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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