As highlighted in our previous blog posts the second phase of the Stannington Sanatorium project is now underway. Using a second tranche of funding from the Wellcome Trust this phase will make digitised copies of the patient files covering the period 1946-1966 and re-package them in conservation grade materials. Our new Project Assistant began in early November. Her part-time role will involve determining which are the most important or ‘core’ documents, separating them from the rest by means of an archival standard brass paper clip. They are then enveloped in a four-flapped folder, made from acid-free card, tied and labelled with its own reference number. This way we can help to preserve the original documents for years to come.
Our new Project Digitisation Assistant
The Project Digitisation Assistant, will then make Jpeg and Tiff image files of each document. Digital copies of the core documents will be redacted, removing the names and personal information of the patients and attached to our online catalogue. This will mean that although they will be accessible from anywhere in the world, that patient confidentiality will still be maintained. They will provide an excellent resource for those studying the treatment of Tuberculosis, and the lives of children in hospitals in the mid-twentieth century. We will be posting in the coming months about our progress, so please look out for how we are getting on. We will also be creating a Flickr set of a typical case file including all contents. This too will be redacted to protect patient confidentiality. Please remember to look at our new online exhibition about Stannington Sanatorium, available here.
The amount of Christmas work dealt with at Berwick Post Office was very much the same as last year, but being spread over a longer period the pressure was not so much felt in consequence. Although the staff has been greatly depleted during the past year everyone put their shoulder to the wheel and the work went through expeditiously. Extra hours were, of course, worked, and the praiseworthy arrangement of supplying refreshment to the workers on the premises was once more in operation.
WW1 Xmas postcard 1915.
Extra help was brought in for rural deliveries in the shape of motor and other vehicles, while the Oddfellows’ Hall again proved a useful clearing house. Parcels delivered during the Christmas week amounted to about 6000, but there was not the usual postings of Christmas cards. A special and most noticeable feature was the large number of parcels posted for soldiers at the front, causing at times very great pressure, out-going mails being very heavy. For the first time at Christmas women were employed to do delivery and collection duty in place of the men on active service and officials speak in glowing terms of the way they discharged their duties. There is still a considerable amount of parcel and other postings passing through, but it is not anticipated that the staff will be heavily taxed at New Year.
CAROL CONCERT AND LECTURE
Interesting Notes on Christmas Carols
An attractive carol concert on behalf of the National Institute for the Blind was given in the Queen’s Rooms, Berwick, on Thursday evening by a number of local talented ladies and gentlemen. The principal object was to assist in raising funds to assist those soldiers and sailors who have lost their sight during the war and for their maintenance in a hostel for the purpose of teaching them some useful trade.
Blinded by tear gas in World War One, 55th (West Lancashire) Division troops await treatment at an advanced dressing station.
The soloists were Mrs Shepherd, Miss E. Elder, and Messrs Abbott and Riddell, while a duet was rendered by Miss Harbottle and Mr Riddell. Messrs R. Stott and Smith also took part in the programme of carols. The conductor was Mr Geo. Ballantyne, and the accompanist, Miss Skeldon. The programme was ably sustained the whole of the pieces being feelingly and tunefully interpreted, the efforts meeting with the cordial approval of the audience. A feature in the programme was a lecture on carols by Dr Gauntlett, organist and choirmaster in the Parish Church.
LOCAL NEWS
Corner Accident– An accident which might have been attended by serious results took place on Friday last at the foot of Hide Hill. It appears that a tub trap driven by a young lady named Miss Brown, of Tweedmouth, was taking the corner when a collision occurred with a motor car belong to Messrs McBain, Tweedmouth. The tub trap was upset and the young lady received a severe shaking. Happily she suffered no injury, although the pony was slightly cut by the collision. This is only one of many accidents which have taken place at the corners of Hide Hill from time to time, and each succeeding accident accentuates that fact that these sharp turnings are entirely out of date in coping with modern vehicular traffic.
THE PASSING AND APPROACHING YEAR
Again we have reached the closing days of another year. Too well we realise the terrible experiences we have come through during the past twelve months, for there are few homes that have not had their full share of the awful miseries of the Great War. To the bereaved and the maimed ordinary sympathy seems utterly inadequate, and a quiet and subdued silence often speaks more eloquently than any human words can utter. Time is the great healer and consoler in affliction, and it will only be the soothing influence of the ever-revolving seasons that will adequately supply the balm and needed comfort to so many aching hearts which are so utterly bereft. As we approach the end of the year it is natural that many should raise conjectures as to the position the country will be in by another year. Will the war be over? Who can tell. At the same time it seems highly improbable that its duration will extend so long. The material and national resources of Germany will be exhausted ere that time, and there may be an internal upheaval of the Teutonic empire that will hasten the close of the awful devastation.
