Keith Scantlebury

I remember traveling from Bedlington to the power station in the snow, (about 40 years ago) in my BMW (Isetta bubble car!) the roads were rutted and frozen, where does the middle wheel go! the throttle cables ran under the car and froze solid, to make it worse the railway gates closed at the station, I had to use the ignition key as a throttle!

(snowing here still, and it's coming your way )

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.

I'd rather have snow as the bloody misery we've had this weekend... did it stop raining for more than 30 mins at any point!!?

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

I see that we are now likely to have to help bailing Ireland out of it's financial mess - who next, Portugal then Italy and what about Spain? Perhaps the ongoing EU debate in this forum is proving that we should not be a member of the EU after all. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Europe, in fact most of my holidays are spent in European countries and especially France - I like the culture and a lot of their lifesyle aspects but I always come back to the conclusion that we Brits are different!

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.

Does anyone know what year this photo was taken.

Have a look at other old photos in the places section of the gallery under Old photos of Bedlington

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.

Hillbilly,

I think there is a bit of photoshop going on with any and all projected images for the new Tesco's store. The entrance will be facing the car park not Front Street so the inside will be at that level. That's fine if they made a bit more effort with the door at the Front Street side, which looks like a 'normal' double glazed door to me. That now gives concerns about what happens when you walk into the store from the Front Street as there has to be quite a drop down to new floor level. It may all work out in the detailed planning of course I just hope it remains a 'portal' onto Front Street and not a Cul-de-Sac!

I was told the Nettos workers were given their notices yesterday along with the Donkin ones?

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

There is clearly great hope in these battling, determined and bright students who stand there, defiantly, with a placard bearing the legend "WE ARE YOUR FUTRUE" (sic)

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

Really?

I've heard they did a postcode survey a while back, and found Bedlington was split 3 ways between Ashington, Blyth and Cramlington, and therefore did not need another store in the middle.

There is also the monopoly thing, where they can't have too many stores in close proximity, so Bedlington could not become a food based ASDA.

The two proposals i've seen on the table, and these are still purely proposals, are an ASDA Living store, selling only non-food items, and an Argos.

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

I`m not sure when the actual pit closed, somewhere around 1973 i think. The colliery houses were knocked down not long after. There`s only fields where the Colliery houses used to be now..

I don`t know if you`ve checked the Gallery out, but there`s lots of newspaper articles about Netherton there, thanks to Carole

There`s also a photo of the colliery rows here

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.

if asda get their way?

ASDA in process of buying NETTO UK. Word is they are to pull down NETTO at Bedlington and neighbouring buildings and build an ASDA store on stilts similar to the one at Ashington.

Did you see picture of what it should look like in yesterdays JOURNAL? Looks more like the outside of an airport terminal. It will just be a huge nail in the coffin of yet another small market town centre Half the folk shopping there wont even show up let alone spend money in other parts of the town [thats shopping on line for you] They may as well just build a warehouse/distribution centre in the current car park with access for their own vehicles ....... and if ASDA get their way, who knows "BEDLINGTON,SOUTH NORTHUMBERLANDS VERY OWN RETAIL PARK"

The wife worked behind the bar at the time [RED LION afternoons TOP CLUB nights and Sundays] The band was called PRISM they changed it to that from being called STAG. We can remember Brian Johnson and Angus Young from AC/DC coming in to see them one Sunday morning [stripper day] They got on stage with them and belted out Route 66 ............. by the way the strippers werent bad either.

The Wade family were farmers. The farmhouse was behind where that large house is being built now which is actually in what was the garden/orchard. The Muters operated the pop business at Liddles st Bedlington Stn [James transport were there at the time too] S&M auto's are there now. I am sure one of the Muters was a founder member of Bedlington & District Motor Club as was [among others] my father Jack Scantlebury.