Haggies
A typical December’s day. The grey cloud powdered the skyline and a north easterly chilled the air.
The Willington Quay viaduct spanned the deep valley. It always seemed a desolate place no matter the season with depression its natural mood. Even the air seemed trapped below its oppressive ribs, except for fitful gusts that escaped with metallic screeches between its heavy arches. It would be easy to imagine its frame as a dinosaur’s prehistoric fossil, its seven ribbed carcass spanning time as easily as it spanned the dark valley.
As the winter wind cut through the seven arches, it sounded like a demented screech as if from fear inspired or from an unnatural shock torn. Perhaps in times long past, it echoed the whirl of rope strung inside the low lying factory that seemed to squat under its black girders. Now derelict, the Ropery was once the living pulse of the girder’s fleshless bones. Before that, the adjacent Victorian Mill, fed life into the valley, drinking from its stream, the Gut, that ran into the Tyne.
As a young child, we would explore the valley along the Gut. In summer we would hunt bird’s eggs. I remember the day we discovered a linnet’s nest, dressed in its etched delicate eggs like precious gems hidden among rubble. The claustrophobic grasses with the sweet aroma of heavy undergrowth, sharpened by a heavy summer shower, drenched our legs with its heady scent as we searched for more treasure. But near the stream, the foul stench suggested a lower part of our anatomy than the Gut!
As we peered over the bushes, a doll could be seen partially submerged in the muddy stream: its blue glass eyes still visible above the scummy surface were staring lifelessly at the bright skies. It caught our attention as its rouged cheeks and red checked Victorian dress contrasted with the slurry that surrounded it. Suddenly it was carried forward with a little surge and swallowed by the low drain’s mouth that carried debris to the open Tyne.
After we fought back through the dense undergrowth, the delicate eggs cradled in my free hand, we regained the well trodden path alongside the stream, nearer the three story block towering above the Ropery.
“Wonder what they did it that building?” I enquired “Packed the rope in there I bet”
“No. My great Grandmother worked there, “ Tom retorted. “ Or it could, Mother said, be our Great... Great Grandmother...called Kitty, I think” He continued “It was a mill long before Haggies. They then used it as a canteen”
“There is a ghost there!” blurted John, “ a girl or young woman walks passed those windows at night!”
We all looked up at the six large windows at the block’s cable end. They were still intact, their metal frames rusted to a deep copper red; but the glass was either absent or cracked and opaque, covered by moss and filth. The sun played on its surface and we imagined the shadows could perhaps be the fleeting figure of a young woman walking passed the window’s huge eyes! Our steps quickened in unison. All slowed down instinctively once the safety of the main road was reached. Looking back, the buildings under the dismal arches were largely hidden behind the dense green screen of grass and hedge row. Only the crooked figure of the Gut and its narrow path pointed towards its terrifying ruins.
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