The Novocastrian

2012-01-23T20:32:00.003Z

Bill Feaver talks about the Pitmen Painters on Michael Portillo's Great Railway Journeys.

2011-12-21T08:59:00.001Z

Quaker Burials at Cullercoats

2011-10-28T13:37:00.010+01:00

The Society of Friends or 'Quaker' burial ground at the north end of John Street in Cullercoats was in use from 1661 to 1818 and enclosed by a high wall in 1819. It was was removed in 1872 when John Street was extended to join Whitley Lane (now Road). The remains of the Cullercoats Friends and their headstones were transferred to the south side of Preston Cemetery in North Shields and an explanatory plaque erected.

An Elegy written on viewing the Quaker Burial Ground at Cullercoats

All Right Then!

2011-10-14T09:54:00.000+01:00

The ON's Dinner

2011-09-03T10:39:00.021+01:00

I am delighted to see that my old friend Tom Gutteridge will be addressing us at the ONA Dinner on 14 October. Tom was rightly critical of last year's carry-on and I am sure we can look forward to something much better from him. But one thing concerns me: What is Tom going to wear? He long ago came out as a 'no-tie' man. He has written eloquently on the subject of dress codes and his dislike of them. He even resigned from the Athenaeum when the membership voted, yet again, against modernising its rules (fortunately the Lit and Phil has no such code). Why, Tom even got tied to the delightful Jo tie-less.

What are any of us to wear at the ON bash? The invite flyer says Dress Code: Formal (Optional Black Tie/Evening Dress). But what does that mean?

Dress codes are supposed to make it easier for the guests; they are meant to put our minds at rest about our togs. Unfortunately nowadays the people who do the inviting are as ignorant about 'proper' dress as the guests are worried. 'Formal' evening dress is 'White Tie' (and tails). 'Black Tie' is actually 'informal' or 'semi-formal' evening dress. So a correct literal reading of the ONA invite is that we are required to wear White Tie ('Formal') but if we want we can wear 'Black Tie' (because 'Black Tie' is 'optional'). I thought at first 'Evening Dress' was just an oxymoron until I remembered the ON lasses. Now an 'Evening Dress' is a long dress worn by the ladies when chaps wear 'White Tie' - which confirms my reading of the dress requirement.

This is not, of course, what is meant. The writer thinks 'Black Tie' is 'Formal' but wants to say it is optional (you can wear a 'lounge suit' if you want, but he really wants you to wear a dinner jacket). He certainly doesn't want you to wear anything from the ONA 'merchandise' section.

He has probably not taken into account that nowadays 'Black Tie' can mean 'No-tie'. Howard Jacobson discusses this in today's Independent:

Like many working-class northerners, I am never happier than when dressed formally. A dinner suit irons out all social uncertainty and makes us equal to every occasion. And so I would look at the end – a man appropriately attired for whatever solemnities awaited him: meeting God or meeting the devil. But suddenly I'm told that a bow tie with a dinner jacket is passé.

"Yes I know the invitation says black tie," my hostess told me a couple of months before the event, "but I'm assuming everyone knows black tie means no tie.”

I bet Tom knows this and I am predicting he will appear in a dinner jacket without a tie. However I am a little worried he might wear a black shirt (he is a media man after all).

2011-08-19T15:43:00.001+01:00

Tynemouth trams carried the magnet and wheel emblem of their parent British Electric Traction company. I still have a magnet and wheel cap badge given to me by a bus conductor in the 1960s. The trams had finished in 1931 but if you got your school bus pass from the office in Northumberland Square it was stamped 'Tynemouth Electric Traction' even in the early '70s. There was also at that time still a bit of old track round the corner in Suez Street where the depot had been.

Fortiter Defendit Triumphans

2011-08-17T15:40:00.000+01:00

A familiar crest - this time from a Newcastle tram at Beamish

Be careful on Holy Island

2011-08-12T22:06:00.010+01:00

Be careful on Holy Island.

Images of Arcadia

2011-08-11T19:29:00.009+01:00

Photo by Ernest Storey

From 'Delia through the Ages'and 'Swinging Britain':

From Arcadia on Saturdays:

Eva Ibbotson

2011-08-05T17:26:00.005+01:00

The Journal

Piers Ibbotson ON talks about his mother's last book and the family house in Jesmond.

Pippa Andre

2011-08-05T13:45:00.003+01:00

Pippa Andre, actress, born Newcastle 1987

Newcastle in Film: Get Carter

2011-08-03T15:59:00.001+01:00

A Daily Mirror photograph

For the tour and more.

The Red Lion

2011-07-29T22:52:00.002+01:00

The red lion stood on the roof of one of the school air raid shelters.

The Miners' Hymns

2011-07-14T13:39:00.002+01:00

The Miners' Hymns

Pattie Boyd

2011-07-08T15:08:00.011+01:00

Pattie Boyd at what is now the Cooperage at 32 The Close on the Quayside. The photo by Ron Falloon was probably taken when the Beatles were playing at the City Hall on 4 December 1965. Pattie met George Harrison in 1964 when she played a school-girl fan in A Hard Day's Night. They married in January 1966. In bluff King Harry's reign No.32 was home to the merchant venturer Thomas Horsley who founded our rule and built our school.

