Bellingham Show (Poem)

By Clive Dalton

The Bellingham Show

The highlight of our year up the North Tyne, without doubt, was Bellingham Show held in the last week of August for the last many years. We Bellingham residents dated everything in our lives by the Show. Arguments over dates could always be settled by “huw lang it waas afore or eftor the Show”.

In farming, we dated such critical events as finishing the hay or the harvest to the Show, when the nights started to cut in and the dews got heavy so you were really struggling to get anything to dry after that. If hay was still standing after Bellingham Show – then you could bet your Rogerson’s hill boots that fettles would not be good.

The North Tyne “show season” started with the Border Shepherd’s show at Falstone held about 20 August. Here shepherds put their best sheep before the judge, and if the sheep did well, owners would take them to Bellingham to hopefully “clean up” depending on the judge there. As in all showing, it was critical to know who the judge was. So Falstone show was a taster for Bellingham Show, which was then followed by the later shows up the Rede at Rochester around the 1st September, and then up the Coquet at Alwinton at the end of September to complete the season.

The air of excitement at Bellingham Show started to build for us village laddies about a week before the event, when we saw the first tents appear. Then the sheep and cattle pens and the horse jumps came out from under the grandstand. Then a few days before the Show – what excitement, “the hoppings” arrived; it was overwhelming for us yunguns in the 1950s and 1960s.

Show day arrived, and a main feature was the noise of steam trains shunting and whistling in the station as the “special” trains from Ashington and Tyneside arrived to deliver their passengers on trips to the show.

Joining the throng of folk walking through the village, and heading along around the Catholic turn across the bridge to the show, we could hardly contain ourselves. We never made conversation with these foreigners from Newcassel and beyond as they seemed full of gob and pushy. But the Bellingham pubs (the Railway, Black Bull, Rose & Crown and the Fox & Hounds) welcomed them at 11 am opening time; many never got to the show but they had a great time!

At the show field gate, our neighbour Tommy Davidson was there every year with his rose buttonhole to take the money, and once in, you just went daft wondering where to go first.

I was always duty bound to check the “industrial tent” to see what prizes Dad had won with his vegetables, and to see if Mother had won owt with her baking or crochet work. Then I went to have my mind blown by the dressed walking sticks from both sides of the Border. This put you off ever trying to even copy the work of these famous men like George Snaith or Ned Henderson.

But soon, the livestock had to be checked to watch the judging at the top end of the field near the cemetery wall, where they were sorting out the sheep and cattle. This was a favourite spot – mainly to study the humans and their behaviour as much as the stock! My life-long interest in this subject started here I’m sure, as well as in the dog tent among the exhibitors of the “border terriers, fox honds, Bedlington terriers and whippets from all over the county and outside”.

It was from these early days that I realised that given time, owners start to look like their animals! The other place to gain more evidence of this was the goat tent!

By late morning the preliminary rounds of the horse jumping had started and also the wrestling. The Northumbrian pipes were ganin canny by then too, so you had this terrible dilemma of deciding which finals to watch.

It was aalll ower much. But it was easiest to give the piping a miss as after you’d heard “Sweet Hesleyside” and “The Rothbury Hills” played a hundred times, it was more than enough. However, if you stood in the right place you could watch Dessie Ward cowp all his opponents in the wrestling, and when the roar came from the crowd in the grandstand, you could rush over and catch Doreen Ray riding a clear round for Miss Mitford of Woodburn.

There was always a few commercial exhibitor selling their wares and Isaac Walton was very prominent. In their tent, could get measured for a tweed suit or jacked with a nice “single vent country cut” as the salesman (clad in tweed suit), would strongly recommend. I had one of these tweed suits for years.

The beer tent was always overflowing but we village laddies gave it a wide berth incase some friendly neighbour saw us! Anyway, it was so full of “full” raucous Geordies, on a constant trek to the primitive nettie made of corrugated iron, that it didn’t have much appeal.

But weariness eventually set in as the sun stared to fall, and it was time to get across the Tyne bridge back to the village and heme because there was “The Show Dance” to prepare for in the toon hall! You had to be firing on all cylinders for this event!

However there was no way you could get back into the village before you were sucked in by ‘the Hoppins’ (the fair) which was a major part of the entire festival. We couldn’t miss it’s arrival on large trucks into the field on the Catholic turn, and it taking a week to be set up.

The centre pieces were the roundabout with its galloping horses and the dodgem cars for the showoffs and brave. Surrounding these were a range of small stands from trying to hit cocoanuts to shoot moving ducks with an airgun – the rare winners getting some paltry toy to take home.

Action didn’t warm up till folk started to leave the show and it was getting dark. The bright lights and the loud music were the magnets to get us through the gate. But there was also the roar and ‘chug-chug’ of the traction engine that drove the whole show. And this great monster with smoke pouring out of it’s funnel and flapping belt around its monstrous flywheel was owned by our local GP – Dr Middlemas. There he was on the engine dressed in blue overalls feeding in lumps of coal close to the massive flywheel. It took some accepting that this was the man you met always dressed in smart suit attending to your aches and pains. It was hard to break away to rush home and get ready for the dance.

