Berwick Infirmary

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 28TH APRIL 1922

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DEATH OF MR GEORGE GRAHAME

On Tuesday evening last week Mr George Grahame retired from the joint Treasureship of Berwick Infirmary at the annual meeting, after taking a keen interest in the institution for many years. Speaking of the financial position of the Infirmary, he described himself as an optimist through and through. “As certain as I am a Berwick man, “said Mr Grahame, “the people of Berwick will give us the money if we tell them what we want.” On Thursday Mr Grahame was himself seized with sudden illness, necessitating an immediate operation. He was taken to Berwick Infirmary. Where the operation was performed on Friday. His strength, however, was not equal to the shock, and one of the Infirmary’s best friends died there on Saturday evening.

Berwick Infirmary and Dispensary, built 1840.

Mr Grahame was the only son of the late Alexander Grahame, gunsmith and jeweller, Hide Hill, Berwick, was born in Berwick, and except for a few years in Alnwick, has spent the greater part of his life in the town. He retired exactly a year ago from the mangership of the Berwick Branch of Barclay’s Bank, after 48 years’ service with the bank and their predecessors, Messrs Woods & Co. He succeeded the late Mr William Miller as manager some fifteen years ago, and last year, on his retiral, was appointed Local Director of the Bank at Berwick.

He has all his life been prominently associated with various organisations in the town. As stated above, he acted for many years as Honorary Treasurer of Berwick Infirmary. He has acted as Secretary of Berwick and Tweedmouth Savings Bank since 1900, when he succeeded the late Mr G. L. Paulin in that office. He was a director of Berwick Salmon Fisheries Company and the Corn Exchange Company.

Berwick Corn Exchange

During the war he acted as Honorary Treasurer of the War savings Committee and was a tireless worker, although at the time he had to carry on with a depleted bank staff. He also acted as Honorary Treasurer for Berwick War Memorial Fund. He was a member of Wallace Green Church, and has been a trustee since 1890 and an elder since 1900. He was very musical and took an active part in the activities of Berwick Choral Union, holding the office of Honorary President for many years.

Mr Grahame married the younger daughter of the late Mr John Stoddart, Tweedside Villa, Tweedmouth, who survives him with one daughter and two sons. His only surviving sister is Mrs S. Riddle, London, Mrs W. Paxton, another sister, having died recently in Edinburgh.

Mr Grahame was a man who did an untold amount of good by stealth and did not like to have it made known. He was consulted by his many friends on all sorts of matters, financial and personal, and always gave helpful advice. Besides being kindly and helpful, he had a way of getting to the bottom of a difficult situation, and his wide experience and thoughtful and impartial outlook made his advice well worth acting upon.

He has done a good deal of social work in the town, and some yeasr ago carried on a very successful young men’s temperance club with the late Mr Matthew Ross. This was at first held in the old Hall, Hatter’s Lane, and later in the old Infant School, College Place. Mr Grahame used to spend every night of the week there and had the satisfaction of looking round the town on many sturdy townsmen who have made their positions- thanks largely to the guidance and advice which they got from him. He also ran a very successful Bible Class in connection with it.

APPRECIATION IN WALLACE GREEN CHURCH

On Sunday morning reference was made to the death of Mr George Grahame by the Rev. W. Jardine before the intercessory prayer, and after the prayer the congregation sang in sympathy the hymn “Now the labourer’s task is o’er.” Mr Jardine preached from the 112th Psalm, 6th verse- “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.”

Still standing, St Andrew’s church (Church of Scotland), Wallace Green, Berwick-upon-Tweed. © Author: mattbuck, Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Mr Jardine’s appreciation of Mr Grahame was:- We are met this morning under the shadow of a great loss. Last night there passed away at the Infirmary Mr George Grahame. It is not for me, a comparative stranger, to speak of his service to this community; those are known to you all. The town is poorer today by the loss of one of its leading citizens, a man honoured and loved by all men for his kindliness of nature and charm of his personality and his public services to our many public institutions in this town with which his name is inseparably connected and in which his devoted work will long be gratefully remembered.

But it is fitting here, in this House which he loved, to speak of his work for the Church of Jesus Christ. For over thirty-one years he has been a trustee and for over twenty-one years an elder, and to these offices he brought that ability which distinguished him in every walk of life and that loving kindness which was a special trait in his character. He could rejoice with those who rejoiced, and sympathised with those in sorrow, and was a very present help in time of trouble to many a sorely distressed man. He was a grateful hearer of the “Word” and a faithful doer of the “Will.” He kept the feast with us last Sunday and heard the Resurrection message, and expressed his joy in these services. Now he realises that communion and the fulfilment of that promise of which they were the earnest. We thank God in this House today for may years of faithful service, for the strength he was to the Kingdom of God in this place and for the example of his brotherly serviceable life. Blessed are the dead who die in the lord; they do rest from their works do following them. The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.