Collingwood at St Paul's

2011-06-22T13:11:00.007+01:00

I was at St Paul's Cathedral yesterday for the 300th Anniversary service and I noted a mention of Admiral Collingwood (or rather his tomb) in the Dean's sermon. He invited the congregation to admire some of the monuments in the Cathedral: Samuel Johnson looking ridiculous in a toga, Nelson with a sagging lion apparently barely able to keep its eyes open, Collingwood being harangued by an angel. In contrast, Wren is commemorated by the tremendous epitaph composed by his son, set into the marble floor: "Lector si monumentum requieris, circumspice." (Reader, if you seek a monument, look around you). "What better monument could a man leave behind him, other than a cathedral which has come to represent the presence of God at the heart of this amazing city?" the Dean asked.

Gannin shoppin in Shields

2011-06-07T21:55:00.004+01:00

T G Allan (nobody bothered about the Blakian ampersand) in North Shields was where I bought my first books, the first of thousands. Eventually I had so many books I had to become a bookseller to clear some space (for more books). Any way this is where it started on the first floor at T G Allan's. Go and see the exhibition.

Cullercoats Radio

2011-06-04T20:13:00.007+01:00

Newcastle City Library Acc. 46360

In those days it wasn't the pirates who "spoiled out listening pleasure" but the Cullercoats sea to shore radio. It was doing a vital job of course so we didn't mind when "Cullercoats Radio,Cullercoats Radio" broke loudly into whichever station we were listening to on the wireless.

Geordie Shore

2011-05-30T08:37:00.001+01:00

Take a tip from Tom

Return of the Tube?

2011-05-23T11:23:00.014+01:00

The Journal reports a 30th anniversary return of The Tube. Without Paula, the Tyne Tees City Road studios or the Egypt Cottage it won't be the same.

I was never on The Tube, but I did once go to City Road to participate as token grammar school smudge in a discussion programme called something like Focus on Youth. It was about squatting and the housing shortage of which I knew nothing. The best bits were the warm-up whiskies and the taxi home to the coast with the driver asking : "Are ye on the telly, like?"

Years later I 'featured' in a TV documentary (only as an example of something - not because I am famous or important) and insisted they filmed a bit in Eskdale Terrace 'to help them understand'.

I never met Paula Yates.

John Lilburne ON

2011-05-07T16:17:00.012+01:00

The ONA magazine (No 82) arrived today. I note we are told it is "now available online", and "each edition is added to the ONA website shortly after circulation". In fact the "current" edition on the site is No. 79 - Summer 2010. Nevertheless, I was delighted to see the image of "Free-born" John Lilburne on the cover, and to read Sir Geoffrey Bindman's Article on his "legal hero" first published in the Guardian. You can read it here 'until' the ONA version is actually online.

Sir G. (O.N.) writes "When I was at school between 1945 and 1950 I knew nothing of Lilburne, and for many years later was unaware of his link with the school. Every day we sang the school song which listed those famous Old Novos: "Collingwood, Armstrong, Eldon and Bourne, Akenside, Stowell and Brand." Why leave out John Lilburne, who, apart from his pivotal role in the development of our legal system, was one of our most important constitutional thinkers?"

Well, those of us who were privileged to be taught 17th century History by Alan Mitchell knew who John Lilburne was and why his name was omitted. Furthermore, in the Novo of Summer 1968 (appropriately) a new verse for the school song was proposed in his memory by Iain McGill. Here it is:

Radio 270

2011-05-03T12:32:00.018+01:00

In those days we all used to listen to Radio 270 "broadcasting from three and half miles off the Scarborough, Yorkshire, coast". The station was bankrolled by Wilf Proudfoot, a local supermarket magnate and occasional Tory MP for Cleveland. Wilf's nephew, Keith, was in the same form as me ('4 Science D' or something), and had inherited some of his uncle's business acumen. He ran a racket selling sweets to those of us who had been too lazy to buy them on the way into school, or needed credit terms to cover their cost (4 for a penny). Keith's heavies would deal with those who couldn't pay in the Pinfold after dark. (A'm kiddin.) He specialized in 'Midget Gems', and was one himself.

I remember staying up until midnight on the night of 14 August 1967 when the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill became law to record the dying moments of Radio 270 on my 4-track Fidelity Playmaster tape recorder. For a while I was 'active' in the North East Free Radio Association run by Tony Rounthwaite of Jesmond - although this was probably more in the hope of meeting girls than out of a commitment to libertarian conservatism.

I remember Radio 270 got its hands on a pre-release copy of Traffic's Hole in my Shoe which it played every other record for days and propelled towards No 2 in the charts:

I climbed on the back of a giant albatross / Which flew through a crack in the cloud / To a place where happiness reigned all year round / And music played ever so loudly.

Apparently Wilf Proudfoot became a hypnotist in later life.

The Central High in 1939

2011-03-17T19:23:00.003Z

The Central High School in 1939 from the wonderful City Library photostream.

Recent takes on the school uniform

2011-03-17T18:37:00.004Z

from the Drama Festival blog

Almost traditional lower school blue.

Blazer-blue seems to get ever darker.

Until it turns black.

This is an improvement. Let's hope it's adopted.

History Boys

2011-03-16T21:55:00.001Z

School books: The Thicket

2011-03-15T10:00:00.003Z

Watching Skins the other night I was struck by how soon in their relationship Grace thought it right to invite her new boyfriend Rich home to dinner with her parents (especially given that she had been concealing that her father was actually their college Principal). This certainly wouldn't have happened in my day when you would have hardly wanted your friends to meet your parents at all.

I was reminded of the courting rituals of an earlier period as portrayed in ON David Boll's The Thicket (set fairly clearly in 1948/1949 - trams still travelled along Scotswood Road, but the trolleybuses had taken over in Jesmond and along the North Road). The Novocastrian protagonist, also a Richard, is the son of a schoolmaster (Boll's own dad WHB taught at the RGS). The novel describes his search for a 'balanced life', that is to say for a girlfriend.

