Jtbells

A Memory of Newburn.

This is the year I started on the building sites in 1963, I got a job on J. T. Bell's site in Whickam, the site hadn't been running long then as it was in the first stage. All the lads were mainly from Newburn, Lemington, and Throckley. If you needed a job more than likely you would go to the Union Jack Club on Hexham Road, Throckley where the McDonna brothers had their foothold and big Hughie was the main man for a job as he was Mr Bell's top man. I started on the Mixers along with an old school pal, John Hogg from Lemington, who had a BSA 500 motorbike and he used to pick me up at old Scotswood bridge because we started at 7.30am along with Davey Crow the tractor driver. Ali Newton and little Jackie Cock Ryan who were on the concrete mixers started the same time, the reason being John and me would get the batches of mortar out for the brickies coming in and they would get the concrete out for the ground workers, everyone else started at  8am. By! it was hard graft, there were 2 small mixers, John on one and me on the other, we stood on top of a huge pile of building sand feeding the mouths of these metal turning drums all day long with a shovel. At the end of the week was bonus time as the brickies used to put a fiver in our hands off each squad as a thank you for keeping them supplied and there was about seven, this was split between Davey, John and me, not bad as our wage was only about a tenner a week then. As the houses progressed we moved on further up the site and by this time the little mixers were gone and we got a big one with a drag line as more and more squads came in. Next door to John and me was the other big mixer doing concrete worked by Ali, Cock Ryan, and Davey Graham who was their tractor driver and by this time we had our own huge silo storing the cement. We all got together and built a makeshift cabin with a fire in as winter was here and this is where we went for our bait and so did a lot of lads from around the site it was a cosy little place and the crack was great, we would have dares and one was who would jump off the silo into the sand this was 20 to 30 feet, Cock Ryan was the 1st to do it then others followed suit. An old double Decker bus was laid on for the site to pick up and drop off the men the bus driver was a big guy called Geordie Bewley who went on to star on tv as a comedian. I was terrified on this bus as it went around corners cos sometime I think it was on two wheels and I wouldn't go upstairs in case it went over, but, it never did! Then there was Ronnie Brown who drove the bulldozer and was also Mr J T Bells chauffeur, he went on to owning a double glazing company in Duston. The building sites up here used steel scaffolding and the brickies labourers used to carry there bricks in a Hod but as you travelled down south the steel scaffold wasn't used, instead they used a rope and pole method, aye wooden poles lashed together with rope in fact the only builder up here around this time to use this method was Cussins (if it wasnt Im sure someone will correct me). then there was the method known as knobbing
where the labourers would have a board, not unlike an old school masters hat which they stacked bricks on and plonked it on there head then ran up the ladder with both hands on the ladder, it was said the knobbers wouldn't use a hod and the hod carriers wouldn't use a knobber.
It was during my time working for bells that we would all meet on a Friday night in town at the Golden Tiger pub in Pilgrim Street, this pub was run by George Gill or Vivian as everyone knew him, he was a local gay man and it was here where we all were in the back lounge when we heard of President Kennedy's death. This was a pub you had a great laugh in, there were quite a few old gays came in as people were still in the closet in those times. In the small bar area there were coins glued to the floor and god help you if you tried to pick one up. Viv went to Gateshead from there to manage pubs over the water and it was here where he met his fate in the Azure Blue, it was a sort of family pub entwined in the area amongst rows and rows of terraced houses. He was a big man and not to be messed with, he apparently threw some lad out who came back and stabbed him to death. I went to the funeral and what a send-off that man got, it was said he was known throughout the world due to the ships and sailors that came into the Tyne and visited his pub. And you know what I never seen a bit o' bother in this pub and yet on the quayside a few hundred yards down the bank the pubs were more seedy and full of merchant seamen of all nationalities and a frightening place to be at the age of 15 when I had my first glimpse of pub life down there with prostitutes having their price on the bottom of their shoes which you could see when they crossed their legs.