I am currently winding down with an Internet surf. Goodness knows what I am going to write but I hope it is interesting to a least one of you. Sheila Hall seems to like my articles so I am optimistic! Here we go:
Back in c1994 my wife and I took our kids to the British Science Museum in London. It was very interesting and there was plenty of interactive stuff for the children. Suddenly a shoal of kids [say 80] bumped into us in noisy excitement. We looked up to spot THE Michael Jackson not more than three yards from us. I recall that he had at least four body guards. To cut a long story short my daughter has his autograph to this day.
Can anyone say for sure what happened to Michael Macnamara? He did live in Bracken Court [?] in the 50s. He went to university and might just be a management consultant these days - but I am not sure. I know that he won the Ushaw Moor Cricket Club second eleven best fielding award in c1964.
I have mentioned my aunt before but there might be a bit of new information in this paragraph. We wrote to each other in the early 1990s. Of course she has gone - passed away as they say. Here is an extract from one of her letters:
My brother Cecil worked his way up to Deputy and then Overman. Like Dick [Dicky Hope my late grandfather] he got a lot of knocks from the men as some of them were from Ushaw Moor, some from South View even, [this was a period when they both worked at Thorne pit in Yorkshire owing to Ushaw Moor closing down for a time]. Some of the Ushaw Moor lads expected favours. Cecil was built like Dick and was down to earth. Then he had a bad accident in the pit; his head and face were bady injured - but he survived that. Housework was hard in those days for many women. There were no electrical gadgets for easement. We did have electric light when we lived at 14 South View; it came from the pit.
From time to time there is a bit of confusion on site about the streets across the road from the Ushaw Moor pit. My notes tell me that [in order from the main village side] there was East Street - George Street - Albert Street - William Street and West Street. I am not saying that is right but that is what my notes tell me!
Now for a personal viewpoint. The Conservative Party must be laughing at the moment. It seems that to talk about cuts will be acceptable for a while owing to what has gone on - in which case the Conservatives can, as is their nature it seems to me, cut away whilst looking after directors and the well off. The 'time for a change mentality' will kick in as well. Quite a few well educated people think that Tory governments are nasty. Do you think they are? I suppose their worst excesses are prevented by the ballot box system but I suppose the country is going to sleep walk into electing them anyway.
So Brian is back. For me he is THE writer on Deerness history; I am now going to have a bottle of chilled beer in celebration.
WB
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How fortunate you were to have seen Michael Jackson in the mid nineties. I was lucky enough to see him perform at Wembley around that time and he was absolutely brilliant. I do enjoy the articles on this site, however quite a lot of them appear to be from 'before my time', although I can relate to quite a lot of what is said. I remember a boy from St Josephs Primary School who I think was called Michael McNamara, he was in my class for some time, however I think he moved out of the area before we reached secondary school age, this would have been in the early 1960s - I wonder if this is the same person you mentioned earlier.
ReplyDeleteHaving examined our family records I can say that the visit to the British Science Museum took place on 30 January 1993.
ReplyDeleteWB