We give expression tour sense of heavy loss the Church has suffered through his passing, and we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the sorrowing family and friends, commending them to the consolation of God, and praying they have the strength and peace of the great Christian assurance.

FUNERAL

The funeral took place on Tuesday afternoon from his residence Tweedside Villa, Tweedmouth, to Berwick Cemetery, and was most largely attended by friends from Berwick and district.

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 20TH JANUARY 1922

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MYSTERY AIRMAN

MAN SUDDENLY FINDS HIMSELF IN BERWICK,

IS LATER IDENTIFIED BY HIS MOTHER,

A BELFAST LADY.

Berwick residents found themselves face to face with as sensational a “Mystery Story” as ever could be found in the Sunday papers last week when it became known that a man who had fallen down in Castlegate the week previously and had been taken to the Infirmary had suffered from loss of memory since 1917.

Engraving of Berwick Infirmary HB1-68 late 19th Century

Such was the statement made by a tall, refined and well-groomed young man giving the name Bert Templeton King, an ex-U.S.A. Airman. King was found in Castlegate by a man named Conway, suffering it was thought from a fit. He was taken to the Infirmary, where he was seen by Dr W. B. Mackay and others, who formed the opinion that he was suffering from lost memory. The matter was brought to the notice of Supt. Halliday, who had several interviews with King in all of which, while he talked intelligently, he professed to know nothing about himself since 1917.

KING’S STORY

His story was to the effect that his father was on the shipping line, a citizen of New Jersey, U.S.A., and he himself had been an artist prior to joining the American Air Force in 1917. He stated that he could remember events clearly up to that year and amongst other things he said he had been trained at Mineola Aerodrome, New York, and had taken his pilot’s certificate. This was found in his possession, along with an American Registration Card. He had two kit bags full of clothing with him and a number of letters, but no money, and the Police set out to see if anything could be done to lead to identification.

THE POLICE “HAE THEIR DOOTS.”

In passing, it may be said the police were suspicious of the medical theory of lost memory; at least, not from such a distant period as 1917, it being contended that no man could wander across the Atlantic and travel up and down the country for nearly four years without showing some abnormal traits, consistent with loss of memory. Subsequent events seemed to prove that the police theory was very near the mark.

Inquiries instituted proved beyond doubt that King had been employed as a chauffeur with a gentleman in Sussex more than a year ago, and had then travelled north to take up a similar position with a gentleman living at Davidson’s Mains, East Lothian. King had been normal enough to carry on an intelligent correspondence with a young Edinburgh lady with whom he was on friendly terms. He seems to have told her quite a different story to that which he had told to the police.

His father was a motor car manufacturer in New Jersey, he is alleged to have said, and he was across in this country acting as agent for his father’s cars.

After having kept company for some six months with this young lady, King seems to have announced his intention of going south to Southampton, it was believed with the intention of returning to America. How he expected to get there without money is not clear, but it is a fact that he had none when he was picked up in Castlegate on Wednesday week.

BRO 2103-4-2-71 Castlegate looking North mid 1900’s

It was explained to King by the police that he had told a different story to the girl in Edinburgh to that which he had given in Berwick, and he replied, “ What girl! I know no girl there, and cannot remember having said that.” Superintendent Halliday then showed him the girl’s photo. To this he replied, “I have never seen her before.”

THE MYSTERY MAN ADOPTED

Full publicity having been given to the “Mystery Man” in the daily Press, the police had several inquiries for people in different parts of the Kingdom who had lost touch with a relative of their own. On Saturday three ladies arrived in Berwick, one of whom proved to be King’s mother, who had travelled from Belfast, and the others were his aunts. They identified him without difficulty, and though King contended he did not know them, he said he would go with them.

It transpires that King’s parents read of the “Mystery Man” in the “Daily Mail” and immediately recognised that it referred to their son, who they had been in touch with up to two years ago. The parents are well-to-do people, the father holding an important position in Harland Wollfs’s shipyard, Belfast. They are of Scotch extraction, which does not tally with King’s story of being a native of New Jersey. It happens; however, he was in America prior to 1917 and did serve, as he says, in the American Air Force. His parents, with whom he had been in touch from 1917 to 1919, know of no period when he suffered from loss of memory, and his movements up to two weeks ago seem to show him to have been normal, and his lapse of memory can only be traced from the time he arrived in Berwick.

