John North: Saved from a watery grave

Geordie was one of the most self-effacing and most instantly likeable men it has been this column's great good fortune to meet, and his story was one of the most remarkable.

He was a deputy at Littleburn colliery, three miles south-west of Durham, when the nearby River Browney burst its banks in the early hours of November 23, 1950.

The deluge uprooted a tree and poured through the crater into the mine workings below. The first the night shift colliers knew of it was when an underground transmitter packed in.

Geordie phoned the surface to enquire what was up. "They said it wasn't just watter, it was the bloody river," he recalled and the river threatened to engulf many of the thin seam miners.

"Matty Drenon, me marrer, says 'You cannot gan seekin' them through that lot'. I says 'I have to man, it's me job'," said Geordie.

"If thoo's gannin," replied Matty, "aa's gannin' an' all."

George remembered a 50ft escape shaft which he himself had helped create a mile from the pit head and led some of the men to safety up the 9ft ladder drawn up little inlets in its side.

That accomplished, he and others insisted upon returning to the rapidly flooding mine to seek men in the further districts.

"We could hear them shouting, but there was a bit of panic. One feller was telling me to leave him, that he couldn't gan.

"I says if one's left, we all get left. I could feel the tension, and let them stop for a drag, then got them gannin' because the watter was fast rising."

Eventually all emerged on the surface, fastened by their belts to the slippery ladder. Only Tommy, the pit pony, perished. Geordie Glasgow swore he could still see the tear in its eye.

"They had returned to the point of danger after reaching safety to succour the remaining men," reported The Northern Echo the following day.

"We just did what we had to do," said Geordie, as afeared of the press pack as of the perils of the night.

He and Tom Burke won the BEM, father and son Tom and Matty Drenon were awarded the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct.

There was also a citation from the Carnegie Hero Trust Fund, a dance in their honour at Meadowfield British Legion, a gold watch and £8 and something apiece given by a grateful community from a collection around neighbouring villages.

Littleburn colliery never re-opened. Geordie transferred to pits at Bowburn and then Spennymoor, became an insurance man, school caretaker and chairman of the old folks' club.

There are those who say that the Brandon infants' school Father Christmas looked a bit like George Glasgow, too, and his Jake the Peg was much appreciated in the concert party.

He died after a fall at his home in Brandon where the Echo's front page from November 24, 1950, was framed on the wall of the kitchen. "He'd been going down a bit, but we had a really good Christmas," says Ron, his son.

The 100 terraced houses which formed Littleburn village are gone, and now all but forgotten. George Robert Glasgow, hero, will be remembered for very much longer.

His funeral is at Durham crematorium at 1.30pm tomorrow.

LAST week's obituary on the wondrous Peter Tinniswood, writer and carer for cricket, produced several sympathetic responses - among them Northern Echo columnist Harry Mead's.

Tinniswood, says Harry, had "a very acute sense of the affinity of unrelated words" - thus his Cricket Cook Book offered "Roast Lamb and Graveney" and "Marlar Melting Moments", which both might have been washed down by a bottle of Niersteiner Guter Majid Khan.

Harry also recalls that Tinniswood, interviewed for a job on The Guardian, was asked what he most liked in the paper.

"The Country Diary from Keswick," he replied, and for some reason failed to fill the vacancy.

Colin Briggs, who fronts the regional television input on Breakfast Time, recalls Brandon family lines like "What a woman, slippers like canal boats" - peculiarly English humour, he says.

Both he and Beryl Miller in East Boldon point out, however, that John Comer played Les Brandon and not, as we said, his son Carter.

Beryl's reproof is in character. "As Carter himself might have said: 'Aye... well...mmmm'."

IAN Taylor in Aycliffe Village sends a colossal obituary from the Independent on Laurence Wood, Shildon lad.

"He may be the only other famous person from your home town," he says, unkindly.

