Thinking Metal Music

About Cacophony History

Cacophony History is part autobiographical, part travelogue. It's a collection of personal essays, stories and small, seemingly insignificant details relating to life in the North East of England across two centuries. Some of it is personal commentary. Other bits are sort-of historical. I'm not a historian though I do find history deeply absorbing. Some bits are serious. Some sections are frivolous. Enjoy.

04-May-26 The Final Frontier, Stanhope Street

My last two adventures discussed the West Road in Newcastle and its Roman temples, my former school, Rutherford Comprehensive, Wingrove Road, Hadrian Road and Nunns Moor. They were a journey back in time, an attempt to resurrect old ideas and emotions. They did the trick. I wouldn’t have written anything down if they hadn’t worked.

I'd already decided that this would be my final excursion into this part of Newcastle. The whole exercise had become old and tired, and I no longer felt any real affinity for the place. Some memories stay hidden for a reason. I also decided to finish off the trilogy for no other reason than I like completeness and it seemed remiss not to include a description of this part of my early life.

Once again, I left Jules at the Dentist’s and turned north along the lower end of Brighton Grove, which took me past the remains of Newcastle General Hospital. I was born there. Indeed, I walked past the maternity section on so many occasions in the years I attended Rutherford Comprehensive School that I was fairly certain I could pick out the room where I was hatched. It’s just an empty space these days. The main building was demolished a decade ago and, at the time of writing, I have no idea if there’s a plan for that empty space or not. Seems a shame if there isn’t.

I soon arrived at Stanhope Street. This crescent shaped street running roughly west to east and down to Barrack Road is home to a turbulent mix of good and bad memories. I haven’t thought about many of these places in very long time and this adventure really was an exercise in encouraging my overcrowded brain to dredge up events that I’ve pushed to the back of my mind for nearly five decades.

Physically, Stanhope Street hasn’t changed much in recent years. It looks the same, which is to say it’s scruffy and lived in. However, I am fairly certain that the racial demographic has definitely changed. The immigrants who first arrived here sixty years ago as a consequence of Idi Amin’s purge of the Ugandan Asians in the early 70’s appear to be very much in the minority these days.

We called it Little India in those days. I used to love this place, mostly because I love Indian culture and I love Indian food. One of my favourite haunts was Brighton Tandoori Take Away and the supermarket next door. The scents and aromas that spilled forth on to the pavement outside were simply irresistible, as was the music, which was just as intoxicating. I was sad to see that both had closed.

Further on down, I tried to locate my father’s favourite fish and chip shop - I think it was called Robinson's. I’ve no idea why he preferred this fish and chip shop over the multiplicity of identikit fish and chip shops in this part of town but he’s not in a place where I can asked him except, of course, via a Ouija Board. I guess we’ll never know.

That shop ceased to be my father’s favourite fish and chip shop following an incident in 1977. Dad and I were waiting patiently in the queue when I noticed something crawling through the hair of the woman in front of me. She was about sixteen or seventeen, wearing an off-white, mould-stained bathrobe and slippers. She definitely hadn’t had a bath in recent months, of that I am certain. Dad saw the insect too. He turned and was gone before I’d even had a chance to ask Was that a Moth?

No, David, it wasn’t a moth. It was a louse. I didn’t know lice could move so quickly. Well, they can. And they can also jump from one host to another. That’s how they spread.

We never went back and, unless I got my bearings wrong, that shop space now seems to be someone’s front room.

Moving further down, I went in search of a rather rough and ready café that Julie and visited in the late 80’s, say 1988 or thereabouts. We’d been to see singer / songwriter Mike Force who was playing an acoustic set at The Inn on the Park on Barrack Road and, since Mike hadn’t had anything to eat all day and he wanted some company, he invited us along.

Mike drove up to this café on Stanhope Street. What an amazing place. The atmosphere was thick with the heady aroma of herbal cigarettes and scented liqueurs, and they served up a chicken curry the likes of which I’ve never tasted before or since. Superb. Cost? About two pounds, which was ridiculously low but then few people from that part of town could afford well cooked, nutritious food. They were a not-for-profit organisation and staffed by volunteers. Good for them.

Mike was originally from New Zealand and, as an experienced song writer, he was intrigued by my musical ambitions. I was from a technical background and had very little real knowledge of the craft of writing songs but he listened patiently to a couple of my early efforts and offered some encouraging suggestions - create structure, push and pull, writing in threes. These tools quickly became the backbone of my writing style.

Mike was also the first person to suggest that I should buy a decent drum machine as soon as possible so that I could learn to play with some sense of timing and rhythm, and, more importantly, feel. Even then, I was addicted to the Quantise button.

We got to know Mike pretty well. Julie and I visited his flat in Low Fell to meet his baby daughter. That daughter will be forty years old shortly. Puts everything in context, doesn’t it?

I lost contact with Mike in the early nineties, which was a shame. He went back to New Zealand after the devastating Christchurch earthquake and never came back to England. I can still see him on Facebook although his account appears dormant.

Further down the road, I was convinced that there was a Barber’s shop staffed an old guy, Arnold, who boasted a shock of precision-cut white hair and a brown overcoat that was older than Hadrian’s Wall. There was always a radio playing in the shop, tuned permanently to Radio Newcastle. Arnold liked Frank Woppat but not much else except possibly the Horse Racing.

Arnold didn’t like long-haired men. He only knew how to cut one style – short back and sides, which he’d apparently learned in the Army. On one occasion, I was forced to ask “Which Army?” because I emerged looking very much like a skinny version of Adolf Hitler. This was not a good look in Little India.

I passed numerous houses down various identical side streets that were all familiar from my students days. Typically, my small cadre of friends – Phil Kirkham, Steve Toft and Chris Shields - would spend the evening in Rosie’s Bar, where we’d get thoroughly tanked up and, thereafter, head up to Arthur’s Hill because Steve knew a friend of a friend of a friend, and said friend was having a party.

Collectively, we’d pile up the garden path, bang on the door and beg admission, whether we knew the host or not. Nine times out of ten, this ploy would work. Sometimes it didn’t but there was always one more party. That was the rule for Arthur’s Hill. There was always one more party.

Some student parties were good. Others, not so good. Fist fights were commonplace though drinking to excess was rarely a problem because the hosts always hid most of the quality booze away from us frightful Oiks. The Cops would occasionally show up not long after midnight and clear the place out in the hope of finding chemical stimulants or Whacky Backy or worse. Sometimes, they did. Mostly, they didn’t and they just wanted the local student population to know who was in charge.

Then again, some parties were highly memorable for all of the right reasons. I remember making my way up to the top floor of a house on (I think) Tamworth Road in search of a toilet when I found an apparently empty room lit only by a couple of scented candles and a very dim standard lamp though it was the aroma that hit you first. The scent was rich and heavy and stuck to your clothes, which I didn’t mind at all. Within was a crowd of around ten students, mostly women, sitting on the bare wooden floor and sipping from plastic cups containing who knows what.

In the middle of the room, centre stage, was young female student of around twenty years dancing naked. Her slow, gentle movements matched the rhythm and tempo of the eerie psychedelic backing track precisely and the whole experience against a backdrop of gently wafting incense was quite, quite intoxicating. I sat down quietly and respectfully, and watched the performance for the next twenty minutes or so. Curiously, this wasn’t an overtly sexual experience. It was erotic for sure but it was also deeply, deeply sensual. She’d constructed a very special, very intimate bridge between performer and audience.

This experience stayed with me for a very, very long time indeed, more than forty years in fact. Every detail has been carefully and thoughtfully archived away at the back of my mind. I told Steve and Phil at the time and I’ve written about it on a few occasions, too. I think it lingers in my mind because her movements were more about the pleasures to be gained from getting out of your clothes and just letting your skin breathe, of being seen as a human being, of being watched and appreciated for who you are, warts and all. I never discovered the name of the mystery girl and I never saw her again on campus. Part of me thinks I imagined the whole experience.

Shuffling east towards the city centre, I came to Stanton Street. My Mum’s Carer, Rose, lived close to the top of Stanton Street and she was not a fan of the place. It was too rough and ready, and there were way too many speeding motorists zooming up and down Stanhope Street at all hours of the day and night.

If Rose was working late, as she so often did, I’d walk her home, usually with a dog in tow. Rose could talk for England so any conversation was apt to be a little one-sided. However, on one occasioned she opened up fully and we exchanged some important views on the merits, or otherwise, of my then girlfriend, Elle. It was a full and frank discussion. Rose, it turned out, was not a fan of Elle. No, not at all. She knew Elle and knew of her family, too though how was never explained.

“She’s a money-grabbing little cow,” said Rose. “She’ll walk in one night and announce she’s pregnant, and you’ll end up married and very probably find yourself looking after someone else’s baby. That’ll be the end of your career. And then she’ll probably go after your mother’s house, too! Just you wait and see.”

Love is blind so I paid little or no attention at the time. Surely Elle couldn’t be like that, could she?

However, not long afterwards, I was gently taken to one side by a school friend and told of my precious girlfriend’s after-hours infidelity outside of a pub on Pilgrim Street.

Say what?

“She did stuff,” said my friend. “For drinks.”

There comes a moment in every life when you really do want to stick a Dunce’s cap on your head and bray like a Donkey. That was one of those moments.

