Photo from creative commons A new poll suggests that the political tide continues to turn against Boris Johnson and the current government. It seems the constant scandals and lurid headlines that have enveloped him in the past year may be starting to make an impact with voters. The by electionContinue Reading
Drawing by Suzy Varty Guy Opperman, Conservative MP for Hexham has referred himself to his own government department. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) will investigate him for receiving money from a secretive dining club. Opperman received cash from the London and Northern Dining Club in October 2021. TheContinue Reading
The piece you have all been waiting for…the most read articles of 2021. Here are the top five in reverse order… Number 5 most read article in North East Bylines A view from Luxembourg on the relationship between the UK and the EU a year on by Fiona Godfrey. NumberContinue Reading
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Without coal, Britain’s Industrial Revolution would have been impossible, The steam engine could not have operated without it; the iron industry demanded it. Coal was in fact at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution. In this North East HistoryContinue Reading
Seaton Snook Zinc Works Painting by Peter Knox from Hartlepool Museum Service The recent article on Seaton Snook provoked a lot of interest both from Hartlepool and from the wider Teesside community. More information on odd doings in that seemingly remote plashy neck of the Teesside marshlands has now come toContinue Reading
Pairing socks Image used with permission Little jobs are tricky with one arm. Big jobs I can manage I can do the washing, even peg things out I grab with an open jaw of peg transfer to the line I find fun in challenge but I can not pair socksContinue Reading
Throughout the history of coal mining, various methods of lighting had been tried out, some of them safe, others highly dangerous, none of them really effective. During the 18th century, for instance, parts of Merton Colliery were ‘illuminated’ by the faint but secure light of fish skins, while in HebburnContinue Reading
Wallsend Colliery Many accidents were caused by falls of stone or of coal, men falling down shafts, the use of gunpowder for blasting, and breakages of the winding ropes which were used both for raising coal to the surface and for raising and lowering the miners to and from theContinue Reading
North East Ghost Stories PART 1UPDATED Molly Moselle Molly Moselle (that was her stage name; her real name as Mary Burslem) was a dancer but, like most people in theatre then and now, she couldn’t always find get a performing job and was forced to take on other work, soContinue Reading
Apparently Staffordshire University is offering the world’s first pantomime degree. If anyone really needs to discover how a successful pantomime should be then the current production of Cinderella running at the Darlington Hippodrome is a masterclass in what makes the perfect panto: a good script, a wealth of talent, beautiful costumes andContinue Reading
