{"id":3021,"date":"2021-05-23T16:46:39","date_gmt":"2021-05-23T16:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/?page_id=3021"},"modified":"2021-05-23T16:46:40","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T16:46:40","slug":"mark-hemming","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/?page_id=3021","title":{"rendered":"Mark Hemming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Mark-Hemming-181219_0049.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mark Hemming interviewed by Ian Reynolds 19<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0December 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was born in India in 1944, because my father was in the Indian Army. My grandfather was Indian police. So, as it was wartime, I was born in Bombay. By 1947 when partition, when India became a separate country, most of the ex-patriots went home. My father and my grandfather included. My grandfather retired and my dad went on to do other things. He went on to work for the Foreign Office after that. My schooling was a bit erratic to say the least because we were always moving around. I originally went to school in Australia I think it was. After that I was at school in England for a while and then finally my dad settled down in Eastbourne and I went to school there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;I came to the village because I worked at Ashmores, as it was then. I was always travelling around. I spent three years in South Africa; that was slightly before I bought this place. And then four years in New Zealand and about six months in Canada. I was always on business trips of one sort or another.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started life as a metallurgist but I seem to have descended into process engineering and other things at Ashmores. Basically, we were designers of process plant mainly for the steel industry. They did do other things as well. It was a big company at the time but unfortunately the steel industry is on its back and nobody wants to build anything. Design and commissioning really, that was the two things, with the possibility of other odd jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Originally, I lived just off Sunningdale Drive but about two years after I moved there I came to the village, so that would be in 1981. When I bought the house, it was in rather poor condition but I tidied it up quite a bit at that time. Just recently I\u2019ve done a major modification to the house because there was an unused roof space and also because the bathroom and the toilet were on the ground floor and it was very inconvenient coming down the stairs to use them. So, the house has been radically modified recently. If you look around this room, one of the interesting things is that we kept uncovering doors which we didn\u2019t really know existed. To my left there was a door through into the next-door property. There was a door in the middle of the wall behind you Ian, that door was sealed up. There was another door to the right which I had to have moved because otherwise it would\u2019ve caused problems on the outside. Also, there was a door which I\u2019ve reopened leading to the front door, so the place has been heavily modified.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Originally this house was the workhouse. It appears to have ceased to be used as the workhouse about 1919 because at that time it was split into two properties. Originally this was called Eastside House, and that is number 8 and number 7 together. But at that time the owners decided to divide it into two. I\u2019ve got a complete list here of everybody who has lived in the house for the last hundred years. There are a number of names which are familiar local names. There\u2019s a Martin Richmond, original owner. Then it passed on to Elizabeth Anne Birdsall. Then onto Clara Marshall, who died in 1961. Then Gordon Brooks and Beryl Brooks; John Raymond Clark and Heather Clark; Bruce Nicholson; and the last owner before I bought the place in 1981 was Doreen Anne Townsend. It\u2019s also interesting to note the prices of these properties over time. In 1919 this place was transferred for \u00a3165. In 1947 it went for \u00a32,600. I bought it for \u00a328,500. Just shows what escalation does for you.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;What I\u2019ve got here are some photographs of the interior of the loft. Originally my property and number 7 were joined together with a door. You can\u2019t see the door but it was actually behind this<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;fireproofing to stop the drafts going from one property to another. So that\u2019s yet another. I think I counted up that there were actually eight new doors, or eight doors that we found in various places. You can see here when my builder was in that that entrance was blocked up and basically we put this blockwork on top of a steel beam which runs across the house now. That stabilises the chimney and also supports these beams here, and just seals the place up. You can see here in this photograph the steel beams being lifted into the roof. I think I counted there were ten beams altogether put into the roof. None of them were of any great size because they had to be manoeuvred by hand so they only weighed about 80kg each. They weren\u2019t particularly deep beams, but anyway, it just shows what has to be done to modify the house. Anyway, that\u2019s mostly about the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, my next-door neighbour was Daisy Napier at that time. She was a very old lady at that point. She apparently had been gifted the cottage next door by one of her relatives, it may even have been her sister. She lived there till about 2002 and then unfortunately she died. Then the property was empty for quite a while, even though it was owned by her son, Nigel Napier. Then eventually it was sold two or three years ago, before it was redeveloped. On the other side was Brian Jopling, who used to work for Teesside Bridge and Engineering Company, and also his wife and their son and daughter. Unfortunately, they all died except for the daughter Sarah, who lives out in Worsall.