Why hadn’t I see this before? Why hadn’t I seen the signs? Love is blind, I guess. Rose-tinted glasses, perhaps. Anyway, Elle was history in pretty short order.

Worse was to come. Everybody in the school seemed to know, too so I was viewed with a mix of pity and derision. I signed up to North Tyneside College the next day and vowed never to set foot inside Rutherford ever again, a promise I’ve broken only once, for a school reunion. Elle did not attend and I don’t blame her, frankly.

Rose never once said “I told you so!”

No, she certainly didn’t say it once. She said it at least two or three dozen times. For a month.

Don’t worry. Have no fear. We’ll comeback to Elle shortly.

Moving further east, I spotted a street sign I hadn’t thought of in more than fifty years. Cottingwood Court.

“Sweet momma!” I thought. “Now there’s a memory!”

In the spring of 1977, the school organised a biology field trip to Allenheads in Northumberland with the aim of carrying out a field survey of a small wooded area near Sinderhope.

The first night was remarkable in that my classmate, Julia Something, lent on the kitchen Hot Plate and quickly discovered that Hot Plates are well-named. She screamed and tried to pull away but her hand didn’t. She was thoroughly stuck to the surface and had to be artfully peeled away by a member of staff experienced in the art of parting dead flesh from hot metal surfaces using little more than a fish spatula. I’ve never forgotten the smell of burning flesh. It stays with you. Julia spent the rest of the weekend at the hospital and re-appeared late on Sunday afternoon, only to be driven home in bandages.

That first night in the Dormitories became the stuff of legend in the hallowed cloisters of Rutherford Comprehensive School. My very first inter-class farting competition.

It began with lights-out. Once the room was in pitch darkness, save for the occasional Emergency Exit sign, the exchanges became quick and fast, and each stinging retort was greeted with a hearty cheer and a lot of laughter. I remember my classmate, Feroze Ali, kicking the underside of my bunk. “Don’t you bloody dare!” he said. I didn’t.

One volley followed another and, with each, the giggling and the laughter and the vocal protests became louder and louder to the point that, at roughly 0200 hours, Mr. Price, our biology teacher, decided to intervene.

That first intervention didn’t work and Dapper Price marched into the fray a second time roughly thirty minutes later. He ordered both classes to get out of bed and go stand in the main courtyard in the rain for the next twenty minutes or until we’d decided that breaking wind at competition level was no longer funny, even if it was. Anybody who still thought this was funny was instructed to run on the spot until told to stop. The girls in our party thought that this was monumentally funny, and it was, too. Two dozen skinny boys running on the spot in their underwear in the pouring rain. I’m just glad nobody had a camera.

We were only allowed back in when the rain really started to hammer down. We went back to bed, our collective appetite for this unofficial tournament seemingly dissipated. Until the next night.

I loved those field trips. I really did. I think there were three trips in total and they did actually make a difference because we were doing proper science – taking transects of the tiny stream that ran through the wood, counting and classifying the various species of bugs and plants we found therein, watching and recording the local bird life so that future generations could measure the changes in the landscape, for better or for worse. The better, I’m pleased to say.

On the second trip, I found myself in a party with four other students. Mark Dethers and Feroze Ali were my partners on the first excursion, and now there were two girls, Anne and Janice. I knew both reasonably well and I really liked Anne. As it happened, Anne liked me and we consequently spent a lot of time working together. Perhaps too much time, I would guess.

Eventually, spending too much time together turned into holding hands and, at the end of the field trip, I had something I’d never had before. A girlfriend.

Anne and I continued to see each other after school and occasionally between lessons. I’d walk her home though we’d part at the foot of Beaconsfield Street so that she could head south towards Cottingwood Court. I was never allowed near her home and I never figured out why. Anne put it down to a mother’s concern that her precious daughter was showing an unhealthy interest in boys but this elaborate dance went on for two or more weeks to the point where I started to wonder if the place was real or not.

I started to really enjoy the whole will-they-wont-they question that was buzzing around us as a couple. We continued seeing each other even after my Dad made a complete arse of himself by trailing us home one Thursday night in his beat up old Vauxhall Viva.

Picture the scene. You’re walking home, talking small talk and generally being all fab and groovy, when this scruffy old car pulls up next to you and the window winds down. A face appears. It’s a strange face, a rough-hewn combination of Sid James from the Carry On movies and a badly chewed toffee.

“Do you want a lift home, love?” he asked, leering at Anne.

Anne took a step backwards and reached into her bag for a metal comb and / or some hair spray. Both were pretty formidable deterrents back in the day.

“No thanks,” she said, aware that this invitation sounded deeply, deeply troubling, the sort of invitation that might see you chained to a radiator in a grubby flat along Stowell Street by the end of the day.

“Come on! Hop in!” continued Dad. “I’m going your way.”

Does this sound creepy to you? Because it does to me!

Anne was deeply, deeply unimpressed. “No, thank you!” she said, tersely. And that was the end of that exchange. Dad drove off laughing quietly to himself. He took a kind of perverse delight in humiliating his sons. Somewhat ironically, he did this to make himself feel superior though, in fact, it made him look more like the sad pathetic loser he really was.

Later, back at home, Dad started again.

“Why won’t you bring her home?” he asked. “You’re ashamed of us! You’re ashamed of your mother!”

“No, I’m not ashamed of my mother,” I replied though I doubt he heard my full response which was “I’m not ashamed of mother. I’m ashamed of you, you drunken lush!”

Dad pressed on. “She looks a bit like an all-in Wrestler,” he said in all seriousness.

“Tell you what,” he added. “Why don’t you invite her over to tea next week then I can have a roll around on the couch with her? See if she’s any good for you.”

My Mother intervened. Loudly. “Jimmy! That’s enough! She’s old enough to be your daughter!”

That wasn’t strictly true because Dad already had a daughter and she was six years older than me. Dad didn’t think Mum knew about her but she did. Hey ho. Happy families.

I never, ever took Anne anywhere near that house. In fact, we changed our route home so he’d never find us again.

Anyway, after some weeks of our rather lazy courtship, I plucked up the courage to ask Anne for a date. A proper date. A real date in Newcastle City Centre. I called Anne’s number. Her friend, Janice, picked up the phone.

“No, she doesn’t want to go on a date with you,” said Janice. “She doesn’t want to see you again.”

Like huh? I’d only spoken to Anne that afternoon on the way home and everything was fab and groovy.

“She has someone else,” said Janice. Janice put the phone down.

I was pretty wrecked, frankly. I really was and this news just put me into a real tail spin.

Back at school, I was suddenly Mr. Deeply Unpopular, like I’d trodden in a huge dog turd and walked it right along the downstairs corridor and into the library. None of Anne’s friends would speak to me. Worse, Anne looked at me as if I had pin lice crawling through my eyebrows. She wouldn’t even talk to me.

Eventually, after some weeks of being ostracised, I confronted Janice, who admitted she’d done it for a prank, a joke. Anne hadn’t said any of that stuff. She didn’t have anyone else. She blamed me. I eventually spoke to Anne. I’ve no idea what Janice told Anne but Anne was just as sad and disappointed that I’d stopped talking to her. She wasn’t interested. The magic had gone.

Janice, you’re a cow. I hope you enjoyed the life you so thoroughly deserved.

Teenage romances, eh?

I spotted Anne around a decade later, just after I’d left University. Out of work, I was required to ‘sign on’ every two weeks, which meant a walk into the City Centre every other Tuesday. Never mind. The Sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I ambled into the Unemployment Office in St. James’ Place at a very relaxed pace and there was Anne, puffing away on a cigarette and cussing out one of the assistants. I couldn’t hear the exchange but it was fairly loud and fairly vitriolic. I tried to leave before she recognised me but... No such luck. She spotted me, waved and smiled but I was quickly gone.

I never got to see Cottingwood Court back in the day so I had a quick look around and it wasn’t too shabby at all. Apparently, it’s since been extensively renovated in decent years and the new residents keep it spick and span. Back in the day, fifty years ago, it was a right dump and crammed to the rafters with Druggies and Illegals so that’s maybe why I was never invited home for a cup of tea and a crumpet.

Moving ever onwards in the direction of Barrack Road, I came across a small housing estate, built circa 1979. This is important because it was the scene of my first proper crime. Back then, you’d have done time in a Young Offender’s Institution for this offence.

I was building a telescope up in my bedroom because I’d discovered that telescopes were a lot easier to understand than women. They’d still drain your bank balance but you could spend all day admiring the curves and the lines, touching up and tweaking the various knobs and protuberances, and nobody would mind. Then you’d take them out all night, every night, and your Mum didn’t give you a hard time.

“Be back home by eleven or you’re in trouble, young man!”

It’s also worth pointing out that getting a telescope into your garage without causing a racket when everyone else in the house is fast asleep is actually quite easy compared to sneaking a girlfriend in after hours.

Anyway, back to the story.

I’d saved enough money for a decent telescope tube and a couple of good eyepieces but I couldn’t afford both. I bought the eyepieces because tubes were ten a penny and the eyepieces were too good a deal to pass up.

