Alfred Bates Turner

I was wondering if you could give me some help regarding a resident of Ushaw Moor in 1917. Private Alfred Bates Turner was the Son of James and Eliza Turner, of 2 Broadgate Cottages, Flass Hall, Ushaw Moor, Broadgate, Co. Durham, he was serving with the Sherwood Foresters when he was killed at Houthulst Forest, nr. Elverdinghe, Belgium.

I was in Ypres last weekend attending a dedication of a Memorial Stone to The Foresters at Tyne Cot Cemetary, I was talking to a fellow W.F.A. (Western Front Association) Member from Belgium who told me they had the original headstone naming Private Turner and it would be nice if we could find any information out about Pte. Turner or if there were any living relations who we could make contact with, with regards to the headstone as we near the 100th anniversary of World War 1.

Could you tell me if Ushaw Moor has a W.W.1 memorial and is Pte Turner named, also any information that may lead to finding a relation would be gratefully received.

Yours

Lloyd Cartwright

W.F.A. Member

From Here To Eternity

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

Pitmen Painters

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

Pass It On

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

Early Planning – Christmas Cake 1947 Style

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

Off The Top Of My Head

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

Striking miners and the master of the colliery

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.

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