GeoStories: Winlaton's Industrial Past The Spike

By Digital Voice for Communities as part of the Winlaton's Industrial Past Project.
Organisations that have supported groups to do a GeoStories project have told us how much it has helped the participants gain digital skills while learning about their heritage and meeting new people of all ages. Participants tell us how much fun they had and how they enjoyed developing new skills. If you would like to know more about how we can help the people you work with please contact us; [e-mail] 01207 566866. More info here:www.digitalvoice.org.uk/GeoSt...

[@ashleyhoward8926]

Roly, you take me back, in fact you've struck a chord in more ways than one. The last 15 years of my working life often took me to the spike. My Cousins all lived in Blaydon & My late neighbour owned NE time recorders, the white building formerly the bottle house. 40 years ago I used to listen to the Saratoga jazzmen too & a young guitarist often stepped in to play his then signature tune "pennies from heaven". By the way a haugh is land reclaimed from a river ( often prone to flooding), in this case when the Victorians dredged to make the Tyne navigable for industry. That's why the area around Newburn leisure centre & Blayney Row is still referred to as Ryton island.
Keep up the good work, thanks for posting.

[@yvonnesimpson4584]

My Dad's family was born & bred at the Spike till they demolished it. His name was Dicky Somerville.

[@vinchenzo678]

Me Gran worked in Blaydon I remember her mentioning the Spike often, what was it?
I know in her early years she lived in a disused railways carriage, done out to live in at Blaydon.I never knew what a Hugh was even though I worked on one fir 25 years Newburn Hugh industrial estate!
Did the area flood off the river or just because its flat Marsh land?

[@BlaydonAces]

The coal gathering story dates to the late 1920s/1930s when the great depression meant many people were out of work. At this time the resourcefulness and strong sense of community among the Spikers was remarkable. It was a very close knit community and neighbours helped each other out especially looking after those in need. This is the abiding impression you get talking to older Spikers who reminisce about those pre war days with fondness and with very happy memories. After the austerity years following WW2 had passed by, many Spike inhabitants would have steady work eg. in the local factories such as Smith Patterson and Douglass Brothers and would acquire the consumer goods and mod cons that were becoming available to many folk from the mid 1950s into the 1960s onwards. I am told that some terraced rows were demolished in the late 1950s, the remainder in the 1960s, leaving the area just as 'Blaydon Haughs Industrial Estate' with its factories, trade depots and other industrial units. The Spike was unique and the folk who lived there whom I've spoken to all loved the place. Roly Veitch.

[@alanwann9318]

I welcome these accounts from residents, I worked in shipbuilding 1964- 1982 .An irritant for me is You Tube videos made by people who never went" down the bank"

[@davesmith8721]

my dad was a blacksmith at douglas bros and when i left school i became his apprentice,his name was maurice smith.