Bill Charlton: Bellingham memories. Football

Northumberland, history, humour, memories, 1940s

By Bill Charlton

Football at Brownrig
Before the 1939-1945 war, we Bellingham Laddies used to play football on most afternoon's after school on Brown Rig, but we played mostly on weekends with from 5 up to about14 laddies a side. Brown Rig was the fields opposite the Croft where the school was built (see photo below).

The goal posts were our pullovers, jackets or jerseys, and we played all day, having a sit down now and then to regain our wind. We didn’t have proper football boots and played in our heavy all-purpose hobnail boots which we used to wear to school. The ball was made up of a leather case, a rubber bladder inside and laced up with a thick lace which you really knew about when you headed it. When the ball got wet
it felt like you were kicking a lump of lead even if we had given it a good coating of dubbin bought from Willie Murray’s shoe shop in the village.

We Charlton lads lived at the Croft just across from Brown Rig, and my mother had to use a bell to call us for lunch, and would get annoyed if we didn’t respond to the bell.

Our football marathons used to be played before Brown Rig school was built by “The National Schools Co-operation” to house approximately 700 girl evacuee's from the cities of Northumberland and Durham.

So the area became quite a busy place and with their parents visiting at weekends, Bellingham became a popular visiting place on weekends. Also, in the village families took evacuees into their homes, but these were mostly boys as I remember. We had a cousin called Jimmy Simmonds from London who came to stay with us during the war years.

Dunterley fell
During our early years while at school, we often would go on to Dunterly fell up to the Target when not in use during weekdays. My brother Cliff and I would collect spent bullets from the backdrop behind the target area which we knew were quite harmless.

Once I remember, wandering off up the fell to the water tank which provided the Croft water supply where we found the railing fence around it broken, and the timber decking had caved in revealing a dead sheep in the tank which had drowned and had been their a few days.

We told our parents of our find and the situation was attended to as this was our water supply which we used for 6 months of the year. With the water being “hard” we used to get six months or a year from “the 9 well eyes” which was a series of springs between Hareshaw Head and the top of Hareshaw Lynn, as this water was soft and gave a better lather for washing. They built a new tank on Dunterly Fell to supply Brownrig when it was built.

Bill Charlton. Bellingham memories. Cairnglastenhope

Norhumberland, history, childhood memories, 1940s

By Bill Charlton

Cairnglastenhope Lake

Cairnglastenhope – a great kids' adventure
Going back a couple of years before the 1939-1945 war started, my Dad (Bob Charlton) planned a great adventure for us kids (me and brother Cliff and our cousin Tom Thompson). It was to cross over the fells and visit Cairnglastenhope Lake being 5 to 6 miles distant from the Croft.

So one Sunday spring morning we all set off over Dunterley Fell with our packed lunches heading west towards the Mesling Crags, crossing over the moors covered in Bent grass. We all chatted away to each other enjoying our hike toward the Lake,

Then coming across lots of depressions in the ground, Dad explained that years ago people dug these holes to extract coal from quite shallow seams, and worked them out to a radius of about 6 to 8 feet. They then moved on another 20 ft or so and started another new shaft. Over the years all these shafts eventually caved in to form a crater-like depression, all covered in Bent grass good cover for foxes to hide.

After a while we needed a bit of a rest, so sitting down on a bit of a ridge to have a drink, Tom asked Dad what the bones were he saw. Dad very coyly said that someone had stopped for a rest once, and that was all that was left of him (or her).

Needless to say we kept plodding on over the fells past Watson’s Walls and on towards the Lake called ‘Cairnglastenhope’ where we had lunch and a good rest, feeding the hundreds of seagulls which were nesting on the very tufted boggy ground at one end of the lake covered in rushes,

We managed to collect a couple of eggs and blew them to add to my collection, which my Uncle had given me to treasure. We got great delight in feeding the gulls with bread crusts by throwing them in the air for them to catch in flight.

The older lads from the Chirdon side used to collect the eggs by having a long cane rod with a spoon tied on the end as the area was very spongy and soft. I believe the eggs were used to keep the fox hounds in good fettle for hunting. Our return journey was a great sense of achievement and lots to tell our Mother once we were home again. We often went for long walks over the fells on Sunday mornings with Dad while our Mother baked scones, cakes, and Gooseberry and Rhubarb tarts in the oven before preparing Sunday dinner for all of us. We were a much loved and well fed lot of kids.

Bill Charlton: Bellingham memories. 1940s

Northumberland, history, humour, childhood memories, 1940s
By Bill Charlton

Swimming & skating on the Tyne
During the school summer holidays we'd go swimming in the river Tyne which is where I learned to swim. On our way down from The Croft we used to pop the tar bubbles on the road with our sandals, which we wore a lot in the summer months. We used to get long Indian summers in those days.

In the winter, we'd go ice-skating on the Tyne and our mother used to skate too. I learned to skate around the diving board holding on to it for confidence. The two local stars were Jean Milburn and Jack Telford and they used to help us young folk improve our skills.

In the evenings and after dark we used to stack steel barrels which had been cut in half and placed one on top of each other with the open end upper filled with branches and logs, which gave a nice fireplace in the middle of the river on the ice for night skating. The fires would melt the surface ice a little which made for good smooth ice next night.

One year when the ice broke up, we found a salmon frozen into the ice with a piece bitten out of its neck probably by an otter. The local Catholic priest measured the ice thickness one year while we were there, and it was 18 inches thick. During that particular winter, Kit and Joe Maughan used to cart sand from the island in the river with horse and cart over the ice into the opening, and stockpile it for building work.

The Northern Farmers meal store
During the autumn we laddies would go down to the Northern Farmers into the meal Store and help load bags of feed for the local farms, and ride on the back of the wagon around these farms, sitting on the bags of feed and cake slabs. It was great fun eating a few of the smaller dog biscuits and locust beans etc. Approaching the farms, there were often apple trees around, so we'd collect one or two on our way in or out as the case may be. It was a fun day for us.

From gas to electricity
We used to have gas at the Croft in those days which came from the Bellingham gas works. But up at the Croft we had problems with water in the pipes as the gas would come through in surges as pressure built up to force its way along the pipes. Water lay in the low points along the pipe track down near the end of the Tyne bridge. So we always had to have candles at the ready just in case we were blacked out.

But in about 1935 progress arrived and we were fitted out with electricity all along the Croft. We even had a street light too. In the house we gradually changed over to all things electric with the kettle and the iron being some of the first things bought. The old Bellingham gas works was no longer needed and became redundant, later being cut up for scrap. You could smell the gas around the old place for years afterwards.

Honey, fruit and nuts
For more entertainment, we would dig up Bumblebee nests and eat the honey which was in marble-sized sacks by sucking them out. Then there were hazel nuts, beechnuts, buttercup bulbs, wild strawberries, wild rasps and bilberries to supplement our diets. Then in autumn we would collect the uneatable chestnuts to play “konkers” at school which could get very competitive.

We all used to have fun in those days gone by. No mobile phones, TV, computers, or ipods. We made our own entertainment and remember that we all left school at age 14 to start earning a living.