GEOFF GREGG in Tursdale, County Durham, was recently clearing out drawers when he came across this lovely little coin bearing the head of King George V, who reigned from 1910 to 1936, on one side, and the entire Lord’s Prayer on the other. “Amazingly, it's only about half an inch wide,” he says. It must be connected to his family from Ferryhill.
Paul Dobson, in Bishop Auckland, has a similar medal. In fact, we’d go so far as to say the side with the prayer on it is identical, but the image of the king is in full face whereas on Geoff’s medallion, the monarch was in profile, as if on a stamp.
“I too have one but the image of the king is replaced by a cross,” says Martin Donbavand. “I had mine professionally cleaned and mounted as a pendant and have it on good authority that it was originally for a charm bracelet.”
And so the blindingly obvious strikes…
Initially we wondered if the medallions could be something like a confirmation present, but, of course, George V reigned from 1910 to 1936 and so was on the throne during the First World War. Therefore, was the small medallion a good luck charm given to soldiers as they went away to the front?
Barbara Laurie in Bishop Auckland draws our attention to the wording which says “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”. Other versions of the prayer feature “trespasses” or “sins” instead of “debts”, so could this point to which religious denomination the medallion was connected?
There don’t seem to be any hard and fast rules here, but it does seem that Catholics, Anglicans and Methodists are more likely to say “trespasses” whereas Presbyterians say “debts”. This may, though, be a red herring. Can you tell us any more?
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“I DIDN’T know my great-grand dad,” says Valerie Stewart in Darlington, “but I was told that his moustache used to move when he was asleep, and my mum said he was a lovely man.”
He was Henry Jackson, who lived down the Batts in Bishop Auckland, and his picture featured in Memories 645 when we were telling of Tom Hutchinson’s new book, Down the Batts Bank.
READ MORE: PICTURES FROM LIFE DOWN THE BATTS BANKS
In the picture, Henry, a miner, is with his daughter Emma Thrower, who worked as a cook at Bishop Auckland hospital, and her son William.
Among Henry’s other children was Edith, Valerie’s grandmother, who had seven children with her husband, James White, before she died young.
James moved his family, including Valerie’s mother Hilda, from the Batts to a large house in Shildon, South Bank House, near the King William pub where there were plenty of outbuildings for his chick-rearing business.
“My mam knew all about turning the eggs in the incubators,” says Valerie. “During the war, she worked at the Aycliffe munitions factory as a blue band (a supervisor), and she would finish her shift and go and help her dad sell the chicks on a market.”
READ MORE: BEWITCHED BY THE BATTS
AND MORE: EXTRAORDINARY TALES FROM A BISHP AUCKLAND RIVERBANK
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