BERWICK ADVERTISER, 11 JUNE 1920

12/06/2020 by Northumberland Archives

BERWICK OFFICER’S NARROW ESCAPE

TWO B.A.R.C. MEMBERS IN THE RIVER

Canoe Upsets Opposite Boathouse

GALLANT RESCUE BY BERWICK MEN

A sensational affair took place on the Tweed about 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday night, when Capt. F. B. Cowen, M.C., Berwick, and Mr Thos. Smart, Tweedmouth, nearly met their death by drowning as the result of a sailing canoe upsetting near the Tweedmouth side of the river, opposite the Boathouse.

Capt. Cowen and his friend have been frequently out on the river lately, sailing this canoe, and on the night of the accident they were sailing up the “gut” between the fishing bat and the Tweedmouth side when a squall of wind struck the sail and the frail craft overturned.

Tom Smart was lucky enough to fall clear of the boat but Capt. Cowen getting entangled in the sail was held under the water beneath the overturned boat and was being slowly drowned.

THE RESCUE

The accident was observed by many friends at the Boathouse, people on the Tweedmouth side, and a large number of pedestrians on the Old Bridge and New Road. Rescue work was immediately begun. A boat was manned at the Boathouse and pulled with all speed to the scene, while Mr R. J. Moor, a member of the B.A.R.C., who happened to be in his house at West End, was quickly sent for and entered the water and swam out to the boat which was only about 12 yards from the Tweedmouth shore. Mr Thomas, who is at present at the Queen’s Theatre with his Welsh Choir, also took the water and swam out, but being an elderly man was soon exhausted and had to himself seek safety.

The water at the point was about seven feet deep and when the boats arrived on the scene Smart had gone down for the second time and was making rather feeble efforts to keep afloat. Capt. Cowen had been under water all the time and Mr A. A. Crisp dived from a boat fully dressed to assist Mr Moor in the work of rescue. Happily their united efforts were successful. Moor released Capt. Cowen, who was too far gone to struggle and at the same time Smart was pulled aboard and the rescue boat with the aid of an oar where he collapsed.

Moor having raised Capt. Cowen from the bottom handed him to Mr Crisp who bore him to the wherry and safety. The rescuers were in a very exhausted condition and were violently sick owing to having swallowed so much river water.

Medical aid was waiting on the shore when the unfortunate men were landed. Dr T. P. Caverhill and his assistant applying artificial respiration while Dr Badenoch and Dr C. G. Maclagan attended to Smart and assisted on keeping a clear air space. Capt. Cowen was in a bad state and for a time his life was despaired of, but he gradually responded to treatment much to the relief of all present.

GOLF

A start has already been made with preparations for the Northumberland Agricultural Society’s Show to be held on the Magadalene Fields on 15th July. The judging ring is nearly complete, and the grandstand is in process of erection. The two holes affected so far are the “Moat” and the “Cricket Field,” but in a week or so the South end of the course will practically be out of play till after the Show.

On Saturday the Goswick Club ladies meet the Magdalene Fields Club ladies on the town course in a six-a-side match. The home team will be Miss H. F. M. Caverhill, Miss H. Gray, Miss H. Crossman, Miss McKelvie, Miss Gray, Miss Marshall. Goswick – Mrs P. C. Swan, Mrs Marrow, Mrs W. R. McCreath., Mrs T. P. Caverhill, Mrs Collingwood, Miss C. Gough.

The ladies’ June Monthly Medal was played over Goswick Course on Saturday last and was won by Miss Henderson, Coldstream, with 111-26- 85.

After considering the state of the course, the Green Committee have decided to restrict play to 7 holes on and after Monday 14th June. A temporary tee will be made adjacent to No.3 green for play to No. 6 green. The full course must, however, be played in competitions, and members engaged in competitions take precedence at No.7 tee. For the guidance of members the Committee have also decided that a ball lying within 10 yards of any Show structure may, with the consent of opponent or marker, be lifted and dropped no nearer the hole without penalty. If the ball is lying in a hazard, within 10 yards of any Show structure, the ball may be lifted at the option of the player under a penalty of one stroke.