In those days you got to know girls through someone like Eric Candler who used to drink coffee and listen to the orchestra in Fenwick's restaurant on a Sunday morning - a sure place to find them. Then there might be a group outing to the theatre, followed by a tea party at one of the girl's homes. Mother laid on a spread and then, surprisingly, it seems the action continued upstairs in the hostess's room.

At such an occasion Richard falls for Central High girl Maureen (who of course prefers Bernie). In the end Valerie invites him to tea and together they explore country matters at her grandmother's house near Humshaugh.

There they were, walking down the street, a gaggle of figures in brown school uniforms, stiff round hats on their heads and satchels slung over their shoulders.

[Eric] was very slick . . .always smartly dressed, with his hair carefully combed into a rigid wave, and a special spring under his shirt collar to stop the points curling.

[Richard] had a pale sports jacket . . . a pair of very snappy grey herringbone trousers . . . a pale tie from his father . . . a black shirt. He was all kitted up.

[Bernie] was dressed in a brown jacket with big leather buttons, and had a silk scarf knotted round his neck . . . he looked extremely impressive.

The grammar school gives you a really good education. It's what you need to get on nowadays. If you receive a first-class training the world is yours. I hope you are going to make full use of it, Richard. What are you going to be in life?

Bum freezer

2011-03-07T20:38:00.002Z

A young lad in a bum freezer and Eton collar receiving a school prize in 1930 (from the Newcastle Libraries photo stream - click on the image). That's Mabel, Lady Plender giving it him, with ON hubby Sir William on her left. He was a big shot accountant who served on many government committees and was made Baron Plender in 1931. He endowed a leaver's scholarship (was it called the 'Dale Plender' in my day ? Who was Dale?), a history essay prize which I entered but didnt't win (who did Richard Sharp? Chris Judson?) and the old school library. Lord Stowell's portrait in the background so this must be the school hall. I guess that's headmaster Ebenezer Thomas on the left.

'Invisible catch'

2011-03-04T19:48:00.006Z

Well turned out lads playing invisible catch in 1986 (from the City Libraries photo collection - click on the image). Note long sleeves not rolled above the elbow, except for the boy on the left (but it is interesting to see grey shirts were still permitted then). I particularly like the fellow on the right who has a decent half inch or so of cuff showing. The blue-black "Quink' blazer has not yet replaced the traditional lighter blue one.

The school badge

2011-03-02T14:45:00.011Z

There's a bit of a discussion about the school crest here at the moment. The badge shown above is actually from a Newcastle United shirt, but I can vaguely remember a lad having it on his school blazer in the 1960s. Was he just supporting his team or was it his Dad's old blazer from before the adoption of the new school badge in the 1930s?

School books: school histories

2011-03-02T11:54:00.013Z

The first school history, The Story of Our School, was published in 1924. It was written by senior English master J. B. Brodie (1898 - 1928) and senior science master A. R. Laws (1892 - 1928), and included the text of the school song written by Brodie and first performed in April 1914.

Copies of this book were given to each boy entering the school. I don't know when this custom ceased but I remember seeing boxes full of copies in the bookroom behind the organ in the mid-1960s.

A special edition of Brodie and Laws was produced for the so-called 400th anniversary of the school in 1925. This included the programme for the event and copies of some of the portraits of distinguished ONs from the hall. The date discrepancy arises from Thomas Horsley's conception of the school in his will of 1525 and its actual foundation after his death in 1545.

In 1925 Laws published his two-volume Schola Novocastrensis: A Biographical History of the Royal Free Grammar School of Newcastle - upon - Tyne. A third planned volume continuing the story from 1845 was never published. This combines a more substantial history of the school with biographical details of alumni.

All of these volumes were part of headmaster Ebenezer Rhys Thomas (1922 - 1948) policy of reinforcing the school's sense off status and pride, and promoting it as a public day school preparing its pupils for leadership (discendo duces).

The Register of the Royal Grammar School Newcastle upon Tyne 1545 - 1954 by B. D. Stevens (1955) repeated Laws' biographical record and continued it (with less detail) down to 1954. A supplement was published the following year. The ON News picked up and continued the project from the 1980s until it ceased publication in the 1990s.

"It is my privilege to be Headmaster of the Royal Grammar School at the time this Register is issued. The author, Mr. B. D. Stevens, is a young Old Boy, and to his ability and devotion our best thanks are due. It has been a tremendous task, taking years of patient and careful research—which indeed he is continuing. Since the reign of Henry VIII Old Boys of the R.G.S. have . played a prominent and valuable part in the life of Newcastle and of the country. I hope the present—and the future—generations may be relied on to live up to the record of their predecessors during the last four centuries. I am convinced that they will."

Head of History (from 1976) Brian Mains and ON Anthony Tuck produced their Royal Grammar School Newcastle upon Tyne: A Hsitroy of the School in its Community in 1986. A substantial and scholarly collection of essays examining the history of the school and its context, subscribers' copies came with a strange letter from headmaster A. S. Cox hoping that readers would not be too disappointed with its serious tone.

Great War Memorial Roll

2011-03-02T10:48:00.005Z

This Memorial Volume is dedicated to Old Novocastrians of all generations who in it may learn how much they owe to those brave men, who, at the call of duty, fought for the honour of their country, and, following the great example, willingly laid down their lives for others.

The complete roll can be found here.

