Kenton Bar Estate - A Blast from the Past

Good day...in response to noble Shades's request I now present magnificent 3;traffic lights... Now as shades has already said, stealing my thunder somewhat, there were no traffic lights on Kenton Bar Estate initially...but now there are some at the top at the junction between Hazeldene Ave & Kenton Lane...anyone remember when they were introduced?...why? ...volume of traffic increasing over the years no doubt, causing problems for drivers during rush hour trying to get out onto Kenton Lane, trying to get off to rabbit(work) ... I found this bit of info somewhere however: ' The Kenton Bar roundabout is an extremely busy road junction and at present operates over its capacity. Queues in the morning peak period are often more than 25 cars in length along the south bound section of Ponteland Road heading toward Kenton Bar roundabout and that this approach to the roundabout is the main traffic problem. The surveys found that the primary cause of congestion which results in the

Now then, in response to anonymous's request I now give you magnificent 6;Les the ox...now I do have a photo of Les, but unless I get his permission I will not up it...anyway, Les was called Les the ox because he resembled one...he had a big bolshy neck and very gromky golass(voice) which was just like some bolshy great bull bellowing auuuuuuuh... anyway, Les had a secret...I found out what it was...he swore me to secrecy but I will tell you oh my brothers...his mam was...from Sunderland...this means Les was 1/2 mackum(Sorry Les, but the truth must be told)...but this is beside the point, my recollection of Les is all to do with those beautiful crisp snowy winters we used to have back in those days...now Les was a heavy smoker, but because of his oxism, he was as stong as an ox and could run for miles without ever tiring...so what he loved to do, all of a sudden when we were walking about aimlessly in a big herd in the dead of the snowy winter notchy was to quickly make a snowball

We had a relief teacher for a few weeks called Mr McGee. We all thought he was great. He looked like a young Sir Alan Sugar. He used to take us out for sports every day come rain or shine onto the field to play football, throw quoits, kick bean bags,  run about and generally have fun instead of being cooped up in class……. A famous quote from Sir Alan "You, you pompous backstabbing excuse for a human. Your faaaaaacking fired. I would not hire an arse-licker like you if I was getting paid to do so. You should learn to lead your team not personally attack them. You spineless twat. Geeeeet aaaaooout!" Factoid about Mr. McGee:- The reason he took us out onto the field for sports each day was………….. so that he could smoke. After a while we all noticed that as he ran about it was not a teachers whistle he had cupped in his hand but a surreptitious fag. Kenton Bar Pyramid Appreciation Society

Just amazing how much the new royal bride has in common with all those Newbiggin Hall Girls  

Dear GOM I thought you might appreciate this picture from Google Earth showing the cube flats before the council shat on them with that insipid cat turd colour. I do believe that this is the same block you took a picture of in your post HERE judging by the aerial on the roof Why can’t people just leave a good thing alone……………

In response to anonymous's request I now give you magnificent post 6...now the mannerless milkman was not Dave the milkman whom the master has eluded to elsewhere on the blog...oh no, this milkman came either before Dave( who was a gentleman ) or after I remember not...but what I do remember was that he was no gentleman and indeed in my opinion was a mannerless swine...he was about 50 or 60,some old age like that, starry and looked slightly like Fred Elliot off Coronation Street... Anyway he would knock on the doors of the houses be it bungalow,electric,4 bedroom or split level and then immediatly open the door without so much as a by your leave, if he could( most front doors were left open in those days of long ago oh my brothers ), and bawl in a Fred Elliot like voice'MILKMAN!!!'...next he would wait with his horrible head sticking round the door like George off Rainbow( yes Geoffrey ) for no more than about 3 bloody seconds and, if he did not elicit an immediate reply t

The master in his infinite wisdom has updated the reactions boxes under each post based on current Kenton Bar colloquial nadsat speak... Hopefully this will encourage some response from lurkers. For your information 'mintage' means good, 'pure lethal'(pronounced pure lefal') means brilliant/ awesome and the last one is obvious... but they use the word ''lame'... so please change it dear master ...

In response to anonymous I now give you magnificent 2...now the fish man or should I say fish men(there were 2 of them) suddenly came to mein notice after I had left the estate and was visiting M&P...suddenly there was a knock on the door...I answered it...a fisherman type stood there and said"fresh fish?"with an Ashington type accent... mumsy quickly came and bought some fish off the fisherman..as there was no fishmonger on the estate someone had spotted a gap in the market and they used to come round the estate every friday(the traditional day to eat fish) hawking their produce from a small white van not unlike this one...they sold basic types like cod, haddock and kippers...maybe they sold caviar to the posh types up the top end, and bones unt fish heads for making soup(bouillabaisse) to the ruffians and bounders down the bottom...this I know not, but maybe you remember more dear reader?...anyway, now the von of fish could be vonned on the estate, but only on Friday...

