Wikipedia recounts the story from 1904 of the Allendale Wolf, also reprised in the pages of the Allen Valleys Folk Festival programme. The creature was the ‘large black cat’ of its day. [From early in 2000 until at least 2012,…
Category: Reminiscence
Isaac’s Well flows again!
It may not look like much, the little fountain just left of the roadway entrance to Arnison Close, and it might typically be parked up as well, but Isaac’s Well, a Grade II listed structure, is part and parcel of…
Roman Wall District, 1932
I emailed Liz Conway, local bookbinder, to chat about preservation binding of this valuable old, and very tattered guide to the Roman Wall District, that came to my attention recently. Yes, she said, she could do it nicely in either…
Gordon the guinea fowl
I saw my first guinea fowl at Beamish Open Air Museum, probably twenty-five years ago. They were scurrying around the miner’s cottage, just near to the Methodist chapel, and they even rated a descriptive legend. Apparently they were favourites of…
A rave in the hall . . . how times change
It does sound like fun, and a long evening of dancing frantically to music lined up by a small host of DJs . . . a rave by any other name, and a great evening of excitement after the day…
Leaving so soon?
Not quite 48 hours by the sea, and now it’s time to return home. This mini-break was really only conceived as a test run, in relative safety and proximity to home. There are pets to feed, garden to tend, and…
Far-flung families . . .
It’s a truism of contemporary life, I guess, that family members often find themselves separated by great distances. And it’s not even necessarily contemporary — this diaspora has been going on for generations, centuries. My family history of the twentieth…
Spinning: one word, many meanings
According to Wikipedia, spiders have spun for at least 100 million years, a date defined thanks to a discovery of a web embedded in amber. So that makes these arachnids the oldest spinners on earth. Little wonder that Robert the…
Coming soon, twice!
“Absolutely barmy,” someone said, but somebody else noted that the Co-op is open in the early evenings after the Post Office is shut, while the MarketPlace shop is open on Sunday mornings when of course the Co-op is closed, thereby…
Terry’s Bench
Just at the junction of Catton and Allendale, where the road sign says Allendale on one side, and Catton on the other, sits a lovely, hand-carved bench with a recent history. Liz Conway writes to chat about the bench: “My…