Almost exactly a week after attending the funeral of a Gateshead Fell cricket club (GFCC) legend***, a club I represented for a decade between 1977-1987, this morning I was further saddened to hear of a former junior & senior team colleague Brian Gray’s passing. *** – Last week’s melancholic events more extensively detailed in my narrative Respecting A Club Icon. Today’s bereavement news coming via text from John Hutchison, another member […]
Yesterday, 2nd January, saw me attending the first (and hopefully my last) funeral of 2020. The journey up to Gateshead taken with buddy and former team mate John Hutchison, paying respects to a recently passed doyen of a cricket club we’d both represented at various junctures of our life odysseys. The wake giving me an opportunity to, for the first time since summer 1987, enter the club house of Gateshead Fell […]
Along with millions worldwide, I observed a two minute silence, marking one hundred and one years since guns fell silent in WWI. The anniversary of an armistice between the Allied countries and Germany – Ending a four year war which saw around 40 million military and civilian casualties. I wasn’t sure which surprised me more, learning of the sheer scale of human slaughter during the Great War, or the fact […]
Yesterday evening I watched a recording of a BBC Four broadcast of the John Wilson Orchestra from the Royal Albert Hall; a performance forming part of the 2019 Proms season. The Gateshead-born conductor’s orchestra treating their audience to a selection of music from Warner Brothers movies. John Wilson was educated in the same Low Fell alma maters of Breckenbeds Junior High and Heathfield Senior High as I was. That being […]
On the 75th anniversary of D-Day I wanted to pen a tribute to the 10,000+ Allied casualties who lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, on June 6th 1944. Codename Operation Neptune, a massed incursion aiming at securing an Allied foothold on Western France. This offensive ultimately securing an area which by the end of June had allowed the landing of 875,000 Allied forces, significantly strengthening their WWII position against […]
Yesterday saw the 7th anniversary of ex-Leeds United footballer Gary Speed’s passing. A tragic day when the player, who also served Everton, Newcastle United, Bolton and Sheffield United with distinction, was found hanged to death at his Cheshire home. On Saturday 7th April 1990, during a 2nd Division game against West Yorkshire rivals Bradford City, I was privileged to witness Speed’s first ever goal for Leeds United, at Elland Road. […]
In yesterday’s prose Gerchta I penned my tribute to one half of the band Chas & Dave, who sadly passed over the weekend. An offering where I penned of a fondness for the older tunes, deeply rooted in songs of traditional London pub knees ups, bequeathed by Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock. As with the majority of blogs I’ve written, I re-read/edited the narrative two or three times before I […]