The Green Committee have placed the hollow at the Greens Haven, where the newly erected refreshment hut is situated, out of bounds. Golfers driving into the hollow will require to drive a second ball from the ninth tee.

“NO GAS” THREAT

WORKERS DECIDE TO STRIKE.

SPITTAL MEN AFFECTED

Unless a national settlement of the matters in dispute between the Gasworkers in the United Kingdom and the Gas Companies and Corporations, comes before the night of June 26th, over 1000,000 men employed in the industry will come out on strike at the end of the strike notices.

The demands made by the men are for a 10s per week increase in wages, a 44-hour working week, and double pay for Sundays and holidays.

A ballot was taken recently as to whether members of the Union concerned were in favour of strike action, when 96 per cent of the workers voted in favour of a strike. The position is being laid before the Ministry of Labour.

The gasworkers employed by the Berwick and Tweedmouth Gas Company are affected by the threatened strike. A demand for increased wages was made by them some time ago, but this was withdrawn when a national demand was made by the unions. The seventeen men employed at the Gas Works, Spittal, balloted on the strike proposal recently and unless a settlement comes, they will come out with the rest of the gasworkers in the country on the night of June 26th.

On Wednesday the Ministry of Labour officially invited both sides of the Joint Industrial Council for the industry to meet and try to come to a settlement.

CHEAP FISH

WHY NOT BERWICK?

We learn that the Comrades of the Great War at Alnwick have set about in a business-like way, the provision of cheap fish for the people. The method is to have a list of parties to be supplied regularly and to meet these demands fish are purchased wholesale and given to the customers at a price which is almost 100 per cent. below shop prices. Cod and haddock can be sold by the Comrades at 6d per lb., while the prices charged by fish dealers in Berwick is 1s per lb, for cod and 9d per lb. for haddock.

Why not start this method in Berwick as a means of bringing down prices. Last week on Berwick Quay fishermen got from 8s to 10s per stone for haddocks, and these haddocks were retained in the shops at 9d per lb., an all round rate.

Photograph of the Berwick Quayside early 1900s Ref: BRO 1636-5-6

The percentage of profit here is reasonable, but a much larger profit iis taken from cod which is retailed at 1s per lb., after having been purchased on the Quay at from 25s to 38s per box for small, and at about 8d per lb. for large fish. Halibut sells on the Quay at 15s and 16s a stone, and is retailed at 1s 6d per lb. upwards. Crabs can be bought from fishermen at 6s and 7s per kit, yet in a shop a purchaser is charged from 6d to 1s according to size. A kit holds some 30 crabs when well packed.

Of course, it will be said that the fish merchant must have his profit, on account of the work he has to do in handling and gutting the larger fish, but surely if men who have no experience in the fish trade can buy and sell at a profit and let the public have fish at 6d per lb., the fishmonger should go one better.

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 28 MAY 1920

29/05/2020 by Northumberland Archives

TWEEDMOUTH

GIRLS’ NATIONAL SCHOOL

Empire Day was celebrated at Tweedmouth Girls’ National School on Tuesday forenoon. Early in the morning the girls, under the direction of their class mistresses, decorated the schoolroom with flags, bunting and flowers, transforming the whole appearance of the room. Daisy-chains were made by eager hands, and formed a part of the scheme of decoration. Ropes of daisies were also worn by the girls, who were in pretty frocks for the occasion. A programme of songs and recitations was gone through, two special items being the reciting of poems specially written by Mr T. Grey, Church Road, Tweedmouth, for the occasion. The programme was:- Unison song, “Land of Hope and Glory”; duet, Daisy Shiels and Edith Todd; recitation (by T. Grey), Andrina Davidson; Unison song, “Ye Mariners of England”; duet, E. Todd and M. Gray; recitation (Grey), Mary Newies; piano solo, E. Robertson; unison song , Standards I. and II.; duet, “Fairy Barque,” M. Douglas and E. Oxley; recitation, I. and A. Crossthwaite; unison song, “The Roast Beef of England.”

