Back to the Tyne and Wear Page

TYNE AND WEAR DID YOU KNOW?

The Royal Connection

I will admit that I am slightly stretching the "royal" connection here. The Romans didn't have Kings or Queens, they had Emperors. One such Emperors was a man called Hadrian who became Emperor in 117AD. Five years later he visited Britannia as Britain was called. There had been a few minor rebellions and also the Picts who lived in what is now Scotland kept coming down and raiding Roman Britain.

Hadrian decided to build a wall right across the top of England. Logically this became known as Hadrian's Wall. It ran from the banks of the River Tyne, near the North Sea, to the Solway Firth on the Irish Sea. It was 117.5 kms (73 miles) long and between 3 and 6 metres (10 and 20 foot) high. There was a milecastle (a small fort) every mile (logical that) and a larger fort every five miles or so.

At the eastern end of the wall, the Romans built a fort known as Segedunum. It was built in 127AD and was a bit of an afterthought. Originally the wall ended at Pons Aelius about 4 miles west and now in the centre of Newcastle. Pons Aelius means the Aelian Bridge and Hadrian's family name was Aelian, which explains that. You can see all that is left of the fort in the picture and it is in a town called Wallsend and I don't need to tell you how it got its name.

A large part of the wall is still there and there is a path, called Hadrian's Wall Path, which you can follow. The wall is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although it was built to separate Roman Britain from Scotland it is not the border we know today. In the west it is just one kilometre from the current border, at Wallsend it is 109 kilometres south of the present border.

Back to the top

Tyne and Wear Eats

Bacon Floddies are a traditional breakfast in North East England, especially in Gateshead. They are simple to make, cheap to make but fill you up for the whole day. In simple terms a floddie is a type of potato cake made from grated, not mashed, potatoes. The North East was part of the Industrial Revolution and men would be working in the mines, in the docks and shipyards or building canals. A filling breakfast was vital for a hard days work. These floddies were also popular during the second world war when rationing limited the variety of food you could buy.

Potato floddies would not contain bacon and could have jam spread on them for a sweet dish or mixed herbs to make a savoury one. Sometimes they were called canal floodies as the navvies working the canals would make them and cook them on their shovels over an open fire.

Back to the top

Tyne and Wear VIPs

Seven random people who were born in Tyne and Wear in the last 100 years:-
Me (William Richard Rowland - 17 July 1949 - 8.10am - Newcastle General Hospital, Westgate Road - Delivered by Mr Snaith assisted by Sister Hughes - Address at time of birth 70 St George's Terrace, Jesmond - Cost of Birth just over 21 pounds - mother kept a note of everything), less significant, Ant McParlin (TV Entertainer), Declan Donnelly TV Entertainer), Donna Air (Actress and TV Presenter, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner better known as Sting (Musician and Activist), Sarah Millican (Comedian) and Jordan Henderson (Footballer).

Back to the top

Richard Remembers

It is a very strange feeling to go back to the place you were born, a place you feel you should have some sort of tie to, but know that you left when you were six weeks old and have never been back. That was my position when I did my first coastal trip in 1985. Thirty Six years had passed since I left. It was my birthplace but I knew nothing about it.

Actually that's not quite true because before I set off I had spoken to my mother (she who notes everything) and she had told me she used to take me for a walk in my pram (I was in the pram, she was walking) in a place called Jesmond Dene Park. I had to find if it was still there and it was and amazingly beautiful almost in the middle of what was at that time a rather sad city. The 1980s were not a good time and I saw many buildings boarded up.

On my second visit things were no better in the area. On that trip I tried to visit a school that was following my journey each week and I went to one in South Shields. Before I went in to talk to the kids the teacher took me to one side and said she wanted to explain something to me. In her class of 36, only 5 had ever left South Shields. It was a year 6 class. She told me they were what was known as Latchkey kids. In other words they would go home from school and it was unlikely a parent would be there as both had to work to survive. I have to admit I was shocked, I'd led a sheltered life. I wondered what to expect. However she also told me that the kids were loving getting the newsletters each week and seeing different parts of England.

When I went to talk to them the kids were brilliant and, after I'd finished, asked lots of questions. It was obvious life was different here and one question I will always remember was when a young boy asked me why beaches in other parts of England didn't have black dust covering them. This dust came from the coal mines around the area. I hope it's not there any more.

Something else I remember that isn't there any more is Marsden Rock. It was exactly like the photo when I was there in both 1985 and 1994. But in 1996 the arch collapsed and a year later the little stack was deemed unsafe and demolished.

Just to finish the education part of this story. On that second trip I ran a poetry competition for all schools who followed me. The South Shields school sent in entries. The teacher's letter that accompanied the poems told me to look out for one from two boys who she was sure never listened in her lessons. Now she knew they did. She had been reading some poems by a man called A A Milne, he who wrote Winnie the Pooh. One poem was all about getting sand between the toes and these two boys' poem went as follows:
Sand between the fingers,
Sand between the toes
Sand gets everywhere
But that's the way it goes.
Nothing much but my journey had inspired them to write as well as letting other latchkey kids see what the rest of the world, or at least their country, was like. Sometimes this is the best and most satisfying job in the world.

Back to the top

Owlbut's Birdwatch

This is the blackbird. All blackbirds are obviously black. Wrong. Female blackbirds are brown while young blackbirds also have some orange and cream in their feathers. Male blackbirds still have some brown and white in their feathers. They all have brown legs and a medium length beak which is black, brown, orange and yellow. They can be seen almost everywhere in towns and the country and woodlands, grasslands and farmland. There are over 5 millions breeding pairs in the UK and, during winter, there could be as many as 15 million birds here. Difficult to miss I would guess.

They are about 25 cms in length, have a wingspan of 34 to 38 cms and can weigh between 80 and 100 grams. They eat insects and worms but also berries and fruit. I think it's certain that you will have seen one. If not, look out your window.

Back to the top

Two extra sections, "It Happened Here" and "Now That's Weird", will appear on 14 July 2025