Two of Jesmond’s most popular locations will be celebrating their quasquicentennial (that’s 125th) anniversary on Saturday at the Jesmond Ground in Osbourne Avenue. St George’s Church was founded 125 years ago in 1888, and the Jesmond Ground – the site of the Newcastle Cricket Club – hosted its first match in July of the same year.

Alan Morgan, local historian and author of ‘Jesmond: From Mines to Mountains’, was invited to the double anniversary event to present a talk about Jesmond in 1888.

Despite their popularity, times have been tough for both sites. The historic Jesmond Ground was threatened with closure in 2004. The Newcastle Cricket Club (NCC) launched a Saving Cricket at Jesmond Campaign to raise £30,000 to cover the costs of the ground, helped by Australian fast bowler Dennis Lille and former Newcastle United manager, the late Sir Bobby Robson, helped to raise money for the campaign.

Newcastle CC, founder member of the North East Premier League, would have been left homeless if it weren’t for the intervention of the Royal Grammar School (RGS). The school took on the lease and sublet the ground to the cricket club.

Since then the Jesmond Ground had bounced back and won the ground of the year two years running for the NEPL, and the national club of the year at the 2012 Club Awards.

Speaking to JesmondLocal two days before the double anniversary, Newcastle CC secretary Olwyn Hocking said: “Like many parents, probably my fondest memory is simply seeing my children away from the computers, enjoying running around in the fresh air on the grass, right from being toddlers.

“It helped encourage them to enjoy a wide range of sports, and they both became cricket coaches to help pass this on to others.”

Newcastle CC will once again be taking part in the English Heritage days, a year after it had more than 200 visitors for a previous Heritage weekend.

From May 18th, the cricket club will also invite nominations for the first members of the Jesmond Ground Roll of Honour.

“It’s thanks to all the efforts and inspiration of people over the last 125 years that we do have the pleasures of the Jesmond Ground, which is why we are keen to celebrate them with our heritage projects,” said Hocking.

The Friends of Newcastle CC and St George Church are jointly sponsoring the double anniversary event.

The Jesmond Ground will host three Twenty20 matches from May 24-26th. The entry is free and there will be a barbecue, real ales and special fruit cider on the final day of the Pimms Weekend.

Click on this interactive photo to hear the interviews we recorded:

(With thanks to David Whinham and Nelly Stavropoulou for photographs and Amy Bolton for audio recordings.)

Now that the Jesmond Community Festival is just a couple of days away, it’s time to start taking a closer look at the deep calendar of events and choose which of the huge number of activities to enjoy. From the 92 events scheduled to take place over the next two and a half weeks, we’ve picked out a top 10 to bring to your attention:

1. Festival Parade – 11th May
The event that traditionally kickstarts the festival and creates a commotion in the community, the opening parade sets the tone for the rest of the festival. The parade starts at midday, travelling from St George’s Green to West Jesmond Primary school where it will culminate with the festival fair. There is an open top bus, vintage cars and musicians – and all are welcome to join in.

Hear what organiser Clarke Clarke had to say about the parade and the rest of the festival in this interview with Mark Summers:

2. Family Cycle Ride – 19th May

This group cycle ride will travel around Jesmond starting at the bandstand at Exhibition Park. Our version of the Tour de France, the Jesmond peloton will visit historic sites including the Military Museum, Pets Corner and, key to all professional cyclists’ diets, stops for ice cream! Covering less than five miles this event will be suitable for those with even the smallest amount of experience on a bike.

3. Junior Pizza Master Chef Competition
Though your correspondent may have outgrown their ‘junior’ title younger Jesmondites may want to test their cooking skills. Entrants are encouraged to design the pizza of their dreams, with winners given the opportunity to create this pizza with the help of a head chef. Families may need to visit the restaurant to help eat the results!

4. Percy Hedley College Jubilee Bake Off – 20th-22nd May
Another event for the passionate foodie, this event invites talented bakers to enter a cake into the Great Jesmond Bake Off. A panel of judges will announce the winner at the College’s Jubilee Coffee morning on 22nd May.

5. Oxfam Music Night – 10th May
Featuring country band Rattleshack and singer songwriter Neil Cousin, this music night will be the perfect event to start two weeks of fun. Held upstairs at the Royal British Legion Club and going on until midnight, it’s sure to be an enjoyable night of music and dancing.

6. Retrospective Exhibition 11th-31st May
This event extends for nearly three weeks and will celebrate 50 years of the Jesmond Library in a sixties style. Watch out for other events which are taking place to mark the anniversary and discuss the contentious future of this well-loved establishment.

7. Pimms Weekend and Cricket – 24th and 25th May
The cricket club invites you to enjoy a glass of Pimms and barbecue on the terrace, hopefully in the sun, whilst watching cricket! There will also be face painting and an opportunity to try real ales and cider – something for everyone to enjoy.

8. JesmondLocal Stories – 11th and 18th May
This is our own JesmondLocal event! Come along to Barney & Jude’s and tell us your story – or report others’ stories – as part of our contribution to the BBC Listening Project. (Email us if you’d like to take part.)

