Meeting Notes April

This month we almost had a full turnout at the Hancock Museum taking up quite a space in the upstairs cafe. We had lots to catch up on. Iris and Joan sent their apologies. Val brought in a book on Mining Disasters with reference to Peters article on The Spinny. Peter read out his article to a captive audience, he is going to amend his work with reference to the information supplied by Val, hope to see this next month.
Moira brought along some interesting information about early Roman Britain  and the Saxons in the North East which we mentioned in our map exercise last month, hopefully I can get a bit more transcribed  for next time.

We had an interesting correspondence about John's article on F. A. Rochfort a relative of his Michael Rochfort got in touch to mention that :

 F A Rochfort was the brother of my great grandfather, Joseph Rochfort

Article found here

Dave kept us informed of the current City Tours and Guided walks which he is talking along with his fellow City Guides, it seems that Grey's Monument is very popular and you have to book on line to get a place and an opportunity to walk to the top of the monument.

Joan Teesdale came up with the idea that we should look at a place name that is unusual and find out a little bit more about it for our next meeting, so if you have come across Pity Me and Nowhere now is your chance to find out a little bit more.

Interesting reads this month at cut down prices are the Incredible Elements by Joel Levy published by New Burlington 2017 and sold at a very reasonable price at the Works. Its a  totally non-scary guide to chemistry and why it matters. As mentioned before I have a love - hate relationship with chemistry but this book is more about the history of chemistry and some of the influential figures. It is packed with diagrams and little known facts and has  lots of little profiles of famous chemists and alchemists. It describes  chemistry in the ancient world, Alchemy and the birth of Chemical Science, tracking down the elements, those mysterious and infinitely small atoms and ions and lastly the Periodic Table. Talking about tables I have created a table of some of the figures mentioned in the book which you can find here:



Famous Chemists

A Memorial for Eric  Larkham

As you are aware Eric sadly passed away last year, he was a great member of our group and Michael's History Lessons. He was also well known for his guided tours and talks around the Ouseburn and the Victoria Tunnel and his work with the Ouseburn Trust and The Campaign for Real Ale. A proposal was submitted following an appeal to create a memorial for Eric Larkham. Members of Eric’s family and friends got together with the Ouseburn Trust and chose Colin Hagan's idea to create a thick wooden plaque with marquetry/inlay and relief cutting of the wood. More details can be found at:

www.ouseburntrust.org.uk/eric-larkham

 The trust is also planning an annual EricLarkham Memorial Walk around the time of Eric’s birthday on 22 June,hosted jointly with Tyneside & Northumberland CAMRA.This first year there will be two walks to allow as many people as possible to take part. On the evening of Tuesday 20 lune and the afternoon of Saturday 24th June Mike Greatbatch will lead a heritage walk of the Pubs of Ouseburn.The walk will be free of charge though donations are welcome.If you would like to join us, bookings can be made after l May on our website www.ouseburntrust.org.uk/walks-and-talks
by email to admin@ouseburntrust.org.uk or by phone on 0l9l 26l 6596.

An extract with further details from the newsletter of the Ouseburn Trust can be found here:


News letter extract

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be held at the upstairs cafe of the Hancock Museum 10:30 on 10 May. Topic for disscusion are Local Place Names and how they got their names. Please bring along any information you have on the subject.