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was one incident here which nearly cost me the house. I was away at the time but according to Brian Jopling there was a [bon]fire on the green. At the time there were [bon]fires on Guy Fawkes Day. Somebody released one of these maroons and instead of going up in the air it went more or less horizontally and hit my house. Fortunately, it didn\u2019t hit the window because if it had that would\u2019ve been the end. So shortly afterwards they stopped having bonfires on the green. I think because of the insurance problems. Apart from that there was a fire in one of these houses over here, which I think was a chimney fire; that caused a bit of excitement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a smash and grab down the corner here where somebody tried to steal a vehicle from the farm. Off the top of my head that\u2019s the things I can remember that were odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Really, I started off collecting books. That was my main interest. Unfortunately, I just got to a point where there were too many books. It might seem very strange because I\u2019ve increased the foot area of the house substantially, but actually I haven\u2019t got enough room to store them now, because the shape of the rooms is not right. I had every little nook and cranny of the place filled with books and those nooks and crannies have gone. So, I had to switch to postcards. Basically, I collect postcards of Eaglescliffe and Yarm and Stockton, those are the main things I\u2019m interested in. But anything to do with North Yorkshire and Durham I\u2019m also interested in. I was lucky enough to buy a very good collection of Eaglescliffe\/Egglescliffe cards about three years ago when a friend of mine who had an enormous collection, he died and it was all auctioned, so I bought his Egglescliffe cards. That supplemented cards I\u2019d already got. I\u2019ve got about 200 Egglescliffe cards, I would think something like that.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I still find them occasionally, there\u2019s one here I bought this week which I\u2019ve never seen before, of the green, it\u2019s a nice card, very nice card. It\u2019s obvious the photographer knew what he was doing because he made a good job of it, but unfortunately, we don\u2019t know who he is. I might be able to infer it by the number on the front because probably the others are in the collection somewhere.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would think the majority have been used. Unfortunately, it means that the quality is sometimes not as good and you have to watch it because the stamp mark where the postage stamp has been cancelled sometimes comes through onto the front. They\u2019re definitely not as valuable if that has happened but this one is in pretty good order really. I mean there\u2019s no obvious marks on it. The postmark is dated 1937, so it was obviously printed slightly before that. And judging by the car, that\u2019s definitely a pre-war car by the look of the back of it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I get cards from a number of sources. At the moment the easy source is eBay, I mean there\u2019s plenty of cards on eBay. Massive lot of cards. There are postcard fairs, of which there are two quite big ones locally. One is in Durham city, and that happens about every six months, and there\u2019s another one at Leeds, which happens about quarterly, I would say. You also see cards sometimes at antique fairs, although they seem to be declining a bit at the moment. I think those are the main sources. People know that I\u2019m interested so they ask me if I would want to buy a particular card.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a number of people, a number of dealers in this area. I suppose the nearest one is Andrew Stoves who lives at Hartburn, and he\u2019s into stamps and ephemera and postcards. And there\u2019s Millston cards, I\u2019m forgetting his name now, but he\u2019s in Hartlepool. He\u2019s got a lot of very good cards, especially strong on Hartlepool of course because he lives there. Those are the two nearest, and there\u2019s a guy at Preston-under-Scar, he has a big postal business as well. There\u2019s not a lot of dealers. You see it\u2019s a bit different from books because the postcards basically were like the emails are today. Certainly, up to the First World War, extremely popular. Then unfortunately the Chancellor of the Exchequer put up the postal rate from half a pence to a penny, and that sounds laughable now but that was actually quite a lot of money in those days. That pretty well stopped the postcard trade in its tracks. From 1920 onwards the number of cards issued declined quite sharply. So, it\u2019s really the pre-First World War cards which are valuable, of course they\u2019re not being printed any longer. They do go up in value. I think that\u2019s really the situation at the moment. I try and collect the ones before the First World War if I can.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I said before I collect Yarm, Eaglescliffe and Stockton but I also collect some by the printers. In Stockton there were three printers who I chase after if I can. The main one is Brittain &amp; Wright. Now Brittain &amp; Wright lived in Wharf Street in Stockton. They had a big printing works there, which in addition to postcards used to publish posters and things for the North East railway. The business was in existence right up to the 1960s. In addition to Brittain &amp; Wright there was Armstrong, now Armstrong seems to have been a dealer in Stockton. I think somebody printed the cards for him. We think it\u2019s one of the other major printers in the area but nobody\u2019s been able to prove it exactly. And then the third printer I collect is Heavisides. Henry Heavisides and his son Michael Heavisides had a works in Finkle Street in Stockton. Henry Heavisides wrote a large number of books which are becoming rare now. In addition to that they did quite a lot of postcards. Those are also quite rare. I suppose I\u2019ve got about 50 Heavisides cards. Unfortunately, none of Egglescliffe village