MARJORIE LUMSDEN - ADA ARCHBOLD -
EDWINA & GLADYS SIMPSON
They were in the centre in a square,
the numbers were on the doors, the buckets over the 'shut'.
The floors were cement
My Aunt Bella's toilet was so clean that you could eat your
food out of n, she had all these things for pouring down, I
think most people did- The upstairs had originally been lofts
for me nets and everything, there was no accommodation then,
eventually they were made into two bedrooms, there was a ladder
to get up. One of their walls was actually made of sailcloth.
The floorboards were creaky. This was about 1927/28. Gladys
lived in Chapel Row and the man who owned the house wanted
to sell it for £250 and her mother had four children
and they couldn't afford to buy it. They moved into McLarens' house
in the Square, it had two bedrooms, three rooms downstairs,
kitchen, big sitting room and a parlour, which mother and father
used as a bedroom There were four daughters, so we shared bedrooms.
There was an outside toilet, we had to carry buckets from the
communal tap, did the washing in a pos-tub. We had a toilet
on the hill and it blew away. There was no electricity at all
and when my Dad got the electric in he said “if I see
any of it wasted, if you don't turn it off, we will get
it took out". We were that pleased that we had got these
lights that we made sure we shut them off. We would go to peoples'
houses and if they had the lights on, I would switch them off.
If you wanted a good wash, you had to jump into the sea- My
grannie on the North Side had a flush toilet and we used to
go there if we could manage it.
The Square was demolished in about 1957.
Two or three weeks ago I was in
a charity shop and I saw this book, I should have bought
it but I didn't and there was a
bit about Craster which I stood and read and the only thing
I learnt different to what I knew, was, they talk about the
Square, the houses, which was commonly known as the 'curtain' nobody
knows why it was called that. What I learned was, that the
gardens for those houses were where Robsons' herring shed is
now. The houses were there before the herring shed. Little
Adam Stoker lived in that house and they had a garden where
that new house is now. Mrs Richardson through the field, Bella
Mary, showed me a picture, "cause it was her grannie that
lived in that house, that garden where that house is was like
a field, there was no Joiners' Shop. My Dad told me that
she was as deaf as a stone and he said that she had a muckle
trumpet in her ear and he says that when they were kids they
used to go to the house and would speak to her and she would
hold the trumpet that they used to yell as hard as we could
down the trumpet and she used the jump. Every New Years' day
you got a penny and at Easter you got a hen's egg and nobody
ever went twice, it was never abused.
Lots of people had nicknames.
Mary McLaren^s father, she was Smailes, and Fire was her
father. When our grandmother used
to reminisce and she would be telling the tale and she used
to say "can you mind”, 'can you mind old Shill and
old Ha' and old this that and another and we hadn't a clue
and I remember one story in particular, either Shill or Ha
was the perpetrator of, sticking the Christmas tree, after
Christmas - they used to make the heap for the potatoes and
they stuck it in the heap for a joke, that was at the Square,
one of the houses that faced over the North side. Shill collected
wood, what sort of wood, I don't know. They called one of my
grandfathers, Winker, he used play marbles and used to wink.
They called my grandfather on the other side, Pymie. My Dad
was called Scottie because when the Scotch fisherfolk used
to come in, they used to wear the galases over the top of their
clothes, that was so they could pop over the side when they
wanted to got to the toilet. My Dad was only a lad, about 14
or 15, helping down at the herring and he started wearing his
galases over the top and that's why they called him Scottie 'cause
he was watching the Scotsmen off the boats.
Where did Clippie's name come from. It came from clipping the wings of the
pigeons. There was Pidders Bob, old Jennie Renton was married to Pidder,
his surname was Smailes. She was an old tart her, she was horrible. One night
we were waiting for the bus with my Aunt Eleanor and we were shouting and
she was in bed and she was going to throw the pot out of the window at us.
She had a sister, Gina, she had a breast removed and she lived a very long
life and she was a beautiful dressmaker, she never married. Her father was
a chemist in Cramlington.
