Lowick, the Village c1955

Mrs Brown's shop

Mrs Brown's shop, at the far left of the picture, is where Mam used to take us for our weekly treat on a Saturday - to choose some sweets from a large selection in a line of big glass jars with ornate lids. Mrs Brown would put them in the shiny pan on her scales, adding the little bronze weights on the balance to get the exact weight, 2ozs of this and 4ozs of that and then tip them into paper bags for us. The front door opened into an ante-room with locked cupboards then you turned right into the shop. The bell at the top of the door jangled to alert her that she had a customer. The shop is long gone now, it was sold and turned into a private house.

Our home for 30+ years

Mam and Dad, Lizzie and Edwin Ridley, moved into Slaghill (the cottage on the right of the picture) in 1948 when I was 3 years old. Dad died there in December 1978 and Mam moved up to Chapel Cottages soon afterwards. There were 3 of us children living there originally - Margaret, Yvonne and myself. My 2 elder brothers Lloyd and Norman had already left for the Army. Maurice came along in 1950 by which time my sisters had gone to Brownrigg Camp school in Bellingham.

There was no water or electricity in the house until 1961, water came in a bucket from the iron spring on the other side of the road and the light from a parafin lamp, later, a tilley lamp. We had a coal fire in the living room which Dad lit every morning before setting off to the limestone quarry behind the house where he worked as a shot-blaster. We also had a fireplace in the big bedroom upstairs which was lit only in deepest winter. The coalhouse was part of the outhouses which consisted of a loft, where logs were stored, the coalhouse, which also contained a goat house was beneath that and the lavatory was around the corner from there....not a place you'd want to go to on a winter's night.

There was a "boiler" in the far-back kitchen. On wash days Mam would travel back and forwards to the well for buckets of water to fill the boiler. Then she would light the fire underneath the boiler to heat the water. The clothes were washed in a "poss-tub" with a poss stick, rinsed and then mangled through the wringer before the advent of electricity!

As well as a garden full of potatoes, carrots and sweet juicy white turnips, Dad kept 2 goats, a Billy and a Nanny. We were all brought up on goat's milk and plenty of fresh eggs from the few Rhode Island Red hens. We kept a pig, for slaughter each year. Aunt Mary used to come down from Chapel Cottages to help with the "pig-killing", cutting the hams and making the sausages. I used to hide under the bed on those days, I didn't want any part of it.

Mam used to take us out picking mushrooms in the early mornings in the field by the lime Kiln, she taught us how to "tickle" trout in the burn behind the house, taking them home to fry up for tea. She showed us how to dye easter-eggs by wrapping them in onion peel and making them into parcels with newspaper before boiling them. We'd pick different coloured flowers to tuck under the peel to make them pretty. She used to take us Carol singing down the village at Christmas and walking up the Slaghill in the dark nights used to teach us the constellations - the Plough, Orion's Belt and the Milky Way stretching over the whole sky - no light pollution in those days!

There may not have been much money around the house, no mod-cons and very few of life's little luxuries as understood today but I spent a very happy childhood at Slaghill. These are just a few of my happy memories of Allenheads.

Personal memories before and after 1955

Prudhoe Castle has always been a part of my life since I was born in 1938. My mother moved to Prudhoe Castle, where she was employed as a maid, to be nearer to my father who lived in Castle Dene. They eventually married and produced my brother Don in 1934, then me in 1938.
  
After the war ended in 1945, various residents came to the Castle, one of them being Senor Hosea Paniego, who was the Spanish Consul in Newcastle. My brother at this time was probably about 14 and he, with others, was 'caught' playing in the grounds. Don had piped up - 'My Mam used to work here' - and the Consul, as he was always called, came to our house and persuaded Mam to do some housekeeping and cooking. He adored the traditional meals which Mam cooked for him and his small staff and was extremely kind to all the family. He moved to New York perhaps two years later and we ended up with his beautiful old red-setter dog Rex to look after. The Consul used to send us food parcels and I can remember Mam knitting him grey cable knit socks because he was complaining about the cold weather. This was the restarting of a relationship with Prudhoe Castle which lasted until 1975.  
  
The residents after that usually had a military connection, the first ones being Colonel Alistair Neilson, who was based at Fenham Barracks, with his family of three. These families were very socially oriented and there used to be many visitors over the next 15 years or so. Mam looked after the families in the main house and Dad by this time had started taking care of the gardens. They were always considered more as family friends, and many of the children were cared for by Mam from being babies. Young Alexander Neilson, when he was about 5 years old, went to a party at Fenham Barracks dressed as a traditional 'pitman', which my Dad was. He was dressed up in 'work clothes' and wore his own pit helmet and knee pads which Dad had sorted out for him.  He won 1st prize - of course!

Towards the end of 1960s, the castle was turned over to the Department of the Environment by the Duke of Northumberland and a new period started. Mam and Dad moved into the castle as Custodians and lived in a lovely first floor flat overlooking the grounds and the Old Chapel until 1975, when they retired.  During their time there they had many famous visitors, who all enjoyed the home-made scones and cakes.

Mam never went back after they retired - I think she just wanted to remember things they way they had been. Excavations were just starting before they left and I suspect neither of them wanted to see anything change.

I was visiting my cousin Margaret yesterday and we wandered around for a walk with Meg the dog. As always, it was very beautiful, peaceful and immaculate, but we could still remember things the way they were and maybe all of the changes were not really necessary. A sign of old age maybe!

Marion Smailes (nee McIver)