The School Crest and motto

2011-03-01T11:14:00.002Z

The current version of the school crest as found on the website and on blazers is a kind of blurry version of the one I remember from the 1960s. It no longer carries the motto Discendo Duces, which now, indeed, seems to have disappeared completely.

According to Anthony Tuck ON in his essay 'Towards the Front Rank 1922 - 1945' this coat of arms was adopted in 1930 to replace the tradition followed since the nineteenth century of juxtaposing the arms of Queen Elizabeth I with those of the city. The cost of the grant for the new arms was met by Sir Arthur Sutherland. Discendo Duces ('through learning you will lead') became the school motto the following year apparently replacing Progrediendum Est (which sort of means 'setting out'), although I have not been able to find an example of this.

The new crest and motto were part of an attempt by headmaster Ebenezer Rhys Thomas (1922 - 1948) to reinforce the school's sense of status and pride. The school song also dates from this period.

Prior to the nineteenth century the school seems to have simply used the arms of the city.

Old Novocastrian Association

2011-02-27T15:03:00.001Z

http://ona.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/

Church High girls 1935

2011-02-27T14:06:00.000Z

School books: How it was

2011-02-19T12:42:00.018Z

Howard Temperley is the former Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, and now a 'computer artist'. How it was is a memoir of his life in the North East, as a cavalry officer in Egypt, and as a student at Oxford and Yale.

The son of a bank manager from Sunderland, Temperley entered the RGS Junior School just in time to be evacuated. The entire school was resettled for the war years in and around Penrith - the boys being boarded with local families or in requisitioned hostels, with lessons in church halls or with the boys of Penrith Grammar School (who called our lads 'bluebottles'). 'Tucker' Anderson was the master i/c of the whole operation for 450 boys, meeting many of the expenses involved from his own pocket.

Temperley spent his first weeks at Penrith in the same set of clothes, only being exposed when the laundry bills were compiled and his amounted to only a single blood-stained handkerchief. Actually there's quite a lot of blood in our section of the book as young Howard's principal interests were wild-fowling and baiting rabbits to supplement his rations or earn a bit of cash. It was a time when the sight of a boy with a shotgun on a bus or train aroused no alarm. All this comes to an end when a friend he is shooting with is killed on a level crossing.

The 17-year old Temperley now turns inwards. He had already won an art prize from Hancock's Museum, and his extensive reading of natural history books in the Lit and Phil becomes the foundation for a scholarly turn encouraged by his ornithologist English master M. G. Robinson, and his housemaster Larry Watson. He is befriended by sixth form historian David Boll, later the author of the only novel actually set in the RGS, The Thicket, in which Robinson is portrayed as 'Jerks' (we knew him as 'Cracker'), and so comes to the attention of 'Sammy' Middlebrook, head of history, and is now Oxford bound.

A pause here to recall how the Novocastrian's own undistinguished lower school career was transformed by getting in with the history set and being nurtured by decent men like Alan Mitchell and Peter Braggins. Like HT I remember the Oxbridge term as the most intellectually stimulating period of my life.

As it did in those days a period of National Service intervenes before HT takes up his place at Magdalen. His scholarship identifies him as officer potential (two RGS head boys fail to make it) and he ends up serving with a posh cavalry regiment in the desert. Class consciousness now becomes a stronger theme of the memoir. We see it beginning to break down at Oxford, thanks in no small part to the older undergraduates who have been in the forces, and then, for HT, in his time in the United States.

At the end of his academic career he revisits the North East, generally approving of what he sees: "The region needed reinventing, and to a large extent the washing up has now been done".

He also has some interesting portraits of other ONs including a transvestite bullfighter.

Correct your maps, Newcastle is Brazil!

2011-02-13T21:49:00.005Z

The way we dressed then

2011-01-30T23:59:00.001Z

Tynemouth Priory

2011-01-30T09:28:00.008Z

Tynemouth Priory by Hilary Paynter on show (until today) in DC at the Washington Print Makers' Gallery. See also their Facebook group.

Get Carter: 40 years on

2011-01-25T11:05:00.002Z

A 40th anniversary tribute

Magic Tyneside

2011-01-24T18:45:00.003Z

Magic lantern slides.

Cullercoats

The Heber Tower, Newcastle

A steamer somewhere along the Tyne

Best ice cream in the world

2011-01-19T11:20:00.000Z

Von Pimpf zum POW

2011-01-17T16:00:00.005Z

Das Buch beschreibt die Jugenderlebnisse des Autors in der Zeit von 1938 bis 1946.Höhepunkte sind seine Begegnungen mit der berühmten Testpilotin Hanna Reitsch, die für ihn von grosser Bedeutung waren und seine Erlebnisse als Kriegsgefangener in England. Von dort versuchte er zweimal zu fliehen, was aber misslang. 60 Jahre später folgte er den Spuren seiner ersten Flucht. Das Buch berichtet auch vom faszinierenden Spiel des Zufalls, das seinem Leben des Öfteren eine völlig neue Richtung gab.

The Tyne

2011-01-15T11:00:00.002Z

The Tyne, lithograph for the LNER by Frank Mason (1876 - 1965)

First Foot notes

2010-12-31T08:00:00.001Z

Miss Willey Remembers Auld Acquaintance.

It's been many years since I did anything on New Year's Eve and I dare say this year will be no exception. The only people I know who stay up until 12 o’clock are my mam and dad. They organize a murder mystery night at their community centre. Everyone chips in with food and drink and Dad sets a quiz so they see in the New Year with their neighbours.