HENRY FIELDING 1670-1758
“The Roast Beef of Old England” is an English patriotic ballad written by Henry Fielding, and was first performed in 1731. Today,
the Royal Navy always goes in to dine at Mess Dinners to the tune, which is also played at United States Marine Corps
formal mess dinners during the presentation of the beef. Officers of the Royal Artillery are also played in to dinner by this tune.

After the programme was gone through the girls adjourned to the playground, where in the bright sunny weather, Miss May Todd, clad in white, took the salute to the Union Jack. The pupils then went through the grand march, each girl carrying a flag and wearing a daisy-chain wreath. The Rev. P. G. Peacocke addressed the girls on the meaning of Empire Day. During the morning’s proceedings Miss Helyer, Headmistress of the school, was presented with a bouquet of roses, and one of lilies and tulips. Hearty votes of thanks were accorded to the teachers for their share in the day’s celebrations and a special vote of thanks was also accorded to Mr T. Grey for his kindness in writing the poems recited by the girls. In the afternoon the programme was repeated, the parents being present.

LOCAL NEWS

On Thursday last, Thomas Tait, jun., and Richard Disslington, both of Berwick, were convicted of angling in the river Tweed, on the 13th day of May instant, for the purpose of killing or taking the spawn, fry, or young brood of salmon, and were severally fined in the mitigated penalty of ten pounds. A rather stiff penalty, but smolt catchers need have no fear of a like penalty now-a-days. This happened 100 years ago.

In view of the fact that certain meat traders in North Northumberland are considering a co-operative scheme for dealing with meat after decontrol on July 4th, by the proposed formation of a Control Board, farmers would be well advised to strengthen their Co-Operative Slaughterhouse Societies. Unless agriculturists are more enthusiastic in the Northumbrian Farmers’ Co-Operative Slaughterhouse Society, thinks the Newcastle Journal, there is a probability that its operations will be suspended by July 4th.

The Whitsuntide holidays brought a large influx of visitors to the town at the week-end and on Monday. Several large motor char-a bancs were to be seen drawn up in High Street, while others went on through the town to destinations further afield. Several of the shopkeepers in the town did remarkably well, the visitors seeming to be anxious to take some memento of their Berwick trip home with them. A number of the visitors hailed from the Widdrington district, and a cricket team having travelled north from that centre, played and beat the Berwick eleven on the Pier Field. A number of the visitors made their way to the seaside, the conditions there being ideal. The catering establishments in the town did a brisk trade, and Mr J. Walker, Castlegate, was compelled to use the Red Lion Assembly Room to seat his customers.

The placing of boys and girls in suitable employment when they leave school is engaging the attention of the Education Committee, and in response to a request by the Ministry of Labour, schoolmasters and teachers are being instructed to send in the names of all boys and girls leaving school at the end of the term, to Mr Topping, at the Labour Exchange. This new method of placing children leaving school in suitable employment will fill a much felt want. There are undoubtedly many cases where boys and girls leave school without any fixed idea of what trade they will follow, and the result has been that after many weeks of idleness they drift into some occupation not entirely suitable.

PARK’S COMMITTEE

The Clerk read the report of the Parks Committee of the 18th inst., recommending the Authority to have the guns on the Walls replaced on their former position, and the carriages for the same repaired at an estimated cost of £40. The estimate, it was stated, would cover the cost of repairing the carriages and re-painting.

Councillor Morrison moved the adoption of the report and Councillor Peter Cowe seconded.

Councillor Compbell said he could not well see where the economy came in when the Authority were not dealing with the matter of the footpath at Castle Hills, which would be to the advantage of the town, and were yet willing to spend £40 in putting the guns back in their former positions, which would not benefit the inhabitants in the least. He could not see the logic of the procedure, and moved as an amendment that the guns be not put back.

