Blyth History.

[Pete E]

Found the following online, no idea if it works. Apparently some scanners will also copy slides to digital.
If you have only a few slides, you can use smartphone and tablets to turn them into photos. In order to convert slides to photos, you can set a white background for the slides first.

Step 1: A white light with a paper can be used as background. You can also use a tablet with white color. For using iPad as light source, you can enable Guide Access under “Settings”> “General” > “Accessibility” > Guide Access to disable touchscreen input.

Step 2: Set a secure tripod or make sure a steady position with scan box with smartphone. When you need to convert photo to text, convert photo to PDF or convert slides to photo with smartphone, it is very important to take a perfectly aligned photograph.

Step 3: When you set everything in a good situation, you can convert slides to photos by scanning the slides now. Some additional scanners application is helpful to turn slides and negatives to photos with ease.

[peeem]

Am I remembering this correctly?
I was strolling around Blyth today and came to the corner of Sussex street and Plessey road. There is a cafe there now but I think it was once a ships chandlers or somesuch. Anyway it struck me that there used to be a statue of a sailor above the door to the shop.
Was I in the correct place or was it somewhere else, or am I just mistaken?

[pityackafromblyth]

I am surprised that there has been no reply to that last query, is 'aall wor' Blyth contributors asleep ?
But today I have just found the following song, "The Blyth Sailor's Farewell".  It is sung by Johnny Handle (High Level Ranters). Johnny Handle at The Bridge, 10th April, 2017.  It was written by James Anderson, c. 1875.  I do not know about Mr. Anderson, but will be googling him.
It seems that the song is on an album "Morpeth Lodgings" Quote : by the 2nd half of the 19th century the collieries in south Northumberland were reaching deeper and more productive seams, and Blyth expanded as a coal port. As steam superseded sail, so the collier brigs became safer cargo vessels. AND " Many sailors settled in the town as the journeys were also faster."
Quite a while ago I was looking at a census for Blyth in the late 1800s, and was astonished at the number of men giving their occupation as sailor, mariner, etc., etc. Then a few minutes the penny dropped in my brain, "Yis, yi daft bugga, Blyth was a harbour and port."

[pityackafromblyth]

Back again after googling Mr. Anderson. Plenty results - he was as popular as Joe Wilson, but his fame has not matched Wilson's.  James Anderson died at Cowpen Quay on 14th March, 1899, aged 73 years.
Two of his songs, which I have found, but have not heard any recordings of are :
 "Aw'll nivvor gan drinkin' i' Blyth onny mair."  which resonates with me.
 "Aa wunder what canny aad Blyth 'll say noo."
pityackafromblyth.

[Phodgetts]

I am surprised that there has been no reply to that last query, is 'aall wor' Blyth contributors asleep ?

Sadly our numbers have dwindled, and I have been having a bit of a medical emergency myself and am now recovering from surgery. Thankfully I will be ok, but more operations will be needed in the near future. Thank goodness for the RVI and the amazing teams they have there!

I hope you're doing ok along with the other surviving members of us on here.

Best, Philip

[Moulin23]

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.

Hi, I think the daughter was Lesley. Weren’t they Scottish ?

[TriciaK]

Mike - the only location I remember fondly from your post is the chip shop on Plessey road, the one near the Broadway area. we used to live on Kingsway, opposite Croft Park, and went there often. Can't remember the owner's name. only the food!
I left Blyth in 1954 but still live quite close.
Philip - sorry to hear of your health problems - I've had my ups and downs too but still plodding on.

[peteloud]

I recently visited Blyth, my first visit for two or three years. While up there I received a copy of a photo of Class 2, Newsham Junior School. I am fairly sure that it is from 1956 and one of the same set that I already had on my website.
http://www.peterloud.co.uk/photos/Northumberland/School_Photos/School_Photos.html
A small number of the faces look familiar but I am not so sure that I want to risk putting up incorrect identifications and annoying people.   Check it out and see if you can identify anyone.

While up there I found out a little about a little remembered Newsham fish and chip shop.  Next to the railway crossing, between New Delaval and Newsham, on the Newsham side, there were two or three black wooden huts in the 1950s.  I don't know for how long before that.  I remember them, or at least one of them, because that's where I had my haircut by barber Jimmy White before he moved to Plessey Road. Another of the huts was a fish and chip shop run by someone on my mother's side of the family. I was told that he had a horse and trap and would take it down to North Shields each day for the fish. The horse was stabled in a stable at the back of Top Dodds' shop on Plessey Road.

My visit Blyth was a hassle.  When I was passing through I was bursting for a pee.  I felt sure that there would be a public toilet at the bus station.   I found a locked up toilet near the bus station. This was at around 5pm on a Thursday.  So I thought that there must be a toilet in that new mini shopping mall.  I couldn't find one there either.  I ended up peeing in some bushes in the car park. How can a town not have an open public toilet in its bus station or in its shopping mall?   Or was there one there and I just missed it?

[peteloud]

My trip to Blyth also reminded me of another Blyth activity, leek shows.

My grandfather on my mother's side was a very keen and very competent gardener. He was particularly good at growing leeks.  He was good with other veg, and flowers too, but of those I have no records.

In the 1930s my grandfather was a member of the Newsham, Black Diamond Leek Club. The family tale is that he won the Leek Show Prize ten years in succession so the committee decided he was unbeatable and made him a judge and told him he couldn't enter again.  For these pub competitions he was awarded a gold medal.  They were real hallmarked gold, with his inscribed initials, name, date etc.  They are probably worth a few bob just for their 2021 gold value.  I assume that there were other more useful prizes. 

His medals seem to have been passed down to his daughters and grand-daughters. I have one of them, from my sister, and have photographed another.





Are there still local Leak Shows with valuable prizes and prestige, or is local pride all about having a very big telly and a new SUV ?