although there is one of Yarm bridge, and there is a few of Yarm itself. Those are the main ones but there are printers around the area that used to do things: Ross at Whitby, Stevens at Thirsk, all high quality stuff. There\u2019s a few at Darlington as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a large collection of his [Heavisides] photographs in Preston Park. He was an extremely clever guy. That business continued on until the early \u201870s. Then it was sold. There\u2019s also locally, I\u2019m very interested in postcards from the Robin Hood\u2019s Bay area near Whitby. Not because I have any particular connection with the area but there was a guy there, an artist called J Ulric Walmsley. Now Walmsley is a very well-known painter, and some of his stuff is absolutely beautiful. I can\u2019t remember the name of the company but they produced a series of postcards of Robin Hood\u2019s Bay using his paintings. They are absolutely beautiful, they\u2019re really outstanding. I\u2019ve got probably about 20 of them. They\u2019ve become incredibly expensive now. I think \u00a3100 for a postcard is getting a bit expensive. I mean mine, I didn\u2019t spend that sort of money, I don\u2019t want to lock up that sort of money in those things, but regularly they go for \u00a3100.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, they vary quite a bit. Most postcards are not worth more than about \u00a310. A church, which is a mark of them because everybody produced postcards with churches, they would go for about \u00a35. Really, above \u00a350 you\u2019re talking big money in postcard terms. It has to be special to do that. Strangely, some of the industrial ones are very expensive. I collect also postcards about blast furnaces. Of course, there are a large number in this area and I acquired a collection of industrial cards when my friend died. Also, elsewhere, and those are incredibly expensive now, they go up to \u00a325-\u00a350, each card. I just pick those up because I was in the steel industry. It\u2019s the most prominent thing on most steelwork sites. If you see a picture of an open hearth nobody really knows what\u2019s inside it. It\u2019s not very photogenic. Inside of the steelworks there are also some photographs and postcards but the lighting conditions probably weren\u2019t very good and flash photography isn\u2019t like it is today, so some of the definition isn\u2019t as good on some of those cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Titanic photographs or postcards fetch thousands. Yeah, because it\u2019s a craze at the moment, because of the film and so on. Especially if it was posted from the Titanic on the fatal voyage. I believe Titanic went to one of the southern Irish ports, I think it was Cork. So, people sent cards back, you see. If it\u2019s got the imprint of the Titanic on it it\u2019s absolutely amazing. So, I mean it\u2019s of little interest to me except one of my relatives was on the Titanic. He was in the crew. Amazingly, he survived. And he gave evidence to the US Congress and also to the Board of Trade. I hate to say it but I don\u2019t think he was telling the truth on some of the things he said! It was an interesting episode. I\u2019m deeply into family history in fact, and I wrote a little pamphlet about my granddad, who was killed in the first war. Got all the things together. I\u2019m still involved because I\u2019ve just very recently got an email with about sixty photographs which we didn\u2019t know about because they were over in Canada with some distant relatives of mine. They are absolutely marvellous, they show my father when he was about 5, and my aunt and numerous other people who we lost contact with. In fact, there\u2019s one photograph there, which I believe (this is still to be proved) but I believe it\u2019s my father when he was about one year old with my grandfather, who was killed, and my grandmother. The photograph is so blurry that it\u2019s a bit difficult to be sure, but if so, it was printed in 1915, because he was killed in 1916. That took up a lot of my time. I\u2019ve got about seven or eight volumes of stuff, all family history together. In recent years, the last three to four years I haven\u2019t really done much on it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a very narrow area that I collect in. Temptation comes your way and you see another nice card \u2013 it\u2019s difficult to refuse sometimes!&nbsp;&nbsp;Ah well, what I do is, particularly with Brittain &amp; Wright cards, there were 2,700 produced, and I\u2019ve got all the numbers on my mobile phone so I can check it off, before I put my hand in my pocket, as it were. The others, well they\u2019re not so much being produced from Eaglescliffe and Egglescliffe and Yarm, I pretty well know what those are like. Stockton\u2019s more difficult because there are far more of those. If I saw a Stockton card, I\u2019d have to be pretty sure I hadn\u2019t got it before I purchased it. Of course, on eBay it\u2019s simple because you just look at your album and check it off but when you\u2019re out at a fair it gets more awkward.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have in the past bought at auction but it\u2019s not very satisfactory because I really want to cherry pick them, I want that particular card but I don\u2019t want the rest of them, so if I buy them I\u2019m left with a load of cards I need to dispose of. It\u2019s all right for the dealers. The best thing I\u2019ve found is to chat up the dealers and find out who is bidding for what and then go back to them later and say, \u201cCan I have that card?\u201d because they\u2019re happy they\u2019ve made an immediate sale and I\u2019m happy because I don\u2019t have a load of cards that I can\u2019t do anything with. It depends, I mean if there was a really, really good selection or a lot of cards I might put my hand up and bid for them, but these days not really. Same with books, I find I end up with a load of books I can\u2019t dispose of. That\u2019s the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a delightful card I found on the internet. I mean the postcard itself is nothing, but it\u2019s the message, and it says, \u2018Miss Doughty, Egglescliffe Village, Durham\u2019. And then there is a message from her, to her sister, I guess. And of course, she lived just over here.