Memories of when the soldiers
were at the Towers. We used to have excellent dances there,
I had a partner who could jitterbug
like nobody's business. Nowadays, they want something
different on every time they go out, I went out in the same
dress every time. Frank Budgeon looked after the gardens at
the Towers and this woman came, her husband was a Sergeant
Major, her name was Maude but she called herself Pat and after
they went away, she lodged in the gardens. She dressed like
a man, her hair was cut short and she wore collars and ties,
brogue shoes and ankle socks. He was a nice looking fellow
and we wondered what he saw in her, it was the King's Own Borderers
were there. She wore this kilt that she got off a soldier,
well you know, we were coming off the bus from Alnwick and
the bobby stopped the bus at Dunston because somebody had reported
her wearing the kilt and I left her, I come down to Craster,
well I'd already got one but Fd not worn mine. So what did
I do? Margaret Turner, wrote and told me that she had lost
all her cases of luggage, she travelled with officers' wives,
like a nanny, and they went out to Kenya 'cause she'd had a
high school education. Anyway she wrote and told me that she'd
had all her things lost, when she was travelling. She was in
London at the time, had I any old things that I didn't want, "cause
she was good on the sewing machine and I sent her that kilt
and I sent her a few more things that I didn't want .
At home, I've got a, 'you're in
it, something about a rhubarb tree, whistles like a cow'
in my autograph book and it says 'Edwina
W, Simpson and the date', I was called after my uncle who was
Edward Walker Simpson, there were no boys in the family and
when I was born my mother was told "no more'. You had
the cheek to say to her, remember you teld me I said to my
mother, 'what do you use for contraceptives' and your
mother said 'hold your tongue'. What about Margaret Annie,
my father used to call her Queen Victoria, you couldn't help
but laugh at her, she was like Tommy Cooper, when you looked
at her she was like a little laughing hyena, she was with Stephenson
from Boulmer, she married my uncle Dawson. I don't know whether
I should tell you this but I'll tell it you. (turned
tape off).
I worked at Raymond Henderson's,
Wagonway Road, I served in the shop, it was a branch grocery
shop, the main shop was down
in the town, there was a little Post Office there. They provided
a lot of employment. I got there by cycling. Our Winnie was
working at the Pipe Works., she was younger than me and was
getting twice as much money as I was, which I didn't like,
so I said 'get me a job at the Pipe Works', so she asked and
she got me a job. Now what we had to do, was make reinforcements
for railway sleepers and you had a frame and you had to set
all these bars up, our Winnie was a link maker, she made them
all twisted, all these links and we had to thread these links
on these bars and then you had to get a pair of wire cutters,
put the wire through, twist it round and cut it off. All these
links, they used to call them banjos, w used to make about
a dozen a day. There was a railway siding for the Pipe Works,
they had two parts, the main part, there was the quarry and
then there was another part along at the Pipe Works. They had
a little 2-ton crane and they had a big crane at our end and
Bob Armstrong from Howick was in charge of that end and he
used to call me for Saturday for overtime but I used to only
go in 'cause he used to let me drive the crane and it
was on these lines, it was a small crane, I used to have my
break with him and the fellows used to pull his leg, thinking
he'd getten a young woman, 'cause I was only a teenager. I
used to bike to Howick, leave the bike at his house, on a Saturday
and get a lift with him.
'I think we are talking to Gladys now'
My first job was in the office
at the White Swan, I'd never used a telephone 'till 1 was
14. When I went into the office,
the telephone rang and I was shaking. Mr. Tully was the manager
of the garage and he said to answer the phone. I was a nervous
wreck. Billy Stephenson from Boulmer, they called him Billy
the Hat. He came to work on the petrol pumps, of course petrol
was rationed and it was 1/1 Id a gallon, he came in this day,
it was a Saturday afternoon and he said there's a man outside
and he says he wants petrol and he says he's from the Castle
and he has no coupons'. I said 'you can't give anybody
petrol without coupons, go and explain', 'well, he says he's
from the Castle'. Anyway he came back in and he says 'You
kna what he says, he says he's the Duke of Hamilton',
and I says, 'I diven't care if your Jesus Christ, you're not
getting any petrol". He was the Duke of Northumberland's
brother-in-law and they had coupons for the petrol at the Castle
but Billy didn't know.