During his stay in the Infirmary he has been very popular with the medical men, staff and convalescents, and has been going messages from one ward to another evidently quite normally. Mrs King is staying on in Berwick until the medical men give permission for her son to travel home.

BERWICK ADVERTISER, 20 FEBRUARY 1920

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BERWICK SCHOOLS OPEN AGAIN

Everyone will be glad to know that the schoolchildren are back again to their work. A few weeks ago we drew attention to the educational loss which the town was suffering through the impossibility of keeping the schools open. One master says that he will feel the effects of the closure for five years to come-through the children having missed instruction in passing through their standards which it will be normally assumed they have had. Reckoning from the break-up for the summer holidays at the end of July, 1918, into February 14th, 1920, is 80 weeks. Of these 80 weeks, what with holiday as and Saturdays and Sundays, and what with illness, the schools have been closed as nearly as makes no matter 40 weeks.

A photograph of pupils and staff at Spittal County Primary School in 1921. A year earlier in 1920, some these pupils would have suffered an infection which necessitated the closure of all schools in the borough.

This is a matter which requires the combined consideration of the parents, the teachers, and the Education Committee. When we last wrote on the subject, some teachers seemed to consider that they were being blamed for their schools being closed. Nothing could be further from the truth. But teachers are more and more demanding, and rightly demanding, representation on Education Committees. They are the real educational experts of Berwick, and if this is not fully recognised at the moment, it will be before long. It is impossible to deal with such a serious problem as the closing of the schools without the help of the teachers. They themselves would be the last to claim that the only time they should be consulted by the Education Authority is when their own salaries are under consideration. The town will be the poorer if the teachers are not asked to share in joint control in everything that affects the education of their pupils.

We, therefore put before the Education Committee, the parents, and the teachers, the following suggestions for what they are worth. Firstly, is it not possible to reduce the risk of infection by spraying or disinfecting the schools, so that even if infectious a disease is about the school is about the safest place for the children to be in? Next, is it not possible when an epidemic is threatened, for each child to take part in breathing and gargling exercise first thing in the morning, much as if they were going thorough physical drill? The mouth and the nose are the parts of the body most sensitive to infection, and they can both be easily and systematically cleaned with a solution of permanganate of potash, if the teachers will look after it. The drill might take place in the play-ground. As time goes on the teachers will become more and more responsible for their pupils’ health. They will, we think, increase their knowledge of hygiene, and under medical supervision they could watch the children closely to detect the first symptoms of illness. Even without medical supervision they might as it is when an epidemic is threatened take their temperatures each morning. This might not be book learning, but it would be real education, which would never be forgotten. We only offer these as suggestions, in the hope that all concerned will apply their minds to keeping the schools open for the longest possible period each year.

There is one other matter which we have refrained from mentioning until the schools re-opened. It is absurd to close the schools and allow places of entertainment to remain open. It seems very hard on business enterprises that they should have receipts reduced by the children, who are valuable patrons, being locked out. The risk, however, can easily be insured against, and we recommend the Education Authority to issue a notice that, if there is another epidemic, places of entertainment as well as schools will have to be closed to the children. This is a matter which cannot be allowed to rest. The proprietors of places of entertainment must be given fair notice of what will happen, so that they may make preparations for it. They will pass the cost of insurance on to the public, and we are sure that the public will see that it is cheaper to pay the insurance bill than allow these places to keep open as possible centres of infection.

LOCAL NEWS

We draw our readers’ attention to the entertainment advertised for next Wednesday evening in aid of Berwick Infirmary. The work carried on there deserves to be more widely known. During the past months the patients admitted have frequently overtaxed the resources and additional beds have had to be obtained.

A current photograph of the front of Berwick Infirmary.  With the exception of the modern vehicles and signage, a similar scene would have been witnessed by those carrying out improvement work there in 1920.  © Copyright Rod Allday – Creative Commons Licence.

The Committee is thus face to face with increased establishment charges and present prices spell a higher cost of maintenance. It is to be hoped there will be a “bumper house.”

Lord Tweedmouth is running Boy Ben in the Waterloo Cup and was present at the banquet after the draw on Tuesday night. Boy Ben is an Australian dog, imported by Mrs Pape, but running as the nominee of Lord Tweedmouth. There have been many stories about his importation, though it was never intended that there should be any mystery about him. He was a fair performer in Australia, where all the coursing is in enclosures and, judged by the trails he has been given since his arrival in England, he is not at all likely to create a record by winning the Waterloo Cup for Australia. He is undeniably fast, but, like all enclosure dogs, he works his hare loosely, and does not run out his courses at all cleanly. He won his first course at any rate, as also did Mr J. R. Marshall’s nomination, Fullecourt.

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