I like the idea of that but in practice it doesn't seem quite so appealing. I think you have to have been living in the same area all of your life for it to work effortlessly, otherwise it can be a bit forced especially when the clock strikes twelve. What is the etiquette? Do you hug? Do you kiss? Do you hide?

A very hot front room.

From when we were very small to teenage years we went as a family to Auntie Hilda’s and Uncle Kit’s to see in the New Year. Until they died Dad was their first foot. That seems quaint now but it was a big part of our growing up. Sitting in a very hot front room (the rest of the house was freezing) slightly nervous because she always had a dog, and usually a cat and a budgie.

We were scared of pets not having had any ourselves apart from a goldfish which doesn't really count. Fortunately she would put the dog upstairs but inevitably we would hear it scratching at the door halfway through the night and we would be praying she wouldn't let it in. God knows what we thought it would do.

Apart from drinking homemade ginger beer and eating Christmas cake we would read the books we had received at Christmas – The Broons one year and Our Wullie the next, nothing but the best from D C Thompson – whilst waiting for the climax of the evening which began at 11.55. Dad would take up position outside in the back yard and at the stroke of 12 he would come back in with a piece of coal, some coinage and some food and wish everyone a Happy New Year. Then we would have a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne. Quite moving really.

Probably drunk.

A little while later our cousins Jim and Chris would arrive back. They were older than us and I now realise they were probably drunk. Back from the club reeking of smoke with their quiffs and bloodshot eyes. We thought they were very grown up. Drainpipe trousers, signet rings with initials in gold and the all important drop handlebar racing bike was their distinctive look, the northern version of the Lambeth Boys.

Now if I could recreate a New Year’s Eve like that I would certainly give it a go. Anyone fancy the job of first foot? I will even provide the coal.

Happy Christmas

2010-12-25T07:00:00.002Z

2010-12-14T18:17:00.001Z

School's out

Studying art in Newcastle in the 1950s

2010-12-05T13:53:00.002Z

"This is how I came to I attend the Department of Fine Art (also called the King Edward VII School of Art), located within King’s College, a campus situated in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which was then part of the University of Durham."

Art critic John A. Walker describes studying art in Newcastle in the 1950s.

"I soon gained the impression there was a wide gulf between ‘town’ and ‘gown’: little contact or interaction took place between the intellectual life of the university and the local Geordie culture with its strong dialect, shipyard toil, thirst for Newcastle Brown Ale and fanatical support for Newcastle United football club. (I gained some knowledge of this culture by marrying the daughter of a Geordie shipyard worker.) However, the University did have an extra mural department and classes in art were given to local people in the Department during the evenings. What students and local people did share was the mass culture medium of the cinema. American movies like Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) attracted full houses. The 1950s was an era of Cold War between East and West and so any unusual behaviour on the part of art students, such as painting in Northumberland Street during charity rag weeks, elicited such remarks from local people as ‘they must be communists’."

Tynemouth Wards

2010-12-05T11:46:00.000Z

Journey to the North

2010-12-01T08:59:00.014Z

Searching around for some stouter togs than an ON 'hoodie' for my winter walks along the prom at Tynemouth I returned to the 'website' of Old Town Clothing of Holt in Norfolk. (You might remember that the closing scene of Payroll takes place close to there.)

Old Town have an 'on-line' magazine called Evening Star (which evoked memories of the 9Fs on the Tyne Dock - Consett iron ore trains, and the last day of steam on the Alnwick branch, but I digress). A recent issue included Marie Willey's splendid account of a (return) visit to 'the North' (by train to Morpeth I was pleased to see). She goes to the colliery museum at Woodhorn and the Crown Posada among other places. The article is illustrated with some nice linocuts by John Richardson who studied at Newcastle College of Arts and now runs the Two Terriers Press.

The way we dress now

2010-11-30T19:38:00.005Z

From the 'merchandise' section of the ON's website, or you could buy a polyester tie.

Eva Ibbotson

2010-11-30T16:26:00.002Z

Eva Ibbotson died on 20 October 2010. I remember her as a regular in the Lit and Phil. Her three sons, Toby (my contemporary), Piers and Justin, were ONs.

Newcastle in film: School for Seduction

2010-11-14T19:55:00.011Z

Italian siren Sophia Rosselini (Kelly Brook) establishes a School for Seduction in Newcastle in the 2004 film.

Kelly gets her first glimpse of Newcastle

Dervla Kirwin runs to meet her man at the Central Station

as Kelly crosses the bridge with trepidation

Girls Bigg night out.

Kelly learns how to please Geordie men.

and attracts a lot of Geordie men.

The boyfriend arrives from Italy.

A clue.

On the Quayside.

The girls cross the blinking bridge.

Newcastle in film: Dead Frequency

2010-11-10T12:23:00.010Z

Dead Frequency: a vampire film set in Newcastle

(with real Geordie accents) for release in February 2011. (See also and here)

Newcastle in Film: The Likely Lads

2010-11-06T13:44:00.014Z

Prior's Haven

Tynemouth pier

Coast Road flats Wallsend

The lads' caravan crosses the Tyne

Rothbury

Visit to the Roman Wall

The Bee Hive Inn, Earsdon

Corbridge

Whitley Bay sea front

The Dome of the Spanish City

Newcastle Quayside

South Shields ferry landing

Another place

2010-11-06T12:51:00.001Z

History of Dame Allan schools commemorated

November 2nd 2010, by Tony Henderson, The Journal

JUST over 300 years ago, tobacconist’s widow Eleanor Allan fulfilled her pipe dream of opening schools for poor children.

