Newbiggin-By-The-Sea, the Promenade c1960

My grandparents home

My grandparents Isabella and Jack Lymer and my Uncle Victor Lymer lived above the cafe until my nan's death in 1968. When I was young it was the flat to the left as you look at the picture. It is now the hairdressers.  My mum tells me that when she married my dad (1943) they lived in the flat to the right of the picture over looking the bay. I have many happy memories of holidays visiting them and playing on the sands. It was the best ice cream ever! And the sun always seemed to be shining. It used to take one and half days to travel from Sussex to Newbiggin when I was a child but my brother, sister and I never minded the journey because we so looked forward to seeing nanny, granddad and uncle Victor and maybe the ice cream featured in there somewhere along with the wonderful fish and chips or scramptions you could buy from any one of the 3 fish and chip shops nearby.

Recent first visit

Newbiggin-by-the-Sea is of great interest for me, as many of my ancestors lived there.  I was able to visit St. Bartholomew's Church and discover the gravestone of the Harbottle family, one of whom was my great great grandfather.  It made rather sad reading as many died so very young.

Recent visit 2007

I visited Newbiggin for the first time in January of this year, in search of my ancestors, who I hoped to find in St. Bartholomew's church. It was a bright but extremely windy day when we arrived, but I was delighted to discover the gravestone of my Gt.Gt. grandfather and many of his family. The stone was propped up against the church and we could have missed it. My visit from Australia was greatly enhanced by the discovery of the Harbottle family headstone.

Remembrance of things past

This picture was taken a little after I left the town for further down the coast. I believe that the large building was called the Marine Cafe. A real and rare treat was to go and have a Knickerbocker Glory in a tall glass seated on tall stools at tall tables! To the right, on the beach at the base of the wall, was an outlet for a large constantly running drain, mostly street runoff I think. My sister and I spent many happy hours playing there, making dams and pools, building rickety bridges and so on. Today's Health and Safety would have had a dozen fits but we survived. Meanwhile the whole beach waited just behind us and eventually we would go and dig sea coal, skip on the rocks at low tide, squeeze through the Needle's Eye. A splendid childhood in a lovely place.
There were several shops around the Square (Marine Parade?) and as they sold a lot of bright souvenirs and toys to day visitors they were a magnet for us children.

Woodhorne Colliery School

Some of my time at this Junior school stays in my memory. I recall the Headmaster, Mr Chater and Miss Hall who ran the class I started in. Having come from a tiny three teacher school in Nunthorpe the size and bustle of Miss Hall's with a spirited rendering of the Creed which I'd never heard of and was expected to join led to copious tears. I had to leave after a few months as my mother was seriously ill and we went to Whitehaven. Later I came back to Year Two (?) I don't remember the teacher's name: she was a tall woman with specs and a bustling, no-nonsense manner and I recall having a good year under her tuition. Then we moved up to Miss Sanderson's class. Might have gone to Mr Heaton's ('Heatspots') but was fortunate to go to Miss S. What a lovely person she was and how caring. I have the year photo still although I cannot recall any names expect, perhaps, Andrew R....son, a good friend. One of the strange things I do remember is going to the school in the morning from Front street and through a gas works and across slag heaps and very manky waste ground. Can that be possible? After the 11plus I went on to boarding school and only revisited the school once -- as was the fashion. Everything seemed so small and the children, so young!

Newbiggin by the Sea

I was born and brought up in Newbiggin by the Sea, till I left for Scotland  in 1998. All my family is buried in St Bartholomews', Taylors, Clark, Arkle, Dunn, Peel, Maughan, just to mention a few. My granda was called Jimmy Taylor(nicknamed Keywall Jimmy), him and his brother in law (Sammy Clark) was never seperated, they used to go everywhere together including the Central Club, hehe. My uncle worked at Wallaw cinema, Jim Taylor. I can remember when I was 4 yrs old in 1960 and my brother Stephen (then 6 years old) was put on a double decker bus to head to the Saturday matinee, where my uncle was supposed to meet us off the bus, but my brother decided to get off one stop early and go to see our nana at North Shields. Oh yes we got on another bus and we did get there only to get a good hot backside when we arrived as no one knew where we had gone. I can laugh at this all the time cos when we were brought home we were grounded, and put into our bedrooms. So we decided to have a pillow fight with the feathered pillows (bolster). My mam (Lena Peel, nee Taylor) and dad (Gerald Peel) came up the stairs to get us for our teas but guess what, they couldn't get in the bedroom for feathers. OMG I'm still laughing yet, hehe. Yes we were grounded again for longer, but the moral of the story is we are still here today. Those were the days. Good old Newbiggin.