Thread: Newcastle, my home and I'm very proud of that.

I come from the real original Newcastle with the real original bridge....stop copying you lot.

next you will be taking about brown ale....

Originally Posted by amazing

I come from the real original Newcastle with the real original bridge....stop copying you lot.

next you will be taking about brown ale....

We do not have your bridge. It is in Sydney
Newcastle on Hunter not Newcastle on Tyne.
Regards
Robbo

hoho...

ok back on topic...not so much my hometown but whenever I return "home" seeing Penshaws monument makes me feel like I am home...even though it is way south I used to be able to see it from my home.

And ...Stan Laurel..(previously)..lived a stones throw from my house as a child..(still cant look a people moving pianos without a little smile.)

Like you Robbo, my ancestors came to the Newcastle area in sailing ships. I have a long memory of the town going back to my earliest memories of the trams running down Hunter Street, I was only an ankle biter at the time. Newcastle had one of the largest trams systems in Australia at one time.

Also have memories of catching the steam train to Belmont (the "Belmont Express" we called it) and getting off at the Whitebridge station as I lived with my parents at Whitebridge at that time.

My parents, and on my mothers side, grandparents, great grandparents and great-great grandparents are all buried at Whitebridge Cemetery.

I notice that clip is a bit long so I will have a look when I have more time. Thanks for sharing.

I am also a Newcastle boy - from Belmont and the rest of my family still live there - when I was 18 got my first job as a labourer at the Bar Mill in the steel works. Was hot hard work but paid well - enough to buy my first car.

When I was up there at Christmas I went for a drive around the Industrial Highway as I hadn't been in that area for over 40years since when I worked there. I was surprised to see that the old steel works buildings are all still there and not pulled down and the land used for something else. Would make a great residential/recreational precinct.

When I was up there at Chrissy all the talk was about the Great White in the lake stealing fish from fishermen. Public opinion seemed to be either leave it alone or catch and release at sea - not a lot of support for just killing it.

Being back in Canberra I haven't heard any more.

Newcastle has always been a bit of a hidden gem as in the past most people couldn't see past the steel works - now the place is beginning to be found and and its attractions recognised.

Garry

Just watched it, thanks again Robbo. Always remember my father who was a pick and shovel coalminer when he was alive saying "The're not real miners nowadays all they are are just machine operators, we were proper miners". He was a "contract coal miner" and he was paid by the skip he filled and yes it was a hard life, during the depression (before my time, incidently) mum used to do without meals so dad could eat to keep his strength up so he could work,(money was scarce and food was hard to comeby and many a brealfast was a bread and dripping sandwich) when work was available, strikes were common and dad got out of mining in the early 1950's. He had enough of the hard life and constant strikes.

Incidently, my fathers side migrated from Newcastle on Tyne in England and he was from a long line of coal miners. His father died when he was 60 years old from injuries he recieved a couple of years before during a coal collapse at Burwood Collery Whitebridge back in the early 1940's.Probably could have saved him with the medical aid we have nowadays, who knows.

I'm one of the people who never saw past the steelworks, or more accurately the steel loading docks. Now I've met a friendly bus driver and a few suss dudes in Land Rovers, who hale from Newcastle, I enjoy a different perspective.

Well as a recent(ish) immigrant with no preconceived ideas or knowledge of Newcastle, I thought it was a very nice place when we went down there for a weekend a couple of years ago.

We had some dirt cheap Jetstar flights ($1 per person each way) so spent a couple of days in Newcastle and 2 nights in a place up in the Hunter.

Yes there's some industrial parts, but there's also some great beaches.