THE WOODEN DOLLIES OF NORTH SHIELDS BOOK LAUNCH

VEITCH

 


 







(in memory of Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch, 1881-1938)

‘One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.’ George Bernard Shaw 

Football brain,

you thought with your feet,

treading the boards

in a dynamic theatre

of passing action.

A winning way,

love of the glorious day 

and a sense of history

from Heaton Park

to socialism.

Your story,

from the pulsing Tyne

to the Geordie trophy room,

keeps us hoping

on Gallowgate,

alive with dignity

and strong respect

for the ideal of community

and the black and white love

of fairness.

Battling away,

in a skilled midfield 

and in the stinking trenches,

you fought

for your troubled lilting city

and all of those 

who ever kicked a ball

in its intimate soulful avenues.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Colin Veitch made a total of 322 appearances for Newcastle United, scoring 49 goals. He  captained the United side which won League Championships in 1905, 1907 and 1909, the FA Cup in 1910 and were FA Cup finalists in 1905, 1906, 1908 and 1911, and also represented England on 6 occasions.

DURHAM: POEM BY KEITH ARMSTRONG, PHOTO AND ARTWORK BY PETER DIXON

THE BIRTLEY BELGIANS

 









FRIENDS OF THE GRAVES

(for the Birtley Belgians)

‘Never forget that you are a Birtley Belgian.’
(Ida ‘Anderland’ Dergent)

This is the story of the Birtley Belgians,
the shellers from hell,
the wandering men
and the women they wed.
You can say goodbye to your friends.

These are the remnants of Elisabethville,
the shattered relics of battered soldiers,
the shards of savagery,
the empty shells of discarded folk.

This is what’s left of the carnage,
the last of the war effort,
the smiles of the children
and the severed limbs.
This is the story of the Birtley Belgians.

From Flanders and Wallonia they came
leaving beloved roots behind
to do their bit for the ritual slaughter,
to bring up well their sons and daughters
to dance and sing
under the hails of bullets.

Fishing for sunshine in the Ijzer brook,
kicking stones on the Rue de Charleroi,
the Birtley Belgians
planted their seed on Durham ground
and made do
and made explosive dreams.
What more can we tell?
‘Home is made for coming from,
for dreams of going to
which with any luck
will never come true.’

Sweating in uniform
on assembly lines,
pulverising their brains
to keep the powers that be in power,
they were strong
and at the same time weak
and screamed and cried
like anyone.
This is the story of the Birtley Belgians.

They’re gone now,
blown to dust
in the festering fields,
memories strewn over the way
to fertilise another day
with the same weary mistakes
and thrusts of love.

I can see the boys in the Villa de Bruges
slaking their frustrated fantasies
to drown the horror
and the girls
seductive behind the huts
in between
the grind of daily production.

Let me take you
up the Boulevard Queen Mary,
along the Rue de Louvain,
knock on the door of number D2
and blood will pour
and the ground will open up,
‘mud will take you prisoner’
and devour all those years.
This is the story of the Birtley Belgians.

You can hear their singing on the North Sea wind,
hear them in Chester le Street and Liege,
the brass band and orchestra
drowning out the distant pounding.
In and out of trouble,
we will always dance.

An accordion wails across the little streets,
the Three Tuns welcomes the living.
And at the crack of dawn
and in the battlefields of evening clouds
we will remember them,
in the words of the Walloon poet Camille Fabry proclaim:
‘Our thoughts fly like arrows back to the land of our birth.’

This is the story of the loss of lives
for causes we scarcely understand
but for love and grandeur too
and for the little Belgian children
and the joyous games they play.
This is the story of the Birtley Belgians.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

The Birtley Belgians emigrated from Belgium to Birtley, County Durham during World War 1 to build an armaments factory and lived in their own specially created village.  

Named after the Queen of the Belgians, Elisabethville itself became Little Belgium - a colony of 6,000 people, of boules and of boulevards. It had its own hospital, cemetery, school, church, nunnery and Co-op; only Flemish and Walloon were spoken. The Birtley factory was to the north of the town, British built but entirely Belgian run. By 1916 it gave work to 3,500 men, 85 per cent disabled in some way, with 2,500 family members also housed in the adjacent iron fenced village.

The poem was commissioned by the Birtley Belgians Euro-Network in 2015 in association with Borsolino and Berline Belgian Drama Groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgE9ltf_Az4

http://www.therecusant.org.uk/#/keith-armstrong-new-poem/4594395442

What a good job you've made of it!  Like you, I find these nooks and crannies of the 20th century totally fascinating. (John Mapplebeck, Bewick Films).

Nice one Keith. Well constructed and hitting the spot for me.

In the 60s I went to Birtley East Secondary Modern, which was located across the Durham Road from Elizabethville and behind the Three Tuns. Fellow pupils were children of the Birtley Belgians and the ROF factory was still operating and producing shells.

Kind regards,
John Mitchell (The Sawdust Jacks)

HERITAGE OPEN DAYS 2018