The Birtley Belgians

THE days when gendarmes patrolled the streets of a NorthEast village will be recalled in a book to be published before the month's out. Named after the Queen of the Belgians, Elisabethville itself became Little Belgium - a colony of 6,000 people, of boules and of boulevards, of cents and sensibility.

It had its own hospital, cemetery, school, church, nunnery and Co-op; only Flemish and Walloon were spoken. That some reports talk of the Belgians growing leeks and breeding whippets merely suggests how quickly they caught on.

Elisabethville became part of Birtley, between Chester-le-Street and Gateshead. Its inhabitants, with English alliterative affection, became known as the Birtley Belgians.

John Bygate's story begins in 1915 when, with front line units ordered to fire no more than ten shells a day, Britain finally realised that it was unprepared for a protracted war.

"It seems so often to have been the case, " says John, a historian and retired teacher from Durham.

Appointed munitions minister, Lloyd George ordered the building of numerous new factories all over Britain as the nation approached its shell-by date.

Still they needed workers; most women were already involved in heavy industry. Desperately needing to arm the big guns, Lloyd George turned to little Belgium.

The Birtley factory was to the north of the town, British built but entirely Belgian run - a Belgian combo, as it were. 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.

"Unable to fight, they were still determined to play their part, " says John.

"By the end of the war their target would have been just over a million shells. They produced two and threequarter million. It must have been an enormous undertaking" They were housed in new prefabs within the colony, with running water, electricity, a stove for cooking and heating and even indoor toilets.

Conditions weren't just better than in occupied Belgium, they were better than in Birtley. "It caused a certain amount of friction at first, " says John, and locals may further have been rubbed up the wrong way when handsome young Belgians began dating Birtley's bonniest.

"Some were single, of course, " says John, "others may have had husbands at the Front. . . ."

Though the men were officially discharged, the factory was run as a military operation, workers putting in 12 hour shifts - a week of days, a week of nights - in heavy serge uniforms. At least 13 were killed in industrial accidents.

"Imagine it when the furnaces or shell pressing machines might have been several hundred degrees, " says John.

Other dissatisfactions led to a nearriot on December 21, 1916 when 2,000 men marched on the gendarmes and a shot was fired before things quietened.

"It was one of the problems, " says John. "They were Belgian police but they were in England. Could they be allowed to carry guns? Elisabethville wasn't strictly Belgian territory, but it certainly wasn't English."

The Elisabethville villagers soon settled down. There were three choirs, a brass band, small orchestra, "umpteen" sports clubs, debating society - "I call it the Elisabethville Lit and Phil" - and even a newspaper, the Birtley Times, copies still held at Liege university.

"The main thing, " says John Bygate, "was that the rest of Birtley discovered that they weren't for a skive, as perhaps they'd feared, but worked tremendously hard and stood shoulder to shoulder with Britain."

JJOHN Bygate first became aware of the Birtley Belgians when asked ten years ago to edit and update an earlier book. Until then, he admits, he'd not even heard of them.

Subsequently he heard from the grandson of the Belgian director-general of the factory, who had much documentary evidence. "It's fair to say that I was enthralled, " he says over a lunchtime Guinness. "I realised I had to write my own book."

He has also spent a week helping a Flemish television company make a documentary about their compatriots.

Most of the Belgians were repatriated around Christmas 1918; 30 or so stayed behind to marry. Even today, the South Tyneside telephone book has an unusual number of names starting with "van". A six day sale was held to dispose of furniture and other Elisabethville essentials.

Though the factory still makes munitions, all that remains of the village is traces of the road pattern and a former food store and butcher's shop. Now used by motor traders, the two are Grade II listed buildings. The school, intended to last for ten years, was used for that purpose for 63.

Elisabethville has now disappeared from most maps. "That seems to me, " says John Bygate, "to be a very great shame."

Of Arms and the Heroes costs £10 (plus £1 postage) and is available from the History of Education Project, Miners Hall, Red Hill, Durham DH1 4BB.