And yesterday her statue looked down on the unveiling of a plaque which marked the schools’ long links with Newcastle. Newcastle Lord Mayor Brenda Hindmarsh unveiled the plaque on the Queen Anne-style building by architect R J Johnson in the city’s College Street, which was home to the Dame Allan schools from 1883 to 1935.

The statue of Dame Allan, who died in 1708, is mounted in a niche on the wall of the adjacent headmaster’s house. It is the only statue to a woman in Newcastle apart from those to Queen Victoria.

Dame Allan sold her farm in Wallsend to open her schools, which were founded in 1705, for 40 poor boys and 20 poor girls.

Today, the schools are based in Fenham and have a total of 920 pupils.

The first schools are believed to have been sited near St Nicholas Church, now the city’s Anglican Cathedral, with moved in 1786 to Manor Chare near All Saints, 1821 to Carliol Square, 1861 to Rosemary Lane off Pudding Chare, and 1875 to Hanover Square before moving in to the purpose-built College Street building. It is now owned by Northumbria University and part is let to the Newcastle Law Society and part to the city council’s youth offending team.

Dame Allan’s principal Dr John Hind said yesterday: “We felt it was important that the schools’ links to the city were marked.”

Coun Hindmarsh said: “Dame Allan’s Schools have played a significant role in the life of our city’s education and I am delighted their connections to the city centre are being marked at this plaque unveiling.”

Newcastle in film: Dont Look Back

2010-10-13T22:26:00.029+01:00

Bob Dylan's 1965 visit to Newcastle for his 6 May concert at the City Hall is recorded in D. A. Pennebaker's Dont [sic] Look Back (1967).

Bob is welcomed to Newcastle by Councillor Theresa Russell who invites him to stay at 'her' Mansion House when she becomes Lord Mayor the following year (1965-1966).

In return Bob gives her a harmonica. Mrs Russell endowed an Old Testament Studies prize at the grammar of which I was the first winner for an essay on Apocalyptic literature. That was my only appearance on the stage of the City Hall.

Bob checks out a guitar shop

before setting off on a walk down Pudding Chare.

Later he tries on a jacket in Marcus Price in the Groat Market.

An ecstatic shop assistant looks on.

He also chooses a tie which is admired by his manager and Alan Price who are both sampling a well-known local beverage.

The next day he sets off for Manchester by train. A crowd of local school girls see him off from the Central Station.

Crossing the bridge to Platform 10.

He says good-bye to the fans outside the Refreshment Room in the little passage between Platforms 9 and 1o. He seems to be wearing his new Marcus Price jacket.

A 'Peak' arrives with the empty stock from Heaton carriage sidings ready to form the 1210 Newcastle to Bristol train. The headcode 1V45 indicates an express destined for the Western Region.

Girls run alongside the departing train. A mail train is standing at Platform 8.

One of those old glass refreshment trolleys.

Mail bags were once such a common sight on station platforms.

More mail bags and a DMU for the Carlisle line at Platform 15.

Newcastle in film: Stormy Monday

2010-10-03T20:42:00.039+01:00

Stormy Monday (1988), directed by Michael Figgis, pits crooked American investor and property 'developer' Tommy Lee Jones against Newcastle nightclub owner Sting. Sean Bean warns Sting of Jones's true intentions and becomes involved with Melanie Griffith who has apparently previously been used by Jones in his dodgy doings. There's a subplot involving a Polish jazz band who fly over from Cracow to Woolsington to perform in North Shields. Thanks to Sting and various hoodlums at last there's some Geordie spoken in this one.

A developer's 'vision' for Newcastle. At least the buses were still to be yellow.

Sean Bean heads down to the Quayside

and back again

where he bumps into Melanie Griffith opposite the barber's.

Later he takes a Metro somewhere

and then travels in a convoy

to North Shields

to the bottom of Howard Street. The building on the right is the former Literary and Philosophical Society Library later the offices of the Stag Line Shipping Company.

Bean meets Melanie again at the top of the Library Stairs.

This platform at the end of Howard Street was intended to lead onto a never built bridge across the Tyne to South Shields.

They return to Newcastle passing a newly privatised ex- PTE bus. Busways retained the old Corporation yellow livery, indeed restored a bit of pre-war maroon. Their takeover by Stagecoach put an end to yellow buses in Newcastle.

Sting meets his rival on the Tyne Bridge.

A Parade is heading down to the Quayside past Brian Mills's Newcastle Bookshop

and the Cafe Procope

in a bit of a homage to Get Carter.

It stretches back to the Royal Station Hotel

where the red carpet has been put out for the American villain.

Melanie arrives

and on leaving 'keys' the American's car.

It all ends explosively.

Newcastle in film: Payroll

2010-10-01T18:13:00.055+01:00

In Payroll (1961), directed by Sidney Hayers, and based on a novel (1959) by Derek Bickerton, the Johnny Mellor (Michael Craig) gang plot the robbery of a factory's pay delivery. Though set, until the final denouement (in Norfolk), entirely on Tyneside (apart from a bizarre continuity-collapse shot of a level crossing at East Sheen station) once again not a single character speaks with a local accent. The novel was set in Birmingham.

The Payroll has hitherto been taken from Lloyds Bank in Grey Street in a Humber Super Snipe (here seen passing a 31A trolley bus on its route along Market Street towards the Central Station)

which takes an odd route via the Haymarket and Percy Street

down to the Quayside. Maybe this is a cunning way of confusing potential robbers.

But by the time the gang have got themselves ready the Humber has been replaced by an armoured van.