Mr. Brownlaw was my teacher for 2 years in Kenton Bar Primary School. He was a piano playing genius who I am sure modelled his hairstyle on Ludwig Van Beethoven – see picture to the right of Mr. Brownlaw. I particularly remember him as a firm but fair teacher who I actually liked a lot even though he belted me across the backside with a sandshoe one time – but even this was a funny tail which I shall now recount…… oh dear readers for your delectation. We were supposed to be doing something in the class, painting an egg or something and I was messing about and chatting loudly with someone. I did something naughty with the paint and someone grassed me up to Mr. Brownlaw….. who was so furious for some reason (probably because what I was doing was dangerous – I cannot remember exactly what but I DO remember what happened next….) that I was given 6 of the best with a sandshoe (plimsole – see picture to the left) across the buttocks. The “grasser” was sniggering in the background at my pai

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/k/kenton_bar/ Take a look at this site dudes – some interesting history right on our doorsteps! Site Name: Kenton Bar - 13 Group Fighter Command Headquarters and Region 1 Regional War Room Kenton Lane Kenton Bar Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Northumberland OS Grid Ref: NZ216674 Sub Brit site visit 1st December 2004 [Source: Nick Catford ] During the expansion of the RAF during the late 1930s, the command structure of the air defences of Britain was reviewed. New developments in radar technology and the capabilities of the new Spitfire and Hurricane fighter aircraft, together with the changing nature of the threat posed by the modern bomber aircraft used by the Luftwaffe meant that a comprehensive reorganisation was required. In a command network known as the Dowding System, Fighter Command was divided into four operational Groups, under the control of a central Headquarters at Bentley Priory. Each Group had its own geographical area of responsibility: 10 G

Miss Holmes was the spitting double of TV celebrity Esther Rantzen. I don’t have any great memories about Miss Holmes herself except that she was a capable and kind teacher. What I do remember though is the magnet drawer in her classroom……………hee hee. One kid who shall remain nameless was messing with me during Miss Holmes reading of a story. He kept kicking me and shoving me with his horrible left foot, shod in a nice black brogue shoe….. “How can I use the magnet drawer to punish the bastard?” I thought to myself. I opened the magnet drawer and extracted two long pins – just regular sewing type pins and proceeded to jam them down one of the holes in the toe of his left hand black shiny brogue shoe. He kicked no longer oh brothers – nay he wept from then onwards…… Factoids about Miss Holmes: There was in fact only one set of teeth like Esther Rantzen’s existing in the world at that time. This meant that Miss Holmes and Esther had to time share the teeth. This is THE reason why Esther

As Bosno has replied I will up magnificent post 1... I have often wondered why North Kentoners often lurked round our beloved Kenton Bar Estate and in particular the shops and the eighth wonder of the world...after all did'st not they have their own shops ( with the space mural which looked very similar to this horrible mess on the Berlin Wall ) to viddy and admire and lurk at in the twilight hours and full darkmans?...more, they even had an adventure park right next to it I seem to recall to play in, where as this was not so at Kenton Bar Shops nor was it necessary with pyramid, ramp, comcrete walls, little metal bit, blue tiled bit, step pyramid and boulders providing hours of fun...but the fact remains that hords of these fell creatures all with nicknames ending in 'y' or'az' chose to lurk on our beloved estate, no doubt also clambered up the vertices of the pyry, defiling her beauty with their own filthy tar covered sabogs...( Incidently the space mural is no mo

seven new posts await, conjured up by the feverish brain of GOM who lives only to serve the master's blog... Kenton Lurkers The fish man traffic lights skateboarding The Sun:Kenton Bar Boys article The mannerless milkman Les the ox Each reader who comments will result in one post being upped...so...anyone interested in post 1?...

You can see the real time statistics for the site HERE This is a snapshot below and is STATIC, for real time updates use the hyperlink above.

I mentioned briefly how Mr Grey's VG was taken over by usurpers from London... ( Incidently,Mr Grey looked like Private Jones from Dad's Army... 'Dont panic Mr Mannering!' )The new propriators had a son, Adam who was known as 'Adaz' by most but'Sweet Tooth' by others after one swine(me) noticed that he had teeth like the character 'Sweet Tooth' from the comic 'Whizzer & Chips...actually I now see this was wrong, as he had two teeth, but one had chipped leaving only 1/2 diagonal down, so what I mean is he had 1 &1/2 tooths...anyway, I chose to call him 'Sweet Tooth' hoping this would cause him emotional pain & suffering( Mutley dog laugh )Sweet Tooth was the first person I ever saw wearing brogue shoes identical to the one above...these were worn always with white socks...as he had come up from London so his trendy fashion sense was ahead of nadsat(teens) fashion here on Kenton Bar Estate, but soon many others copied the fa

As you can see we get a few visitors that don’t stay long and this is typical of any website. However we have substantial percentages that stay up to 5 minutes approximately 13% that stay over an hour……                 Each red dot can indicate multiple visitors from each location OR multiple visits from the same person. Below is the graph of visits for the last 14 days – steady as she goes……….. some months/days better than others – I seem to remember a previous post that showed this One fun point to note – it seems that even the Irish have the internet these days – whatever next!!!

