Sorry, Allan - maybe it is just a tourist thing on the border, like the pitwheel monuments erected by the old mining villages of Co. Durham to remind them of their heritage. Does Tradition only equate with Old Fashioned? The only thing to look forward to - the past. Actually, I don't think Quaking Houses gets many tourists these days, despite its prominence in the Stanley Green Corridor; not sure about Marley Hill though - and Chester-le-Street had a Saturday Market worthy of Tommy Armstrong's Stanley Market (though what the machine actually did maybe we'll never know) hopefully it still does - haven't been for years.

Since moving to Lancashire three years ago I've become more conscious of my Geordie roots - born in North Shields to a Mackem mother and a Northumbrian father, I was a fish largely indifferent of the water through which I swam. I've taken to singing a few more of the old songs & Border Ballads from the Minstrelsy (the old Northumbrian melody of Binnorie is one to die for) and Northern Bards etc. My favourite as a kid was always The Collier's Rant, which keeps getting older & older the more I look into it. I think the oldest date we have for it puts it around 1750! A common song in the NE both in Folk circles & out, though I see my wee version is still the only one on YouTube (HERE). Different language? You bet!

Anyone going to the Morpeth Gathering this year? We're doing a wee set of Border Ballads if anyone's interested, sharing the bill with Matt Seattle on Border Pipes.

And still no takers on The Seghill Ring? Well, according to legend Seghill only ever had the one Netty, the oaken orifice of which was thice-daily creosoted by the hasty honey-diggers for reasons of hygiene leaving the villagers indelibly stained.