I was walking past the afore-mentioned housing estate one night just as the sun was setting and the Building crew were finishing up for the day. I passed a half-built house and spotted an off-cut of plastic pipe that was just the right diameter for a six inch telescope mirror. I asked one of the guys if the said pipe was scrap. He told me to “Fuck off!” which I assume meant “No! It’s not scrap!”.

I went home disappointed.

On a chance, I went back the following day at roughly the same time, and the same piece of pipe was still there, seemingly abandoned. I reckoned it was scrap and so I laid my plans.

I returned that night, slid under the fence with my tape measure in hand and was delighted to discover that it was a perfect fit.

I was back under the fence and running across the Leazes Moor with this big lump of pipe in my arms as the guard dogs sprang into life. I hid in the allotments on the moor until the danger had passed and then sneaked home through Castle Leazes Halls of Residence, still with my treasured pipe under my arm. I painted the tube white and turned it into Abigail, my first telescope. Abigail wasn’t the prettiest of instruments but she did win the 1980 Frost Memorial Prize at our local astronomical society.

I still have that length of pipe. It was replaced some years later with a proper enamelled pipe but, rather than chuck it in landfill, I held onto it. Julie uses it today in the garden, where it holds her bamboo support rods.

That said, the memory of how I acquired said pipe still festers at the back of my mind. Every time I look at it, I think of that house on Stanhope Street, and a toilet that doesn’t have a full length soil pipe. Ewww! Stinky!

Okay, I’d come as far as I wanted to go so decided to turn around and head back to the car. That said, I paused to look at the bottom of the Leazes Moor where it touches Barrack Road because there were a metric tonne of fond memories centred around that place.

Of running home in the icy-dark across the Moor having just watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time at the Tyneside Cinema with Raymond Saxelby and Elizabeth Gent, and well knowing that I was in for a proper bollocking from my Dad for being out past curfew. Of numerous trips up and down the country, starting off at Marlborough Bus Station. Of the fun fairs that used to park up on the Moor before they were moved on by the council. Of the massive (and I mean massive) pile of discarded Girlie magazines I found next to one of the abandoned outbuildings adjacent to Fenham Barracks. I discovered Capitalism that night. I traded those magazine at school for a year or more and earned a small fortune. My rates were quite reasonable - fifty pence a night, one pound for the weekend, five pounds lost deposit if the magazine was returned with sticky pages. Eat your heart out, Tom Cruise.

I made my way back up Stanhope Street but then came face to face with Beaconsfield Street. There was something about Beaconsfield Street that made me feel uncomfortable but I couldn’t remember what it was or why. The penny dropped as soon as I reached the car.

The year was nineteen eighty and Mum had spent a couple of months in hospital having a skin graft though the procedure hadn’t gone well. A short stay of a just week had turned into three months of extreme discomfort. I would visit when I could but getting home from night classes in time for visiting hours was nigh on impossible.

However, I dragged my carcass up to the hospital one Friday night, just as a young girl was being admitted. She was wheeled onto the ward and installed in the bed opposite. Once she’d come around, she and Mum got to talking.

She was sixteen and called Karen. She’d also been in a terrible car accident and her face was a mess because she’d been thrown through the windscreen. Alas, she hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt, which, even then, was against the law. Her father had been driving the car and he was in a lot of trouble. No licence. No insurance. No MOT.

I sort of knew Karen because she went to Rutherford. I said “Hi!” although she didn’t respond. The following morning, a Surgeon took Karen off to the operating theatre and she returned a few hours later, her face covered in bandages. Karen stayed for around week but was quickly discharged. The last time I saw her, her face was badly swollen and she had a very large and very deep scar across her right cheek.

Skip forwards another two months. I’d split up with Elle in the October but still had absolutely no desire whatsoever to get into another relationship. Too bitter. Too scarred. No longer willing to trust. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I received an invitation to an Engagement Party from two people I barely knew.

I didn’t want to go to an Engagement Party. I really didn’t. I was in no mood but my friend, Dave Lumley, insisted that I should attend because he was certain that I needed to get out from under my dark cloud and join the rest of the world. He was right, too.

I dragged myself along to The Windmill pub in Cow Gate and promised to enjoy myself. I soon met another friend, Martin Dale, who was there with his new girlfriend, Janet. Martin encouraged me to enjoy myself but also advised that Elle was present and she was already very drunk. Very drunk and very angry.

I got a drink and sat down next to Martin and Janet. Before long, I noticed a girl looking at me. It was Karen and she looked amazing. I hardly recognised her. She had a thin elfin frame, long blonde hair and a huge smile. The scar on her cheek was almost invisible, a testament to the skill of the surgeons who had rebuilt her face.

Karen came over to talk and she was lovely. She sat and we got on amazingly well. The conversation was rich and varied though she was nervous of the scar. Did it put me off? Not at all. She asked about my Mum and hoped her mood had improved. It hadn’t.

Karen and I sitting together hadn’t gone unnoticed. Elle began to kick up a fuss and then made an ugly scene. Karen noticed.

“What’s that all about?” she asked.

“Ah, just some drunken idiot.” I replied but didn’t add any detail or context.

I decided it was time to leave because I didn’t want to upset the hosts. Karen asked if I could escort her to a phone box because she needed to call her lift. She obviously trusted me enough to ask for help, which is always a good sign that a relationship is about to kick into life.

“Who’s giving you a lift?” I asked.

“My Dad,” she said. “He’ll take you home, too! If you want!”

Err, no thank you! I passed.

The irony wasn’t lost on Karen, either.

I walked Karen along to the nearest phone box and then walked her back to The Windmill, where her Dad was already sitting outside. He looked a right rough one. Karen gave me her address (you guessed it, Beaconsfield street) and her phone number on a slip of paper and I waved her off.

Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I went back inside where Martin Dale was waiting for me.

“You’d best make yourself scarce, David!” he said. “Elle just kicked off and she really lost it. She was bad before but she’s far worse now, She just hit somebody. They’ve taken her somewhere out the back until she calms down. Everyone is pretty pissed at you!”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

“Because you pulled another girl right in front of her, that’s why!” barked Martin!

“Not very clever, mate” he added and, well, I suppose it wasn’t.

I smiled and quit the field before the room turned nasty.

Nevertheless, I walked home that night with a near divine buzz in the back of my head. Call me evil. Call me wicked. Call me an unfeeling bastard but I definitely felt that I now had closure where Elle was concerned. That said, I never, ever forgave Elle for her infidelities. Blowing guys for drinks at the back of The Market Lane on Pilgrim Street is just monumentally uncool.

Back home, I wasn’t surprised to find that Rose knew Karen because Rose knew everybody. “She’s a nice kid,” said Rose. “But her Dad is an absolute nutter!”

Dodged a bullet there, I think.

Back to today, April 2026.

I walked the length of Beaconsfield Street but could remember very little of Karen or her house. I couldn’t even remember her surname. Not then anyway. I remembered later when a Builder’s van with the same name drove past me on Houghton Broadway. A weird, weird coincidence, I think you would agree. When the Universe talks, you should listen.

Back at the car, I realised I hadn’t taken any photographs, which was unusual. Still, you’ve got Google Maps, Dear Reader.

Why bother with any of this, I hear you ask? Indeed, why bother? It’s ancient history and not particularly interesting ancient history either.

Editing this piece together pulled together a wide range of memories and emotions, which was the intention. I haven’t walked these streets in five decades and whilst much has changed, the names and the layout has not. It’s still the same.

The point of these excursions is to get my brain working and keep my brain working. Memories are an excellent tool for retaining cognitive function and when you get to my age, you need all the help you can get.

Yeah, I’m trying to keep my brain active by revisiting old memories and older haunts. I want to write these down so that, when my brain does eventually turn to mush, there may provide some kind of restorative action. I may well rediscover myself. I live in hope. And there may come a time when these memories are all I have left.

And, at the very least, I hope someone derives to pleasure from these meanderings. They’re a journey through a life lived long ago. Well, ‘long ago’ is relative, isn’t it? This is all recent history, after all.

Time to let go, perhaps?

Yeah, I think it is. I’m done here.

Let’s go explore somewhere else instead.

28-Dec-25 The West Road II, Roaming amongst the Romans

I’ve made two excursions into Benwell / Wingrove in as many days and, frankly, I hope these are my last. I’m done with this part of the world. I really am.

Day #1 : Goals

• Locate a mystery house on Wingrove Road with a deep, personnel significance
• Find the remains of my alma mater, Wingrove Junior School

I set out along the West Road but instead of continuing west, I turned north at the junction with Wingrove Road.

My first destination was the Mystery House. I knew this adventure would be a bit of a challenge because my memory of how this event came about is a little hazy. Essentially, it began with a couple of class mates and a game of rugby / football over a Monday lunchtime in the summer term of 1978. What happened? I don't really know. I had the ball and then I didn’t. Instead, I was on the ground, there was a body the top of me and my arm hurt. Actually, my arm hurt a lot.

I'd been fouled by another boy, Cameron McKenzie. My team mates judged that the foul was deliberate and unnecessary, and designed simply to put me out of the game. Cameron had certainly succeeded in that regard. I also ended up in the Accident and Emergency Department of Newcastle General Hospital with a suspected broken shoulder.

I was accompanied to the hospital by another pupil, a big, tall lad called Ian McDonald. I knew Ian from a maths class and he was okay. A bit rebellious but, essentially a safe pair of hands.