Was the War very bad, in the Village?
Not really, there were blackouts,
we used to go to the shops for cod heads. Letter given to
Marjorie from Dessie Butters
with a copy of the picture of the bins on top of the pier.
Dated 29.1.03. " Many thanks for your card, I was very
interested in the picture of the bins at the end of the pier,
I am enclosing a photograph of a snap my brother, George took
of the Spec Bona, a boat, I remember it well, even it's number,
BK 123, it was one boat which always welcomed us aboard, I
must call and see what else Mr.Oxley has of those years. We
would like to visit Craster again this year and of course,
would like to stay with you. Have you any vacancies in June
or early July, we would want to stay for a week if that is
possible, would you please let us know what dates are available
and we will make our plans to fit. You will know that my sister,
Helen, has died and I am the only one left of the Butters family
of ten. We look forward to hearing from you soon." He
had two brothers that were drowned in the River Tweed, one
walked with his head on his shoulder (Willy) and the other
had something wrong with his leg (Albert). They both worked,
they worked at the crusher at the quarry. I can remember hearing
about the Butters, going out to Muckle Carr in a bath, they
were daring, it was headlines in the papers. Des Butters used
to ride his bike along the top of the wall and he used to ride
in the house, round the table, pick something up to eat and
ride out, never off the bike. He ended up a Wing Commander
in the R.A.F. The all had good jobs, Gordon was chemist, George
was more like his father. There was Jock. They idolised their
mother and I can picture old Geordie sitting on the organ,
his head on one side playing, they had an organ in the house,
they lived in the bottom row of the Council houses. My mother
said she had to go and get some ...... off the rocks and she
only had me and she says I was asleep, they mustn't have had
a cot, 'cause I was asleep in the bed and she said she
had to pile as many blankets and cushions on the floor when
she went down to the rocks to get a pile of..... and she said
when she got back I was lying on the blankets on the floor.
Then we moved to Butters' house and we lived next to old Francesca,
she was canny but me mother says she was always borrowing soap.
I had a photograph of four herring workers sitting on the step
where the doors are not there now, they're blocked up and it
was Lila Shell and Gina Shell and Alice Durham and I didn't
know who the other one was and it was Esther. She always had
a brush in her hand, brushing round the doors. In 1940/41 the
mine went off and when the second one went off, we went to
Grace Ellis's house. I was going to the pictures that night
on the bus and they were all leaning agin that wall. It bobbed
and bobbed and everyone was waiting for it. When we came back,
Edward Gray's shop window was out. I was kneeling on the seat
watching it go off and it hit Muckle Carr There was pieces
of shrapnel stuck in the walls at Mrs. Gray's. Doris says 'our
houses have the cracks yet on the oulside, we've had them filled
in but they appear in other places.'
There was a convoy hit off there and when the tide was coming
in all these tins of pencils and boxes of cigarettes come in.
My Uncle Bob came from Seahouses to go to sea with me dad,
he got that house next to Lizzy Grey, in the corner and me
Uncle Bob must have getten some and put them in the loft and
I forget who moved into the house after them but they said
they went up to the loft and found tins of cigarettes. All
the fishermen had them in. Clippie had them, Isabel used to
get them and we smoked full strength Capstan on the way to
school and in the quarry. Winnie used to hide them in her knickers.
We got five woodbines and went the back of the summerhouse
and didn't Georgina look through the window. We'd been to the
shop and got some old newspapers and we were lighting the cigarettes
with the newspaper. She knocked on the little window and of
course we thought she would tell my dad but she never did.
