station [as far as I am aware] Bedlington and Bedlington Station became, simply, BEDLINGTON. We have the same postcode NE22. The same people "Lord it" over all of us. The division appears when there is money to dish out, then "Bedlington" gets it, not the "Station". I wonder where that million quid went to Malcolm, because there is no sign that it was spent down here. When the Palace estate was tidied up a few years ago, I thought here we go, are we going to get a revamp in the Station?, obviously not. The Palace estate [Kings and Queens] had the houses painted and walls/wrought iron fencing erected instead of the open grassed area to the front, the fact is now the residents have to maintain and keep tidy that area now and the landlord does not have to pay for grass cutting every week in the summer. They have since [2010] had new roofs. The buck has simply been passed to the tenant. "Bedlington Station" will never be afforded the same respect that "Bedlington" enjoys. That is the way it has and always will be. People dont want to come and live here. Houses are hard to sell, in comparrison to the top end. Those flats that were built on the site of the old Palace night club cant be given away for love nor money. The houses built opposite the Station club/Station first school are proving difficult to sell. I live in Burnside. Now to many of you Burnside estate is the pits and the people who live there scum. Not everybody in Burside is bad. There are about six or seven people who have lived here since the estate was built [completed in 1937] and the fact remains that very little has been done here since then. Central heating, double glazing [completed this year] the odd kitchen upgrade, by we are spoilt aren't we. The estate road is a wreck and is far too narrow, nobody had cars when the estate was built. If anywhere needs off road parking [like the palace estate] it is here. Because of the cars parked on the street/footpath, a fire engine would find it near impossible to get to a house fire, the bin wagon struggles and it comes after people have left for work. We in Burnside are a classic case of the "BEAN COUNT" system. Set the cost of any compensation claim against the cost of improvements. I was talking to one of those old residents the other day and he was telling me that at one time , in the not so distant past, people wanted to live in Burnside, now, they dont even want to live in the Station , period. So, you good people of the TOP END , the next time you drive through the Station, instead of rushing through incase somebody has the wheels off your car 'cos you are driving too slow, take a good look, you do not know how lucky you are, in comparrison. You really do have it all.

A very warm welcome to the site. Take a look at the History Hollow section, The Gardners Arms. That was a Bedlington Terrier "hot bed".

Bedlington Stn. has always played second fiddle to the Market Place and the Top end. The roads in and out of Bedlington up there have always been made to look good, as with the town centre. We in the station, however, have to make do with the odd road sweeper [if we are lucky]. The local businesses pay for the xmas decorations and as far as I know, the council put them up and take them down, it is now AUGUST and they are still up. It is about time a compulsory purchase order was taken out on Jakes bar, it can surely be only fit to knock down now. Why is it taking so long to lease The Clayton News shop, I can only assume the rent that is being asked of the place is too high, or the business allowed is too restrictive, who knows. Instead of being used as a drop in coffee shop for a few old cronies, [ a lot of the time] The Bedlington Stn residents accociation needs to get themselves sorted and the issues with the state of the Station brought to the attention of the powers that be. [ they are already aware of the plight of the place, they just choose to ignore it]. I feel that nothing will be done about regenerating [for want of a better word] unless the railway station is re-opened and all they have done in the past few years is talk about it, nothing else. Oh, sorry, the odd ride on a train through the station for a few handwaving - to the minnions- chain wearing dignatories. Lets face it, Bedlington Stn, compared to the top end, hardly has a mention on bedlington.co.uk , does it? We in the Station will always be seen to be the banjo playing, slack jawed cousins to those who reside in the more affluent, cash rich top end with it's posher pubs and restraunts [not like our greasy kebab and pizza takeaways]. Even in Winter, the snow is dirtier down here. Enough now, I am geting virtigo on this soap box

Nadine, East View is in Bedlington Stn. If you were to go down St. Johns road to the traffic lights, East View is a short row of terraced houses to the left of the lights, facing Grange Park. There was a family living in Grange Park, certainly during the 60's and 70's by the name of Ferguson. My mother was friends with a Mary Ferguson back then, I think they worked together. If Mary is still alive I would imagine that she would be in her 80's now. That is all I know of them, but it may put you in the right area given the proximety of Grange Park to East View, [ and Cambois, being only a mile or so away] it may be that some of them did not stray too far.