Kenton Bar Estate - A Blast from the Past

David Bilbrough http://www.davidbilbrough.co.uk 

The blog received this terrible post from an anonymous .... Hello.. I remember when we were kids we used to go 'bee catching'...the best place was on the step pyramid field at Hartburn Walk...now my dad was totally against this saying it vos varbotten...now in my twilight years I can see why and concur with him...however, i still did it...the heart racing, adrenalin flowing as you caught the bee betwixt jar lid and jar...I remember catching bees with a kid called Bullhead...he used to also catch wasps in the jar with the bees, shake the jar so as to enrage the entrapped bees and wasps in the hope that they would fight...at the end of the day, I would release the bees...Bullhead however used to take his jar to a circular drain cover at the back of Dunnykirk Ave...it had a key like hole in it-Bullhead would take the lid off the jar and place the unlidded jar over the key hole on the drain cover...the bees would eventually fly down through the keyhole into the dark dismal da...

A cool rendering of a Borg Cube flat-block. Copyright is with the artist David Bilborough http://www.davidbilbrough.co.uk  

I was contacted recently by David Bilbrough, a very talented artist. See the photo below. Well….. David is about to put on an exhibition on Kenton Bar Estate which will showcase his work alongside the original work done by Ryder & Yates when designing and building the estate. David is calling for people who currently live on the estate to help him with a small but important project. David would like to: - Conduct some interviews with people who live on the estate - residents young and old, short term or long term. he wants to hear thoughts and so on about who the estate has changed over the years He would like to get some copies of any personal archive images that people may have of life on the estate He would like it if people currently living on the estate would be willing to photograph areas within the estate that have a special meaning to them. He will provide camera AND film too   If anyone has any other information they would like to contribute to his exhibition then yo...

Name the cup. Name the year.   I know one of them - far right hand side, Machiavellian smile, lizard eyes, domed stupid melon hair - Phil Leaver.  He once played for Newcastle United.    

This is what I would consider as route 2. It started at the top of Fawlee Green and kind of petered out on Ryal Walk near the flats as basically you would run our of steam because of no more inclines. This was the most dangerous route, especially at the bottom of Fawlee Green turning into a blind corner. I came head to head one time with some kid on a Chopper coming up the hill and he squealed like a stuck pig and miraculously Technorati Tags: Kenton Bar Pyramid , skateboard , danger I was unhurt  

  Attribution goes to the very talented David Bilbrough - http://davidbilbrough.co.uk/#/portfolio/ryder-and-yates Source of the picture above: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=232504186934278&set=a.151937791657585.1073741827.151654798352551&type=1&theatre

Daffodils planted by a group of neighbours and children from Kenton Bar Primary School last Autumn are starting to peak through! Come on lads!!!!

This is bike route 2. Just as fast but all on pavement and IMHO twice as dangerous except for the death corner on route 1. This route is Very bad for pedestrians. Start at the top of Ryal Walk, pedal like crazy al the way. Hill starts to flatten out around the area where Byrness Close and Ryal Walk cross. Keep peddling uphill towards the shops. Tear past the entrance to the infants school and hurtle past the mail box, keeping it on the right of you. Approach the top of the Pyrry bank and apply read breaks whilst turning skidding into the bank itself, foot down is a sissy option……. storm down the Pyrry bank and do a left or right skid at the bottom onto the tarmac. Voila – route 2 completed. Skid zone at the top of the Pyrry bank is marked in a red crescent. This ropute is more exciting than route 1 because of the dangers of pedestrians and also because the route itself is much narrower with houses on both sides almost all the way. Skateboarding this same route is equally exhilarati...

This is what I would call the premier bike route. It was certainly the fastest, I never tried it on a racing bike but I did do it full pelt on a Chopper a few times and reached a speed of approx. 45 MPH in the old money. The route was Hazeldene all the way. Starting at the junction of Hazeldene Avenue and Kenton Lane the first sections was a shallow incline followed by a flat section in front of the T1a houses. A 90 degree right turn into the first hill section, pedal like crazy….. and reach maximum phase 1 speed at the bottom of the hill around Byrness Close then into a flat section until just after Dr. Raj’s surgery then into the second hill. Down, down, down – peddling like mad – max speed reached around Laverock Place and if you are bold – keep peddling like mad…. and into the hard right death corner at the bottom of the hill. This is marked with a red dot on the diagram. This corn was notorious for car crashes and in fact the fence here was always a different colour from the rest ...

Bike routes – these spammed the length of the estate as bicycles by their very nature are sort of powered (by your legs you fool……). Personally I remember only two really memorable bike routes one of which I managed to do on my Chopper at 45 MPH as measured by my speedo. Skate routes – these were mostly confined to the top part of the estate and sometimes as far down as the Pyrry Bank if you could get enough speed. For some reason not a lot of skating was done down past Reestones/Mallowburn – I guess because of the large flat part along Hartburn/Stubbon (sic) Walk made it harder to skateboard here

When I was young on our beloved Kenton Bar Estate I remember watching this film...I was fascinated by it, and in particular the war cry of the Basques...I distinctly recall playing out after watching the film with some other green(good zone) vecks under the flats by her majesty(The Pyramid)at Reestones and jumping of the binsheds to the garage roof etc doing the warcry(Under the flats you got good echo) AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYEYAAAAHOOOOW!!!!!

Two photos courtesy of BK and a nice appropriate themed Haiku poem from me. pyramid's cherry spring of the kenton! the love's pyramid through    

A brilliant band identified (see post/unknown-brilliant-band-from-kenton-bar)-the lead singer was Ed Hayles from Ryal Walk-as for the rest of the band please update the blog-as I said I once saw them in the Dog and Parrot when I was alive aged 30ish-they were fantastic-reminiscent of the Friendly Bombs, but also I presume doomed to never being recognised due to myopic perceptions of  the lack of talent from Newcastle thanks to mediocre /dreadful bands from Newcastle who did 'make it'..damn their eyes...but .I hope DeadPan Joy did make it-I had a quick look and couldn't find much except this::  https://myspace.com/deadpanjoy/music/songs Maybe they were still on the go 2010?...First track 'London' is mint-all tracks on the link below are also mintage in my opinion, even after the 15? years since I had the fortune to see them ironically as I'm about to up this post there is another comment to the thread with more info re Ed Hayles solo career-I will investigat...

 

My Dear Friends – below is a photo showing the back of the 4 bed gas/electric houses. It shows a young thug in a suitable insouciant pose – contemptuous to say the least. I will let you draw your own conclusions as to the types of people who used to live in these houses…..

Hello....long long ago in the dark dim distant days of slim youth I lived in a bungalow on my beloved Kenton Bar Estate(where my spirit still dwells to this day, ceaselessly patrolling the ramparts of Castle Kenton Bar in the darkmans when all are aslumber...but I've told you all this before... One day I was watching an episode of' Coronation Street'and my recollection of this was that Alf Roberts was wittering on about how you cant break an egg if you put it in between your palms, pointed bits touching each palm and press on the egg, hands joined in like a cats cradle way...this he demonstrated...now I've looked for this on you tube but cant find...anyway I proudly marched to the kitchen to demonstrate this to my beloved mother...unfortunately I must of miss positioned the egg and it smashed all over the kitchen floor...my beloved mother was unfortunately not in the best of moods and her eyes went red...now iI knew from bitter experience that when the eyes went red t...

Photographs: David Bilbrough