Born in 1911, son of a solicitor called James A Wood and (like all the best people) old boy of King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland, Laurence became the last Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum - "highly intelligent, very knowledgeable, an excellent linguist and devoted to the work of his department," says the Indie.

When dirty work was to be done, the Keeper would also don his boiler suit and muck in in the basement.

Ian also recalls Shildon stalwart, champion boxer and masseur Nobser Raine on the piano but, curiously, overlooks his son. Craig Raine, Shildon lad, is among Britain's best known modern poets.

...and finally, since today's column has been somewhat occupied by mortality, Mrs Bell from Darlington has brought in a two bob booklet called Valuable Advice on Natural Cures Without Cost or Drugs, published in 1921.

"Things which shorten life: alcoholic liquors, tobacco, sensuality, excessive toil, indolence, uncleanness, insufficient sleep, worry and hurry.

"Things which prolong life: Pure air, mode of breathing, water drinking, washing, bathing, exercise, sleep, cheerfulness, contentment, peace of mind."

No worries, the column returns next week.

Doug, a racing certainty

Sedgefield Races, Tuesday: hossing down, as it were. The going's officially heavy - a racing euphemism meaning "thick with clarts" - the thin crowd's wagering on an abandonment.

"How'll we recognise you?" we'd asked Doug Jemmeson on the telephone.

"I'll be wearing a cap," said Doug.

The first race is on the cards in his honour, The Doug Jemmeson "Lifetime in Racing" Handicap Hurdle pretty well saying it all. Horse work? "Well, yes," he says, "but I've never regretted a minute."

The race is one of a series organised by Racing Welfare to acknowledge similar service. There's a £20 free bet, an' all.

For the 75-year-old, still riding out at Middleham every morning, Sedgefield represents a homecoming. "There's the tower of the church where I was a choirboy," he announces as rain sweeps across the parade ring.

He was born in the village - "in a manger, more or less" - was four when he started helping his Uncle Bill with his animals. Bill Gibbon was a coal merchant and general contractor, horse drawn bin emptier, tar sprayer and midnight man (as the euphemists used more fragrantly to suppose.) Bitten by horses - kicked often enough, too - young Doug served a seven year apprenticeship at Hurworth as farrier, blacksmith and agricultural engineer and raced as what in those days was termed a flapping jockey.

In an event at Belmont, near Durham, he fractured his skull, one of 22 broken bones - including three broken legs whilst shoeing - as pains for his devotion.

After the Belmont fall he was unconscious for a week. "You lived or died in those days, there was no real medical help. I suffered an awful lot and my parents were completely against me going back to racing.

"I was keen as hell - no brains, but keen as hell - and horses get into your blood. It might be a disease I've got, I don't know"

Besides, he says, you can't blame the poor horse for you being in the wrong place at the right time.

During the war he was excused military duty because keeping horses on the road was considered a job of national importance - "every tradesman had horses then" - and in 1952 he moved from Hurworth to Middleham with trainer Joe Carr.

He subsequently joined Joe Hartington. "I wanted a ten shilling rise for horse shoeing, nowt to ten bob, but Joe wasn't keen. We had a barney and that was that."

Soon he was also head man, riding out and doing all the feeding. "I was working 24 hours a day and it was getting impossible, so I decided to concentrate on being a farrier."

Best foot forward he has plated winners for the Queen and in the St Leger, still keeps his own horses and as a member of the Worshipful Company of Master Farriers remains in 24 hour demand.

"The greatest way to deal with a difficult horse is to be patient with it," he says.

"A horse will never respond to brute force."

His family joined him for the big race, three-and-a-half miles offering a run for anyone's money, and also helped judge the best turned out. He might almost have won it himself. "It's a wonderful gesture by Racing Welfare, especially because it's at Sedgefield," said Doug.

His free bet went on Grattan Lodge, on such an afternoon as Tuesday's perhaps better named Grattan Plodge, which won at 7-2. Though caps stayed on heads, Doug was clearly delighted - but that night, as almost every night, he'd be back at Middleham seeing to the horses.