Photography’s ice work if you can get it

OPENING up Douglas Jefferson's suitcase has been like opening a tin of worms. Mr Jefferson - known as "Jeff" - was The Northern Echo's first chief photographer, appointed in 1919 and retiring in 1958. A collection of his prints has been lurking in a suitcase in the corner of the office for some years. Last week, we dusted it offand opened it up.

Two pictures proved particularly popular.

Several people were interested in buying copies of Jeff 's most famous picture - High Force completely frozen in February 1929.

You can now see all last week's pictures on our website at northernecho. co. uk/news/ galleries/memories/, and you can buy them by going to northernecho. co. uk and clicking on the photosales button in the grey bar at the top. Alternatively, you can call in at our office in Priestgate, Darlington.

When the High Force picture was first printed in 1929, the Echo was inundated with requests to buy it because this was a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

The previous complete freeze on the Tees had been 1869; the next one was 1964.

Has global warming ensured there will never be another?

During several winters, particularly in the early 1960s, the waterfall came close to freezing, but there's been too much movement for the plunge pool to succumb.

In Jeff 's suitcase is another picture dated February 25, 1947. The fall is again a spectacular ice sculpture, topped by a dusting of snow. Huge icicles hang like a giant seal's tusks from the rocks - but the plunge pool did not freeze for the second time in the cameraman's life.

THE most popular picture was the one that showed five 1920s boys in their Sunday best - heavy boots, plus fours, buttoned up tweed tunics and cloth caps - conducting "eggish experiments".

They were, of course, egg jarping.

In fact, this is very rare photographic evidence of egg jarping - a sport previously confined to Mike Amos' columns in this paper.

Egg jarping traditionally took place on Easter Sunday with "pace eggs".

"We wrote our names on unboiled eggs with a wax candle, and the eggs were then hard boiled in either onion skins or petals from gorse bushes, " remembers David Farms, who grew up in Hett, near Durham City.

"They came out with fantastic patterns and our names in white."

If dyed woollen yarns were added to the boiling water, the eggs came out covered in a kaleidoscope of colours.

On Easter Sunday morning, the eggs were usually rolled down a steep hill prior to a jarping contest.

Barbara Smith, of Hartburn, Stockton, learnt her jarping skills in Middlesbrough.

"The egg was held in your hand with fingers round it with one end available to be "jarped", " she says. "The other egg was held in a similar manner and was used to hit your egg. The aim was to break your opponent's egg without breaking your own."

It was basically a game of conkers using hard-boiled eggs, jarping your pointy end against your opponent's pointy end. In jarpspeak, a good strike on your opponent's egg was called a "dunch".

Gary Russell, from West Auckland, says: "The loser consumed the egg and the winner carried on with other competitors."

But it wasn't as simple as dunching one egg into another. Jarping was a game of tactics and skill.

Says David: "There was a way of holding the egg which made it harder to break. Neither of the two boys in the picture knew this judging by their loose grip on their eggs."

"Jarp" is a dialect word in the North-East and Yo rkshire meaning "to strike or to smash". The World Egg Jarping Championships are held in Peterlee every Easter, but jarping by other names goes on across Europe.

Greece, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia all go in for it, as do Iraq and Lebanon. The French are especially fond of a good jarping, and introduced it to America where towns in Louisiana hold "big egg knocking contests".

The Swiss call it "ostereiertitschen". The French call it "la toquette".

Many of the eastern European countries call it something that sounds like "tucanje".

But most of Europe also has a dialect expression for it - the equivalent of our jarping. They usually call it something like "pocking".

There are reasons for this.

Firstly, a pock egg is connected to the French "paques" for Easter - that's probably also why we call our jarping eggs pace eggs.

Secondly, when you jarp, the banging eggs make a pockpock noise.

|Many thanks to everyone who has been in touch. More secrets from the suitcase in future weeks.

THIS morning there will be a display of items, maps and diagrams relating to the railway lines that once ran around Bishop Auckland in the Discovery Centre in the town.

The exhibition is being run by John Swain to promote his new book, Railway Walks: Branchlines Around Bishop Auckland.