I don’t know how I got to the hospital but Ian and I arrived in A & E at around one o’clock and I was examined by several Junior Doctors and then X-ray’d. Some time later, the Medics announced that I hadn’t fractured my clavicle - the big, pokey-out bone on your shoulder - but the bone had been very badly bruised. They were confident that it would heal in around six weeks though they advised that I should do no heavy lifting for at least a fortnight.

The school contacted my father and asked him to rescue me although Ian had other ideas. Rather than hang around A & E, Ian suggested that we skip over to his house on Wingrove Road, roughly one hundred meters away, where they had tea, chocolate biscuits and day time TV, such as it was in those days. The alternative was a slow, uncomfortable walk back up the West Road. Scuttling back to Chez McDonald also meant that Ian would miss most of his double English class so his solution was win-win all round.

We arrived at Ian’s front door only to discover that Ian didn’t have his front door key.

“Never mind,” said Ian. “We can go next door.”

Ian knocked on next door, which didn’t seem to work so he rang the doorbell. When that didn't seem to work, he screamed a few profanities through the letter box. That got their attention. A tall man with a thin, educated face and impossibly manicured hair appeared in the door way. He was also called Ian.

“Ian! Come on in!” he said. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is David,” said Ian. “He’s been to the hospital.”

Now, it turned out that the Ian with the impossibly manicured hair and the thin face was a Junior Doctor, and he knew the two attending physicians who had checked my arm out, and Ian declared that they’d done a thoroughly excellent job.

I trailed both Ian’s into the house where I was immediately introduced to the other occupants. I don’t remember the names at all, probably because I was still in shock but there was a lady in the kitchen - Susan, I think - who very kindly made me a cup of tea on the basis that I was as white as a sheet. She also advised that I should drink the tea slowly and that if I felt faint then I should say so immediately. There was another tall guy, Dan, also a Junior Doctor, and he seemed particularly friendly.

Lying prostrate on the couch, his bare feet poking out from under a large duvet, was a guy known as Beak, on account of his enormous nose. We’re talking Puffin territory here. Like an African Grey Parrot. That was one serious conk. Beak wasn’t alone under the duvet. There was a female and I think she was called Deborah. Alas, neither Beak nor Deborah were wearing anything, largely on account of them having recently performed the act of procreation, loudly, according to Susan.

Beak was puffing away on a celebratory roll-your-own cigarette that smelled like an old carpet when, without warning, he broke wind.

“Get out and walk!” he shouted. Beak then broke into song. “Here comes another one, just like the other one!”

Beak broke wind again.

“Oh! Shit! Beak! That stinks!” shouted a shrill voice from under the duvet.

Ian McDonald doubled over laughing. “Oh, that’s nasty,” he whispered between gasps for air.

“God! I can't stand it!” shouted Deborah, coughing. "I feel sick! I really do! I’m gonna puke!”

Deborah whipped away the Duvet cover and ran, naked, to the nearest door leaving Beak somewhat exposed on the couch.

Okay, so that was a genuine first! I got to see a real life naked lady! Boobs and bums and little fuzzy hairy bits and…

“Every cloud, and all that,” I whispered to myself.
“The Dutch Oven,” said Doctor Ian. “Divorce territory, mate! You crossed the line there!"

Beak seemed unperturbed.

Deborah returned seconds later tying a rough blue chequered dressing gown around her midriff and cursing loudly. Beak made no effort at all to cover himself.

“For the love of God will you put it away!” shouted Susan from the kitchen. “I'm sick to bloody death of seeing your dick! Show it off one more time and I’ll cut it off!”

Beak pulled the duvet across his groin and started laughing.

“Don’t tempt my patience, Beaky-Boy!” continued Susan. “You know I will!”

Beak let rip a third time and I mean he really let rip. Awful.

Ian McDonald was, by now, on his knees laughing, the contents of his own roll-your-own cigarette scattered about the threadbare carpet. I couldn’t help but laugh, despite the pain in my shoulder.

Susan in the kitchen appeared and began shouting. “We have guests, you fuckin’ pig!” she screamed. “Can’t you behave yourself at least once?”

In time, order was restored and everyone began to pretend that they were grown-ups after all. Turned out that when Ian, Beak and Dan weren’t studying medicine, they were in a band. They played Punk - mostly covers but also a few of their own compositions. They’d played a gig the night before and had another that night. They were becoming known.

Politically, they were an interesting bunch with some interesting ideas on working for a system that didn’t work for you. In their eyes, you weren’t so much a cog in the machine. You were just a play thing to an upper class of aristocrats and public school boys, who were still in control of the country despite two hundred years of democracy. Quite subversive, quite revolutionary to hear those ideas when you're just fifteen or sixteen. Worse still, they kinda struck home.

Anyway, Mr. McDonald called the school and let them know what was going on. I just sat back and enjoyed the jovial banter, the word play, the obtuse, off-the-wall comments. These guys were philosophers and they were sophisticated. They knew political theory. They knew how to argue, how to reason. This short, hour-long session was an introduction to political theory like no other. In short, their concept was that enlightened self interest is a good thing. Rampant, uncontrolled greed is bad. Having a social conscience, caring for your fellow man, treating him with respect is good. Being an entitled dick is bad.

My Dad turned up at Beak’s front door at roughly four thirty, maybe quarter to five, and he was not in a good mood. I’d interrupted his afternoon routine, which consisted of getting out of bed at around 3 pm, chain smoking a lot of cigarettes and complaining about your shitty life. The trip home was uncomfortable. Dad didn’t believe I’d hurt my arm - didn’t want to believe I’d hurt my arm - despite the obvious swelling, the discolouration and the sling.

At home, Dad insisted that he knew how to treat a suspected broken arm and that was to rotate it. I resisted. I complained. He did it anyway. I screamed. My mother screamed. Dad ignored her. He ignored me. Mind you, I didn’t just scream. I screamed and then fainted. Clonk. On the floor. I woke up thirty seconds later with my terrified brother leaning over me. Dad then berated me for not being man enough to take a little pain, like I had a choice in the matter. Dad wanted to have another look. I refused, picked myself up and ran off. That’s all I remember.

Later, I checked my arm out for myself. My clavicle really was in a bad way. My entire shoulder went yellow and then purple. Like Deep Purple. It was agony. My pain killers had gone, too. Where? No idea but I suspect that Dad took them for his own use. I found some paracetamol and took those instead. I don’t remember sleeping much for the next week.

As for not lifting anything for a fortnight, I was back to the heavy lifting just two days later. Didn’t matter that it hurt. Didn’t matter than I nearly dropped my disabled mother several times. Dad just couldn’t be bothered to move her. Mum was no longer his problem, as far as he was concerned.

Why mention this thoroughly grubby little story at all? The tale doesn't exactly display any of the protagonists in a good light, myself included, does it?

Well, I have my reasons. Firstly, quite by accident, I’d discovered a real life, alternative existence, an anarcho-Bohemian lifestyle that ran parallel to my own. Ian and his cohort had an idea and a philosophy, and they wanted to see where it would take them. Their parents and their tutors almost certainly would have disagreed and disapproved, maybe pushed them along a more conventional path, but they went ahead anyway.

Medicine was their fall-back career and a fall back position was a good idea in case Plan A went wrong, as they so often do. However, I learned something important that afternoon. I learned that if you really want to do something different - join a band, be an artist, become a bank robber - then you really should just throw caution to the wind and take a leap of faith. I don’t just mean you should shut your eyes, cross your fingers and step out into the on-coming traffic. That’s neither wise nor sensible and likely to land you in hospital. And as I’d just come from the hospital, I knew I'd rather not do that again. But, with a bit of thought and planning, and a degree of financial independence, you could step out of the dreadful nine to five existence your parents had decided was your best option. You really could. You just had to take the first step. What is that first step? You write down a plan. You create very own personal manifesto.

So I did. And it went like this.

More than anything in the world, I decided I didn’t want to wake up one morning and realise I’d turned into my father, a work-shy drunk destined to spend his remaining days on this small blue rock wishing his life away, with a series of regrets piled up on missed opportunities sitting alongside a lifetime of poor decisions. I didn't want to find myself on my death bed with an empty bottle in one hand and a bunch of poor excuses in the other.

And that’s exactly what happened to Dad.

That’s the first reason for posting the above tale.

The second is a little more interesting. The above yarn represents a turning point in the road. I was presented with an opportunity to pause, pivot and change direction, a wake up moment of you will. It’s not something I've kept secret all these years, either. Indeed, I’ve written the episode down on at least two occasions so I know the story is out there in the public domain. The last time I penned this tale was around ten years ago, when I posted the text on Tumblr as part of a discussion on life-changing events.

Here’s where it gets interesting. About a year later, I found the very same tale reproduced more or less word for word on a music forum. There were a few minor variations - dates, times, roles - but the names were the same. The author had so very obviously lifted my entire story and used it as the inspiration for her own artistic genesis.

Another example - I added another post on Tumblr detailing a rather excellent party I attended in Wingrove Gardens in 1982. This party was a wild affair. Spread over three or four floors, there was the Drinking Room, the TV Room, the Quiet Room and the Sleeping Room. I found the so-called Sex Room and, therein, I discovered a lady who was, to use a popular phrase, off her tits. She was also dancing, naked, for the entertainment of her friends and peers, or anyone else who happened to wander past.