9. Acoustic Music Night- 20th May
With live music from 8-10pm, drop in at Barney & Jude’s and enjoy folk and acoustic sets from local bands with a coffee.

10. Drop in Pottery Workshop – 22nd and 23rd May
This is a great opportunity to test your artistic talent by making your own bowl, cup or pencil holder guided by local ceramic artist David Fry. The café also welcomes those who just wish to enjoy a coffee and see David’s work on display and available for purchase. Pottery is just £3 per person.

These are only a handful of the more than 90 events happening over the two weeks of the festival. Pick up a festival calendar from the library or view it on our website or the festival website www.jesmondfestival.org.uk for more information and full listings of events. Make the most of this exciting and action-packed occasion within the community!

He very kindly put a request up from me for interviewees in the local Oxfam bookshop; I got an email from the manager, Katie Liddle. “I’m sure I’m not the person you want,” wrote Katie. After a brief chat, I was certain she was just the person I wanted. Having taken voluntary redundancy from Northern Rock, Katie estimates her family income with her husband Ronnie has halved.

“We haven’t had a holiday for two years,” she tells me. “The boiler is broken. Before, we would have just gone out and bought one. Now we have to save up for one. We used to spend £100 a week on food. Now we spend £60 a week. Ronnie and I compete to see who can get the weekly bill lowest.”

A tall, red haired woman with a dramatic taste in flamboyant clothes (“they all come from Oxfam”), she used to have a bad taxi habit. That’s gone. She used to buy new boots. She doesn’t now. She has no time for what she sees as the excesses of London. “People are losing their jobs up here. You have people in the City crying because they have lost their Porsche! They say they have slashed their bonuses. Well, I am sorry, but if you are on a salary of £1.5 million, you don’t need a bonus! You don’t! You have a house over your head. You have food on the table. What else is there in life?”

Throw a stone up in County Durham and it will strike one of the squeezed middle coming down, says Caroline Beck, a garden writer living in Weardale. “I am still working, but I can always see the abyss.”

Caroline and I visit some of her friends in Newcastle. We drive in her car which has no lock. This does not matter since it is worth about £100. As there is next to no public transport in Woldingham, it is an essential expense. We meet Suzy, who runs the Hexham Book Festival and Anna, who works at a local literacy development organisation. They are, as they put it, all ‘skint’.

“When we go out, we usually have to decide between the cinema and the restaurant,” says Suzie cheerfully. “Never both.”

“We try not to get too depressed about it,” says Caroline. “The whole point is to buoy each other up.” So they have each other round for meals, or meet to discuss books. This isn’t going to go away fast, this much they know.

“We are in it for the long haul,” announces Anna. “All those benefits we used to enjoy are not going to be reinstated. Swimming pools, child benefits, university grants, cheaper petrol…”

Caroline nods in agreement. “They have gone forever. And the costs will only go up. It turns you into a hideous miser. And its boring. Talking about utility bills, its really boring!”

Everyone laughs. These women are fairly and squarely in the middle. Married, each with children, they have a joint family income of around £50,000. Nobody is saying that they are impoverished, that they can’t afford to put food on the table. There is just nothing to spare.

Rosie Millard

I found my Newcastle participants smart and sorted; one thing was shared, and that was a frustration that the South in general, and London in particular, seems to have no idea what is going on up here.

“We feel pretty isolated,” says Katie. “When Queen Victoria used to travel through the North East on her way to Balmoral she would get someone to close the curtains on the train so she didn’t have to look out. We feel a bit like that all over again. They should as well build a wall, and have us part of Scotland, for the amount of attention they pay to us up here.”

Tales from the Squeezed Middle, a documentary by Rosie Millard will be on Radio 4 at 11 am on Monday 6th May.

Bright Red, which until 2010 was known as Marrow and Stem Cell Transport, has raised over £4 million since it was founded in 1988, with the majority of the money going to research into cancer and care for patients at Newcastle hospitals. Recently grants have been given to fund research into several forms of cancer, whilst the charity’s big hope for the future is to start a hotel for the families and friends of patients to stay in during a long hospital visit.

According to Delete Blood Cancer, a charity, a person is diagnosed with blood cancer in the UK every 18 minutes, and worldwide someone dies from blood cancer every 10 minutes. There are three main types of blood cancer – leukaemia, which causes the bone marrow to produce abnormal white cells, crowding out and reducing the production of normal cells, and lymphoma and myeloma, where the immune system is attacked, reducing the body’s ability to fight infections and produce antibodies.

Claire Burn became an ambassador for Bright Red after she received treatment for a rare form of blood cancer. She says she supports the charity because of the excellent care they provided for her and for other patients she met:

“I was diagnosed with Hairy Cell Leukemia in early 2012 and like many others had no idea of how many different types of blood cancer there are, or how many different treatments there are, all with their own side effects and long term implications, particularly for those who live far away from where they receive treatment. Bright Red is aiming to address some of these difficulties by funding research, helping find cheap overnight accommodation for partners and providing grants for transport costs.

