Haltwhistle

Haltwhistle and Beyond is a unique insight into the social and industrial history of Haltwhistle and its surrounding area. The author lived through a period of change unequaled in British history, which he had the knack of recalling with humanity, humour and an eye for detail. The text is remarkable in itself but when illustrated by 230 photographs it constitutes a thoroughly interesting and important historical record.

Preface

To most strangers travelling these days between Newcastle and Carlisle, Haltwhistle might hardly exist any more. The by-pass has been a boon in some ways of course, keeping fast traffic out, but in the other balance must be weighed not only the losses to local trades people, but also the virtual burying of a large chunk of colourful history. Not only the story of Roman times and the Border Troubles, but of a fascinating era of industrial life.

Fortunately the wealth of its recent past has now been unearthed, as surely as the coal the area once lived upon, by John Parker. Sadly he did not long outlive his century, but what a century it was, and how well the man knew and loved it!
To say that John Parker was acquainted with everyone in the Haltwhistle district is hardly an exaggeration: certainly he knew everyone worth knowing. He also seems to have known every nut, bolt, wheel and engine ever employed round about in mining, transport, farming and engineering. For John's great passion was for things mechanical. To some this can be a dry subject, but he had the wonderful gift of telling with humour the story of the men who made, worked and loved these machines almost as much as he did himself. Men like the late Jake Johnson of Coanwood, who I'm sure would have invented the wheel as well as the internal combustion engine and the flying machine if he had been around that far back, and if he had had John Parker to help him.

I had the privilege of knowing both Jake and John Parker. Both were most kind and helpful to me, and patient and understanding of someone who can hardly even yet tell a nut from a bolt.

John in particular gave me a great deal of assistance when, back in the seventies, I was making a BBC film about coal mining in the area, based on (and down) the Wry tree Colliery. In this book he reveals not only a truly wonderful recall of his fascination with the mining way of life, but of his deep love for his native area and its folk, and his gift for writing it. Haltwhistle now has a record unsurpassed by places far better known, by-passed or not. And just in time...

David Bean
(Author of many books, maker of over 500 documentaries for television and as many for Radio Four)

P.S. for JP
Sadly, my very dear husband died of lung cancer before his book was published. J.P. was blessed with a phenomenal memory, enjoyed a wide range of interests and had a talent for innovation: he was part of that all-but-lost Britain described by Robert Stephenson as: " A nation of mechanical engineers." I was privileged to share the life of this truly remarkable man; not given to shows of emotion, he wanted to be remembered not with a tear but with a smile as that engendered by that particularly Haltwhistle brand of dry humour, illustrated by his response to an anxiously hovering colliery-manager worried by an ocean of rapidly rising water, caused by a power-cut. J.P.: "Wey -what di yi want me ti dee -drink eet?"

'I wish you the deep peace of the quiet earth.' Dorothy Parker.

Brilliant book not to be missed