Councillor Dudgeon seconded, and said the guns at the top of Coxon’s Lane were a source of danger to children, who climbed on them, and through falling off sustained nasty accidents. Why, he asked, should they spend money on a matter like this and grudge it for a footpath, which would be a decided benefit.

Looking towards the Brass Bastion from the Cumberland Bastion on the Elizabethan Walls at Berwick-upon-Tweed. In 1920, the guns which were situated next to the Cumberland Bastion (not in their original positions) on the town’s walls, were the source of much debate by local councillors on the viability of restoring and placing them back in their original positions. © Richard Law – cc-by-sa/2.0- © Richard Law – geograph.org.uk/p/911095.

Councillor Dixon said he considered it would be a great pity if these guns were not put into position. Berwick was a fortified town, and the old guns gave a tone to the Walls. They were always a source of interest to visitors who went round the Walls. Had they been new guns they were mounting it would have been quite different.

Councillor Morrison – Councillor Campbell inferred the guns were no use. They are one of the attractions the Borough possesses.

Councillor Campbell said if anyone had sentimental feelings about the old guns it should be Councillor Cowe and himself, who had worked on them night after night in the old days, but if he allowed himself to consider that, he would be stretching his personal feelings too far, when other matters in the town, more essential, were required.

Councillor Wilson remarked that the question of the footpath at Castle Hills had not been turned down, but was going back to the Committee.

On the question being put to the vote, there voted for the resurrection of the guns and their repair and replacement 20, and for the amendment.

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 14 May 1920

15/05/2020 by Northumberland Archives

MEMORIAL UNVEILED IN AFRICA

IN MEMORY OF LIEUT. G. H. SHIELDS, BERWICK

In February, 1917 Lieut. George Hilliard Shields, son of the late Sergt. Major Instructor Stewart Shields, Berwick, and Mrs Shields, Quay Walls, was killed while on service in the bush country of German East Africa, by an enemy sniper. Now the staff and pupils at the school at Accra have honoured his memory by erecting in the school a handsome brass tablet and hanging on the wall a photo of the deceased officer taken by the side of a stream in the wild bush land.

Lieut. Shields, who was in the Gold Coast regiment, was the headmaster of the school in Accra, and took a great interest in his boys. He was a keen sportsman, and in 1915, the same year as his sister, Miss Agnes Shields (now Mrs Drylie) won the Officers’ Cup and several competitions on the Magdalene Fields course, he won the Sanitation Cup presented to the Accra Golf Club by the Doctors on the Gold Coast. His mother now has a solid silver miniature of this trophy.

THE UNVEILING CEREMONY

The ceremony of the unveiling of the tablet in memory of Lieut. Shields took place at Accra Government Senior Boy’s School, West Africa, on March 10th, and the Director of Education gave an address to the European staff, pupils and native staff.

In proceeding to unveil the Memorial, the Director of Education said- “We are assembled here to pay a united tribute to the late Lieut. Shields, headmaster of the school, who lost his life while on active service in East Africa. Mr Shields came to Accra as headmaster on the 17^th January, 1913. He very soon obtained a sound grasp of the organisation of the school and was very quick to appreciate good work done by the members of the staff as well as that done by the pupils. In order to obtain a better understanding of his work he began to take lessons in the Ga language and quickly acquired sufficient knowledge of it to engage in ordinary conversation with the natives of the country. With that, however, he was not content. He made a study of the language and was not satisfied until he could act as interpreter in a native court dealing with purely native affairs. In the study of the Ga language he showed the same thoroughness which he later showed in east Africa. When war broke out he was amongst the first to offer his services, and on August 8^th (four days after the outbreak of war) he was attached to the Lome Field Force for service aboard in the “Marina,” a small German ship captured at Accra. On the Marina he acted as chief officer. After the capture of Togoland he returned to his duties at Accra, but when volunteers were required for the Gold Coast regiment he again came forward, and in May, 1916, he was stationed at Coomassie. He proceeded on active service to East Africa in August, 1916. On February 3rd, 1917, he was killed in action. His death is a great loss to this Department, because he was an exceedingly capable headmaster. The good work which he has done was recognised by the Board of Education in May, 1917, when the following resolution was passed:- “That this Board desire to place on record its deep regret at the lamented death of Mr George Hilliard Shields, late headmaster of the Government School at Accra, who whilst serving as Lieutenant with the Gold Coast Regiment in East Africa was killed in action, and that the Board requests His Excellency the Governor to convey to the relatives of the late Mr Shields an expression of the Board’s appreciation of the services rendered by him in the cause of Education in this Colony, and its heartfelt sympathy with them in this, their great sorrow.”

