I was born & bred in Blyth. We started off, like you, at Grandma & Grandad's house which was 4 Coomassie Road. My mum & dad then rented a property at 9 Newlands Road (near the avenues, where your grandparents were). After my brother was born in 1961, the parents decided to buy a house at Cowpen....They weren't keen on Cowpen and we used to walk through the fields on a Friday night to visit my Auntie Maisie & Uncle Jack at Park Drive, Newsham....calling in for the fish & chips at Peter Cosiminis. Dad used to go to the pub with Uncle Jack, leaving us to walk up to the house & I used to be filled with terror at walking up Park Drive because Auntie Maisie's neighbours had these horrible little corgis that used to squeeze under the gate and chase me up the road, biting my ankles! I remember once, dropping all the chips & running like hell! The walk home was usually eventful...pitch black, with dad filled up with "exhibition" across the fields (I believe the route took us past the pit heap & Red Rock Canyon) Why did we never take a torch. We used to go out on our pushbikes from Cowpen and go straight over to Newsham & head for the beach via South Newsham school.....always a dare to climb through the windows....remember doing it once when it was getting dark & scaring ourselves to death when a door banged in the wind.

My Dad Eddie used to be a fitter in the Blyth locomotive sheds and below is a photo of him standing in front of one of the trains he repaired along with his co-workers,my Dad is the man on the left anyone recognise anybody else? just click on any photo to make it fullsize! Alongside that photo is one which I believe is Wright Street School around about 1915 at least I think it is because I know my Dad went there and he is once more on the left, back row and in the front row second from the right is my Auntie, Nellie Spark and I am almost certain that the girl on the extreme right is my other Auntie, Minnie Spark
Carol informed me that she has somewhere in her possesion a video of the steam trains and local railways she has kindly offered to let us use that as well, more on that to follow



Below I have included a photograph of Harold Lloyd, a famous movie star of the day taken opposite "Queen's Lane Broker's Office" when he visited Blyth.



Can you remember the Seghini's coffee bar in Trotter Street? (Sorry Carol it was in Parsons Street) I can remember my dad & my dad's Uncle Harry (Clark) taking me there when I was small. I am sure they used to serve hot cashew nuts out of a dispenser??? Also I remember the old chaps sitting at the back of the place drinking some rather strange smelling stuff out of coffee cups.....which I suspect was brandy and possibly sambuca as I recognised the smell in an Italian restaurant years later.....that was in the days when the pub opened from 12-2 in the day and you never got alcohol in cafes...(not the cafes in Blyth anyway!!!!!). So Blyth must have had it's own shebeen!