“There is so much funding for the bigger cancer charities that is absolutely worthwhile and needed, but I would love to see a smaller, local charity that is trying to do so much, with so few people and so few resources benefit from extra funding.”

Ashley Elliott, the charity manager at Bright Red, says “the Bright Red Freeman Fun Run will be the largest participation event Bright Red has ever had. We’ve come a very long way and have been able to make significant grant awards within the region to help improve blood cancer treatment and care. We have recently bought a £250,000 Cytometer machine to improve research and provided £150,000 to create a three-year Bright Red Outreach Nurse post. These developments simply wouldn’t have been possible without people like Claire, who drive the charity forward at every opportunity. The Freeman Fun Run will be a very special event and I’m really looking forward to taking part.”

The Freeman Fun Run will start at 10am on Saturday from Paddy Freeman’s Park. Whilst registration is now closed, spectators are welcome to cheer the runners on.

Bright Red will be holding more fundraising events in the future, including a bike ride planned for July 7th going from Seahouses to Newcastle Quayside and a spinning event at Eldon Leisure planned for June 12th, during World Blood Week. More information can be found at http://www.brightred.org.uk and www.brightredbikeride.com

Front cover of ‘Roads Were Not Built For Cars’

Jesmond resident Carlton Reid is paving the way for cyclists’ recognition around Jesmond and the world with his new book, ‘Roads Were Not Built For Cars’.

It appears to be a popular sentiment: Reid’s Kickstarter campaign, launched on March 21st, managed to collect the £4,000 needed to publish his book within 20 hours – and raised £13,000 more. The aim is to release it in August this year.

‘Roads Were Not Built For Cars’ will shed a light on the history of roads, Reid says, and re-introduce the notion that motorists were not the main reason roads were built in the first place.

Reid notes that “many influential and arch motorists, in fact, started their professional lives as officials in cycling organisations. The ‘DNA’ of the first motorcars owed more to bicycles than horse and carriage technology. I want to uncover all of this hidden history,” he says of the book’s narrative.

When asked what motivated to Carlton to write the book in the first place, he told JesmondLocal  that “as a regular cyclist I’ve sometimes been on the receiving end of comments such as ‘get off the road’ or ‘get a car.’ As a historian with an interest in cycling and motoring of the 1890s, I know such sentiments grew up in the early days of motoring, with the belief that roads were provided solely for motorists very quickly impinging on the highway access rights of users who preceded motorists, such as pedestrians, animal drovers and cyclists.”

Carlton Reid during his research in the USA

The book ties in with recent discussions on ‘shared space’ initiatives on Acorn Road and debates over cycle lane expansion in Jesmond. Reid has his own opinion on Acorn Road, believing it “a total mess, dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists.” He also goes on to say that “it would make a fine pedestrian plaza, with bicycle access. Traders need not worry. When other streets have closed to motorised traffic, footfall and customer spend increases.”

Jesmond is regularly referenced in the book as Reid believes that “much more needs to be done” here. “The 20mph speed limits are fine in theory but in practice motorists routinely exceed them and the police don’t do anything about this. This has to change.”

Overall, Roads Were Not Built For Cars addresses a question which Reid poses himself: “Will cars dominate the roads forever?” The book attempts to answer the question with an overarching idea that “history shows that nothing stands still.”

To find out more about the book visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carltonreid/roads-were-not-built-for-cars-book-and-kindle-and

Reid has released an exclusive excerpt from the book, focussing on Jesmond. You can read it at http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/never-mind-the-width-feel-the-lack-of-equality/

A stolen phone has been found buried in a plant pot on a Jesmond street after the suspect was snared by the device’s GPS tracking system, according to Northumbria Police. The owner of the iPhone 5, a 38-year-old man, had fallen asleep in a Newcastle bar on Sunday night, but when he woke up, he discovered his smartphone had vanished.

After speaking to bar staff, the man realised he knew who had taken the handset and traced the suspect to an address in Jesmond. Police knocked on the door and, together with the victim, were invited into the property where the victim activated a feature on the Find My iPhone app that caused the phone to emit a loud bleeping noise. The iPhone was found buried in a plant pot in the garden, wrapped in carrier bags.

A 31-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft and has been bailed pending further enquiries. Following the incident, Neighbourhood Inspector Louise Cass-Williams, of Northumbria Police, highlighted just how important the tracking technology has become.

She said: “Many people already have devices such as iPhones, games consoles and laptops and should be aware that most of this equipment has GPS tracking systems and they should make the most of it.

“We of course would urge everyone to protect their property from thieves in the first place, such as making sure phones are secured in zip pockets or handbags, not leaving items lying around on pub or cafe tables and never leaving electronic items on show in a vehicle.

“However, if such equipment is stolen, taking this simple step can make the difference between losing the item forever or having it tracked, located and seized by police. Modern technology has its place alongside the more traditional police work and we’ll continue to combine all investigative techniques to cut crime in the borough.

“For those who don’t have such technology installed on their devices, I’d recommend they register their goods with Immobilise, the national property register. By working together and following crime prevention advice, we can stop thieves in their tracks.”