We looked through these papers and we used to look through
the births, marriages and deaths and we knew a lad who come
to Craster for his summer holidays, he was a lovely lad, Colin
Nesbitt He lived at 21, Firtree Crescent, Forest Hall and it
was in the evening paper (his death, I think). He was a walking
disaster, that lad. He died when he was 17 and 10 months, I
had a photo of him- There were some Norwegian Scouts camping
at Howick and they were in the harbour this day and the tide
was right out and Colin was going up the ladder and there was
a rung missing, down he came onto his back and I remember two
of the scouts picked him up. Every time he got near water he
was wet and one Saturday night, me mother wanted something
from Howick store, we walked across long heugh, I went with
her, and we walked right along and we got to Salter's Gate
and here's the car parked and Alec and Ivy Nesbitt, she was
sitting knitting and there were clothes all over and I asked
where he was and he was in the car with nothing on except a
clean pair of trunks. He'd fallen into the water at Salter's
Gate. We reckoned he got TB from always being wet.
Ada's grannie lost two daughters within 9 months and her husband
within a year, with TB. He was 32 and her daughters were twelve
and six-.
In 1939, a fortnight before the war was declared, they came
up the back streets at the North Side in their clogs, you'll
remember better than I do. Well it was called the Santa Maria
and they had young boys on who were about eleven or twelve,
they used to go to sea for two years, they told us and they
went back to school I think they came into the village to drop
their catch, probably they did, but I watched down the skylight
on the boat and they sat with two big bowls of potatoes boiled,
one at either end of the table, a big bowl of salt and some
kippers, they run their thumb nail up the kipper, raw, dipped
the spud in the salt and ate them.
I went to Alnwick on my bike, got a pound of butter, two blocks,
my bag was full, pedalling up through Denwick and the butter
dropped out the bag and the wheel went over and I chucked it
over the hedge and the next week butter was rationed.
One of the Dutch lads was called Edward Curven, he was bonny
lad, only about 12 and the other one was Tom Curven and there
was another one, all freckles and they called him Jacob .....
They came from Scheveningen.
I wanted a new bike and pestered
my mother until 1 got one. It was £7. Is. with a pump,
he charged me for the pump. I said to Edna to bike in to
Alnwick and I would go on the
bus, get the bike and we would ride out together, so my mother
gave me the money. I went to the shop, pleased as punch, getting
a new bike. Me and her sets off riding and gets down the Aln
Bridge, we were seeing how far we could climb without getting
off and I went smack into her back wheel and knocked two spokes
out of the new bike. I didn't know what to do, so I told Edna
to bike to Craster and I would go back to the shop to see if
he would put the spokes in. He said 'that didn't last long.
He hadn't time to do it that day, he was busy and he said he
would have it ready for Monday teatime, he said it would cost
2s. to repair. I came back on the bus and I was thinking of
an excuse to tell me mother, so I decided to say, it was in
the shop window and there were other bikes behind it and he
had no help and he couldn't get the bike out till Monday. I
went back on the Monday and got it and she never knew.
This woman I knew, her son was in the war, stationed at Acklington
and he meet this woman from Ellington and married her and of
course, her mother lived next door to me in the old folks'
bungalows and her hands were crippled with arthritis, I used
to do her errands and she eventually died. I went to the shop,
her son stood on the step and asked me to go in and have a
look at her and I went in, and do you know what he said? (didn't
catch what he said - so much laughter).
Edna was born in Craster, father
was bom in Craster, Mother born in Ashington and three sisters
were born in Ashington.
I was born in the middle house in Chapel Row, moved from there
to the Square. He worked in the pits in Ashington but when
he came back he worked in Robson's herring shed, with the horse
and cart, he carried the fish to the Railway Station, which
were then put on the trains and sent to Billingsgate. I went
to Dunston School, Mr. Blackburn and Miss Barber were the teachers.
She lived down at the bottom of Dunston, her father was the
rabbit catcher. There were just two classrooms and you were
in the first one from when you started until about ten or eleven
and then you went into the big room and finished you schooling.
