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European Adventure 2017
It was very windy when we woke this morning, in fact it is over the whole country as the tail end of a cyclone takes a swipe at us. We had been told an open air Museum in Beamish not far from where we were was well worth a visit so we went to check it out. What an amazing place...a bit like Ferrymead on steroids (for those who know Christchurch). It is designed to keep pace with living memory and so it starts with a section depicting the 1820's and progresses through 1912 to 1940 and the war years. Extremely well done and very interesting. The staff were in period costume and actively participating in things like baking, printing, shop keeping etc. There was a dentist room there from 1913 and the 'dentist' told us that when you turned 21 in those days the parents were keen to be rid of their children and to marry them off. One of the methods used was to have all your teeth removed at age 21 (whether they were in good condition or not) and get a set of false smiley white teeth which would indicate family wealth and low teeth maintenance from that point on, therefore a prize catch for marriage! The gas used to put the patients out had no method of measuring the dose and it was left up to the dentist how much was applied. 3% of the patients receiving gas in those days failed to wake up! Maybe that's where the term 'murderhouse' comes from! The foot operated drill did a maximum of 400 revolutions per minute so best to get to the dentist in the morning before his leg got too tired! We went down the shaft of a coal mine which closed in 1958 and even I had to stoop to walk in! They used Shetland and other small ponies in those days to bring the coal out and they were treated much better than the coal miners. The regulations stipulated that the shaft be no less than 4'6" high as that was the height of a 'pit pony' and they were not allowed to hit their heads. It was so cold and dark in there and the conditions the miners had to work in were atrocious with such small areas to swing their picks while lying on the ground. There were several thousand working in mines throughout the area. As you will see by the buses the transport system was also represented as was a school. A great day out.
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Jane We have a friend who owns one of the trolley busses that lives there. We went round the museum years ago with the children. As is the case with children we went round at a pace of knots, I've often thought it would be nice to revisit many a place like this at our geriatric pace!!! Glad you are still having fun xx