Joe Rooney

Do you really need one Denzel? Regards, Joe

The reason many people don't care to join the system, apart from general laziness, is that if they do, they may have to shoulder some of the blame when something goes wrong. From their point of view it is much more satisfyingly virtuous to do nothing, while loudly complaining and sneering at the presumed ineptitude of those who try! In politics, as in life, you get what you give. Joe

I like that one, Pete! Joe

Hi Missvic, I am sorry to hear that your family may have had problems with Evan. I have never met the man, but I have always enjoyed and admired his written work and photographic collections. As a history buff, I greatly appreciate the fact that he and a small number of local historians have been able to collect photographs, written accounts, and memorabilia of the Bedlington area. If it is not collected and preserved now, then the day will come when Bedlington will be relegated to the status of a deprived, uninteresting housing area, adjacent to Ashington, with no history or attractions. So, I am sure you have grievances of merit. But I can only only comment on those things which I have knowledge of. And his writings and historical collections are the total of those things. Regards, Joe Come on now Denzel, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, et al. Where would they been without horses! Joe

Thanks Swalnalla, I can always depend upon you to come up with the perfect close. It's sad though! One of the last things my new wife and I did in April 1953 was to walk up the hapenny woods, and on the way I showed her that plaque. In those days it was still clear and legible. Fifty years of progress and pollution have now deprived future generations of the pleasure of reading it. Thanks again, Regards, Joe

I am always surprised to see how we distort the historical facts so quickly. The plaque you mention, if it is the one on the South side of the river, a short distance up stream from the Furnace bridge set into the cliff, is in memory of the death of the farmers son, who was riding a horse on the fields above. He attempted to jump over a hedge not realiazing that it was on the edge of the cliff above the river. He ,and the horse were both killed. They were not drowned in the river! The horse was buried where they landed. The son was buried in the local cemetary, Anyway, if you were a reader of Evan Martin's hostories, you would be more familiar with the facts. Regards, Joe

Hi CK, I did not suggest that small children be sent out gathering manure. God knows what would happen to them in todays traffic, But kids in groups aged from about six to early teens did do this on a regular basis, most of these same kids then went on to work at age 14.And this , as in many other circumstances was of help to their families in the days when kids, and parents seemed to have had a much more pronounced expectation of mutual help, to and from each other. Nor did I wish to imply that todays citizens are all worthless. There are far too many worthless people in modern society who expect much, and give as little as possible ,unless society forces more from them. And this is the root cause of much of our present day societal dysfunction. If you bring up your kids with an unchecked sense of entitlement to everything their avaricious little hearts could wish for, from an out of control welfare state, then, in a few years you have a large portion of adults who see the state as what you neatly call the"Nanny" state. There are far too many adults and parents who live with their hands out, but in my naievete. I would hope that this is still the minority, albeit a significant one. As to the lack of courtesey, this was succinctly covered in a private email which I received shortly after my posting appeared. The sender, whom I shall keep anonymous for the sake of his or her privacy, had some experience with this site where simple, everyday, comments were ridiculed and made the butt of offensive attemps at humour in several of the replies. As this person states, and I know of from recent personal experiences, there are several local sites in the UK and elsewhere who treat all posts with the courtesey and respect which we all expect, but don't always receive. For many of us, in the UK or throughout the world, this site and others like it, is a welcome and social connection with home, or the home of our ancestors. I refuse to believe that the majority of members are in agreement with having a small minority greet visitors with contempt, and cheap sneers. In my reply to this person, I simply stated my opinion that this over vocal minority do offence to the visitor, and bring shame to the image of Bedlington. I finished by expressing my opinion that this site will die of abuse, or will renew itself when the fair minded majority get off their collective butts, and express their personal distaste for this disgraceful behaviour. If we don't make it plain that this is not the Bedlington spirit we expect, then the scum will win, and this site will be just another waste of time and interest. We all have better things to do than continue reading the rantings of a few foul mouthed anonymous bullies. Surely they have more to do than glorify beer, pizza, and sexual innuendo, while belittling the thoughts and opinions of other members. If this site dies, then we killed it. We never stated our opposition to mediocrity. So that is what we will get. Too Bad! Joe Rooney