In conclusion, the Director of Education said:- He was mourned by teachers and pupils, who in order to perpetuate his memory subscribed to purchase the brass plate, to be unveiled. By the side of the plate will be placed a photograph of Lieut. Shields, an enlargement from a snapshot taken by Capt.; Harman in East Africa. The brass plate and photo are permanently placed in the building in memory of an excellent headmaster, a brave soldier and a man who gained the esteem of all those with whom he came in contact. It will serve to inspire future generations of schoolboys with that sense of duty, love of country, and allegiance to their King.

The Director’s speech was interpreted, sentence for the benefit of the younger pupils, by Mr Kennedy, one of the teachers who served under Lieut. Shields in East Africa.

At the conclusion of the address, all present rose to their feet and amidst dead silence the Director unveiled the tablet. As the drapings fell away the pupils stood at attention whilst the “last post” was sounded on the bugle.

The plate, which is of brass with black engraved lettering, has in the left hand corner the cap badge of the Gold Coast Regiment and the Elephant and Palm Tree, the regiment badge, in the opposite corner. The inscription reads as follows:- “In Memory of George Hilliard Shields, Lieut. Gold Coast Regiment, Headmaster, Government Senior Boys’ School, Accra, (1913-17), who was killed on active service, near Njimbwe, German East Africa, on February 3rd^,1917.” “This Tablet is erected by the staff and pupils of his school.”

The ceremony terminated with the singing of the National Anthem. The bearing of pupils and colleagues, who numbered a thousand persons, bore striking testimony to the esteem in which Lieut. Shields was held.

SPITTAL NOTES

On Sunday evening last, when Mr Peter Cowe, fish merchant, Berwick, was standing near the Fish Quay at Spittal waiting for a ferry boat, he noticed what appeared to be a boy’s head come up above the water at the end of the Ferry landing.

He watched and saw the head disappear and rise a second time, and without waiting any longer he ran to the Jetty Corner, where he gave the alarm. Some fishermen were near, but they had never noticed the boy go into the water. The men, accompanied by Mr Cowe, ran to the spot, and the boy was pulled out in an exhausted condition. He proved to be the nine-year old son of Mr McIntosh, hotel-keeper, and after having been subjected to artificial respiration, he was taken home. We understand he is little the worse of his emersion. It was a happy chance indeed that Mr Cowe happened to be on the spot, otherwise the young fellow might have been drowned.

In last Saturday’s pigeon race from Durham, 53 birds were liberated at 12.25. Seven birds arrived about 2.30, and seconds divided the winners:- 1, Alex. Elliott; 2 and 3, A. Johnson. The first club race will be flown on Saturday from the same place, liberation at 12.30. The prizes will be:- 1st, £1; 2nd^,12s; 3rd, 8s; 4th, 6s; 5th, 4s. A special prize of 5s (by a Friend) will be given for the first hen timed in. There will also be a 6d. “pool.” Two birds will be nominated from each loft on Saturday morning to compete for the Vice-President’s (Mr W. Tait) Nomination Prize from York on Saturday, May 22nd.

“Tommy” Burn, who sailed last Friday for South Africa with the English football team has promised to write articles for the “Athletic News” dealing with the tour.

While playing with a salmon net winch on the beach at Spittal a little boy named Wood was struck with the handle on the chin and sustained a severe cut on the tongue, on Wednesday night. The child was conveyed home and had to be put under chloroform while two stitches were put into the wound.

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