The children of Parkside Infant School accompanied by teachers and adults visited Beamish Museum on 30th June 2004.
This gallery of photographs is meant to illustrate what they learned about life in and old mining community similar  to
Seaham where most of their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers were born and brought up.

The children were in shock as they sat listening to Mr Whackem, their teacher at  the old Beamish Primary School.  He was a very stern man.  He carried a long cane  in his hand at all times.  They knew that if they spoke out of turn or didn't put up their hands to answer a question then Mr Whackem would not pleased.	It was not a good idea to displease Mr Whackem so the children were very well behaved and sat attentively in their rows of desks.  The classroom seemed dark and boring compared to their own classroom. where they could work in groups on different topics.  At old Beamish Primary only Mr Whackem moved around .  He taught and the children listened.
The classrooms were tidily laid out  and everything was well polished.  There wasn't much childrens work displayed on the walls, though,  there were posters and maps and a great big globe of the world.	Two children sat at each desk each with their own ink well into which the children would dip their pens to write. The whole classroom seemed to echo when Mr Whackem spoke in his booming voice.
After school the children were homeward bound.  At home father would soon be in frtom work and would have a bath and change from his dirty  work clothes.  Dad was also very strict and told the children that they "should be seen and not heard".  The children didn't argue with him.	Mam was strict too and expected that all the children would help her with the housework.  Everybody was given their jobs to do and woo-betide them if they weren't  done to Mam's satisfaction
There were carpets to be beaten because in those days there were no vacuum cleaners.	Rugs, carpets and "clippy mats" were regularly hung on a line in the back yard and beaten.  No one had very much money  in those days but they did have plenty of coal for the fire.  The coal was kept in the coal house in the back yard - that's it with the door open.
There were no electric washing machines either. So the washing was done in a big metal tub filled with water with some flakes of soap added.  The clothes were put into the water and  pummelled and turned with a large poss stick which had a handle at the top.	Once the clothes had been washed they were removed from the  wash-tub and squeezed through a mangle to remove most of the water.  A mangle had two wooden rollers which were turned in opposite directions by turning a handle.  The clothes were were fed-in between  the two rollers as they were turned.
	MORE photos from Beamish Museum     >

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