Before (And during the war. Yes, that war, the one with a number on it!) All the kids used to get a bucket from their dad, and go out on Saturdays, or nights, searching for the tracks of passing horses, and scoop it up to take back to the garden, or allotment to add to the pile. The Furnace bank was a particularly good spot for scooping. The side bank road that ran Wast from just below the brow of the hill up to to the road to Bedlington was often used by the carters since it was a little less steep, and it was in the process of straining to pull the wagons up this hill that the smelly but valuable rewards were left for the early risers. You could not sleep in on Saturday if you wanted to stay on Dad's good side. My dad, had a garden just down the Furnace bank, below the housing and on the left on the North side of the river Blyth, below the weir. It was a nice little garden. Good soil, its own spring water. And it was here that we grew a lot of the vegetables for the family. And of course, two small plots, one for my mothers flowers, and the other for dad's show leeks. Nobody would have thought of growing just vegetables. There had to be flowers, and they were something to see, and great to take home. You always knew that mum would have something special. And leeks were often the only outlet for any sort of creative endeavour for the men. Leeks were serious business, and often displaced football as a source of enjoyable crack. Good times, hard times. All gone, and with them the men and women who made us the people we are today. I wonder what they would think of a Bedlington where too many healthy young people would find their recreation in stuffing god knows what drugs down their throats. Or happily accepting welfare instead of work . Thats why so many of us had to leave. We went to find what work we could, to help the family we left behind. Todays Bedlington sounds like a fractured place. Strangers move in to buy houses we could neve have dreamed of. They sleep here, and get in their cars, and ride off to Newcastle or wherever, coming home at night to watch TV, sleep again , and repeat the process. But do they even want to join the community they sleep in. It is not surprising that pride and sense of community is waning. All I seem to hear is whats in it for me, and why doesn't someone do something about it. Well friends, the people who in the past might have tried, (With whatever success!) are old, emigrated, or dead. And you are all that is left. Its your Bedlington now, and you do what you can with what you have got, or continue bemoaning what you want out of life while belittling the efforts of those people in Bedlington, (And there are many of them who still put care and effort ahead of whining ). So, you can continue with puerile postings about how much more beer you want to drink, or questionable and tasteless attempts at humour. Or perhaps, get off your individual and collective butts, and actually do something for your town. You are all that is left of a very strong and proud people. They didn't have much, nor did they expect it. But they were proud of themselves, painfully blunt but honest. The standards of hyigene were abyssmal, and many of them spent their entire life in Bedlington without interior running water or electricity. Ask them about local standards, and they would be appalled to think that perfectly good manure would be left to be collected by the council, when any self respecting kid should be out there helping his family, and his community. But that would probably get in the way of never ending computer games, and TV. It is my deepest regret that I lost all of my friends and family, and more importantly my place in the Geordie community when I left to find a better life for my family and I. I did find that better life, and I am extremely proud of the children and grandchildren who more than met our expectations of a better future. But reading this journal has left me agreeing with the statement posted earlier. People say more, but mean less. (Or something like that!) Bedlington would probably be a great disappointment to me, were I living there now. And that is very sad. It was always a place of community, faith, honesty, and belief in work and sharing. What in the name of god is it now. Do the majority of people believe in this shallow cynical, "Me first and last" attitude. Or do the thoughtful intelligent caring people stay off this site to avoid exposing themselves to anonymous ridicule for daring to think like members of the community that their ancestors made into Bedlington. In the words of one of our more intelligent young women members, "The rant ends here." Regards, Joe Rooney

I thought you could only vote Labour if you spoke Pitmatic! Joe.

None of my uncles were that generous!

Sounds like the old Bedlington conundrum. (Is that how you spell it?) Bureaucrat: Without education and qualifications among the working classes, it would be pointless to entice jobs to Bedlington. Send the jobs to a more deserving town! So you have qualifications? Well we don't need anyone for those positions now. Unless of course you relocate South, or to the Colonies. (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or wherever.) Usually at this point, the discouraged graduates pack up and leave, not easy when all your friends and family are in Bedlington. Next bureaucratic edict. We have to help the young people, lets entice some jobs to Ashington! Was ever thus, but for the sake of you both, I sincerely hope not! Joe

You keep this up, you'll be thirty any year now. Happy Birthday Joe

Getting back to the weather. CK particularly should like this! Last week and up until Monday of this week, the weather in and around Calgary was sunny, with temperatures ranging from 30 to 34 Celsius. On Tuesday, it cooled off, and the temperature dropped to 26 Celsius. Last night we received a TV report warning of severe thunderstorms, the possibility of tornados, and maybe heavy rains. At 10 PM we heard thunder, then it began to rain, and then came the hail! I have not seen hail like this since last I was posted here in the late 50's early 60's. In an hour, the temperature had dropped from 29 to 14 Celsius. This morning we found solid piles of frozen hail all around us. Some parts of Calgary reported hail deposits up to 11 or 12 inches. And todays temperature went back up to 24, while tomorrow is supposed to be up to 27, with 28 or 29 by Saturday. My youngest daughter called us to say that in Lillooet BC. it was a record 43 last week, but was down to 8 degrees at 8.00 AM today. I don't know what it was like in Grande Cache, but this is not my idea of late Summer weather. Maybe this is why some people still call this the "Wild West". Enjoy your Summer while you may. We are still watching the hail melt! Regards, Joe