It was heated by a great big stove and on winter days we took
our tea in the bottle and kept it hot on top of the stove.
I went to work at Craster Towers as a morning girl. I had to
clean shoes, help the cook, wash dishes, prepare vegetables,
help out generally in the kitchen. I went from there to Howick
Hall to work for Lady Mary. The first job I had was with Mrs.McKie,
she lived in the top house (Christopher Dawson's). Mr. McKie
he was the Castle custodian. They came from Embleton, I think
they had been in the Golf Club, they had one son, Albert, he
went to the Duke School. She took in evacuees and I helped
with the cooking. It was like a double house and everything
was spread across the floor that she had baked. She used to
get butter sent down from Scotland, which I did not like 'cause
it was very rank with seaweed, the cattle in Scotland were
fed on seaweed. She used to get sacks of oatmeal sent from
Scotland, for the porridge. I left school at 14.
The Rochesters lived at The Bogie
and on Friday afternoon, at school, about half an hour before
we finished, Mr. Blackburn
used to move everybody, 3 in a seat, to one end and it was
called 'Tonight after I get my tea', and he'd call anyone
out and you would get up and of course, you told a few lies,
tonight after I get my tea I will wash the dishes and get the
coal and sticks in, just something to say but Willy Rochester
got up this night and he said "tonight after I get my
tea, I'll go down the stackyard' and he stopped and Mr. Blackburn
asked him what he would do when he got down the stackyard and
he says 'I'll catch rats'. Mr. Blackburn asked what he did
when he caught the rats and he said 'I chop their heeds
off'. I used to pick taties with Tom Gray, with the plough.
Ada - born here at 3, West End,
younger than Edna, Same people at school at the time. When
she left school had a cushy job,
I got this job when I was lying on me back, not many people
can say that. I always read and my mother used to say that
everytime she looked at me I had a book in my hand, get the
work done and then read. When she went to me grannies, I used
to lie on the settee and read a book. This day I was reading
and the milkman then used to just shout 'milk' and walk
straight in 'cause your mother had left the jug on the
table, so when I looked it's Johnny Weatherson just walked
in with the milk so I just glanced out the corner of my eye
and I saw him looking at me and asked was I not working and
when I said no, he said I might be able to get you a job. He
said his mother was getting old and needed some help, they
also had a bedridden uncle who was retired from the Gold Coast,
he was a farmer out there and he's come back to this country,
so she had to look after him as well. They lived at Pasture
House. She had a good few sons, she was a good cook. I went
to work there and they treated me like a lady, they used to
give me two big plates on a Monday and a Wednesday when the
bread man came, and a pound note, spend the lot on cakes, well
I was in my glory. I was only 14 and I was picking this and
that. Can you remember Bob Thompson, used to be the manager
of the Store and he got sacked for being drunk and spending
all the money. Nobody would give him a job but they did and
he worked with the horses and the plough and I used to take
his dinner into the stable 'cause he wouldn't eat in the house.
He used to come to work all dressed up, with his hard hat on.
I used to wash the milk cans out and she had a right good stock
of food in that house. She had two daughters, married to farmers
in Canada and they used to send crates of food over. Her cupboards
were stocked up, this was during the war, about 1940. If it
was raining she used to say to the youngest son, Charlie to
get a couple of tennis rackets and take me into the barn for
a game of tennis, "cause they couldn't work on the farm
when it was raining.