Picture of Serbian infantry on Ada Ciganlija during the First World War. Wikimedia Commons
Already the national credit of Germany is steadily diminishing in the exchanges of neutral countries, and this must have a very important bearing on events in the opening periods of the new year. As we make a brief and general survey of the year that is nearly finished we have – great and acute as our sorrows are – reason to feel grateful that we have escaped the general holocaust that has overtaken Belgium, the North of France, and Serbia. And when we think of the recent awful massacres of the Armenian people it makes us realise this more fully. For had the brutal enemy been enabled to land on these shores we would have experienced this to the full. A small sample of it was shown a year ago in the bombardment of defenceless east coast towns where no discrimination or humanity was shown.
Notwithstanding the serious nature of the times we are passing through we desire to wish all our readers
Jane Williamson, widow, Berwick, was charged with having failed to send her son John, aged 10 years, to school, as required by law. She pleaded guilty.
Mr Thos. Barker, School Attendance Officer, said the boy was a pupil at the Roman Catholic School, when he did attend, but which was not often. He had made 22 attendances out of 144, therefore being no fewer than 122 times absent. The boy was neglected by the mother, and since October 15 he had not attended school once.
Accused made a statement that she had been frequently out of the town and had visited Edinburgh several times to see her daughter who was in the Infirmary there.
Mr Barker said the case had been four times before the Education Committee prior to proceedings being taken.
The Chief Constable having been asked by the bench to state what he knew of the boy, said the mother went about the countryside collecting old clothes and selling plants. The boy was simply running about wild and the mother evidently thought she could put everyone at defiance.
Mr McCreath (who presided in the absence of the Mayor) – Have you anything to say. This is something horrid, neglecting your child like this.
Accused replied that she had nothing further to say.
In passing sentence of 7s 6d, or seven days, Mr McCreath said she must really consider her child in a matter of this kind. She must see that the boy in future went regularly to school, and should her case ever come up before the Bench again she would be more severely dealt with.
FROM THE TRENCHES TO FREEDOM
On Wednesday morning, Corpl Chas Mace, 7th Northumberland Fusiliers, third son of Mr Charles Mace, joiner and undertaker, Berwick, was admitted to the Freedom of the Burgh. Corporal Mace is home at present upon short leave from the front and took this opportunity of entering the Freedom. The Mayor, Ald. J W Plenderleith in welcoming Corporal Mace said he had already earned promotion in the regiment to which he belonged, and they hoped that might soon be still further advanced, also that in any vocation in life to which he might be called, be it civil or military, he should continue to uphold the traditions of the ancient Burgh.
PIPER LAIDLAW, V C.
Loos Hero’s Welcome in Northumberland
Piper Daniel Logan Laidlaw, V.C., the first Berwickshire native and the first member of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers to win the V.C. in the war, was received with much enthusiasm on the occasion of his return from hospital to his home at Doddington. Before leaving Wooler Station he took the opportunity to urge on the crowd assembled the need for more men, so that the Germans might be pushed back in France at the earliest possible moment.
Under the village Cross at Doddington the vicar (Rev. J. G. Shotton) presented an address of welcome.
The Hon. F. W. Lambton of Fenton, formerly of the Coldstream Guards, said Piper Laidlaw had shown not only valour, but also initiative and touch of genius which enabled a man to do the right thing at the right moment. Initiative was one of the symptoms of the true soldier which we wanted to see encouraged and from his own experience in the Army he knew how much the men appreciated it.
After thanking the inhabitants for the address, Piper Laidlaw was carried shoulder high to his own cottage. His wife and four children accompanied him.
All the residents of the village were entertained to tea and a concert, at which Piper Laidlaw played on the pipes “Blue Bonnets over the Border,” with which he rallied his comrades at Loos, and “Standard on the Braes of Mar” with which he accompanied their charge.
Piper Laidlaw is a native of Swinton, Berwickshire, and on his homeward journey to Doddington, he was welcomed by his aged parents, who now live at Whittingham.
PRESENTATION OF LIFEBOAT AWARDS
Postponement of Ceremonial
The ceremonial, under the auspices of the Berwick Branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, of presenting the silver medal to James Jamieson, second coxswain of the Berwick Lifeboat, and who acted as coxswain on the occasion of saving 6 lives from the motor boat, Redhead on Wednesday , November 10th last., the monetary awards to the members of the crew and the Spittal fishermen, who so gallantly assisted in getting the lifeboat into the harbour, as well as a vote of thanks on vellum to the Hon. Secretary, Dr C.L. Fraser, for acting as second coxswain, was to have taken place in Berwick Playhouse on Thursday afternoon (23d instant).
RNLB Matthew Simpson – Left to Right – Not known, Not known, Not known, John Wood, Not known, Jack Lough, George Lough, Bartholomew Lough, Thomas Martin (possible), Not known, Not Known, Alex Patterson Lough.
At the last moment, however, it was decided to postpone the function owing to the limited attendance of the public due to the fact that with the approach of Christmas, there was no usual half holiday.
