A voice for the people of Haltwhistle

This is my Haltwhistle
By Emma Andrews

 

Summer 2009 issue of Tynedale Life magazine

which is free with the Hexham Courant.
For local breaking news headlines visit www.hexham-courant.co.uk

ON a sunny, clear day, pull on your boots, pack a picnic and climb Sheephill, just off  Wydon Lane, for a breathtaking view of the old market town of Haltwhistle. It is John Watson's favourite view of the town - and it's easy to see why. Sweeping up from the banks of the River South Tyne, surrounded by rolling hills and wild moorland, are the stone-built shops, houses and schools that make up the close-knit community of this traditional Northumbrian town.
Located, famously, at the very centre of Britain (mid-point of the longest line of longitude that can be drawn throughout Britain), there has been a settlement here since Saxon times. And for as long as anyone can remember, the Watsons have been at the heart of Haltwhistle's vibrant community.
As a boy local undertaker John Watson remembers playing on the cobbles in the back lane at Scotsfield Terrace in the west end of the town. Now a father-of-three, John and wife Pam live in number 1 Scotsfield Terrace, just a few doors up from the house where John was brought up with sister Anne and parents Isobel and Isaac, the local stonemason.
Today, their living room is built on the site of John's father's old workshop, a new brick extension marking the spot of a once thriving local industry. "I remember learning the craft with my father," said John. "I left school at 15 to work with dad - it was all I ever wanted to do. We worked on most of the headstones you can see in the local cemetery and graveyards scattered throughout the town.
"There is one that I really love, decorated with a steam locomotive. I remember standing back to admire my work when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and no-one was there but I like to think it was a pat on the back from beyond the grave."
It was John's great, great, great, great grandfather John who moved to Haltwhistle in the early 1830s and found himself at the centre of a booming building industry. Today it would be no exaggeration to say that the legacy of John's hard-working, ambitious ancestors can be seen in almost every significant building in the town.
Building after building along the town's attractive Main Street is marked by the signature Watson builder's trademark - a delicate curvy swirl, carved into the stone border above the windows. John is particularly proud of the ornately-decorated library with its 19th century time capsule buried in the stone pillar at the entrance; the impressive Westbourne House and the beautifully-renovated Church of the Holy Cross.
It was there that John married Pam 45 years ago - and it was there that their three children were christened. Today the family's headstone can be found, nestled between two trees in the charming, overgrown graveyard - an enduring reminder of his rich family heritage in the town.
Born in August, 1939, one of the first births in the old red-brick maternity wing of the War Memorial Hospital, John went to school in the local infants' school - now a new housing development. Over the years he has worked as a stonemason, builder, window cleaner and undertaker as well as working tirelessly for the community as a town councillor and vice-chairman of the Haltwhistle Partnership.
Today, John is a grandfather-of-four, recovering from a stroke at Christmas, but he is determined to continue to play his role in boosting the economic health of the town and revitalising community spirit. His latest vision is an Alpine style cable car service linking the town centre with the Roman Wall.
John predicts that two million visitors a year could be lured to the South Tyne capital by the creation of a cable car service taking people from the Haltwhistle Burn right up to one of the most impressive sections of the World Heritage site near the Milecastle Inn.
"We are not talking park and ride - we are talking park and glide," said John. The scheme, cooked up by the local vicar, has certainly got people talking - and that's exactly what John wants to see. "We need people to be talking about Haltwhistle, to be looking to the future," he said. "Some people have laughed at the idea, but we are determined to think big. Only then will things really change for the better."
John remembers a time when the local people got together to help local entrepreneur Douglas Smith build a paint factory, without pay but with the guarantee of a job at the end of it. "That was community spirit for you," he said. "When Smith and Walton closed it was a huge blow for the town but while we may have been disheartened, we were never going to be beaten. Haltwhistle is a vibrant, healthy community and we have a great deal of hope and optimism for the future."
Log on to John's website, www.visithaltwhistle.org, and you will be left in no doubt that Haltwhistle is, indeed, a bustling, thriving community. Walking and music
festivals, carnivals, golf, fishing and bowling clubs, riding schools, shops and cafes - Haltwhistle has it all. There's even an open air heated swimming pool which draws swimmers from across the region.
And for history buffs, Haltwhistle is a dream come true. Almost 300 years of border feuding between England and Scotland formed a constant ordeal for the people who inhabited the Border regions during the Middle Ages, an ordeal which reached its peak during the 16th and 17th centuries when robbery, raiding, murder, kidnap and arson were everyday hazards.
This constant warfare or Border Reiving between the Border families had very little to do with relations between the two countries who spent most of this time officially at peace with one another. The terrible violence of this time has left its mark on the Border landscape in the form of a series of fortified towers and defensible houses.
Haltwhistle's own Town Trail brings this history to life with a tour around some of the most ancient buildings in the town including the Centre of Britain Hotel with its rare example of a fortified urban tower - believed to date from the 16th century. Unusually, the tower features an anti-clockwise staircase concealed within the exterior wall.
Haltwhistle is renowned not just for its ancient buildings but for the Alston Arches - once a busy railway bridge into the town and now a popular walkway. For John, who used to take wife Pam on romantic walks down to the Arches when they were first courting, the view of the
majestic stone bridge sweeping over the River South Tyne is unforgettable.
"It is a view synonymous with Haltwhistle," said John. "It captures the history and grand vision of this town which means so much to so many people."