There is a resurgence of interest in our first books, probably prompted by the release of our new publications, with sales led by Northern Heritage. The books merited reprint some time ago and continued to sell in moderation, but we are now receiving increasing enquiries about the availability of all three. Our Libraries stock all three at £9.99 per copy.
In July 2016 we received the following letter from a lady named Hazel who now lives at Northwood. She has just received one of our books ‘Byermoor, Marley Hill & Sunniside’. It is gratifying to know that people like Hazel get so much pleasure out of reading our books.
Dear Sunniside History Society
By the wildest of wild coincidences, the other day I met Theresa, supervisor of the local “Live at home” group, who said she came from Durham and asked where I did. I told her it was from some mining village that nobody had ever heard of, outside of Newcastle called Marley Hill. Not only did she know Marley Hill but all the places round about, her uncle had worked there and written a history on the district. Next time we met was by arrangement and she gave me a copy of the book edited by F.G. Newman and your society. Is that by any chance the Uncle mentioned above? Anyway since then I’ve been revelling in all the memories I have of the place and my childhood, memories I never knew I had.
There is no mention of my father, John Straker-Nesbit, who was manager of Marley Hill and Byermoor until his death in 1929, but there is mention of my mother’s family, Berkley. My grandfather Philip lived at the big house at High Marley Hill until he died in 1909. Born in 1831, I’m wondering if or what relationship there is between him and the John Berkley mentioned on p4 of the book?
We lived at Redlands, just at the west of Marley Hill school and my father built an Italian garden on the side of the house away from the road, 2 lots of semi-circular steps, crazy paving and a pool fed by a field drain. Lots of discussion whether it should be dedicated to gold fish and water lilies or the children and the children got it. It was always cold but that didn’t matter. Beyond the garden wall in the cornfield, a corncrake would appear every year, waking us up each morning with its croaking call. How many people today have even heard a corncrake, let alone seen one?
There is a picture of Ravensworth Castle, p110, where I went to school until it was suddenly closed down during the Easter holidays of 1928, but there is no mention of the fact that, during the General Strike of 1926, the cobs and ponies were brought up and put to graze in the Park. We used to go there every Sunday morning to check on their welfare and took lumps of sugar for the friendly ones.
I was driven to school every morning by George Pyles p60 in his pony and trap to the lodge gate where I was picked up by the Reichwalds with their 3 children because they had A CAR! They lived at Whaggs House.
There is a mention of the vicar, Mr
Arbuckle, p69, and I remember when he came to afternoon tea one day he offered me a sixpence as a treat. Reluctantly I refused. I had been told never to accept money from strange men. We were also very friendly with Father Austin Pickering, p18, of Byermoor and his 2 cousins, Father Leo in Dunston??? And Father Wilfred somewhere out Stanley way.
As regards the district, I remember Metal Bank p101, where we’d all meet for sledging in the winter. Pit Road, leading off to the left going up Church Bank. It was always “arl clarts (all mud)”. The Post Office where we used to get our National Savings stamps, the Winding House where the operator once let me work the cages (it wasn’t till later that I remembered that his hand was on top of mine all the time!)
I remember too the huge bonfire built to celebrate the end of WW1, built in 1919 (p34). That picture shows the men in front of it to give it scale, I believe that now in the possession of my nephew, in the old family photo album there is the same bonfire with the children in front. We were all given mugs. I was allowed up very late to see it from the window.
Reverting to High Marley Hill House, it was empty when I knew it but there was a certain window we could leave open and go there to play. Play was so much more just then, climbing trees and damming the stream in Beckley Woods, picking blackberries etc, arriving home with mucky hands and feet and grazed knees and elbows- nothing that hot water and soap and a dab of ointment couldn’t put right.
Now these are just the memories of a child born in May 1915 (yes, 101 years ago if your arithmetic is good enough to work that out with a computer!) not the erudite history gleaned by F.G. Newman and you but they might serve as a background to what went on in the early years of the 1900s. The time when my father took me down the pit while he inspected the new shaft being chopped from, I think, the Busty seam to Brockwell, I had a lovely time with the ponies. Those were the days.
Yours, with complete sincerity,
Hazel Garnett-Peacham.
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