One Saturday, I got paid monthly, 10/-d a week, and I went
for my money and she said she was afraid she would have to
finish me, she had to go to hospital to have an operation
and she said her and the boys had talked it over and much
as they would like to keep me, it's too much for a 14-year
old girl to look after them, so she had to get a cook/housekeeper
in. I used to take the old chap's food upstairs, 'cause
her legs were bad. He taught me Swahili to greet him. He
had a big trunk with a big padlock and I would ask him to
open it and he would say he'd lost the key. I used to ask
if he had gold in it, he would say I'd be surprised at what
was in it. Joined the A.T.S. in 1943, stationed in Bristol
a lot of the time as a Radar Operator, had the time of my
life, wouldn't have missed it for the world. I was driving
one day, it was when the Italians had surrendered and these
Italians came to work with the Army and they sent one on
the wagon with me and he used to sit on the tailboard and
I used to tell him he would fall off. We went to the ration
stores in Liverpool and a Corporal came with us, he was in
charge. We got the rations, come back and I backed up to
this Nissan hut where they putting them in, we left the Italian
and went into the NAAFI, give him about an hour to get it
offloaded and come back, go on another job to maybe to the
brewery, Bents or Ind Coopes breweries in Liverpool, for
the beer for the Officers' Mess. Anyway, this day when I
got back, I backed up, just give him room for the tailboard
to drop, got straight out, never looked, straight into the
NAAFI. I was the first one out and I said to Joe, the Corporal,
it's time we went and when I got back, I always made sure
he'd put the tailboard up again, all the rations were still
in and I thought he'd fallen off the back of the lorry, I'd
warned him about sitting on the back. I says to Joe that
the rations were still there and he wasn't and do you know
what he said to me 'he's only a wog'. I thought I would have
to report him missing and we set too offloading the rations.
I was worried sick, it come to dinnertime and he hadn't turned
up and I said we'd have to report him missing and the Corporal
said 'Oh, he'll turn up' I went for my dinner and I couldn't
eat it when the door opened I thought it was a policeman
coming to say that they'd found a body in the road. After
dinner I said I'm definitely going to report him missing.
I set off for the guardroom, I had to go around two bends
and here's he's coming, all smiles, we called him Sammy,
he was little, a real Italian and he said he had heard me
say in the morning that I was going to stop for a packet
of cigarettes and I stopped for a policeman on point duty,
just near Aintree, there was a shop nearby and he thought
I'd stopped to go to the shop and he jumped out and when
the policeman waved me on, I went away and left him. He could
speak good English, he found his way to the station then
he had to get a train to Ormskirk, then he had to get a train
to the camp and that's what took him so long. They called
him Sammy the Itie.
Came back to live in Craster and worked in Alnwick and when
Edna had her daughter, I went to stay with her at Amble and
then her husband died, so I stayed with her. We both worked
on the buses.
From working for Mrs. McKie, I
went to work at Howick, Red Steads, that was on Hodgson's Farm. I worked in the house
but I worked out on the land at harvest time. I drove the tractor,
I enjoyed it. I got the chance of a job on the railway and
I worked there for the rest of the War. I worked at Little
Mill Station. I came up here on holiday and we were going back
on the train and we set off for the Station and Matt Sank was
a porter, I said I wanted some tickets from Skelmersdale and
he got the ticket out to write the name and when I started
to tell him how to spell it, he said you just do it, 'cause
he couldn't spell.
When the prisoners of war were here and they used to come
from the radio location when the water was outside our house
and there's still the cement thing there where the tap was.
I think the first prisoners were the Italians and then the
Germans were the second lot of prisoners. They were below the
west end of the Heugh. They had a proper irrigation system
and it was lovely, it was terraced, they came down twice a
day for water at that tap. The Italians made a lot of things
to sell, rings, cigarette cases, toothbrush handles. I eventually
went to Belford Station and I finished my time there and the
Italian prisoners of war were stationed near Belford and they
came down to work at the station, there was a huge wagon at
the Station, it was a storeroom for flour and we used to pack
it into this place and then they would come and put it into
small sacks, it took two prisoners to one sack. They brought
their packed lunch and their tea in bottles and we used to
fill the fire buckets with hot water for them to put their
bottles in to keep warm. They also worked at the farms.
When they lived at the Heugh, they were self-sufficient but
there were British servicemen there, Geordie Renwick was a
guard. He was courting Ena, he used to give his gun to the
prisoner while he went courting. Lived in the Square when the
mines went off.