&nbsp;&nbsp;I\u2019ve shown this to Janet, because she\u2019s related to the Doughtys. There\u2019s a copy of the message and things. It\u2019s not a very nice card but anyway, this lady at that time, which was 1917, was living in Darlington. This one is such a beautiful thing. Everybody seemed to be delighted to see it, Janet in particular.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, the Doughtys suffered rather badly in the First World War. This is a map of all the people who died in the First World War around this area. You see the Doughtys here, there\u2019s David, Christopher and Robert, Thomas Doughty who lived where the shop was. And then the others in this area who were killed, there was the Cordingleys who lived in the house that\u2019s now where Astrid Merritt and her husband live. There\u2019s Richard Willis who lived up here in the Hollies. There\u2019s the Dingles of course who lost two sons. Dingle was the priest in the village, the Rector. There was somebody over here, Wiles. And then of course the Smiths lost one of their relatives, Frederic Smith.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s also this thing that I have a copy of, this is not the original, which at the moment I mislaid, but it\u2019s most unusual because it\u2019s an account of everybody in the village and Eaglescliffe who took part in the First World War. So, it isn\u2019t just a memorial of people who died, it\u2019s actually the people who served and where they were sent. And the beauty of it all is that this was published in about 1919, so it\u2019s just as memories were fresh. Absolutely wonderful document, but it also lists all the people who died as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s the beauty of postcards, they are social history and also, it\u2019s amazing looking at the pictures of the green. How little it\u2019s changed in a hundred years. Tiny changes really. A lot of things you see on postcards that no longer exist today like the pump and the pen that used to be out the front here. The cross was moved, of course. Those are the things that come immediately to mind. The shop down on the corner there, that\u2019s had the front taken off it, but apart from that you\u2019d recognise it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe there was a deadly rivalry between the two shops. Everybody was watching who\u2019s going into the other shop. I think Janet or somebody told me that. I think these trees that you see now are relatively modern, in fact I think if my memory is correct that they were actually quite small trees when I came. Because I think the Smiths had planted the whole of the green with new trees around 1980.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other things that may be of interest to you \u2013 there\u2019s a very nice picture in this book of the village. It\u2019s a little bit fanciful, but\u2026 this picture. Now, that\u2019s by this guy, Heaton Cooper. I believe he\u2019s moved the cross a little bit, it\u2019s not really there, although it might have been like that when he painted the picture. Heaton Cooper seems to have been something of a commercial artist, but there\u2019s a shop over in the Lake District at Grasmere which specialises in Heaton Cooper pictures. Because he did a whole lot on the Lakes. I\u2019ve been in there several times but this particular picture never seems to come up.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a number of other pictures painted of the green and the village. The best one by far is the one taken of the viaduct, and it\u2019s taken probably from the memorial cross looking across the valley, and it\u2019s a lithograph done around 1850, 1860. It\u2019s got some super things on it; one is the windmill that used to be over, Mill Field is the name of the place it was at. Mill Field is just when you go to the Cleveland Bay and go on towards Urlay Nook. Mill Field was just on the left, that\u2019s where that windmill was. There was another one of Yarm, where there was a mill right on the top. It\u2019s a little bit skewed, I think a bit of artistic license had gone into it, but it\u2019s a fantastic thing. I used to have a copy of it but I just got bored with it, really, and sold it. [I have a postcard of the mill as viewed from] West Street. The mill was obviously not operating at that time because the sails were off it. There seems to be a book in publication at the moment about the mills in North Yorkshire because one of the authors came to me about that particular postcard. I used to have quite a nice picture of the Pot &amp; Glass. There\u2019s loads of little booklets and things of the village which you\u2019ve probably seen. Obviously, there\u2019s Dingle\u2019s book, but there\u2019s also a very nice, very nicely produced book of little sketches of Eaglescliffe which I presume you\u2019ve seen. They\u2019re very high quality, the actual sketches, they\u2019ve got the dovecote, they\u2019ve got the Grange, and so on. I keep looking. I used to have quite a nice one of the Bluebell painted from the other side of the river. Apart from postcards there\u2019s some beautiful pictures been taken of the area. I\u2019m trying desperately to remember the name of the photographer \u2013 ah, it\u2019s come to me, Ellam was the name. He had an absolutely wonderful picture of the bridge taken from the Yarm side. It shows the vinegar brewery and so on. Absolutely beautiful picture.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Hemming interviewed by Ian Reynolds 19th\u00a0December 2018 I was born in India in 1944, because my father was in the Indian Army. My grandfather was Indian police. So, as it was wartime, I was born in Bombay. By 1947 when partition, when India became a separate country, most of the ex-patriots went home. My [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3021","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3022,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3021\/revisions\/3022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}