Kenton Bar Estate - A Blast from the Past

And today, oh my brothers, I shall do just that... For this is where I am now, the words of this song...

Mr Hogg(great surname) was a sound bloke-proper working class good man who lived on Thirston Way...he ran a fruit & veg stall in the Grainger Market in town(pity he wasn't a butcher with a surname like that!)...anyway, the master and I have great respect for him...when we left home and flew the nest both of us used to get our fruit and veg from Mr Hogg in the Grainger Market...his kindness we remember and wont forget for he used to give loads of extra stuff and charge us next to nowt, us ittying off with bags and bags of stuff...he knew we were just starting out on our oddy knocky in the dark and dismal world, with very little deng in our pockets... Alas he liveth not on Kenton Bar Estate now, but liveth he still doth! Mr Hogg, we award you the lesser mortal award 8! We salute you!

When I was a kid back in those dark dim distant days of glorious youth the pupils from Kenton Bar Primary School went to France in year 6(the last year-year 4 as we knew it)...I meinself went...we went by coach which left from outside the Roman Cathlic Church in Kenton-I do believe pupils from St Cuthberts Primary went on the same trip, but I cant be sure...we went to Cherborg in Brittany and visited the island of St Malo I recall...a bit like Holy Island in that it became an island once the tide went out...so we learnt French at Kenton Bar School... leve la man dwat! leve la man gauch! assai i vous! bonswar! mercy! eel fe fwa! eel fe chaut! keler et eel? Ju mapel Mensforth... Par le vous onglare? So then we went to Kenton Comp and had the headstart...so we thought... then they killed it by making us learn French grammer...why?you only need to learn spoken foreign language for practical purposes?... then I had Mr Lutman... all he did was make us play bingo in frenc...

The other day as I patrolled the ramparts of my beloved Kenton Bar Estate I was walking(well like kind of gliding...ghosts dont walk...) past the flats at the bottom of Ryal Walk-where the second step pyramid is and noticed this mindless vandalism of these like rectangular boxes on the ground floor flats-about 6 or 7 were in this state, the vandalized one's being covered with a metal cover...a sad sight eh?...What they need to do is turn one of the houses into a mini police station with a couple of BOLOs (bastians of law and order)therein manned 24/7 like they do in Elswick... God knows what these boxes are/were for...

They are building new private housing at the bottom of Kenton Bar Estate where Hillsview School was....they have had the audacity to call it 'Hazel Walk' plagiarizing the beautiful name of Hazeldene Avenue from our beloved Kenton Bar Estate,the one that circumnavigates the estate...how dare they...how very dare they...why not call it after the 2 horrible streets where the school was in North Kenton?(Carsdale Close & Redland Avenue) Anyway I took this photo as evidence of this onerous crime... Link Here: http://www.yhn.org.uk/about_us/new_build/north_kenton_-_hillsview.aspx