My connection with ushaw moor is I am a cousin of Valerie Snaith, my maternal grandfather was John Bell of Cockhouse farm, my paternal grandfather was steward of “Cub House” in Ushaw Moor. I lived in New Brancepeth until 1955 when along with Mum & Dad & brother Duncan emigrated to Australia.

I have been back to England a couple of times and am again coming in June 2010. I certainly enjoy visiting ushaw moor cricket club where my fathers photo is still on the wall. would enjoy meeting you during my visit.

Posted on behalf of:

Kind regards
AdrianRoss

The memories page is a wonderful facility and I have thanked Paul several times for creating it. Having said that - are memories just an exercise in both rampant nostalgia and remembered pain, or something much more? I think there is much more to memories: they are a tool that enable ’stock taking’ and they provide information to enable each and everyone of us to move on. I have experienced  joy, but much of it was chaotic and badly planned – if planned at all. It is time to achieve some coherence together with positive action. What about you?

So how am I going to achieve this all action coherence? Well I am old enough and wise enough to know what I want to do, given my present circumstances and likely budget. I do not need old time religion. I do however need a fair amount of luck. The rest is down to me. One thing I have not got is the foresight to know how much time I have remaining - annoying that one.   So many of my past friends are no longer on the planet; David my best man at my wedding; Brian the lovely lad, together with his pint of beer, last seen hitching a ride through the galaxy on a 42 bus; Dennis my old left winger and neighbour, long gone. Those lads are a warning – to get on with it. So how many years to build into the plans? I will make a bold guess : how about eleven?

If I have something like eleven years it is time to list the aspirations and cut my cloth - with inbuilt flexibility of course. Mind you I need to build in four years of decreptitude so that leave me with a vigorous seven years.

Seven years? Not long is it? Well as you  know it is not how long you live - it is what you do with it. I’m off for a pint.

WB

They were the inspired, and in turn inspirational, painters from Ashington of bygone years. Like any other group, or social stratum, miners had their fair share of sensitive, spiritual and talented people. You can google them – pitmen painters Ashington – UK of the web is best rather than the whole world -  and find a lot of interesting information. 

Again it is not about Ushaw Moor people - but it is about a group of the very same type – hardworking underpaid miners that enabled and fed our advanced economy, especially during wartime.

WB

The memories site appears busy and varied but that is misleading. There are too few contibutors - and if they were to cease their twittering, tapping and often thoughful contributions - what would be left to keep memories alive, entertaining and fresh?

If you have found time to delve into the local pathways of history provided by this site - pass it on to a friend! Show enthusiasm that is a bit more than a passing interest. Keep village history alive and fresh. Better still interview a senior citizen or a 40 odd year old, or whatever, and with their approval get their story on to the site.   

Pass it on. You might also consider yesterday’s article entitled ’Are you an ex miner’and respond to it - if at all possible.

WB

Your world is made of your memories, and your memories are given to you by your world. The whispering voice of happenstance is always in our ears. ‘This is the world. This is the way things are. Look. Pay attention. Remember.’

Real Live Preacher, Real Live Preacher weblog, 05-25-06
Anonymous author of RealLivePreacher.com

No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of ther beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.

Anne Rice, “Blood and Gold”
US novelist (1941 – )

Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.

(Oscar Wilde)

It’s a pleasure to share one’s memories. Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe – though we didn’t know it at the time. We know it now. Because it’s in the past; because we have survived.

(Susan Sontag)

Rationing did not end until almost the middle 1950s. The 1947 Christmas Cake was therefore not quite the version one could enjoy a few years later!

Ingredients:

85 grams sugar – soft brown - then – let me think – let’s have a few bullet points!

• 2  eggs
• 3 tablespoons Golden Syrup
• 225 grams plain flour
• 2 1/2 grams Bicarbonate of Soda
• 5 grams cinnamon ground
• 5 grams mixed spice
• 450 grams dried fruit mixture
• 3 tablespoons tea cold and well strained
• 1 pinch salt and finally
• 115 grams of margarine

Instructions

[1] Line a 7″ (18 cm) cake tin with greaseproof paper.
Preheat the oven to 150C 

[2] Cream the margarine and sugar and gradually add beaten eggs, then the syrup.

[3] Sift all dry ingredients together – add to the creamed mixture along with the fruit and  tea.

[4] Then spoon into the cake tin  – then make a hollow in the centre so the cake will stay flat on top.

[5] Bake for 2 hours until firm to the touch and the sides have shrunk away a little from the sides.

[6] Cool in the tin. When cold remove from the tin & store in an airtight container

This receipe is at your own risk: the writer cannot be held responsible for wrecking your Christmas or dampening your spirits.

WB

I suppose that many of us are already aware of the circumstances surrounding the Ushaw Moor miners’ strike – but even so Paul was right to give it another airing. It must be enthralling when read for the first time. I am absolutely sure that an inspired writer could make something of the dispute and create a popular BBC drama. In the right hands it would be far more interesting that  King Arthur and Merlin – I quite like that programme but it is fantasy, unlike the fascinating  Ushaw Moor dispute. The colliery manager was appalling and the mine owner was  not much better. 

It was all about deference then; all that bowing and scraping [and being ripped off by the aggravating wealthy class] understandably created an aggrieved work force. In Victorian times the powers that be actually thought  that if  workers became unemployed it must be their own fault. There was little understanding of how to operate an advanced economy and a large number of the poor suffered as a consequence.  

There is much more to it than that but I must close for lunch - suitably wound up!

WB

Ushaw Moor in 1932

USHAW Moor’s original colliery village overlooked the actual colliery about three-quarters of a mile to the west of the present village and was the scene of a troublesome strike in the 1880s.

The colliery owner, Henry Chaytor, of Witton Castle, was an uncompromising master.

Sanitary conditions in his terraces were appalling and wooden huts housing additional miners were described as “the most wretched dwellings it was possible to conceive”.

Conditions in Chaytor’s mine were no better, and men complained of working in 18 inches of water.

READ MORE

The full FA Cup record of Ushaw Moor FC is elsewhere on this site but tonight let us have a brief look at some of West Stanley football team’s FA Cup exploits. I believe that West Stanley played in the South Moor area – if anyone can give any useful information regarding that I would be thankful.

Back in the 1905/6 season they drew at home to Northampton 1-1 before losing the replay 3-0 away. A few years later they lost against Watford by 4-1.

Perhaps its best season was in 1919/20:

Leadgate Park [Home] 2-0, Rotherham County [H] 1-0, Gillingham [H] 3-1 and then Tottenham H [A] 1-4 defeat. Yes West Stanley played against the Spurs! During that season Tottenham finished up champions of the Second Division [now called The Championship]. The Gaumont Cinema showed clips of the match a few days after the event. In the FA Cup that season Spurs also beat Bristol Rovers 4-1 West Ham 3-0 but finally lost to Aston Villa 1-0. In the following year Spurs actually won the FA Cup, beating Wolves 1-0 in the final.

Acknowledgements to the FCHD for much of this information.

WB