Tag Archives: North Shields

Beware the servants

As readers of murder mysteries well know, when a body is found in a large country house it’s usually the butler that did it. While this is just a crime fiction cliché, research that I recently carried out at North… Read more

Bungling burglars and sweet-toothed thieves

Over the past six months I’ve been popping into the local studies libraries in North Shields and South Shields to look through local newspapers from the early Twentieth Century. The reason for this has been my fascination with one particular… Read more

Crime and punishment in North Shields

Back in November 2010 Tyne & Wear Archives was given a photograph album  of prisoners brought before the North Shields Police Court between 1902 and 1916 (TWAM ref. DX1388/1). The album contains over a thousand mugshots of prisoners and several… Read more

‘Audrey, next time I’ll come, I want you to remember me, OK?’

Audrey is around 85, she generally prefers to sit quietly in her wheelchair, but there are occasions when she speaks up; every time she speaks up, words become precious. The residents who live at Linskill Park Extra Care Scheme range… Read more

Hidden History – LGBT Month

In recent years there has been increasing interest in more personal versions of history such as gender and sexuality, but it’s often difficult to uncover evidence of private lives, particularly of ordinary people. In reviewing a recent addition to the… Read more