Gyrwe

A Few Of The Still Living remember The White Pipe, a landmark in Jarrow for schoolboys 'Playing The Wag'. Despite it's mythical status, a mere exposed sewer, shortly to be interned under the A19 arterial road. The open fields King George V Playing Fields really did have a ‘Pointless Gate’ as if leading off to paleo-future. The world, round here filled up. The wooded Primrose Dene of wild spring daffodils and bluebells, were already privatised when on flanking gentle hillsides, council estates were laid out.

From Boldon Hill, the scene in 1644 of an English Civil War skirmish, northwards, and golden cornfields stretched from Primrose via Simonside, along The Rekendyke to Laygate, Boldon Colliery in the middle distance. From the vantage point of Down Hill, a disused coal mineral railway line below from Tyne Dock, mimicked a diagonal roman road to Chester-le-Street. In 1964, Sunderland and Newcastle (both city centres visible with a single turn of the head from Down Hill) clashed again as new council houses lapped Hylton Castle. North East Durham was thus ravaged. The Spirit, soaring ever higher, the scars fading.

Leaving Jarrow to soar abroad, but it’s impossible to leave, The Undiscovered Country of Jarrow.

In Pale Thought, the carnal body does not hover, but walks somewhere between Jarrow and Primrose, to a plateau of flesh feeding foliage. Halfway to somewhere, The Spirit hovers here as if looking for a home. Inside Primrose Cemetery, the Imagined Spirit floats, to visit already dead parts of me (Uncles and Aunts) and they were indeed there, albeit lying down, invisible and saying nothing. After all this was our first meeting mostly. All Josephine had left me was a message in stone, saying she lay here since a particular date.

My Uncle wasn’t joking anymore, his black headstone lined up with the rest, his name arched in golden words, and that was it.

‘All Must Die‘, but within the hallowed ground perimeter are inscriptions on Dead Children’s Graves, who, like buntings and finches, lived only briefly, their spirit’s even more faint, claim existence with their tiny names. Who was little Phoebe? Was there anyone still alive to remember why, the tiny mite was hidden away from the rest?

The world consisted then of The World Outside, with the walled burial ground within. Clearly, nature in the form of landscape had already been defiled, the stench of the black creek near assailing the clear slopes save for a constant refreshing breeze which somehow kept out foul vapours.

In a 'sunder land', a plot exposed on three sides to the carnal (Yet who is more carnal than The Recently Dead?)world outside, on a slightly elevated platform like a plinth. I am privileged and safe here, at least for now. The necesary arteries of progress bypass this grave ground. It’s three in the afternoon when The Neon Is Out. A time of day Of Fire before cooling. The ruddy face of the gravedigger, dressed in black corduroy, like The Hireling Shepherd. The Crowd Gathered Before Us, and for a moment his gaze lands on mine, mine on his. This done, standing on his own ground, he holds his gaze on me, 'putting me down'. I stand alone yet, as a Trespasser. Unwittingly lucky, an implausible visitor to my own funeral.

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy

Transport Through The Ages: Early Airliner

Labour In The North, New Labour In The North regard themselves as Northern Chieftains, even having Bamburgh Castle as Their Stronghold. Like a Modern Bernicia, Land North of the Humber, the Umber as is The Roman Colour.

Nothing could be Further From The Truth. Bamburgh is a mere outlier of Jesmond, Heaton and Gosforth linked to Belford (Chathill) by Commuter Train. The Geordie Nation, centred on GCHQ Jesmond Dene, is Quite Blue, Not Red, and The Penumbras of Sheildfield, Walker and Spital Tongues is Orange or Yellow.

The ‘Big Lie’ about The North East of England, pointed up by Matthew Parish’s two, separated by twenty years, 'Parris On Poverty', Visits to Scotswood, TV documentaries, is that Geordie's Are Poor. Nothing Could Be Further From The Truth. Season Ticket Holders at Newcastle United are from Hexham, Darras Hall and Blagdon Hall, not Cramlington, Elswick or Benwell. The Newcastle fans caught on TV, are Architects, University Lecturers and Dentists: They have The Middle Class Jesmond confidence to articulate and broadcast their Geordiness live on TV. ‘Auf Weidersehen Pet’, is no Soap Opera, it’s Social Realism. Jimmy Nail was Never Working Class. These are Well Healed North of The Tyne Actors. The Whole of The North East is managed From Jesmond, with some Senior Staff preferring the former hill top pit villages of North West Durham, overlooking The Landed Gentry West of Newcastle, and North of The River Tyne.

The Labour in The North of over 30 Members of Parliament by contrast, Rule By Stealth from their HQ in Gosforth. They wouldn’t go on TV or anything like that. Of course it’s The Regent’s Centre, The North East of England’s most hideous building, not even an example of English Brutalism, but a Forgettable Monster and, Just By Chance Home of Northern Rock. There, and at Silverdale Industrial Estate, The Future National Bank, have trained All Of Their Staff with Point of Sale Customer Public Relation Skills, even The Women Only Branch in Northumberland Street, In View of the Future Backlash. (I.e. ‘How’s Everyone Out Of A Job Except Them?) Labour In The North will Try Supporting The Return of Call Centres to The North East, and Elocution Lessons for Everyone.

And it’s Not Embarrassing What So Ever To Be A Free Mason In Newcastle, especially with The Scottish Border Only 75 miles away. Sir Robert McAlpine, at home in Jesmond, is Openly Masonic.

Like their counterparts in The Council House, Nottingham, The Labour In The North Rule Like Fiefdom Barons. Their strategy is simple: After Duping Voting Fodder To Vote Labour with Dull Pamphlets, protected by The Police They Directly Employ, They Never Allow Anyone To Approach Them. Like Soviet Minor Apparatchiks, They Never Interact Directly With Anyone, Never Ask Voters What They Think, Never Have A Quantifiable Manifesto, and Never Invest Any Money in The Poorer Areas of North East England.

Money from One North East, The Regional Development Agency (RDA) covering North East England, never leaves Jesmond, because those involved in the transactions live in Jesmond, with The Best Schools, Sports Facilities and Operating Tables, just across The A1. Northern Labour Members of Parliament have never been able to successfully wrestle any money from The Jesmond Middle Classes. Northern Rock, like a ligature and the Middle Class Sports of Rugby and Cric*et have a Tiny Catchment areas of People Not From The North East, Both Useless To Any Geordie.

Labour In The North’s Website has 'Never Worked'. This is because if it did work it might be useful. Even A young, deadlier and glamorous female graduate trainee MI5 recruit, would struggle deciphering what Labour In The North gets up to.

The only progress by Labour is the North are School Building, School Reform, Hospitals, Hospital Reform, Keeping The Status Quo, Retention of Most Public Sector Jobs, Efficient use of Local Government Systems, Care For The Elderly, Radical and Charitable Help for The Unemployed in Simonside, Primrose, Tyne Dock, Rekendyke and Laygate, and The New Simonside Metro Station.

The Lack of Glamour, Partly due the Complexity of Carrying Out National Policy.

All this, despite there being no obvious physical signs of economic development attracted to South Tyneside. Most damning because it is Money ’Spunked’ from North Sea Oil.

Jarrow is run like A Semi Autonomous Quasi Republic, like say, Kazakhstan was under The Soviet Union.