Symptoms

The Railway Tavern when I was about 16.  Trouble was it was a mackem Vaux pub so the first pint I had was Vaux Gold tankard and it tasted awful, it had a sort of 'soapy' flavour.  But, 'pints' were what all the blokes drank so I persisted with beer and developed a life long taste for the stuff.  Obviously, Blue Star* beers were much, much better than the mackem muck and of course there was always the Federation beers at the clubs - yum, yum!

I seem to remember the girls usually drank a porter sort of beer that came in a very small gill bottle (1/4 pint) but its name has slipped the memory for the moment.

Drinking and driving was never a concern back then, I remember regularly driving miles to boozers, having a skinful, then driving home.  Many stories to tell but I'll hold-off telling until others post theirs ... what's the 'statute of limitations' for out-running the Peelers whilst pissed at the wheel?  Obviously, I don't do that sort of thing now ... the Bizzies have guns here!

*for our younger viewers Blue Star was the trademark for the Newcastle Brewery.

A familiar face spotted in the crowd:

Our Mal looks to be the only 'normal' one there.

Shocking, shocking, shocking ....0-3, 0-3, 0-3.

Balanced match analysis to follow from Sym.

Oh dear, 0 - 2 at half-time ... watching the match live on BeIN Sports.  Our boys will have to do better in the second half otherwise the gools will infest the Bigg Market tonight.

Reedy - Westridge opened in 1956 so I think your Dad's got the dates wrong;  also the stonework behind is wrong for Westridge.  They could be a senior team from a Junior school as they don't look to be big enough to be 14 years old - loads of the local junior schools were built with stone block.

Separated at Birth has been resurrected in Chat Central ...

Further pictures just in from the Vatican Square ... these show one of the doves released by the mackemBossGodBotherer being pursued by the black and white birds of goodness.  Later reports tell of an eviscerated carcass seen crawling back to it's dilapidated cree on the banks of the polluted mackemburn.

Mal - is your brother the more intellige..... STOP NOW SYM.

Bleach has a high pH so isn't effective at killing mould spores ... it tends to only whiten the surface spores so appears to person applying the stuff to be effective;  any mould below the surface in a 'porous' wall coating, like plaster or plasterboard, remains unaffected.  The fumes when applying bleach are hazardous so should be avoided by those with iffy health.

A much more effective (and safer) method is to use borax powder, diluted in water, as the removal/killing medium.  Ditto white vinegar/water solution. 

Order the cold-compresses for the brows of those who don't understand.  It always was, always is, and always will be a 'battle' between two rival tribes.  A couple of hundred years ago we would have all had weapons with which to slaughter our rivals,  us with sophisticated firearms and those from the primeval swamp down the coast armed with sticks.  Obviously, the development of the stick was the crowning glory of mackemtribe technology.

Mal - you're getting pretty good at Photoshop ... I can't see any evidence of 'shaky hand syndrome' when you were applying those red brush strokes to the boss God botherer.

Shame I don't have a long enough straw to suck-up my winning pint ... perhaps we could save it for the next time I come over to NEBlighty.

Ok, now let the Photoshop wars begin ...

Come on you Blues!

Yep, it should be a memorable day at Wembley.  Man City 8 mackems 0 perhaps?

I'm sure that our cameramen will be able to bring us plenty of images of the mackem's preparations, match build-up, presentation of the losers medals, etc.

I remember the 'swill-man' coming to Westridge School to collect all the kitchen scraps - a flat-bed truck with loads of galvanised dustbins into which he'd empty the food waste.  It was all very dirty and smelly with the bins smeared with old food dribbles.

Us big lads once chucked a first year kid into one of the slop bins - when he emerged he was covered in slime and cabbage leaves.  What a hoot.