Well?...why art thou here?...we would love to hope that the blog is recommended(on some reading list somewhere) for students of architecture...but we doubt it...so as a matter of interest how did'st thou find out about it & what if anything appeals to thou on it?...hast thou any suggestions for ways it can be improved?...more architecture or more anecdotes...or have we already attained the omega phonomenon...(ultimate perfection)...

I am going to be adding a page that has a shop selling article about architecture and so on. Watch out for it!

'Each shop had a frontage 8 metres wide with a variable depth of up to 9 metres...'(Rutter Carroll 'Ryder & Yates book) I remember L-R looking west say from the top of the ramp: a)Laundrette(which became Fish and chip shop run by Keith(Beefy) now a kebab shop( spelt 'kabab'... ) b) Mr Grey's VG containing the post office taken over by the cockney kid Addas's dad(new post on that soon...( Now nothing I do believe... ) c)John'the weasel face's' North Kenton Newsagents shop(still a newsagents shop) d)Sylvia Grant's haberdashery shop(selling baby clothes, buttons etc) which became a fruit and veg shop...now Fahrennheit Sunbeds I do believe... e)Goldfinch Wines Offie, now 'Pefections' hair salon( I thought perfection had a 'r' in it.. .)

I remember Mrs. Blacklock as quite a strict teacher although she was not vindictive with it like Mrs. Brown was. In fact I would categorize her as firm but fair. She was quite old I reckon at the time I was at Kenton Bar Primary School. She had a cut glass accent I seem to remember. As pointed out by one commenter her name does not have the additional C as in the Blackclock beetle. Factoids about Mrs. Blacklock: She spoke French very well. I found out why later in life when I used to go and see the Newcastle Diamonds speedway team over at Brough Park on the Fossway in Byker. Sometimes on the return journey home with my Mother I would bump into Mrs. Blacklock on the bus accompanied by a man wearing a beret – an obvious French trait. So she was either married to a Frenchman or was having an affair with an onion salesman, hence the familiarity with the lingo. Her name, Blacklock, was deliberately misspelled by her to hide the fact that she actually discovered the blackclock beetle. On

'Resistance is futile...you will be assimilated...' I have been thinking about how the cube flats are identical to the Borg cube from Star Treck...I reckon the design of them is based upon the cube flats... one day the truth will out ... Borg Starships are huge interstellar spacecraft used by the Borg race to assimilate other species . Avid readers, I demand you get the whole of the Voyager Star Treck series of DVD's...you will not be disappointed...'you will add to our perfection..are thoughts are one...'

Now – Mrs. Brown was my first teacher at Kenton Bar and she was a crabby old so and so. I remember proudly showing her my “mathematics” – I thought I had cracked the secret behind the times tables at the age of 5. Of course my calculations were pure bollocks and she basically told me it was rubbish, that I would be punished for my work and I am sure I cried. Old hag she was…... Second thing she did that stick in my mind to this day. We were all in the hall playing musical things – xylophones, chime bars etc. and I took it into my head to bang the chime bar whilst she was talking. Rather than just tell me to stop she made me leave the hall. I left the hall minus my shoes, we were all shoeless in the hall to avoid damaging the wooden floor. I did not wait mutely outside the hall but went home, in the rain, with no shoes on. My mother was furious and came up to the school to give the old boiler a piece of her mind. Factoids about Mrs. Brown: She had a “dead” tooth at the front of her

Not much to say about her as she never taught me directly except when another teacher was off sick. She was like a small version of The Queen – same hair, same round face. She did have terribly bad breath though unlike our gracious Queen who smells of Palma violets I am told. Factoid about Mrs. Usher:- Saddam Hussein contracted her as a source of poison gas after she retired from teaching. She was connected up to a processing plant that distilled her breath and loaded the distilled essence directly into artillery shells for use against the Kurds amongst others. She married Gerald Bull of super gun fame and died at the hands of a Ninja assassin sent by Hussein after the first Gulf war   One horrible commenter made the comparison between Mrs. Usher and Susan Boyle pictured to the right here. I have to disagree with this poster. Mrs. Usher was in FACT The Queen, who often moonlighted as a freelance primary school teacher in order to get some extra Dubonnet money. In order to disguise

Can anyone remember the names of their teachers and has anyone got some tales to tell? Mrs. Brown Miss Holmes Mrs. Usher Mr. Brownlaw Mr. Hurford Mrs. Blacklock Miss Swinton Mrs. Ryan (I think that was her name) Mr. Pyle Mr. Lamb the caretaker Mrs. White the school secretary Mr. Johnson – Headmaster These are the ones I remember – some anecdotes about them later. Can anyone else add to the list? Share this post :