The fake author had ripped off my text more or less word for word although she had added her own ending, which was fairly novel. I don't believe a word of it though. A fantasy for sure.

Somewhat annoyed, I created a second account on the same platform, befriended the author and tried, over a period of months, to figure out who she was. I succeeded or at least I think I succeeded. Alas, she was so enmeshed in her fantasy life that I doubt she knew the difference between real life and invention. She doesn’t live in a big posh mansion in Beamish. She lives in the dog-end of Newcastle. Her stories, her history, her pictures are all stolen. They’re fake. She’s no more a millionaire with a property portfolio in the Cayman islands than I am. I still follow her. I still read her updates though they’re less frequent than they used to be. Maybe she got a proper job. Maybe she got a life. I don’t know. She blocked me on Facebook and Instagram ages ago when she became suspicious. She deleted her FetLife account when the government introduced the need for digital ID last July. I wonder why she did that, eh? However, like a faithful Bloodhound, I kept looking and I found her again on the Literotica web site, where she's still spreading the same wannabe millionaire sex goddess vibe.

If you're going to plagiarise an artist’s work then at least go to the trouble of changing the names of the protagonists a little. Don't just copy someone else's story and pretend it's your own.

Anyway, I took a walk down Wingrove Road in the vain hope that I'd recognise the Mystery House but nothing came to mind. These events took place nearly fifty years ago so Ian, Dan and Beak are probably in their late 60’s or early 70’s by now. I wonder if they ever made it?

I decided to skip my search for Wingrove Junior School until I was in a better mood. Instead, I kept on moving north along Wingrove Road until I arrived at Severus Road. From there, I travelled west until I arrived once again at Hadrian Road. I was appalled. I'd last walked these footpaths fifty years ago when it was not an affluent area by any stretch of the imagination. It remains so today. I was so disappointed that in these days of our aspirational, media driven, possession-obsession culture wars, people can live in what amounts to a third world slum. Shocked and despairing, I got out of there as quickly as I could.

I turned down Nunns Moor Road, where I tried to find some pleasure in this excursion. Thankfully, I did.

Campbell’s Tea Rooms are long gone but I remember taking Julie for tea on one of our first dates way back in 1983 or thereabouts. This cafe was a frequent watering hole on the way home from school firstly because they made the most amazing sugary buns and cakes and, secondly because the cafe had another claim to fame. One of my favourite comedians, Norman Wisdom, was a regular visitor - an autographed picture of the man himself hung above the till - and Norman would visit whenever he was in town. He was a huge Newcastle United fan and attended most home games. We’d drop into Campbell’s on the way home from school in the hope that we'd meet Norman but, sadly, we were never in the right place at the right time.

However, a few years later, my brother and I were walking across the Leazes Moor one Saturday afternoon when Paul spotted a familiar face walking down the footpath.

Paul said “That’s Norman Wisdom!” and it was.

Paul and I waved and shouted “Afternoon, Norman!”

Norman waved back and then did his trademark trip for us. We were elated. Absolutely elated. Next to Eric Morecambe, Norman Wisdom was my favourite comedian.

So, next stop. Oh dear. I wasn’t sure if I should mention this but I will because this is about history and you don’t adjust history just to enjoy a comfortable life and protect the guilty.

When I was nine or ten years old, say 1971 or 1972, I became fairly convinced that my father had a special friend, a special lady friend, who lived on Nunns Moor Road in Newcastle.

Dad was, at the time, a City Councillor, which meant he had access to a team of volunteers, people who would organise his meetings, help with mail outs, provide support at various events etc.

Dad became very, very close to a single woman of around thirty years. She would phone constantly and they'd spend hours talking in hushed tones over a noisy telephone line. Discussions were always confidential. He’d stop talking when you passed. He never took notes.

My Mum obviously became suspicious. Mum was forty five, in the early stages of Multiple Sclerosis and walked with a stick. What use did a high flier like Jimmy have for a crippled wife, a hideous mortgage and two unruly kids? She became convinced that Dad was seeing this woman and, furthermore, she suspected that dear old Dad was planning a quick exit.

Mum was canny. Mum was clever. She knew how to put a stop to Jimmy’s fun and games.

Mum arranged a meeting with the volunteer group, so she said. Alas, she neglected to invite anyone else and our whole family arrived on this woman’s doorstep, seemingly unannounced, one Sunday afternoon, and we stayed for tea. A long uncomfortable tea. All I remember of the meeting was of sitting in a bland, featureless garden devoid of any living thing, just soil and a bare wooden fence, and nothing more. Paul and I were bored rigid. The grown-ups just sat and talked, and not about anything interesting either. So far as I could tell, they talked business. They talked politics. They talked of big, bold ideas and a brave new world. However, even at that age, I knew there were other subjects that were not up for discussion.

Eventually, the adults finished blabbering on and we were taken home. The woman stopped calling. Dad never mentioned her again. Paul and I spotted her one day as we were walking home from school. We called out to her but she ran indoors. We knocked on her door but her mother said we were mistaken. She wasn’t at home. We were told not to call at that house again.

Dad lost his seat at the next election. I wonder why.

Some years later, Mum confided that she had suspected something was afoot for months. She realised that her suspicions were true as soon as she clapped eyes on this woman. Her guilt-ridden expression spoke volumes. More so, Dad knew he’d been discovered.

Turning up like that, out of the blue, she wanted this woman to realise what she was getting into, what she was breaking up. She was wrecking a marriage. Two children would grow up without a father. A disabled parent would loose her only source of income, of support.

She also made it painfully clear that if anything happened to this woman, God forbid that she’d fall ill or simply fail to match Jimmy’s expectations, then Jimmy would bolt for the door. She’d find herself dropped like the proverbial hot potato. He’d done it before. He’d do it again. Jimmy had form. A past. The truth of Jimmy’s infidelity is up on Ancestry UK for all to see.

Day #2 : a new set of objectives.

• Locate the three Roman settlements around Rutherford School that I’d ignored for more than fifty years.
• Locate the remains of Wingrove Junior School

I made my way up Hadrian Road determined to come to grips with the lousy feelings I’d dodged the day before. I immediately found Wingrove Primary School, which was on the opposite side of the road to Wingrove Junior School and now occupies the site formerly used by Saint Aloysius School. St. Aloysius was an awful institution. The students were always hostile, always making trouble. They’d throw stones, bricks, pebbles and the occasional teacher at any passing bus or car. The Police would turn up every couple of days to return one or more of the inmates to the grounds. A hideous place. I was glad when it was amalgamated with St. Cuthbert’s. Those two institutions deserved each other, as far as I was concerned, for inflicting Sting and the Pet Shop Boys on the musical world.

The site formerly occupied by Wingrove Junior School is now Romulus Court. That made me smile. I wondered if this development had become a kind of retirement village for Star Trek fans. Anyway, I had a gentle wander down a foot path that would have taken me through the school grounds and came away happy.

Over the road from Romulus Court was a newsagent, the name of which escapes me but he was, for a time, the only newsagent in Newcastle who stocked Omni Magazine. Omni became essential reading. Omni was my escape from reality, the perfect blend of science articles and speculative fiction. Bob Guccione, who published Penthouse Magazine, wanted to go mainstream and up market, and Omni was the result. I think Bob wanted more on this epitaph than just barely legal tits and the movie Caligula.

At the end of every month, I would visit this newsagent daily until the new edition arrived. Alas, most days I’d leave despondent with my little size seven feet dragging all the way home because delivery was unpredictable. Eventually, even my Newsagent friend couldn’t get the magazine. In desperation, I dumped a load of pocket money on a subscription but that didn’t last because Omni ceased publication shortly afterwards and I was never reimbursed.

I still have most those first few early editions up in the loft. I would imagine they’re worth something these days.

Rather than face Hadrian Road a second time, I went south, up Baxter Avenue, and arrived back at the West Road. Moving west, I quickly realised I didn’t have a clue as to the location of the Benwell Roman Temple even though it was supposed to be no more than a stone’s throw from the West Road. Google Maps took me to the right place.

The temple was smaller than I’d imagined - no more than fifteen feet by twenty feet - but the remains above ground were worth seeing. A couple of uprights and a gateway illustrated the layout of the temple nicely. I did note that the gate into the area didn’t have a lock on it.

After that, I took a short walk around the corner to Denhill Park, where I found the Benwell Vallum Crossing. The Vallum was a defensive ditch near the wall itself and was typical of Roman defensive fortifications. The slopes were designed to make it impossible to drive a chariot down one side and up the other without grounding the vehicle. Foot soldiers and horses would loose their grip on the downward incline and slide into the ‘trap’ at the bottom. The upward slope would be nigh on impossible to ascend without assistance. Archers and spearmen on the top of the wall could have an easy time picking off anyone daft enough to try and breach the obstacle. I was pleased to finally see it for real.

At that point, my knee gave up and I decided to return to the car. I couldn’t go any further.

I travelled east, towards Newcastle City Centre, and passed an old haunt, The Fox and Hounds Pub. Many a happy night was spent in there. Many a happy day, too.