One of the walks follows the Brandon to Bishop line that was built between 1854 and 1857. It left a temporary station in Tenters Street, pushed through a 93ft tunnel underneath Bondgate before emerging into the light of day to cross the extraordinary Newton Cap viaduct - regular readers will remember the wonderful picture of the viaduct published here just before Christmas, showing architect Thomas Elliot Harrison standing proudly in front of his creation.

First stop on the line was Hunwick, around which a web of mineral sidings and wagonways grew up, connecting it to the local collieries.

Although the whole line closed in May 1964, Hunwick station is now a private house beside the railway path.

Second stop was Willington, "a classic example of how a small rural village grew into an industrial town within a couple of generations", says John.

In 1813, its population was 216. By 1911, it was 6,000.

Willington station sold 125,000 passenger tickets a year, and booked 13,000 parcels - a busy place.

Its goods yard was equally busy, full of coal, creosote, tar, pitch, bricks clay, ganister and manure, starting its journey to West Hartlepool docks.

The site of the station is now a grassy area beside the library.

The line went on to a small stop at Brancepeth before coming to Brandon Siding.

This quickly grew into a proper station which was renamed Brandon in 1878 and then rerenamed Brandon Colliery in 1896.

The station was demolished soon after closure, but with the help of John's book, you can still pick out the line, the cutting and the stationmaster's house.

Today's exhibition runs from 10am to midday, during which John will be signing copies of the book.

It costs £11.99 and is also available from Cribec and Etherington's newsagents, in Cockton Hill, and Stephenson's News, in Crook.

HOT news in to the stinkpipe desk. The cast iron pole that was outside Middlesbrough FC's training ground in Hurworth has been saved.

The late-Victorian cast ironwork, which stood 30ft high with stars emblazoned around, has been taken down from the roadside.

Tony Cooper, of developer Bussey and Armstrong, says the intention is to salvage those pieces of the pipe that aren't rusted and re-erect it in Pilmore Mews, the new housing development on the edge of the Backhouses' walled garden on the Rockliffe site.

INour New Year column about Darlington's horsedrawn street railroad, which opened on January 1, 1862, we mentioned that one of the tram drivers, James Temple Mangle, was taken to court for allegedly cruelly flogging his horses.

The poor chap was caught in a horrible battle between the Quaker promoters of the railroad and the publicans, who feared it would do them out of business.

Mr Mangle was found not guilty of mistreatment, but guilty of driving his horses on the pavement - presumably the only way they could avoid the obstacles strewn in their way by the publicans.

Mr Mangle is the greatgreat-grandfather of Jim Timmins, of Darlington, and was a cab proprietor in Bondgate for much of his working life.

Whatever the publicans alleged, a way with horses ran through the family tree because Mr Mangle was the great-great-grandnephew of John "Crying Jackie" Mangle, who was probably the first great racehorse trainer to be based at Middleham, in North Yo rkshire.

Crying Jackie trained and rode five winners of the St Leger: Ruler (1780), Paragon (1786), Spadile (1787), Young Flora (1788) and Tartar (1792).

He earned his nickname because he burst into tears whenever he lost.

THREE weeks ago, we were rootling through some albums that related to John Neasham's Ford garage on Parkgate, Darlington. In one was a letter from an Ernest at the Paragon Packing Co Ltd in Hartlepool reminiscing about a Ford lorry made in 1921.

Phillip George, of Chesterle-Street, recognised the Ernest.

"My uncle, Ernest Wake, was the managing director of Paragon for many years, " he says.

"He was, I know, very friendly with John Neasham.

"A fter marrying my aunt Madeline George in 1925 at St Hilda's Church, Hartlepool, he lived in Elwick Road until they moved to Rokewood, 75, Carmel Road South, Darlington. From there he travelled daily to the Paragon works until his death in 1951."

Paragon made all manner of cleaning agents at its Soap and Whiting Works. As can be seen from its glorious letterhead, the products had a common theme: Whitewel, Washwel, Kreemwel, Steamwel, Brightwel, Pastewel, Hangwel, Cleanwel, Saltwel...