Keith Scantlebury

Snow? what snow? somebody got snow like?

Point him this way Malcolm, tell him to look for a fat git with a red fleece on [me] and dig him out

The thing is Claire some people have had a bollicking for clearing up themselves. They apparrently throw the snow to the wrong place, someone might "fall over it" and make a claim for injuries recieived. As for all of those people on the dole, I am one of them. I am out of work through no fault of my own and claiming benefits for the first time in almost 40 years. I am far from proud of that fact and I am doing my utmost to find work. So as far as "earning my dole money" is concerned, I feel that all of the contributions I have paid over the years could be helping me through a [ hopefully short] but difficult time. What I do object to is being put into the same categorie as those who make a carreer out of signing on every week [and seem to do well out of it]

I would also hazard a guess as to one reason why the estates are not a priority anymore, speed humps. Could equipment or the humps themselves get damaged? We have not seen the speed humps or the kerbs on our estate since the middle of last week, [i know we aren't the only ones in Bedlington not to]

Malcolm, I do agree with with what you say, you can't please all of the people all of the time and there will always be some of us that will feel hard done by. But, as I said a little while ago, well before the snow came, all councils should expect the winters to be like last winter, that way they should be better prepared. I have delivered salt to councils up and down the U.K., Many of them have these new dome shaped salt barns and i have never seen a full one yet, a lot of them are being used to store other equipment not related to the gritting of our roads. The winter of 1983/84 saw us snowed in for 10 days. The council opened up the A69 and the military roads within a couple of days. Hexham and the villages closest to us Humsaugh, Chollerford, fourstones and Newbrough were opened up fairly quickly. We had 350 cows to milk twice a day and were throwing out nearly 800 gallons of milk daily because no-one could get to us, including a milk tanker. We were running out of feed for the livestok and ourselves as well as fuel, yet we were not a priority. Maybe it is just all my fault, I just happen to choose to live in the wrong places at the wrong times.

Heard today that N.C.C. are on top of things. All crews are out, concentrating on all A & B roads in the county. I had to google something about Bedlington the other day, apparrently Bedlington is in Cumbria, that could be why we are being ignored by N.C.C. Also heard that, by law, they are not obliged to treat roads and footpaths on housing estates. Pity help anyone who needs an ambulance or fire appliance on our estate in a hurry cos we still cannot see the kerbs, speed humps or footpaths and almost everyone was out with shovels digging cars out this morning.

HUH, not bad but I was doing that on Tommy Mullins butchers bike in 1965 [with a full basket and flat tyres] . pmsl.

Malcolm, thats a disgrace, I totally agree. Everybody knows it should be spelt SKOOOL

Is that them who own Ba Ba the ethnically challenged sheep

The thing is, that when they get caught they get away with it because they are the victims of a depraived society and they have nothinng better to do. But, if I do so much as FART in a clean air zone I will get nicked for it.... that is a guarrentee

I used to park my wagon in the Milne car park over the weekends when I worked for a haulier from Nottingham. They complained to N.C.C. on many occasions about the lack of gritting and how difficult it was to get out to the A1 in bad weather and that a 44ton , 56' long vehicle with a 2.5 ton fork lift hanging off the back of the trailer was not the best of things to get stuck on these roads at 5 am on a Monday morning. N.C.C suggested to my employer that I should leave the truck where it was, in the H.G.V. parking bays until the weather cleared. They were not in control of the weather and it was not their fault that it snowed when none of their gritting crews were at work. My gaffer was well impressed with N.C.C's commitment to road safety.... not...

Just had a quick look at Koast Radio's web site , didn't take too long to read. I don't think I have ever read so much self righteous twaddle. The station manager Vicky Oakley [ an accountant] says she worked for the council and left because it seemed "she wasn't making a difference anymore" Seems like she was in charge of clearing snow and gritting the roads. Oh, and an accountant that is not out to make a quick buck or two, if thats true I'll eat HAY WITH A BLOODY HORSE.

Ah well Vic, you know what they say don't you. Nostalgia's not what it used to be, is it?

No-one would expect minor routes to be top of the list but I wouldn't class the spine road as a minor road . I do think that if the powers that be got their fingers out and sorted out the main roads, bus routes and the areas outside schools early, they would be able to do something about the estate roads and pavements unlike last winter when several falls of snow were allowed to compact [as it did where I live] and teams of men with shovels were sent out.