A little further on, I spotted another personal landmark, a place I haven’t visited in more than forty five years, and for good reason too. There were some ghosts lurking behind that scruffy red-brick facade, spectres I have not dared to confront in a very, very long time.

Back in 1979, I started dating a girl I'll refer to as Elle. Not her real name but it’ll do for now. Elle lived on Pease Avenue, an area that seems to have enjoyed a significant resurgence in recent years. That was good to see.

Elle was sixteen and lived with her father, her step mother and her step brother. This was not a happy household. Dad was an ex-Army man and a thoroughly miserable twat. Elle’s step-mother, Betty, was an angry, bitter self-righteous harridan. She’d married a man who couldn't work because he had a dicky ticker and was forced to share her romantic idyl with two children who weren't her own, Elle’s natural mother having legged it some years before.

Betty said she found it difficult to cope with two difficult children who were not her own but cope she did. Every night was party night. Come rain, come shine, Mom and Pop would get dolled up and head down to the Buff’s Club on the West Road. Elle was their babysitter. Every single night. She got one night off per week, Sunday, which wasn't exactly conducive to going on dates.

More so, Mom and Pop lived off benefits. Neither worked, which meant that they were permanently strapped for cash. Consequently, Elle had no money either. She wore the same careworn hand-me-down clothes day in, day out, even when they went threadbare at the arse.

How can I describe their house? Is there any way to say this tactfully? No, there isn’t so I’ll just come out with it. Apologies for the profanity but their house was a fucking hovel. The entire building stank of cat piss and damp. The kitchen was squalid and hadn’t been cleaned in years. Even back then, their living standards fell well short of what we’d call acceptable. We’re talking third world, depression-era squalor. I’d find stuff on their cooker - cockroaches, mould, dirt and grease. I pulled the grill one afternoon and found two pieces of bread covered in towers of mould reaching for the sunlight. I put Elle's stepbrother to bed and his bedding was soaking wet from cat piss. I pulled the bedding back and the matress was covering in spores. I found a bed bug crawling up my leg whilst we were watching TV. Like I said, a third world, depression-era hovel.

My dysfunctional relationship with Elle went on for a couple months. Then, one Friday night in January 1980, I got a call from a phone box. It was Elle. She couldn’t get out for our date because the entire family was down with food poisoning. She called the next day, Saturday, and they were still very poorly. Suspicious, I got on my bike and cycled to their house where I found them all very sick indeed. I quickly realised there was something very wrong and ran to a phone box. I called for an Ambulance partly because I was worried about Pop’s heart but mostly because I was certain that their problems weren’t down to food poisoning. This was something far worse.

I went back to the house and opened all of the doors and windows. Straight away, the family seemed to recover. The Ambulance arrived and the whole family were taken to Accident and Emergency at the General Hospital. After a couple of hours, they where discharged. The diagnosis? Food poisoning. Huh? That didn't make sense. I told the Doctors about how I’d opened the windows and noted an improvement, which suggested Carbon Monoxide poisoning. I didn't agree with their diagnosis and said so. Betty snapped at me, told me that their problems were none of my business. She told me to stop interfering and to go home.

I left them alone on the Sunday because I was fed up with the drama. However, Elle didn’t turn up to school on the following Monday morning and I started to wonder if everything was okay. I thought about visiting even though Betty’s scolding was still ringing in my ears. I went home instead.

Our phone rang more or less as soon as I walked through the front door. It was my Mother’s Home Help, Rose Murray. “David! David!” she said. “It’s Elle. She’s in the Chronicle. Her Dad’s dead.”

Rose read a couple of paragraphs from the article. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning kills Father.

According to the Chronicle, big Brother Derek had visited on Sunday afternoon where he found the family unconscious. Elle and her step brother were out cold in the Living Room. Betty was in the back garden where she’d crawled in an effort to seek help. Dad was dead in his armchair, his heart having given out earlier in the day.

I ran up to the hospital where I found Elle on the Children’s ward with her step brother. The local news was playing on the TV as I arrived and they’d made the top story. Elle broke down and ran off when they mentioned her father.

There was an inquest to which I wasn’t invited - wasn’t even told about - and a funeral where, again, I wasn’t invited but went anyway. The Gas Board admitted fault in that they hadn’t serviced the gas installation properly but did produce evidence to support their claim they'd called at the property on numerous occasions and made many appointments by letter to get the installation checked but recorded that either there had been no reply to their letters or that nobody had been home when they called. Not once. Furthermore, the Gas Board suggested that someone had tampered with the supply though the actual cause was a blocked chimney flue fed from a poorly maintained gas fire.

Betty did admit that she’d ignored all of the letters from the Gas Board because she thought they were just the usual bills and/or final demands. The Doctors had suspected Carbon Monoxide Poisoning but Betty had been adamant that their symptoms were down to a dodgy fish dinner. My input was dismissed out of hand and I guess that’s why I was never asked to attend the inquest.

The Coroner ruled the incident as a case of Accidental Death. Perhaps a better ruling might have been Death by Utter Negligence.

Anyway, the Council said the house was unfit for human habitation and gutted the place. The family were allowed home following a month or so of renovations. Alas, the widow Betty went back to her partying habits almost immediately and Elle was stuck at home every single night without a break.

Furthermore, Betty soon made it clear that she had no intention of letting Elle go off to Nursing College. She couldn’t cope on her own, so she said. Elle and I talked and we decided to get Elle out of there. We waited until Betty went out shopping, as was usual and then quickly packed up Elle’s few belongings. She moved in with her natural mother in Gateshead shortly thereafter.

I did visit Betty once. I went to retrieve Elle’s remaining clothes and some of her school books. Betty was not a happy person. Grief had set in. She told me that she felt trapped and abandoned. She was living at home with a child who wasn’t a blood relative and with no possibility of respite.

I’d have felt some sympathy, a degree of empathy had she not said the following. Betty insisted that Pop's death was my fault because I hadn’t come around on the Sunday morning. Furthermore, by moving Elle out of her house, I’d destroyed Betty’s family and her life. Those remarks made no sense then and make no sense now, forty five years later. I left and never went back.

I scarcely remembered the episode as I walked down Pease Avenue today but, when I paused in front of Elle’s house, I suddenly remembered everything and with crystal clarity, too. Every single detail of that nightmare came flooding back, as did the What if’s? and the Maybes? What if I'd stayed just a little longer in that house on the Saturday night? What if I’d listened to Betty’s tale of woe about the dodgy fish supper she'd served up the night before and not called the Ambulance when I did? What if I had visited their house on the Sunday morning? Could I have saved Pop? Maybe I could.

Not very comforting, is it?

I decided that enough was enough. Some skeletons should remain buried.

I wanted to leave that horrid place behind for good but I also wanted to leave with a happy memory buzzing around in the back of my head.

I found Julie outside the dentist and she agreed to indulge me a little. We got in the car and retraced my footsteps west until we arrived at Denton Burn and, from there, we found the remains of Denton Turret, a defensive gap set into Hadrian's Wall wall itself. It was smaller than I’d imagined but just as cold and just as bleak as I’d feared.

This was, after all, a frontier. Maybe it was always be a frontier.

Anyway, I came home happy. A bit of personal history. A bit of proper history. Time to let the ghosts settle.

18-Nov-25 The West Road, Newcastle

I grew up in the West End of Newcastle during the nineteen sixties and seventies, and I occasionally revisit my old stomping grounds if only to remind myself why we moved to Sunderland thirty years ago. Today began with yet another trip into the West End for yet another appointment with my Dentist. I can really do without such distractions because they literally rip a huge portion out of my working day. Hence, whenever I'm stuck with a little bit of time on my hands, I try to create something useful. Lemonade from lemons, I guess.

I was last here only a matter of weeks ago. On that occasion, I explored the City’s Town Moor via several of my old dog walking routes dating back to the mid 70’s. I found the experience strangely comforting. Whilst many of those places have been rendered unfamiliar, foreign even, most of the paths are still there. The entrance gates have been tastefully upgraded by the Freemen of the City to prevent cattle escaping on to the surrounding roads though the tracks themselves remain largely unchanged. The allotments that were framed by those well-trodden walkways are long gone, as is the Macarbi Football Training Ground on Hunter's Moor. You could, if you felt lucky, bunk off school and watch Newcastle United's First Team training thereon although you had to be careful because the Macarbi was also the domain of the City's Truancy Officer aka The Wagg Man, and he was utterly zealous in his duties.

Why bother in the first instance? Simply put, I’m of an age where I’m starting to forget details. I can’t remember names or surnames or certain places, and one or two holidays are nothing but a faded memory. Forgetfulness is a consequence of ageing and the best way I've found for dragging those memories screaming into view is to put boots on the ground and start exploring all over again. And, indeed, the details soon came flooding back. Names and dates, people and places. They were there, in the dark recesses of my mind, tucked away behind a mess of scruffy cobwebs. All I needed was the key to unlock the database.

The quick takeaway from this earlier exploration was that, yes, everything changes - sometimes of its own accord, sometimes because change is necessary and sometimes because change is inevitable. It's really the Second Law of Thermodynamics - Entropy increases with time. Change happens. Get used to it.

