‘Tommy’ is a modern memorial but he’s much beloved, especially by the people of Seaham where he sits wearily, and somehow says it all about war.
Remembrance Sunday, Tommy at Seaham, County Durham
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Tag Archives: County Durham
Hannah The Complete Story by Hannah Hauxwell and Barry Cockcroft – 20 Books of Summer 2023
Hannah Hauxwell was a bit of an unexpected celebrity in 1973 when her lifestyle was filmed by the BBC’s Yorkshire television. I think it was part of a series called A Hard Life about people who weren’t living a sort of ‘normal’ life. This book tells how it all came about. To begin with Hannah was only 46 but she seemed much older as her life was like something from another century. She was the last person standing in a family which had lived in the Baldersdale area of County Durham for several generations. Nothing had changed in all that time, apart from Hannah being left to do all the farm work on her own. There was no running water in the farmhouse and no electricity. There was a small stream about forty yards from the house and often the ice had to be broken on it with a pick axe. There was no road to the farm and Hannah was so desperately poor that she couldn’t even afford the luxury of a dog for company as she could hardly afford to feed herself. She was dressed in rags. Baldersdale is in north east England, County Durham and it was settled by Vikings which is how the area got its name, Balder was Odin’s son in Norse myths.
Despite all that she radiated contentment, she wouldn’t contemplate leaving her harsh life. Hannah understood what was important in her life and it was the land, her ‘beasts’ which were mainly cows, and her love of music and books. Although she was shy she was very talkative whenever she did get into company, making up for all that time when she had nobody to speak to. Her cheerful and stoical personality shone out on TV apparently – and the viewers adored her.
This was a good read, I had heard of Hannah before reading the book, but I hadn’t realised that her farm was near where we have been visiting friends in the north of England. I didn’t see the TV documentaries, I don’t think I would have been that interested in watching them when I was 13 or 14, after all she wasn’t T.Rex or Bowie, but I did see her being interviewed on Wogan, she seems to have taken the country by storm, and her personality captivated viewers all over the world, and they sent her gifts and cards which filled up her home. Life was a bit more comfortable with the money that she got for making the documentary. At least she wasn’t in danger of starving to death! She was even invited to royal garden parties and was voted Woman of the Year.
Hannah reminisces about all the neighbours who used to live in the dale, back in the days when it was quite well populated. It was a hand to mouth existence for most of them, but if anybody had a bit of spare food they shared it around with the neighbours. The narrative switches to Barry Cockroft from time to time as he explains the background of how he came to make the documentaries and people’s reactions to Hannah.
She eventually realised that she couldn’t continue that way of life forever. She couldn’t stand another freezing cold winter and she did sell her farm and moved to a cottage in a nearby village. This is an entertaining and informative read, full of social history, there are a lot of photos of the neighbours over the years, and it’s funny in parts. Hannah was a character.
Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham, England
At the second time of trying we actually managed to get into Barnard Castle, during our first visit to the town they were only allowing pre-booked visits for some Covid reason, I think that was taking things a wee bit far given that the entire place is outdoors – and it’s very easy to socially distance. You can see the photos we took of the castle from the outside here. The whole town became sort of notorious during the first pandemic lockdown as Dominic Cummings got himself into a real pickle over his illegal visit there – to test his eyesight.
Anyway, here are some of the photos I managed to take when we were there again in September. The oldest parts of the castle date back to 1093.
It’s mainly a ruin but there are some massive walls still standing.
You can see that the town has been built around the castle, it’s very much in the centre of the town which has the same name as the castle.
I obviously didn’t take the photo below as that’s me down there!
I did take the photo of the bridge below though. I love old bridges, despite this one being old it is very well used and I had to wait a while before I could get one of it with no cars on it.
If you click on the photo below you will be able to read the information on the board. I’m glad we were able to get into the castle at last – and just about had the entire place to ourselves. I think there was one other visitor there. It felt very safe anyway.
Wolsingham and Stanhope, Weardale, County Durham, England
We’ve done hardly any travelling around since Covid so I haven’t been doing much blogging about what I regard anyway as interesting places, and even when we did travel in May – to the County Durham area – I only blogged about one place. So here are a few photos of Wolsingham.