The team that wants it badly enough! Regards, Joe

An obituary in the Calgary Herald newspaper contains an interesting tie to the WW11 history of Bedlington. It is the obituary of 93 year old former Wing Commander Carl ("Moose") Fumerton. RCAF. He was born in Fort Coulonge, Quebec in 1913 and died on July 10,2006. After leaving school in 1931, he worked in the arctic, as a gold miner, and later became a bush pilot, flying all across the Canadian north and west. In 1939 he joined the RCAF and was posted to the UK to fly Lysanders in 112 squadron Army cooperation, but converted to Hurricanes with 32 Squadron, and later 1 Squadron RCAF in time for the Battle of Britain. !n 1941 he trained with 406 nightfighter squadron at Acklington, Northumberland. 406 squadron was the first Canadian nightfighter squadron, and was sent to Acklington to train because they were so new, and Acklington was considered a quiet sector. On September 1941, WC Fumerton was flying a Beaufighter on a training patrol over Blyth, when he was advised of the proximity of a Junkers 88 heading for Bedlington. he promptly found it, attacked, and shot down the first RCAF kill of the war. It was also one of the first nightfighter kills over Britain. A week later he detected , and damaged a Heinkel HE111 over West Hartlepool. Shortly afterward s, he was posted to 89 Squadron in the Middle East, where within two weeks he shot down three more HE111's. In June 1942, he lead a force of four nightfighters to Malta, where high flying JU88's were bombing above the ceiling of the ground AA defences. In four weeks the nightfighters had destroryed the German nightbombing capability, Fumerton taking five of the Ju88's and one of the JU87's. In August 1942, the nightfighters switched from air defence over Malta to intruder attacks on German aicraft as they took off from bases in Sicily. Fumerton later switched to Mosqitos, and now commanding 406 Squadron RCAF, attacks over the continent in preparation for D-day. ending the war as a Wing Commander with a DFC and Bar, and then an AFC. He shot down his 14th and last JU88 over the channel on June 14th 1944. After the war he became a very successful industrial real estate broker in Toronto, retiring some twenty years before his death. As a kid in Bedlington, I remember the JU88 being shot down, and landing on the Bedlington Brickworks. It was surrounded by police, and RAF people from Acklington. But being curious kids, we managed to get close enough to see it anyway. For us , it was part of the fun of the war. Our parent's did not think so, but most kids did consider the war to be our local entertainment. Great times. And until this weekend, I didn't even know the name of the man who provided us with all of that entertainment! Joe

How hot is it CK? It is in the low 30's in eastern and central Canada with high humidity. The west is experiencing 30 to 35 C with medium to low humidity. By the way CK , I have never in my life owned a tweed suit or brogues. I prefer to dress for comfort or coolness. You should try it. It is Summer after all! I hope you enjoy the rest of Summer in more comfortable temperatures. Joe.

Yes, I did. But I would imagine that most of them are dead by now. I left St Bedes in 1943. I do hope that they have a successful event though! Joe Rooney

Now there's something for you. Swalnalla and Denzel in agreement. Whats the world coming to? Is it the warm weather? Joe

When in doubt, you can always check the rules! Joe

I see that we have the same tastes in calendars, even if we don't agree on hockey teams. Regards, Joe

"Mr Rooney, sir" God! That makes me feel as old as Denzel thinks he is. But seriously, thank you all for the kind wishes. Considering that I never knew anyone over sixty when I lived on the Bank Top. This business of being 74 is as big a surprise to me as it is a welcome, though unexpected pleasure. My family and I had a great weekend in Banff celebrating early. I have to stay away from cakes, cookies, and good wines. But that didn't stop my son , daughter, and four grandchildren from indulging (Except no wine for the grandchildren.) One of the highlights of the weekend was a comment from my youngest grandchild, Regan (Aged four.) She asked me how old I would be on my birthday. "Seventy four" I told her.A startled look crossed her face, and then it came. Grandpa she queried, "shouldn't you be dead". Dear sweet child, I should know better when I answer any question from a child of that age. But it was fun. And thank you all again. By the way Swalnalla, things are much the same as when last we met. I trudge along, try not fall down too often, and welcome every day I get. Again thank you for your kind wishes. Regards, Joe

An achievement to be proud of Colonel! The roads are crammed with idiots driving at 140 KM+, sublime in their ignorance of the basics of safe and courteous driving. Joe

Seventy percent of kitchens in North America have a "Junk drawer"!

Above thirty, you qualify for full curmudgeon status. Below thirty, you are known as a cur, under twenty you are just a rotten kid! Joe

Well no Denzel, beneath every Geordie curmudgeon, there lurks a canny lad! Would have been nice if you had a little Greek blood though. Joe