On this occasion, I went in search of old landmarks and older memories. I began at the top of Brighton Grove and travelled west, until I arrived at the gates of my former school, Rutherford Comprehensive. Along the way, I took a handful of photographs, mostly of places that I felt were still relevant and had a story to tell. They were part of the journey and I felt the need to reconnect with those times.

Here are a few notable landmarks from forty years ago:

Rutherford Comprehensive School Pictured above is the entrance to the West Road block, which was the Senior School in my day. The Junior School was slightly further north, on Grange Road and the sites were interlinked by a tunnel known as the Covered Way, essentially a concrete path wrapped by a fibre glass shell that ran for about three quarters of a mile. Running down the covered way was strictly forebidden but moving from one site to the other in just five minutes without running was nearly impossible. You were either late (which meant an imposition i.e. detention) or you adopted a weird kind of rolling walk not entirely dissimilar to that employed by marathon walkers. It was as comical as it sounds.

Overall, I spent seven years at Rutherford. The first two years were spent in the Junior School. The next five years were spent in the Senior School. Generally speaking, I enjoyed my first five years at Rutherford. My second year wasn't much fun but, once I'd knuckled down and committed to the work, my experiences were mostly positive. With only one or two exceptions (bastard Tonks comes to mind), my teachers were excellent and the facilities, whilst a little run down, were also good.

I last visited the West Road block in 2008 as part of a school reunion. This was not an occasion I remember with any degree of fondness. The majority of my former associates hadn’t really changed all that much in thirty years and, career-wise, they seemed happy to have followed the path carved out for them by their parents. That sounds cruel, and it is, but it’s how I felt at the time and how I feel today. Only a few of my peers stood out. Ian H* was one. Ian was no longer the shy, reserved introvert I knew in the 70’s. He seemed alive with ideas and potential and, if memory serves, he'd made a career for himself as a musician in Germany. He also implied that his lifestyle was somewhat Bohemian but declined to comment further. I may have grabbed the wrong end of the stick on that score so I apologise if my recollections are a little less than precise. A shame he never stayed in touch.

The Sixth Form Block where I spent much of my time between 1979 and 1980 is now a Police Station, which doesn't seem at all ironic. I was never happy here and this collection of small, scruffy rooms now represents little more than a series of poor life decisions wrapped up in a threadbare dog's blanket of bad memories. Hindsight is a cruel mistress but, Dear God Almighty, I dearly wish I’d moved on to a proper sixth form college as soon as I’d finished my O Levels. I really do. I knew I needed a change of scenery, a chance to explore and take risks, and an opportunity to develop a wider social network. More than anything, I wanted to mix with people of my own mental age and that was never going to happen at Rutherford. I have no idea why I chose to stay on for another two years. Maybe the world it offered was familiar, safe and easy. The decision to stick around still haunts me to this day. It was time wasted, frankly.

The Upper School Dining Room is linked to happier memories. Once you sat down to eat, you were, by and large, free of the petty tyrannies and trivialities of everyday school life. I'm fairly certain that those doors opened on to the lawns in front of the main Assembly Hall because I spent many a happy lunch time lying on the grass outside the dining room, staring up at the sky and dreaming of a better tomorrow.

On with the journey.

I didn't want to hang around that place. I didn't belong and I felt like I was trespassing anyway so I quickly left the dull red brick outline of Rutherford in my wake and continued east, towards the City Centre. I doubt I'll ever return. Most of the buildings and people I both knew and liked are gone. The swimming pool, the metalwork and woodwork shops, the gym. They've all been flattened. The Junior School is now a housing estate. I'd loved to have explored the science block one more time. That would have been fun. I can't imagine that Charlie Moss, the Head of Physics, is still alive. David Waugh and Brian Garbutt were brilliant teachers, and I've been told that my Chemistry teacher, Grace Gilroy, is still kicking around. And what about that redoubtable lab technician, Mrs. Moore. I had such a crush on her. I would loved to have spoken to my English teacher, Maxine Birkmire, too. She encouraged my early writing, gave my confidence a bump, and that led to a career as a writer. I think she'd be pleased.

Happy times...

Further down the West Road, I came to the shop that used to be Blaney Wines. This was my father’s off-license of choice although I only recognised the facade thanks to its slightly recessed door frame. Not a place I remember with any fondness, mostly to do with my father’s drinking which was, by then, pretty much out of control. My brother and I were required to ride shotgun on these trips, which happened two, maybe three times a week. At least they stopped my mother complaining that Dad never took us anywhere.

I marvel at how my father's body managed to adapt over those years. It really is a testament to how well biology can cope with extremes. Dad's nightly consumption was four cans of Carlsberg Special Brew and half a bottle of Whiskey. If that wasn't enough, he'd put away roughly forty cigarettes a day and at least two Mogadon anti-depressants first thing in the morning. He'd round those off with a Valium or Tamazopan in the middle of the day, just to take the edge of the inevitable downer that was lurking just left of centre. Little wonder his heart gave out at the age of just sixty five. That's no age these days.

As an aside, I know that certain members of my family are unhappy that I've talked about my father's self-destructive behaviour. They firmly believe that such issues should remain buried in the past, that this time in our lives is best forgotten. Perhaps they feel that his failings reflect badly upon them. They do not. Never have. Never will. We survived. He did not. More so, and without wanting to sound like a total dick, I'm a father now and that job comes with responsibilities. You have to be the responsible adult, all day, every day. You have to provide help and support but also a firm hand on the tiller. That my father didn't is on him. He was irresponsible and I have absoloutely no intention of letting my father off the hook for what he did. Fifty years on and I am still in no mood to forgive his excesses. Dad knew what he was doing at the time and yet he carried on regardless, even though he knew there would be consequences. I changed my surname for a reason. Now you know why.

I was also in Blaney Wines one cold and miserable Saturday night when I spotted a girl I was sweet on, Tracy B*, walking down the West Road arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand, with Wayne Savage, one of the school’s Oxbridge candidates. I'd already asked Tracy out because I thought I stood a chance although, sadly I was rebuffed. Now I knew why. Half a century on and I remain mystified as to her choice. Tracy was bright. She had potential. She had a future. Wayne wasn't an Oxbridge candidate. Wayne was a knuckle-dragging moron who had just about mastered coloured pencils. Maybe he had a big knob? I don't know.

Do I sound bitter? I do, don’t I? And I am. I was fifteen and I had my entire life with Tracy B* plotted out in meticulous detail. Thursday, out with the Lads. Friday, out with Tracy and our friends. Saturday night, at home, watching The Generation Game and Starsky and Hutch with maybe a Bird's Eye Boil-in-the-Bag Chicken Curry as a special treat, and all with the doe-eyed Tracy at my side. Hey,this was the 70’s. This is what we thought class looked like.

I often wonder how Tracy faired in life. I do hope she managed better than Wayne. I also wonder if Wayne still drools when he hears the doorbell ring.

The Plaza Bingo Hall I never went into this den of thieves but, for as long as I can remember, the building was synonymous with evil sculduggery. There was always something going on - drunken fist fights, attempted break-ins, tales of drug deals gone wrong, stories of youths running across the roof tops in an effort to evade Her Majesty's Finest. The school declared that the Bingo Hall was strictly off-limits and pupils were advised to avoid the building at all costs, which, of course, made it a magnet for the curious and the criminal, the lost and the found. And yet, when you look down the comments on various Facebook pages, there are dozens of people who remember the Plaza Bingo Hall with considerable affection. It was the place of first dates, last dates, weddings, christenings and so on. Alas, it's just another derelict shell now, one of many in this part of the world. That's a common theme on this stretch of road. Dereliction. Abandonment. It's as if the residents have just given up on the place. Sad, but true.

Gulf Petrol Station Ninteen eighty eight or thereabouts, I stopped at this petrol station on the way home from work one afternoon. Once I'd filled the tank, I went to the kiosk to pay. The guy standing behind me in the queue looked sweaty and a bit nervous. He plainly had something on his mind. I paid up (cash!), turned to leave and came face-to-face with a handgun. Make? Model? I have no idea except that it was black and looked real. A fake? I wasn't going to take a chance. The checkout operator sensed that all was not well so I got out of there as soon as I could. Back at the car, I heard an alarm and saw the same man running off. The Cops were there in seconds. Maybe they'd been watching the place. Maybe they'd had a tip-off. An arrest was made though I saw none of that because I was half a mile away. I have a strong aversion to getting shot. Later, I read that the gun had been a fake and the man had been a fifteen year old boy. He got a short, custodial sentence in a Young Offender's Centre. He probably works for the City Council these days.

National Auto Care Legally, I really shouldn't comment on what took place within this establishment thirty odd years ago but it involved the exhaust on my friend's car, a screwdriver and a gentleman who may have worked here although he may have just walked in off the street. Anyway, this gentleman shoved the screwdriver into the vehicle's back box and, pop, the car needed a new exhaust even though they'd only just fitted a new exhaust a couple of months prior. The Management seemed to think this was an acceptable practice. I never went back.

The Old Police Station was occasionally referred to within the corridors of Rutherford School as Dad's Hotel. I was sad to see this building reduced to such a state. It’s a product of mid-sixties Brutalist architecture and barely sixty years old. However, it’s reached the end of its natural life and will be a pile of dust by the time I upload this missive. My father visited the station on a few occasions towards the end of nineteen seventy eight. He said little of what transpired within but did leave for London shortly afterwards. Make of that what you will.

