Symptoms

Ah, Waitrose! When I lived in London there was a Waitrose nearby and what a pleasant experience it was to shop there. Wide aisles, fully-stocked racks of fresh fruit & veg, and excellent selection of speciality olive oils, oh, and the staff were well presented and friendly. But, but, but, best of all ... there were no morbidly obese shell-suit wearing folk towing their unruly/noisy brats along with trolleys full of crisps, cakes, pies and sliced bread; you most certainly knew you weren't in Tesco.

Ah ... my specialist subject. Just popped in here for a few moments so not enough time at present to work on something meaningful; I'll spend the rest of the day (maybe the whole weekend) working myself up about that whole gang of spongers and will report back ... I promise!

Let's get back to the flim-flam artists ....

Oh, and pies could be placed just out of reach of the fastened fatties.

Another brainwave from wise old owl Symptoms. Let's also shackle the parents of those nasty brats. Just imagine the scene in the Market Place - a long line of paired-up stocks complete with matched parent/brat combos, the morbidly obese seniors in their vile shell suits hooked-up to their hoodied callow spawn all clamped together. Joe Public could be given (or even better - sold) a license to abuse the tethered creatures for the whole weekend; perhaps we could even offer concessionary tickets so whole families could turn-up for the fun. Parents attending with their kids could utter dire warnings to them ... "Look at what'll happen to us if you don't behave!" You all know it makes sense!

Who's with me in demanding that Paula Ratcliffe hands the money back? I just knew that skinny waste of time and money would pull-up lame before/during the marathon and complain it was an old injury (watch-out for her Xmas book How London Went Wrong for Me But All That Lottery Funding Helped). Another one is that invisible hop, skip and jump guy. Elite athletes my a.r.s.e. Tons of lottery funding trousered; what a scam!

Stop it now! I keep opening these posts only to see Monsta appear; my pulse rushes to find my old sparring-partner is back, then CRASH, it's an old post. He's here no longer; grief, sob, sniffle. I say Monsta return!!!!

So ... many are coming around to wise old owl Symptoms cure ... the chain-gang concept.

Bret, that area you've shown in red I'm sure is where the pitheap was. I must take a bit of time and do some checking myself.

Beck - try Google Maps (Church lane, Bedlington) and take a walk around the church and its environs.

Wasn't there a bookie called Hunter who had a betting shop on Front Street somewhere; I have a vague memory that my Dad was a friend of his. Maybe in the mid-90s I travelled up from London to see a Toon match at the new Derby County ground ... a London pal of mine had blagged some private box tickets and when we arrived there were some guys sharing the box with us, one of whom I discovered was a Bedlington lad - John Hunter; I didn't know John when I was a lad. I'm sure he said he was living in Church Close.

Well, maybe Keith ... "Sorry Symptoms, Maggie was never Miss Haversham." Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part - you know, when she ends her days going up in flames. I have my file already saved ready to squirt into the blogosphere; its title is REJOICE, REJOICE, REJOICE.* *for our younger viewers somebody will be along shortly to explain. Oh, and also expect a slither of Thatcher apologists to emerge from those dark fissures to sing her praises ... yuk!

Yeh, but we've got 200 years worth of coal under OUR feet. I say tosh to the rest of the World, let's keep Blightly warm and lit. Anyway, non of it really matters 'cos in 200 years we'll all be slaves of those from another place beyond ... a situation caused completely by this website. They had no reason to swing by our corner of the Cosmos until they received that free haircut offer*. *for our younger viewers and those new visitors here just wait ... somebody will be along to explain.

Bret - I've just looked at that map and reckon the pit heap was between East Cramlington and the A192 (opposite The Keel Row) and just before entering Seaton Delaval. I have a clear memory of a single, long terrace row of houses along the east edge of the A192, again near that Keel Row pub. There seems to be a large area of 'cleared' ground about where I'm sure the heap was.

Gordon was borrowed from Madame Tussauds for the day; Blair took time out from directing for the CIA the continuing death and distruction in the Middle East; Cameron was thinking of switching into Bullingdon Mode so he could kick that old biddy, Betty Saxe-Coburg and Gotha's legs away from under her; Major was thinking 'do I look a d.i.c.k. with these knock-knees?'. Oh, and that evil witch, the baby destroyer Thatcher was locked in her mansion dreaming of a better time when she featured in Great Expectations as Miss Havisham.