Look North reported last week [or pos the week before] that Durham, Cleveland, North Yorks and Tyneside Councils had learned a lesson from last winter and increased the ammount of salt they would need for their roads and ordered it earlier so that they would not be caught short again. They did not mention Northumberland County Council. My daughters boyfriend works for N.C.C [the bit that used to be Wansbeck] Where was he this morning? .......Blyth with a tractor borrowing some salt because the Wansbeck area had none. The spine road had obviously not been treated as the traffic was queing from Moor Farm almost to Ashington. My daughter lives on the estate by the police stn. She could not turn right out of the estate this morning because the traffic was queing from the Monkey to Netto because the cars had difficulty getting up Glebe Bank. This is bang out of order, the forecasters warned us of this weather last weekend. Maybe N.C.C. think that we in this corner of the county do not need to move arround as safely as those in the rest of the county. It could be that they dont grit the road purposley so that we slow down and take care of ourselves, or could the ammount of compensation that they would have to pay [for accidents that occured because of their negligence] would be far less than the cost of purchasing and applying extra salt?. I sincerely hope that the latter is not the case. It seems that the whole of Bedlington was at a virtual standstill [ I live at the station] again at a time when people were trying to get to work and when kids were on their way to school all because of a little bit of snow. Maybe they thought that if they left it alone it would look pretty when the lights get switched on tonight ..... after all, that would be as good as any excuse that that they could come up with.

So would I [now I am not farming anymore that is] The place seems much cleaner when it snows, until the mess a quick thaw makes

The coonsils should expect all winters to be at least as bad as last winter, that way they wont be caught short again. After all, it is hard to figure it out. Winter = snow & ice, remedy, grit the roads. Apparrently some of the ski slopes in the highlands have re-opened and it is only something like 140 days since they closed when the last lot of snow melted

Looks very much like they could even have been taken on the same day as the one posted by Jorga

We Brits are different. Some may say we are welcoming, generous, charitable, or are we seen to be a soft touch, gullable and open to abuse by those who think this group of small islands is home to that huge pot of gold at the end of a very long rainbow. I am neither a racist or a bigot. Nor would i deny help to those who genuinely need it. There was a reminder of Enoch Powell's 1962 "Rivers of blood" speech on the television today. Can anyone say he was wrong? A very thick line has to be drawn somewhere and very soon or it will be us in the gutter, cap in hand. How quickly will our so called allys come to our aid and bail us out? Answers on a postcard addressed to Land of the lost boys Never Never Land but please do not expect a rapid response.

I was just looking through some of the older content when i came accross this. Between Johnsons shoe shop and Carricks the bakers there is a door, this lead into a yard where there were 2 houses #5 and #6 Market Place.We lived in #5 when i was a kid. we moved in about 1958 and moved out about 1965/6. This palace had a sittng room a scullerry and a bedroom. No hot water, no bath and had an outside bog. This was home to a family of 6 till we got a 3 bed council house in Waverley ave, a mansion in comparison. Looking at the photo I am struggling [like many] to put a date to it, but I can remember what it was like before the photo. Next to the bakers was the bank and next to that was the butchers . My dad worked there before he whent to Netherton pit for more money but still worked part time for Billy Miller as a butcher/slaughterman. Going the other way [as much as I can remember] was the Howard Arms, Milnes shop [later the co-op Milne house] The rest consisted of the old post office [Mrs, Potts] Joe Alsopp [the barber] Mrs Gates chipp shop and Peter Bacci's cafe/sweet shop was on the end next to the entrance to the neuk. The house may have been a dump but the memories of living there are happy ones. Brilliant place to live on picnic day , for instance, and when the shows were in Milnes field for whit weekend we just louped the back wall. Shool was just over the road [the village infants, then the whitley] We always got a warm buttered bun from the back door of the bakers for nowt on the way to school.

Would have thought that Netto staff would be transferred under T.U.P.E. regulations [unless they were offered redundancy by Netto -or Asda ]

Graduates first words at work after leaving uni "Would you like relish with your burger sir? "

Hope youre right. Travelling arround the country i did see a lot of retail parks etc. Its seems that what the big supermarkets want, they eventually get. Just look at Inverness, not a big place by any means, they have THREE large tesco stores and TESCO wants to build another

Think you're right it must be about 1973 [pos a little earlier] when it closed. My dad worked there 18 years. He bought a 'G' reg mk2 ford Cortina estate with some of his redundancy money and it wasn't very old at the time.