On a dry run they follow it in a Land Rover towards the Monument as a trolleybus for Denton Road Terminus passes along Market Street.

A policeman in a long white coat unwittingly assists their progress. There's a good view here of Mawson, Swann and Morgan, a rather posh shop that sold luggage on the ground floor and books in the basement. It later became a branch of Waterstone's.

This time they pass the Odeon in Pilgrim Street

and are soon back on the Quayside.

Seen through the Land Rover's windscreen the van crosses Redheugh Bridge.

On the day of the actual robbery the gang uses a tipper truck to ram the armoured van. Here it is seen stuck in traffic on the Tyne Bridge.

Once again the local police offer some help. The constable is wearing the distinctive ('Newcastle United') striped band on his cap used by Newcastle Police for a few years in the 1960s. The driver is wearing his old army leather jerkin - a great signifier of other ranks/lower classes in British films.

As it heads back it passes the 'tower wagon' used to repair the overhead trolley bus wires. Newcastle trolley buses had blinds for Gateshead destinations over the Tyne Bridge even though the wires never extended south of the Tyne - so there is no obvious reason for the vehicle to be crossing the river. The posts and hooks for the former tram overhead (removed in 1951) can be clearly seen. In the right background a Class V2 2-6-0 leads a heavy freight train towards Manors. A pigeon looks on.

The armoured van itself is stuck on the Swing Bridge.

There is a subplot. Mellor is having a dalliance with Katie Pearson (Francoise Prevost) the Viennese wife (at least they apparently met in Vienna - she speaks French when stressed) of the 'insider' who has provided the gang with the designs of the armoured van and its route. Here they separate after a tryst outside the Central Station. Katie is probably off to catch the train home to Tynemouth

where she lives opposite the Plaza in Parkside Crescent. As one of Bainbridge's of North Shields removal vans goes past, Mellor drops her off from his Sunbeam convertible

after a passionate hour in the sand dunes near Seaton Sluice.

When Pearson discovers the affair he burns his share of the loot setting fire to the house in the process. Katie beats it

as a Tynemouth Borough fire engine arrives on the scene.

She runs for a Newcastle Corporation bus which for some reason is operating along the Grand Parade (they never did)

and has stopped at a newly painted Tynemouth bus stop (they changed from white to blue around this time).

But she hasn't escaped: the widow (Billie Whitelaw) of one of the security men killed in the raid has followed her, and as the bus sets off in the direction of Whitley Bay

and then mysteriously crosses the Tyne Bridge

she seeks her revenge.

The 1961 'tie-in' edition of the novel.

Shooting the film in Grey Street.

Some more about Payroll locations here.

Newcastle in film: On the Night of the Fire

2010-09-29T21:23:00.025+01:00

On the Night of the Fire (also released as The Fugitive) (1940) is directed by Brian Hurst and based on a 1939 novel by F.L.Green.

Will Kobling (Ralph Richardson, a barber, is tempted into stealing £100 to pay off the enormous clothing debts of his wife (Diana Wynyard). The miserly shopkeeper soon discovers where the money has come from and attempts to blackmail Kobling who promptly does him in when everyone is distracted by a major fire in the town. Actually the police have enough evidence to arrest Kobling from the start, but the film prefers to explore his descent deeper into criminality, and gives him a moral rather than a judicial comeuppance.

It's a bit of a 'Michael Smith' of a film in that, though clearly set in Newcastle, no one speaks with a local accent and the town is never named. Most of it was obviously filmed in Pinewood Studios with chirpy cockney types playing the smaller parts - although there is the odd 'up north' voice and a few references to 'mills'. Nevertheless the main characters clearly had a few days on location in these parts.

In the opening shot a tram speeds across the New Tyne Bridge towards Gateshead.

Kobling (Ralph Richardson) heads for home somewhere in the lower town.

The Scandinavia steams under the High Level Bridge as a single deck tram crosses the lower level towards Newcastle

and a G5 0-4-4 tank leads her train across the upper level probably for Sunderland.

The Koblings in happier days at the Sunday morning Quayside market.

Kobling is followed under Byker Bridge

and along a terrace near a shipyard.

Newcastle style stairs, but probably in Pinewood.

Newcastle in film: The Clouded Yellow

2010-09-23T17:03:00.001+01:00

Inspired by Hartlepool-born Michael Smith's return to his native (sic) Newcastle, I thought I would begin an occasional series on 'Newcastle in film'. For the purposes of the series I will use Michael's definition of Newcastle as anywhere on Tyneside or where he went on his holidays as a lad.

The title of The Clouded Yellow refers to a breed of butterfly rather than the yellow trolleybuses that make a black-and-white appearance in Ralph Thomas's 1951 thriller. David Somers (Trevor Howard) loses his job in counter-intelligence for a 'single mistake'. As he considers his future he takes a quiet job in the country cataloguing a collection of butterflies for Nicholas Fenton. He falls for Fenton's wife's niece Sophie (Jean Simmons), a fragile beauty who is treated as a psychological case by her creepy Aunt Jess because she had witnessed the murder of her parents when she was a small child. Somers begins to suspect Sophie is being manipulated, and when she is accused of the murder of a disagreeable groundsman helps her to escape. They make for Newcastle (by ship from London because the police will only be watching people leaving the country) where Somers has contacts from his espionage days who owe him a favour (German (?) refugees and a Greek (?) taxidermist). Fearing he might expose state secrets in an attempt to protect Sophie, MI6 dispatch Kenneth More in hot pursuit.

