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BRICKING IT: FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE BUILDING TRADE

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  Ask anyone to conjure up an image of building workers from the North East and they’ll be naturally drawn to the popular culture of the 1980s TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and the fortunes of the Geordie bricklayers who upped sticks for graft in Germany during a building recession in Britain . They’ll recall the bleakness of the site huts, the constant putt of the cement mixers, the bottles of Becks in strange boozers and the rolls of Deutschmarks in a wad; they’ll remember the worldly-wise foreman Dennis Patterson, played by Dennis Healy; the green youngster Neville, as portrayed by Kevin Whatley and, of course, they’ll mind the raucous, boisterous brickie Oz. Jimmy Nail’s character was a believable and realistic characterisation and one that you could easily find among the lengths of 4x2, bags of cement or football terraces in Britain at the time. Slapping down compo with his trowel in a brown leather jacket and combat pants while telling dirty jokes, Oz didn’t care much fo...

A BRIEF (AND INCOMPLETE) HISTORY OF THE TAIT CLAN

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Genealogy is an inexact science. The path can be littered with errors and omissions. When it comes to Coats of Arms – presented to an individual, not a family, though they can be passed down the direct line – the Public Register in Scotland only goes back as far as 1672. So while the armorial bearings of the Taits of Pirn remain, others don’t.  Patrick Tait wasn’t just a fixer for old Lady Buccleuch (Elizabeth Kerr) – he was also a Knight of the Scottish realm. Sir Patrick was an official ‘procurator’ responsible for moving Lady Buccleuch’s cattle around and also looking out for them. He was placing her cattle on land in 1539 with the consent of her husband, the Knight Walter Scott of Branxholm, and was representing her at days of truce at the Redden Burn regarding stolen livestock from around 1536. He’d also been accused of pasturing sheep in England, with others of the family, in 1523, and of being involved in reiving with a number of the most notorious Armstrongs and Elliots a...

THE BLACK ROLL

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A partial and incomplete list of Border Reivers, in no particular order, known to have been executed during the first six years of the Pacification of the Borders between 1605 and 1611 at Newcastle, Carlisle, Dumfries, Peebles, Selkirk, Hawick and Jedburgh. 1. Simon Armstrong, Laird of Mangerton 2. Simon Armstrong, Laird of Whithaugh 3. William Elliot 4. Andrew Armstrong 5. Martin Elliot 6. John ‘Jock Stowlugs’ Armstrong 7. Edward’s Tom Armstrong 8. Christopher Irving alias ‘Gifford Carleton’ 9. Thomas ‘Geordie’s Tom’ Armstrong 10. Thomas ‘Souter’s Tom’ Armstrong 11. Robert Graham 12. William ‘Flangtail’ Graham 13. John Pott 14. Alexander Davidson 15. Anthony Stokoe 16. Reynold Charlton 17. Henry Dodds 18. Arthur Robson 19. Archie Rogers 20. John Hall, 21. Archie Armstrong 22. Thomas Armstrong 23. Cuthbert Charlton 24. William Charlton 25. George Reed 26. George Nixon 27. Bartram Potts 28. William Elliot 29. Gawen Reed 30. John Gibson 31. William Ormsby...