The Prince of Wales Public House aka The Prince of Wally’s was never a regular haunt back in the 80's. It was a pub, much like any other. In other words, it was dark and sweaty, and stank of stale smoke and stale beer. However, one visit certainly sticks out in my mind forty years later.

The year was nineteen eighty four and the talk was of the inevitability of the Miner’s Strike, of the social unrest that would surely follow and the probability that we’d all be vaporised in a matter of weeks by a Russian Cruise missile. This period was not a happy time for anyone except for those with the money, the status and the social clout to afford their own underground bunker.

Anyway, Julie and I had arranged to meet a few friends inside the Prince and entered via the usual front door. Suddenly, we were surrounded on all sides by an intense, electric blue aura and an overpowering wall of cologne. I wondered if we’d walked into an advert for a washing powder because every single person within - male, female and anyone in between - was wearing a white Frankie Goes to Hollywood Relax t-shirt, the fashion item of choice for that week. The single Relax, was riding high in the charts at that time, despite a ban from the BBC over the acts depicted in its lyrics.

Worse still, every single one of those identikit showroom dummies turned and stared in our direction, like a scene lifted straight from the pages of John Wyndham’s 1957 science fiction classic, The Midwich Cuckoos. Julie and I were now strangers in a very strange land. We wore biker jackets and denim, and were plainly outsiders. We had no place there. We were not of their clan and had to be spurned, driven off, cast adrift. Well, we would have been if the assembled fashionistas could have been bothered to step away from their Bacardi and Cokes.

You didn’t need a University degree to figure out that we really were in the wrong place. We retreated and quickly found the upstairs room and our friends, Steve, Phil and Liz, and possibly Hellen too, and then we collectively high-tailed it out of that hideous place before the smell of Old Spice and Hi-Karate left us overpowered and incapacitated on the pavement outside.

The Nurse’s Home This building was regarded by many in my year as an impenetrable fortress built on decades of desire, lust and longing. Therein resided the forbidden fruit, namely student nurses in training at the City’s General Hospital, which was just over the road. The gates were guarded, night and day, by a seven headed dragon and hounds with names like Spike and Cerberus. Few of my peers ever breached its walls. Fewer still found succour within.

That said, I very nearly did gain access to this Hallowed ground one night in 1980.

I met a trainee nurse called Samantha in The Fox and Hounds pub one dark and chilly November night and I thought she was amazing. She had a rich, feisty personality and the kind of aura that only comes from emptying one too many bed pans in a single shift. In an instant, I knew that I’d found a kindred spirit, a fellow traveller and I wanted to spend my life with her. She seemed like the perfect woman or as perfect as an eighteen year old with uncontrolled hormones can imagine. I offered to walk her home. She accepted my offer and I cherish the memory of that walk like no other. If only I could remember what we talked about. It's a massive black hole in my memory.

However, (and you knew there would be a however, didn’t you?) I sensed that there was something wrong lurking beneath the surface veneer. All was not as it seemed and, indeed, the mask slipped as soon as the Nursing Home was in sight. What happened? She commented that I was surprisingly mature for an eighteen year old.

Huh? Say what? That, my friends, was a hideous bare-faced (and rather obvious) lie.

I was a prat. A silly little, immature prat. I knew it. She knew it. Everyone knew it. That’s when the red light went on. She just needed someone to walk her home. There was no night of passion ahead of me. There was no cheeky kiss or a quick naughty behind the bus stop. I was convenient. Nothing more.

We arrived at the front gates a few minutes later and... I came face-to-face with Sam's Matron, who was the size of a Bull Elephant. Think Hattie Jacques from the Carry On films and you’re sort of half way there. She looked at me and I looked at her, and I knew, in an instant, that only an All-In Wrestler would get past that obstacle. Samantha waved bye-bye from the doorstep, and we never saw each other again, or if she saw me first, she ran a mile.

As you can gather from the above photo, this was yet another abandoned and forgotten shell awaiting demolition. A crying shame, frankly. It really is.

Club Maris I was, for a time, loosely associated with the School’s Army Cadet Force, a spell that lasted all of three weeks until the home work started to mount up and I couldn’t juggle the demands and expectations of the competing parties. Walking home was an adventure. The school gates on Acanthus Avenue / Hadrian Road were locked so I had to use the West Road entrance, which meant a longer walk through unfamiliar territory. We called it Bandit Country for good reason. That said, I made good time despite the weight of books about my head and neck, the schoolboy’s equivalent of Jacob Marley’s chains. In time, I reached the top of Brighton Grove next to the General Hospital and that’s when I passed Club Maris.

Now, even then, Club Maris had a reputation as den of iniquity and sin. Sodom and Gomorra had their own postcode and a licence to sell alcohol from Newcastle City Council. Lord knows what went on behind those doors. A young and impressionable schoolboy like myself didn’t pause to think.

As I passed the club, I noticed a rather spritely gentleman emerging from within. He seemed happy. He seemed joyous. He seemed drunk. He was also my art teacher.

Now, this guy was a decent bloke and a good teacher. He seemed to understand that, even then, I had a slightly weird take on art and music. I liked him so I smiled as we passed but neither of us said anything about that brief encounter. He was a good man and trashing his reputation just for schoolboy shits 'n' giggles would have been hideously uncool.

I wonder where he is these days? He's got to be pushing eighty years old by now.

The Old Bowling Alley I visited this place on a couple of occasions and hated every single moment. It was a loud and angry building, and every time I walked through the front doors I bumped into one of my ex-girlfriends. Bad karma throughout. That said, I was sad when the Bowling Alley closed a few years ago and its current state of disrepair left me in dispair. That building deserved better. The people of Newcastle deserve better.

The location of Aladdin's Cave has bugged me for years and I was pleased to discover it was still there and not just some imaginary hell hole conjured up by my ageing brain.

I found the Cave one Saturday morning in the early eighties opposite Todd's Nook Primary School although I have no idea what I was doing in that part of the town at that time. The only memory I have is of walking past a dodgy-looking second hand shop fronted by a dodgier-looking bloke with a cigarette in his mouth, who was surrounded on all sides by refurbished washing machines and various other household goods. He smiled and beckoned me forth with a gentle nod. Intrigued, I walked down those steps and...

The first thing that hit you was the smell, a delicate and somewhat heady melange of damp and cat piss. The second issue was the lighting, which consisted of just a single 40-watt bulb suspended from a freyed cable set in a badly cracked and water-damaged ceiling.

I have no doubt whatsoever that most of the items piled up left and right, top to bottom, had arrived here by questionable means. In one corner sat a state-of-the-art Bang and Olufson TV set. In another, a small collection of shotguns. A couple of top-of-the-range Hi-Fi units sat on the floor though they looked pretty smashed up.

And then, in the far corner and barely visible in the unremitting gloom, was... a Minimoog. Say what? Yeah, a MiniMoog. I did a double take and immediately went to check the price.

"Hundred quid," said the Custodian with the cigarette. "Works an' all," he added. "Belonged that bloke off the telly...".

That's a pretty vague providence but, all the same, one hundred quid for a MiniMoog? That's a bargain! Remember, this was the early eighties and nobody wanted the old analogue synths any more. Hence the low, low price.

Trouble was, I didn't have one hundred quid on me but I did have a Post Office account so I skipped off home, grabbed my Pass Book and took a walk down to the Post Office. Alas, by then, it was Saturday afternoon and The Post Office was shut until Monday morning. Long story short - by the time I managed to scrape the money together and return to the Cave, the Minimoog had long gone, as had the guy with the cigarette.

Today, Aladdin's Cave is another ghost. The building is now a Taxi Rank and those steps down to the basement area seemed to have been adopted as a makeshift toilet judging by the smell. Somethings never change, do they?

I do wonder where that Minimoog went, though. That is a puzzle.

And so...

I've re-written and edited the above a dozen times and it still leaves a thoroughly rotten taste in the mouth. The whole entry feels incredibly negative. I went back and added the paragraph on Aladdin's Cave just to restore a bit of balance. Are there any more positives to uncover?

I have to admit that even after a couple of days away from this piece and some more fairly judicious editing with the famous big red pen, I'm not sure I want to publish this missive. Maybe that's why I should? That's why I did.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I drove home in a very dark state of mind. I knew the West End was run down because it's been that way for decades and, indeed, I can't remember a time when it wasn't just another slum-in-waiting. The mass exodus of the local population began in the late 60's when the streets running down into Elswick, Paradise and beyond were cleared ahead of T. Dan Smith's promised redevelopment although that was yet another scheme that never came to fruition. Any houses still left standing were soon handed over to a transient population of students and, not so long ago, many of these houses were put on sale for just fifty pence. Yeah, you read that right. Just fifty pence, sold off in the hope that any new arrivals might kick start a new economy in the area. It didn't quite work.

I think what surprised me more than anything was that I hadn't realised exactly how run down this part of Newcastle had become. It really is quite appalling and you have to ask how people can live like this.

Okay, let's see if we can change the balance of this entry. Are there are any nice places left in that neck of the woods? I only visited the High Street. I'd love to know if the streets and roads beyond the surface are better, or worse. Drop me a line if you know different. I'm happy to be proved wrong.