The tram on the bridge dates the shot to before 4 March 1950 when the last Corporation cars ran and the Tyne Bridge tracks were abandoned. Gateshead company cars however continued to cross the High Level Bridge into the city until 1951.

Somers's mysterious contact Dr. Karl Cesare leaves the Central Station. The couple have not arrived by train. He is heading for the eastern exit which served the platforms used by the electric trains to the coast and had its own ticket office.

He gives up waiting at the Haymarket bus station. The have not arrived by coach. The double-decker in the background is most likely a Tynemouth bus on (joint with the Corporation) route 11 to Tynemouth.

They have arrived by ship so Cesare gives chase. In the background a two-axle trolleybus on route 34 heads along City Road.

Somers and Sophie are seen running for a trolleybus in St Nicholas Street while in the background a North Tyneside electric train passes the castle on its way towards Manors.

This street and stop were actually only regularly used by vehicles on short workings of service 34 to Denton, but the 'bus shown is one of a group which spent most of their of their working lives on the Great North Road services to Gosforth. This suggests it was probably specially hired or provided for the film.

Special arrangements clearly had to be made for filming inside the 'bus where they are seen travelling along Neville Street past the Victoria and Comet Hotel opposite the Central Station. This would not have been possible for a trolleybus leaving St Nicholas Street. Somers asks for tickets to Jesmond.

They travel on a 31B to Exhibition Park. The class of which 483 was an example was actually built for London Transport and diverted to Newcastle in 1948.

Cesare's car pulls up behind them.

Later, on the run, their attempt to escape the police via the Dog Leap Stairs is frustrated so they steal a rowing boat and cross the river to begin their second flight to Liverpool via the Lake District. The faction now strongly resembles The 39 Steps also directed by Thomas (and starring Kenneth More) in its 1959 version.

Police check-point on the Tyne Bridge.

Voila!

2010-09-23T15:59:00.001+01:00

Voila is a waitressing service set up by girls from across the road.

Morning Assembly

2010-09-22T16:56:00.003+01:00

The sixth form sitting at the front; the fifth behind. The rest of the school standing around the walls and on the gallery. The masters stand to the left. In the centre the Head Prefect (purple braid on his Oxford commoner's gown). Another prefect is reading the lesson. The Head Man sits on the left of the stage. The table between them is carved with names and initials of boys back to the early 1800s.

Old Novos

2010-09-22T16:20:00.002+01:00

The Plender Librarian at work. He wears a suit to show his superior status to the blue blazers. The one in the middle seems to be in summer gear.

An interesting unbadged double-breasted blazer on the right. I wish I had thought of that. Caps on to a man suggesting an official occasion.

This one is from 1958 (I am told).

We seem to see a mixture of blue and black blazers suggesting a fifth-form class, although some of them look old enough to have returned to school after doing their national service.

Newcastle on Film

2010-09-17T22:55:00.018+01:00

Michael Smith’s Deep North was bizarrely described as "the novelist returns to his native city of Newcastle upon Tyne". "Bizarre" because it turns out he comes from Hartlepool and only made the odd holiday trip north with his grandma. On that basis I could return to my 'native' Butlin's. Anyway others have already suitably dissed the poor chap.

I never went on holiday to Hartlepool, but remember the shame of discovering my great- great- great- grandfather had been born there (only overcome when I found out his father had been born in Fulham).

An odd fact I remember from Transport Circle days about Hartlepool is that its corporation transport department was the smallest in the country with only four buses bought second-hand from London and crewed by a local coach company.

Newcastle on film

2010-09-12T15:18:00.001+01:00

Newcastle on film tonight on BBC4

La Dolce Vita

2010-09-10T20:46:00.029+01:00

Photo from readysteadygone

La Dolce Vita was a rather shady nightclub in Low Friar Street by the time I knew it in the late 1960s, although it is said to have once rivalled London's Talk of the Town (whatever that means).

Click on the picture or the links

Its memory or ghost (for it was haunted) is evoked in Bryan Ferry's You Can Dance: "to the border city, that's where I get my shoes . . . from Brady Square up to Jesmond Dene, and in the Dolce Vita I find my beauty queen". Brady Square was where the young Ferry lived in Washington. He bought shoes at City Stylish in Newcastle.

There's another version (or 'mix') from Hell which omits the references and a video about the making of the video. The film was made in Wilton's Music Hall in Stepney.

Novocastrians

2010-09-08T14:41:00.000+01:00

New Novos: old books

2010-09-01T08:13:00.000+01:00

Here's a more modern picture of the Plender Library. The tables have changed, but it is good to see the cabinets remain intact.

School books: Le Grand Meaulnes

2010-08-28T16:13:00.009+01:00

There always seemed to be something exotic about boys who entered the school later, who had not been with us from the ‘twos’ (as the first year was called). It was as if the earlier part of their lives would always remain unknown to us and contained some secret or adventure we could never share.

2010-05-03T21:13:00.006+01:00

Reading Tom's When did you cry last? took me back to memories of a mutual friend and ON Chris Dowell who died in 1989. Chris was also a friend of Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys whose song Being Boring is about him:

"Being boring was a key song for us, since it was very, very autobiographical. It was about friend of mine—he became a teacher and then he contracted AIDS. And he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, just the time we’ve become very, very successful. We were sort of more or less childhood friends. And then he died in 1989. And so it was just an autobiographical song, just trying to look at our lives and—you know—what we wanted to do. When we were fifteen, we used to say “when I grow up, I’m not going to do anything boring, I’m going to do something special” and it was just looking at the way our lives have gone since then. And it was the first time I did a lyric that was completely autobiographical".