Crackers, the lot of you! Relying on puffs of wind and the crashing of waves ... poo. What we need is a fuel that is abundant, secure and local, doesn't need to be processed before use, has an age of proven technology behind it, leaves behind no deadly waste, ticks just about all the boxes for employing lots of people, and so on. Oh, and anything that's good for the Chinese should be good enough for us. COAL I say! And another thing - I don't want to hear all the ninnies here bleating on about how dirty/polluting it is or how unhealthly it is for the workers. Investment in clean coal technology (a small amount compared with the huge sums needed to be spent shielding our giblets from being zapped by the atom rays for 1000s of years); decent face masks will halt 'miners lung'. Do we really want every skyline covered with windmills and even more trampled underfoot by mile upon mile of giant pylons; do we really want our shoreline carpeted with nodding wave/tide machines and then the beaches trampled underfoot by even more pylons? No, I say! Also, a good plan would be to round-up all those feckless teenagers I identified in another post ... maybe we could call them The Bevan Symptoms Boys ... and draft them down the pit to dig the stuff. You all know it makes sense!

Just noticed that in my post of 17th july I said the Shields bus went via Forrest Hall but it's been nagging me since I wrote that ... infact the bus went via Seaton Delaval not FH. A United single decker which dropped down Bedlington Bank, on towards the 3 Horse Shoes, Seaton Delaval and Shields beyond. I must look-up the old mining maps to get confirm the name of the burning pitheap.

Adam wrote: "I don't think the cost is a problem because if it was why would mining companies in the 1800's pay for it and the state pay for it up into the 80's, the last "new pit" to open i think was Wistow Colliery in yorkshire in 1983, so i don't think the cost is a problem." Remember Adam most of the original mining companies were owned by the landed gentry who either financed the endeavour themselves ('cos they were filthy rich) or raised shares ... also labour was cheap. By comparison few new pits were sunk post Nationalisation and any new infrastructure costs were simply absorbed by the NCB. Today, private finance needed for this type of activity is mostly controlled by hedge-fund bandits whose only aim is a relatively 'short term' gain, as a result the years needed to create a new pit wouldn't be of interest. As you rightly observe the State wouldn't want to get involved now as the whole shooting match is now in private hands.

Alan - try here: http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/gallery/image/877-1961-bandstand-bedlington/ and here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelockeys/sets/72157624981442025/ and here: http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/2534-band-stand/

Canny ... remember that the Bosses always like to keep a big stick in their back pockets to ensure the minions are kept in order.

I had a school holiday job (must have been 1967) stripping the asbestos lagging off the boilers at the old West Sleekburn (I think that's what it was called) pit ... the place was an engineering factory. Hammer and spike were the tools and a damp hanky over the nose ... Ah, happy days! Every Thursday after school I'd catch the North Shields bus from the Red Lion to see my Granny. The route went through Forrest Hall but before that passed a huge pit heap (could it have been the Wheatslade) ... the pile was always on fire with tons of smoke coming off it. In the dark winter nights the !*!@# heap glowed red from the heat; this went on for years. Even if there was a political will to resurrect the UK mining industry it's unlikely that we will ever see any new deep mines opened. The cost of shaft sinking alone would scare off any state or private finance. para 2 should read s.l.a.g. heap but without the dots ... poo!

No, no, no, keep-up the good work Canny.

What about Ernie Gurney the butcher ... didn't he have a shop on Front St somewhere beyond the Northumberland Arms? Did Matty Binks the plumber have premises down there as well (mid 60s and before)? I seem to remember opposite there was a little farm or small-holding of sorts owned by the Pattersons ... I think they may also have had haulage lorries; I knew the son but at the moment can't recall his name ... I think he may have joined the cops but I could be wrong on that.

I wrote: "Shackled groups of naughty/evil teens forced to eat the long grass." Mal wrote: "Just trying to counterbalance Symptoms assertions that teenagers need to be horse whipped to within an inch of their lives! Some actually lead productive lives..... " Yep, most teens are fine, it's just a few slugs I'm on about.

If it's appropriate then the grass should be cut, for example in town centres, play areas, most parks, landscaping around buildings, around bus stops, and so on. I reckon it should generally remain uncut elsewhere, places like road margins and central reservations (but have a mower-wide cut strips alongside the gutters for 'elf 'n' safety), large designated areas within parks, swathes through accessable woodland, and along hedgerows ... this should be done to create wildlife areas.