Mrs Amy Firman

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Lately, as part of my working from home timetable, I have been summarising oral histories to be entered onto our Northumberland Archive systems.

I listened as Mrs. Amy Firman very kindly answered questions and talked about her time as a member of the Womens Institute, Newbiggin by the Sea, Northumberland. This was part of a ‘Woman’s Work’ project with students of Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Amy told of living all her life in Newbiggin by the Sea, attending the infant school and then the colliery school and progressing further to Bedlington Grammar School. She also spoke of how much she enjoyed her office work for the Electricity Board in Newcastle.

Amy had joined the Newbiggin branch of Womens Institute after she was married and continued being a member there for over 52 years. She remembered that in the Institute’s early days women had to be voted in by the committee as members. According to Amy, the Women’s Institute in Newbiggin was established in 1922 and members might have met in someone’s house in the early days before finally moving to the hall. She said that a mortgage was applied for 1936 for to have a hall built.

The Women’s Institute often played a significant role in Mrs. Firman’s life as well as being an active community service in Newbiggin. She and her friends assisted in schools with lessons such as road safety. They knitted animals and made puppets to tell stories with. They once dressed up as fisher folk and towed a boat through Newbiggin celebrating the town’s heritage.

Amy told of how her group encouraged her to take part in such events as drama groups, keep fit classes. She gave blood when the Blood Donor sessions were set up in the hall and she eventually got her Gold badge after donating 57 pints of blood throughout her time there. She was certainly a very active member of her group. Her busy home life was balanced with her Women’s Institute group. She would often leave housework to attend, catching up on it at a later time. Mrs. Firman told of how she and other members provided and joined in a varied programme of events. Running and organising drama groups, tea and biscuit afternoons, crafting, knit and natter classes, fund raising events, panto and shows, raffles, dancing afternoons and many talks attended by guest speakers.

When asked about her favorite part of the Newbiggin by the Sea, Women’s Institute she replied that it was the company and friendships that she made and the support given to her when her husband died. Mrs. Firman proved herself to be a hard-working lady who was a credit to her family and friends as well as being dedicated to helping the residents of her home town of Newbiggin by the Sea.

Taken from an oral history, NRO T-958 (NRO 101888), Womens Institute, Newbiggin by the Sea, Northumberland.


BERWICK ADVERTISER, 7TH JANUARY 1921

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LOWICK WAR MEMORIAL UNVEILED

Sunday, the 2nd day of January 1921, will be a never-to-be-forgotten day in Lowick and parish, for on that day the memorial was unveiled in honour of the brave lads who went forward at their country’s call to make the great sacrifice. The memorial has been erected in the Market Place, opposite the Post Office, and is of Aberdeen Granite, with a Doddington Freestone base. The site is an ideal one, and the memorial standing 11 ft. 6 ins high, looks well and lends beauty to its surroundings.

Lowick War Memorial which was unveiled in 1921, amidst great ceremony.  © J Thomas – Geograph – Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

It was early evident the work of the Committee had been appreciated, for people came from all parts of the parish, many carrying wreaths. About 2 p.m. the crowd numbered anything from 800 to 1,000 persons. Promptly at 2.10, the procession was formed up at the churchyard gates and singing the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers,” moved slowly forward as follows: Buglers, Comrades of the Great War (under Capt. Gee and Sergt. Pringle), relatives of the fallen, Sunday School children, Church congregations, Church Officers and Choirs; Major Rea, Capt. Elliott, Capt. Alexander, Mr R. Barber, the Rev. C. V. Gee, and the Rev. G. Tait, followed by the general public.

On arrival at the memorial, the procession formed into a square with military precision. On the platform were the Rev. C. V. Gee, the Rev. G. Tait, Major J. G. G. Rea, Captain Elliott, Mr R. Barber, Capt. Alexander, and Capt. Gee.

LOCAL NEWS

Arrangements are being made for the distribution of guaranteed pure fertile Italian Queen bees during season 1921, at a cost of 11s 6d for each delivery during May and up to June 25th, and 8s 6d each for July and August. Beekeepers should apply not later than January 25th to the Director of Education, The Moothall, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

There is prevalent in London and throughout the country a rather mysterious infection, which causes swelling of the glands around the angles of the jaws and sometimes in front of the ears. At first it was supposed that the condition was mumps; but now it is evident that there is a difference. Happily, the glands seem to subside of themselves in a period of a few days or weeks. The nature of the condition is not clear; by some it is regarded as a complication of “influenza.”

On New Year’s night the Long Room of the Corn Exchange was comfortably filled when a whist drive was held under the auspices of the Berwick-upon-Tweed Public Bowling Green. Mr R. Logan officiated as M.C. This was a new role for Mr Logan and he fulfilled the duties very courteously and efficiently. Before commencing play Mr M. L. Walker, the President of the Club, on behalf of the Committee, wished the company a Happy and Prosperous New Year. This was reciprocated with one shout — “the same to you, Mr Walker.” Extra prizes were given on this occasion, the successful winners being: — Ladies — 1, Mrs Thompson, 234; 2, Mrs Hendry, 231; 3, Mrs Cowperthwaite and Miss Morton tied with 226 and on being drawn Mrs Cowperthwaite was successful; booby, Miss Drummond, 188. Gentlemen — 1, Mr T. Harbottle, 254; 2, Mr H. Jamieson, 231 Mr R. Butler, 226; booby, Mr Duncan, 191. At an interval in the proceedings the usual supper was served and much enjoyed. Mr Walker presented the prizes, and before the proceedings terminated intimated their next whist drive would be held in about a fortnight’s time.