These north of England villages are just as scenic as the Cotswold villages, but I suppose their location counts against them as it’s not a handy journey from London and the south – as the Cotswolds area is. I can’t resist an old church though despite not being at all religious. Below is St Mary’s and St Stephen’s Church.
I think it’s the burial grounds around old churches that I’m really attracted by, strange I know. But some of the gravestones can be fascinating.
The church dates back to the 12th century but like so many it was rebuilt in Victorian times, the 1840s for this one. It still looks quite ancient to me though.
There’s a war memorial of course – there always is, sometimes they’re in the middle of nowhere, or so it seems.
You can read about the pretty wee town of Wolsingham here if you’re interested.
The next town along, Stanhope, has a similar church also with an interesting graveyard. This is St Thomas’s.
As you can see there was a lovely cherry tree blooming nearby.
You can read about Stanhope here.
Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham, England
It’s a couple of weeks since we were down in County Durham for a few days, one of the places we visited was the town Barnard Castle but we didn’t manage to get into the actual castle because strangely English Heritage had a strict booking policy so despite the fact that we are members of Historic Scotland and would have got free entry – we didn’t manage to get in at all. It’s particularly weird as there were hardly any other visitors and as the castle itself is a ruin it’s all in the open air – hopefully we’ll get in there one day. At least we got some photos and had a walk by the river and around the town.
The castle looms high above the town as you would expect. Of course it has been in the news recently as the place that Dominic Cummings visited to ‘test his eyesight’ when the rest of us were adhering to a strict lockdown and staying very local!
The castle was founded in the 12th century and is in a lovely position high above the River Tees as you can see below. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen the Tees, I love rivers and this one is very scenic in this area anyway and looks unpolluted as far as the naked eye is concerned.
You get a good view of the river when standing on the old stone bridge – as you can see.
The town itself is a nice place to visit with interesting looking independent shops – if you’re that way inclined. I only bought a book (surprise surprise) which I got from the Oxfam charity shop.
Beamish Folk Museum, County Durham, England
We are members of lots of arty and historical organisations such as the National Trust, Scottish Heritage, Friends of the Edinburgh Galleries and such AND we got annual passes to Beamish folk museum when we visited there last year, it’s situated near Stanley in County Durham. We were sure we would go back as we had such a good time there but we didn’t manage to get there as planned at Christmas and after the winter it didn’t open because of the Covid-19 situation of course. Anyway it turns out that I didn’t blog about it although I could have sworn that I did. Here are some of the photos I took. In the beginning Beamish was just farmland, you can read about the history of the place here. The buildings have all been moved to the site brick by brick and stone by stone to be saved for posterity rather than being demolished.
There are all sorts of buildings there, below is Pockersley Hall which has a lovely chocolate box garden.
A teeny wee thatched cottage, this photo was taken from an ancient steam train as we were riding on it.
And this is the train we were on, I remember seeing illustrations of a train like this one when I was ‘doing’ the Industrial Revolution at school, I never thought I’d actually have a trip on one!
You can go inside all the buildings, a few of them I would quite happily have lived in.
Volunteers are on hand, living the life, rolling out pastry or whatever and answering questions.
Actually it all seemed very homely to me as most of the ‘stuff’ was very similar to the furniture that we had had to get rid of when we downsized to a more modern and manageable house – all of six years ago now. I looked at a Victorian bed chest and could have sworn it had been ours! And the gate below is exactly the same as the back gate of the 1930s house that I grew up in, except ours was in better condition and painted rural green.
Do you remember those halcyon days when we didn’t have to worry about crowds and social distancing? Below is the queue for the working bakery at Beamish but we didn’t bother to join the queue, it looked like they might run out of stuff to sell anyway! I was really taking the photo of the lovely Edwardian?Victorian window. There’s also an old sweetie shop selling authentic sweets, we DID queue up for that one. Indian Limes anyone? They were delicious.
We hope we’ll be able to visit again – sometime.
