Blyth History.

[peteloud]

There was light on the RNYC HQ ship in 1965,  but the light was gone in 2015 when I revisited the harbour.
http://www.peterloud.co.uk/photos/Northumberland/Blyth/Blyth_1.html

I am amazed that it is still floating.  When I last saw the vessel it looked more like a large allotment shed built from any old scraps that were lying around.

[TriciaK]

So interesting, Pete Loud. Especially , for me , the photos of the coal trimmers.
With a friend we visit an old age home in Newcastle most weeks (I should be there myself if I could afford it).
A few weeks ago I got chatting to an old man there who told me that as a young lad he used to work at Blyth staithes, loading coal onto the boats. I could hardlly believe it, but I think probably his longterm memory was intact.
I'll have to get back to him next week.

[peteloud]

Hi TriciaK,

He is probably too young to to have come across my ancestors who were coal trimmers on High Quay.

I don't know when the "Loud"s started as trimmers on High Quay.  They lived in Neslon Place, but it must have been well before the 1890s.  My Granny gave me a photo taken of a woman who I guess was my Gt. Granny Loud sat outside their house in Nelson Place. I don't think my Grandfather Loud was a trimmer. After WWI, when he served, and survived in Mesopotamia, he worked on the railways.

[Rick Harrison]

My grandfather Matthew Harrison is the trimmer middle row of Pete Loud's photo. He moved from Percy Main c1890 when the staithes were built as the Blyth trimmers did not have experience of loading with the new equipment I was told. He was a first aider and became an inspector in St. John's Ambulance Brigade.

[c-side]

Welcome to rootschat, Rick.  Hope you enjoy it.

Christine

[Mike Gibson]

My grandad James H Gibson worked at the slaughterhouse in the 1950s and early 1960s.I used to go there during holidays and he would blow up pigs bladders for football.He also drove a butchers cart for the CO-OP and would take me to the stables on a Sunday morning.I have a photograph of him when he worked in Shys butchers shop.
With regard to Harrington’s ,Shirley Harrington was my form prefect at BGS in 1961.I left there in 1964 when we moved to Sunderland.We lived on Plessey Road opposite the bus garage and I had a paper round at George Morgans.My dad Bob Gibson had use of his season ticket at NUFC when he did the extension on the shop and opened the off license.The shop was previously owned by the Davison family.
The chip shop on Plessey Rd was owned then by Les Fraser and his wife .They also had a daughter whose name I am unable to remember.I seem to recall that the parents were involved in a bad car accident.There was another chip shop in Robert street owned by Miss Edie Calder.

[Yossarian]

Hello Roots Chatters

I have a request. Does anyone have a photo of the Thomas Knight Memorial Hospital, interior or exterior, that I could use for a blog post about the tonsilectomy I had there many years ago.

Thank you

Joe 

[TriciaK]

I had a tonsillectomy there too, I would 5 or 6. Also a much more serious operation as a baby, which saved my life.
I could be wrong, but I think the building is still there, changed to a Care Home.
Or maybe the same name, but a more modern building. Yes it's on the same site on Beaconsfield st. behind the library:
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.1270561,-1.5072041,3a,75y,122.23h,76.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saoAjSvJRmL8nke_L1fB0hQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[peteloud]

I too had a tonsillectomy there in the early 1950s.  The only thing that I remember about it was that I was told that afterwards you are given ice-cream.  I got my ice-cream, but it had completely melted. I felt cheated.