Getting the bus home from The Haymarket after the match ... as soon as the Ref blew for the end of the game we'd gallop at top speed down the lanes to get on 'The Newbiggin Bus' or the 'Ashington Bus' - I've forgotten their numbers..  Because we were fit young lads we always beat the crowds to the buses.  When we got back to Bedders the 'Pink' had arrived at the Newsagent (can't remember the name at the moment) opposite the Monument;  only the 1st half of the match was reported.

I remember going often to the Mart with my Dad to buy hens ... we used to keep them on the allotment at the back of our house. Up the station slope, park the car and walk around the pens - the place was always packed. I can also recall 'cattle railway trucks' being shunted into the Mart sidings to load/unload livestock.

Of course, the Morpeth pubs were open all day for the Mart trade ... I must have been about 13 when my Dad took me into one of the pubs; beer for him, pop for me. It seemed that escorted kids (farmers kids) were tolerated.

Anyway, the chucks would be taken home and introduced to the resident clucks, fights would break-out, then peace would reign. All our hens were named by me and they were great fun to play with ... chasing dangled worms (hen races) and so on. I've got some lovely 8mm film footage (now converted to DVD) of the chucks racing for the worms, one had even been taught to stand on my Dad's shoulder (like Long John Silver's parrot).

Collecting birds' eggs was really popular when I was a lad but thankfully I was never interested in doing it.  Cigarette cards (all the old guys in the extended family smoked so there were lots available to me) and stamps ... both were great collections but was lost during one of my parent's house moves;  goodness knows what they'd be worth today.

I'm so grateful that my Dad was a devout and practising Atheist ... I remember never having to go to church on a Sunday - a tradition I follow to this day.

Since moving to my present house about four years ago I've lit a real fire every evening - paper, sticks, coal - and it really is an ovocative childhood wiff.  40 years living in London and I couldn't have coal fires because of their Clean Air Act so I'm making-up for it now.  I have the chimney sweep out annually and you're right about that lingering soot smell.  I got a log burning stove installed in my kitchen last year and what a lovely honk that makes when you get a niff of the smoke outside, oh, and the great exercise when I'm chopping the logs with my big axe but it does play havoc with my back.

The smell of my freshly picked tomatoes bring back memories of helping my Grandad pick his.

Got the Wright's name correct but the shape and colour wrong ... I'll put it down to brain shrinkage.

Found a YouTube film about Donkey Stones ... but you have to sit through a Star Wars intro but it's worth it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H4ehofV4Eo

It was Wright's Coal Tar soap .. an amber, oval block.  You can still get it.

What about that damp, humid aroma that filled the house when clothes were being dried indoors.  It was OK to do this back in the day when houses were 'leaky' with drafts so were well ventilated;  shouldn't be done now when most of our homes are as 'tight as a fish's arse' as the humidity can't be vented.  (There's a post by KeithL elsewhere (Consumer section) ... mould on wall.)

When pruning an elderberry tree in my garden it's pungent smell always sends me back to the 60s and a tree house we built in a big elder located in The Cut (waste land and allotments behind the Riggs) ... even after over 50 years!

No, no, no, the best toast is only produced in places like Harrow or Eton.  Toasting fork clenched tightly in a fag's naked bum-split and the bread held before the prefect's roaring fire ... empires were built by these people.

Maggs wrote: "... soon have no green space left. Maybe we should all leave Blighty and join Symptoms."

Just before Xmas I flew to Blighty for a couple of days on business, arrived at Gatwick, got the toot toot up to London Clapham Junction, changed trains to get to Chelsea Harbour where I was staying.  Built-up all the way, crowded all the way, litter all the way, graffiti all the way, hardly anything green all the way ... it was all so downheartening.  Yes, I'd lived in London all my adult life but, having lived elsewhere for about four years, I'd forgotten how much the place could grind-the-sole. 

Strikes and boycotts sometimes are the only way to win change.  Those brave souls in 60s Alabama USA and during Apartheid South Africa only had these two peaceful methods to influence change.

Classic boss tactic ... starve them back to work.