What a prospect–with the lasses in thor lang dresses trying not to sweat ower much as the North Tyne Melody makers and Billy Richardson the MC gave us little time between dances. We needed that time to get the lasses te sit on wor knees under the premise of a shortage of seats!

After 10pm “the lads” from the pubs arrived at the dance, with their caps on acute angles and bottles of beer in their raincoat inside pockets. They were oblivious to the sweltering heat of the hall. The lasses were quite safe as few of them could get across the floor to where they intended to arrive to request a dance! They were far more engaged in a cluster around the bottom door, picking arguments and the occasional fight with their mates.

The Poem

Well, you can see why such an event certainly justified a poem. The late Will Elliott of Greystead, Tarset, gave this version of “Bellingham Show” to me. Nobody ever seemed to know who composed it or when. I’d appreciate any details about this, as the author certainly knew about the enjoyment and hazards of the event and deserves an acknowledgement. The poem especially reflects the importance of the Show for ootbye folk, as an important event of their farming year. The words have been recited and sung at many a Northumberland shepherd’s supper.

Bellingham Show (Anon)

Aa am an aad heord and aa live far oot bye
Aa seldom see owt but the sheep and the kye
So Aa says tu wor Betsy Aa think Aa will go
Te hev a bit leuk at Bellingham Show.

Ah weel, says the auld wife, if the money’s tu spare
Aa doot it’s a lang time since ye ha bin there.
Wor pack lambs hev seld weel, they’ve a lang time been low
So Aa think ye might gan te Bellingham Show.

So Aa gits misell drest in me braw Sunday claes
In me brass nailed shoes polished as black as two slaes,
A big high stand up collar, n’ me tie in a bow
Aa looks quite a masher at Bellingham Show.

Weel Aa got the to the showfield, Aa managed forst rate
N’ Aa paid me bit shilling to get in the gate.
Aa met wi some freens whae claried oot, Oh, Ho!
Hes thoo really gitten te Bellingham Show.

As was feelin gay dry so in we aal went
Just for a wee drap an a crack i the tent,
Aa sayed mine’s was a haaf ‘n, the rest aal cried Ho!
There’s tu be nee haafs at Bellingham Show.

Weel we aal hed a glass or it might hev been twee
Or tu tell yu thi truth, it might hev bin three,
Thi drop that we got set wor heeds in a glow
As we taaked ower aad times at Bellingham Show.

Aa then had a leuk at the tups and the hoggs
The horses, the coos, the fat pigs n’ the dogs,
N aal ower the showfield Aa went tu and fro
Determined tu miss nowt at Bellingham Show.

Aa waas hevin’ a leuk at the butter’n eggs
N Aa sat doon on some boxes tu rest me aad legs,
Up come n’ aad lady fat, forty ‘n slow
Contented ‘n jolly at Bellingham Show.

Excuse me she sayed but Aa do hate mistakes
But which are the duck’s eggs and which are the drake’s,
Aa hev just been wondering, I thowt ye might know
There’s intelligent people at Bellingham Show.

Aa can tell ye that missus, it’s quite plain tu be seen
The duck eggs is white n’ the drakes eggs is green,
O hoo simple, she cried, hoo wise yen can grow
By makin enquiries at Bellingham Show.

Aa steps up tu a chep what waas shaved tu the lips
Says Aa, canny man, a pennorth o’ chips.
He cursed ‘n sent me tu the pigeons below
He was a motor car driver at Bellingham Show.

Excuse me, cries Aa, but Aa doot Aa am green
Aa thowt ye wor mindin a fried chip machine,
Whey man that’s a motor belongin’ lord so and so
‘N wor here for thi day at Bellingham Show.

So Aa dodged away roond bi thi edge o’ the crood
N Aa smoked me aad pipe in a nice happy mood,
When up cums a young queen ‘n cries Uncle Joe
Aa’m so glad to hev met yu at Bellingham Show.

She gav a bit scream ‘n Aa thowt she waad faint
But Aa’s sometimes jelus o’ women what use paint.
Oh excuse me says she, ‘n your pardon bestow
Mistakes sometimes happen at Bellingham Show.

It’s aal reet noo hinney it’s aal reet Aa cried
While Aa stooped doon a minit me shoelace tu tie.
When Aa leuked up again ‘n me eyes roon did thro’
Me relation hed vanished at Bellingham Show.

Me heart begen jumpin n’Aa felt fairly spent
So aa thowt Aa’d hev a bit glass in the tent,
So inside Aa gets, felt me pockets ‘n lo!
That fly jade had robbed us at Bellingham Show.

So Aa went tu the Bobby an telt him me tale
But he saaid Aa waas nowt but a silly aad feul,
Tis time ye knew better as aad men shud know
Not tu meddle wi lasses at Bellingham Show.

Aa got see excited ‘n lood aa did yell
That thi Bobby teuk me right off tu the cell,
Throo the door he did send me wi’ the tip o’ his toe
Saying “Keep yoursell quiet at Bellingham Show”.