The buses didn't come down in the village and you had to walk,
either from the pastures or from the pillars. They went down
the hill and backed up and stopped. When Rutherford had buses,
between Little Adam's house and the Stables, he had his buses
in there and there were buses at Embleton. Do you know why
they're called the Duncasters? There used to be a division
along each field. We used to go and skate up there, the girl
who was the best skater in the district was Bella Mary's sister,
Rachel. The water was just inside the Heugh, it really filled
up. My father used to go mad when we went there in case the
ice cracked. We used to take the brush up and brush the ice
before skating.
The hounds came out and me whole school came out, Isabel Scott
and Ella Seager, were the only two who didn't follow the hounds
and when we came back, we were kept in. They chucked the fox's
tail up in the air and I caught it.
It was a safe place to live, we used to go to dances at Embleton,
Howick, Rennington, there were no houses here, just the Heugh,
so there were loads of places to play. We played rounders and
cricket, everything, the girls and boys all joined in. There
was only the little bungalow there, Kenneth lived in it but
Mrs. Ring lived in it before that and then Mrs. Rotton and
before that it was Mrs. Ward's bungalow. Dr. Jackson lived
on the north side, it was like a holiday home. Old Dr. Jackson
lived in the house where Hopes live now, it wasn't a high house,
it was just a cottage. He didn't doctor in the village,that
was his holiday house. The surgery was in Embleton, When my
grandmother was alive, you didn't need a doctor, she did it
She brought the babies into the world and laid out the people
who died, she lived on the hill, next door to us. Margaret
Kilvington bought the family bible and I think it's in there,
she took a fish hook out of a man's finger, that used to come
fishing here and he wrote a marvellous poem to her, thanking
her. She was a little woman but she was all there. Majorie
was the first baby born in Alnwick Hospital, almost 73 years
ago, her mother couldn't do anything with her and she used
to knock at the door and ask Ada to come and see to her and
I used to have to play with her.
Married in 1950 at Alnwick, I was living with my sister in
Alnwick, husband had a dance band and also was the organist
at Broomhill Methodist Church and now my son is the organist
at St Nicholas' Church at Cramlington. He's played the organ
in York Minster, Cathedral, Newcastle, City Hall, Newcastle,
St Thomas' Church, Newcastle.
Marjorie had an organ from the
age of 5, her father bought it from this man at Howick, called
Bob Lilley, he paid £5
for it, went for lessons with Eva Archbold.
My mother bought me an organ when I was 13,1 used to go to
Christon Bank on the bike, for to learn and then I met this
lad and I used to not bother going. My mother was paying the
bill and I didn't turn up.
The Sutherlands owned land in the village. The north side
belonged the Earl of Tankerville. Marjorie has got the Deeds,
they were given to all the tenants, at first it was leasehold
and he let the fishermen build 14 houses but after they'd had
a bad winter or something happened and they hadn't a lot of
money, he gave them the freehold and he also gave them a third
of an acre to go with the house, so that they could produce
food to feed their families.
There were a lot of tramps came to Craster, there was Charlie
Smart, Killiecrankie, Nellie the Sweep, the Sea King, old Tom
Fox the scissor grinder, he wasn't not a nice person, his family
were not nice. Charlie Smart used to collect bottles and rabbit
skins and he would gather brambles while he was here, he was
a relative of the Smarts who had the White Swan Hotel in Alnwick.
He used to stay in the hemmel opposite the quarry, you knew
when he was there, you could see the smoke coming out the chimney.
The Sea King came every year, he came from the south and went
north, he was a big man and wore oilskins. The man from Killiecrankie
used to sing. One I can remember singing, used to sing 'When
you played the Organ and I sang the Rosary'. Old Tom France
used to waltz Mrs. Taylor round the square.
The houses in the Square were very primitive, Tom France went
in the pub and my Aunt Bella lived near him and he fetched
these posh folk from the pub and he said 'mind ya, you're not
coming into Buckingham Palace'. I don't' know how they lived,
there were ten of them. They came to Craster from a little
wooden hut at Whittingham.
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