The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---

The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---

The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---

The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---

The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---

The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---

The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---

Odds & Ends – New Posts at the Bottom

Facts & things with no specific home. If anyone can add to the stories we can move them to a group page.

The article below is from the Remembering the Past Website, is it the house with the phone and the Gray family, the article does not give a name, just the memory.

I was born and spent the first six years of my life in the streets of West Allotment. This was a mining community about 10 miles east of Newcastle. It consisted of rows upon rows of small terraced houses with one or two shops, including a fish and chip shop, tacked on to the ends of a street.

The houses had been built (I had heard) at a cost of £50 each. This doesn’t sound a lot but must have amounted to a tidy sum considering the number built. They were built by the mine owners to house their workers. Not all the houses were occupied by miners. If you have seen the opening credits of Coronation Street you will get some idea of how they looked. In fact, many are still providing homes today.

The ground floor of our house consisted of one living room into which the front door opened directly and a small area at the back with a stone floor and a walk-in pantry which we called the ‘back end’. From the front door, steep stairs rose to two bedrooms. This was the accommodation in which quite large families were brought up. There was often a bed made up under the stairs.

A brick wall about six feet high surrounded the yard. The tin bath usually hung on this wall and in the corner was the wash-house with a galvanized tub with poss-stick for washing clothes, a bench for scrubbing and a set-pot built into the wall. This was for boiling the clothes. It had an open fire underneath and we would carry a shovelful of burning coals from the fire to get it going. Across the yard was the lavvie which was a flush one. Mam remembered when they weren’t, but that’s another story. Next to the toilet was the coal house. Coal was loaded from the back lane into a small door on the outside of the coal house. I have shovelled a load of coal myself when I was younger.

The house had a huge black range which had an oven at one side. Our oven had a round, drop-down door. Just above the fireplace was a mantelpiece with a chenille cover hanging down in front. We often had our elevenses sitting at the fire. I was taught very young to be polite, and one day said to my Mam, ‘Thank you for a nice Barlova, and please may I leave the oven door?’

At the back of the fire was a stone ledge. Coal was loaded onto this and pulled forward with a coal rake. Mam did all her baking in the coal oven. My Mam was very fond of herring and would buy them by the dishful to bake. One day she missed me. When she found me, I was sitting on the pantry floor, the dish of herring between my legs, and I was squeezing them one by one. This made them jump. There were herring all over the place.

Once a week the fire was allowed to go out and the whole range was cleaned with black lead. Women were hooked on cleaning. There was plenty of it. Front steps were a pride and joy, cleaned with a yellow ochre brick.

The houses were lit by gas. I remember well the gas mantles which came in little cardboard boxes. I also remember the wireless with the accumulator which we took to be refilled with acid. Ours was the only house in the surrounding district with a telephone. People used to leave messages for relatives with us. We also took the messages for the local doctor who called each day to collect them.

As we were on the corner of the road, we displayed the poster for the local cinema. Our reward for this service was a free cinema pass for two people once a week. Mam was always too busy to go, so I went every week with Grandma. The programme changed three times a week, so we had plenty of choice. Seats were priced at 6d, 9d, 1 shilling and 1/6d. I have always been a great film fan and remember well all the old black and white films that we saw together.

Information on OS Bench Marks – Ordnance Survey Bench marks (BM) are survey marks made by Ordnance Survey to record height above Ordnance Datum. If the exact height of one BM is known, the exact height of the next can be found by measuring the difference in heights, through a process of spirit levelling.

Most commonly, the Bench Marks are found on buildings or other semi-permanent features. Although the main network is no longer being updated, the record is still in existence and the markers will remain until they are eventually destroyed by redevelopment or erosion. There was at least one other benchmark on the front side of the Boys Club, I cannot see it today. Need to go to SpecSavers?

Location Today

https://maps.app.goo.gl/xAvHNKa7q9gVbo4j8

Scaffold Hill Isolation Hospital

The isolation hospital was officially opened in 1914 to house sufferers of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, scarlet fever and measles at a time when the “modern treatment” was fresh air away from coal fires and industry. Initially it had 2 wards of 10 beds and was extended with an additional block in 1927 and by 1934 there were 72 beds. The hospital took military infectious cases during World War II but switched to care of the elderly as numbers with infectious diseases reduced with improvements in Public Health and medicine. The hospital was closed in 1986. The building is now part of the Countryside Centre at the Rising Sun Country Park. © Co-Curate

The isolation hospital was officially opened in 1914 house sufferers of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, scarlet fever and measles at a time when the “modern treatment” was fresh air away from coal fires and industry. Initially it had 2 wards of 10 beds and was extended with an additional block in 1927 and by 1934 there were 72 beds. The hospital took military infectious cases during World War II but switched to care of the elderly as numbers with infectious diseases reduced with improvements in Public Health and medicine. The hospital was closed in 1986. The building is now part of the Countryside Centre at the Rising Sun Country Park.

“It is hard to imagine that the childhood infections of measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria (now treated with inoculation) could be fatal in the recent past. Few families escaped the experience of losing one or more children up to the 1930s…..Conditions in the isolation hospital were harsh compared with today’s hospitals. Patients were often in for 6-8 weeks and as they were not allowed visitors their relatives could only peer at them through glass partitions. Because of the prolonged bed rest involved in the treatment they were often too weak to walk when they left.” (A guide to the history of the Rising Sun Country Park. Friends of the Rising Sun Country Park).

Scaffold Hill Starfish Site

I’m not making these up. During WW2 Scaffold Hill was a Starfish decoy site. When German bombers approached, soldiers lit fires and other visual effects to simulate things like train wheels sparking. The idea was to encourage the German planes to bomb an empty field, not the shipyards and other important production sites in Newcastle. Did it work, It would appear that the Starfish site at Scaffold Hill was sufficiently realistic from the air to convince enemy air crews, for it was bombed at least once during World War Two. It might have tempted a few planes into the range of the heavy anti aircraft battery which was just opposite what is now the Range, it was still there when I was a youngster, the concrete gun emplacements still had all the German plane silhouettes painted on them. Places such as Hull had a mini decoy city just upriver from the docks and that did work, needs must and it seemed a good idea. The image below is an example at Bristol. It seems there was another “Starfish” at Murton, in what is known locally as the “piggery”.

Hoyin’ Skeulls – Gambling on the throw of two coins

Usually attended by some 60-80 men, these hoyin’ skeulls were held on waste land which afforded a good view of the surrounding countryside to the vigilant “look oot”, although the men themselves were well concealed. The three main venues in this area were at Wolfhill, situated midway between Backworth and Seghill, the ‘C’ Pit heap at Havelock Place, Backworth and Bigges Main lying quarter of a mile west of the Allotment and three quarters of a mile south of Holystone. The object of the exercise was to win money by gambling on the fall of two coins spun into the air. Two heads falling face up was a win, two tails a loss. Only Queen Victoria pennies were allowed to be used.

The prize could be as much as £200 to the winner – Article on Remembering the Past

---

Photos

Some details on these photographs are know, if you can help fill in the gaps please let us know. Some may not be accurate descriptions, a best guess. Images ©West Allotment Local History Group 2024 (Bob Booths Collection). Use allowed under Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC-ND WALHG 2024

The Coal Merchants

In 1944 Ron Smith (born 1927) worked for F. Cook, Coal Merchants, West Allotment. Ron lived with his parents and a sister and two brothers in Cooperative Terrace. Ron’s father was a coal miner who died in 1941.

---