On Wednesday evening, 22nd December, St. Andrew’s Church Woman’s Guild held their Christmas tea, at which the members of the congregation and children of the Sunday School were entertained. During the evening the Rev. J. Scott Morrison was presented with a wallet containing Treasury notes by Miss Tait, on behalf of the Guild and members of the congregation. Mrs J. Sanderson was also presented by Miss Bella Gemmel with a brush and comb on behalf of the Children’s Choir, and with a picture from the Rev. J. Scott Morrison for services rendered in training the children. Suitable replies were made by both recipients. There was a large gathering present. A splendid tea and varied programme of songs and recitations was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Fruit was served to the children, kindly provided by the Rev. J. Scott Morrison and Mr Landels.

CORNHILL

In the January “Border Magazine” “Herd Laddie” tells the following Border anecdote: — “One of the Askews, a former squire of Pallinsburn, was a very eccentric person, who frequently went about the district dressed with a threadbare black velvet suit and carrying under his arm a big old-fashioned umbrella green with age. Nothing gave him greater delight than people mistaking his social position, and at dinner parties he was wont to relate some of the ridiculous remarks made to him.

The Blue Bell Inn, Pallinsburn, where one of the Askew’s, a squire, had his encounter with the carter and his horse. © Andrew Curtis – Geograph –  Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The following is said to have been his favourite: — One day he was sauntering down the steep bank between Pallinsburn and the Blue Bell Inn, when he met a lame carter with a very hard-up horse. The horse was struggling up the hill with the load of lime, and the carter was assisting it for all he was worth by pushing behind the cart. On seeing the old squire, and not knowing who he was, shouted, “Come and gies a sheet (push), man.” “Sheet yursel,” was the tardy response. “ Eigh! Yur just some auld lazy deevil,” was the disappointed rejoinder.

Mr Robert Reay

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I’ve been sat here in my kitchen ‘office’ during lockdown doing a bit of time travelling for the County Archives. So no, they didn’t give me a Marty McFly DeLorean or that spinning thing Hermione Grainger has, or even an H.G. Wells time machine, but they did give me two beautiful hours in the company of Mr Robert Reay and his life memories, as recorded back in 1971 when he was 78 years old. In my efforts to transcribe these tapes, I have been to another time and place – time travelling between the cups of coffee and emails to a mining heritage so familiar to me as a miner’s daughter and yet so removed from the modern world in which we live.

In 1971 Mr Reay recorded his memories of living at Coxlodge, Northumberland (now City of Newcastle Upon Tyne) and working at Hazlerigg mine for the County Archivist, Mr Robin Gard in the front room of Mr Reay’s house at 24 Mary Agnes Street, Coxlodge. His soft Pitman accent, alive with Northumbrian tones and rolling ‘r’s invites us into the near past to explore the everyday lives of our colliery forebearers.

Working man and boy in the mines, Mr Reay relates his memories of over 50 years of unprecedented change in the colliery villages of south east Northumberland. He recalls his life in vivid colour, leading us through the day-to-day of the colliery before and just after the First World War, describing the advent of mechanisation and the hopes of a new dawn that nationalisation promised. Through his warm dusty words we meet this mother and glimpse the difficult life a colliery wife led and his father who links us to earlier times in the mines of Seaton Delaval and Seghill. He shows us the shadows of men and boys in the underground lamp light, working along side him to ‘hew’ (hand digging coal) and ‘put’ (transporting tubs of coal from the coal face) the black gold that fuelled England’s place in the world.

We see the lost streets of Coxlodge Colliery through Mr Reay’s bright descriptions of the buildings and people that made up this thriving village community. I had to go! Armed with an old map and sat-nav, I spent an afternoon circling the streets and avenues of a now suburban Coxlodge, imagining the farms, the brickyard, the fields, the mine yards, the stone quarry and the rows of colliery dwellings that vanished under the spread of ’50s and ’60s housing development. Glimpses of old Coxlodge are still there if you are willing to look. Tantalising road names that echo earlier days – Regent Farm Road and Jubilee Road, reminders of the Regent and Jubilee pits sunk in the early 19th century and heralding the start of Coxlodge village. The Trap, the Coxlodge Inn public house, is still there on Kenton Road; a grand old establishment that was in Mr Reay’s earlier days the life blood of the colliery community, now shut up and showing signs of vandalisation and decay. And then, surprisingly and delightfully, tucked away amongst Coxlodge’s anonymous ’60s and ’70s developments, hidden from the modern world by the back wall of St Nicholas’ Hospital, is Mary Agnes Street, Mr Reay’s colliery row home from boyhood. There stands this neat little terrace, unchanged as the concrete world of the Newcastle’s suburbs engulfed it and looking very much like it probably did on that day back in 1971 that the County Activist and tape recorder came to call. A pocket of colliery history in the midst of a rainy suburban landscape – I could almost see the young Mr Reay racing through his front door, hoping to beat his brothers home to be first in the tin bath – or wiping tired sleep from his eyes as he set off in the early morning with bottle and bait in hand to catch the wagon-way down to Hazlerigg mine. And in concluding my Coxlodge adventure, it was lovely to realise that the final words on the tape, Mr Reay’s parting hopes, came true – Mary Agnes Street was reprieved from demolition to survive as a token of the world he knew.

So thank you Mr Robert Reay, miner of Coxlodge, for the chance to spend some time in your world. It’s 50 years since that tape recorder clicked on to record your words. We became such good friends, I couldn’t bring myself to look up the day you passed away – but bless you Mr Reay and know that your memories of Coxlodge and Hazlerigg, Seaton Delaval and Seghill are cherished in the County Archives so that the world you knew stays with us; a heritage in which we are proud.

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