Northumberland
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Northumberland’
Mild-mannered Grace Darling persuaded her father to let her help him rescue the survivors of a shipwreck.
Grace Darling was just 22 when she helped her father rescue the survivors of a shipwreck on the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast. It was a moment of instinctive heroism that would change her life forever.
When Penda tried to burn down Bamburgh Castle, St Aidan turned the pagan King’s own weapons against him.
St Aidan (?590-651) came from the island of Iona to Northumbria during the reign of King Oswald, and remained there under Oswald’s successors until his death in 651. He settled himself on the island of Lindisfarne.
At Bamburgh, John Sharp organised free healthcare and education, bargain groceries, and the world’s first coastguard service.
John Sharp’s 18th-century charitable trust at Bamburgh Castle is often dubbed a ‘welfare state’ today, but that is misleading. There were no laws or taxes, no inflated public sector salaries or party politics, just spontaneous generosity and the freedom to get the job done.
Lord Armstrong’s home was an Aladdin’s cave of Victorian technology.
Modern ‘green’ policies cost money and jobs, and blight the environment. Victorian industrialist Lord Armstrong managed to conserve the environment and yet also trial a range of emerging technologies that now bring comfort and prosperity to hundreds of millions of people.
A hungry monk thought he had got away with the tastiest of crimes, but St Cuthbert kept his promise to his beloved birds.
St Cuthbert the Wonderworker of Lindisfarne (?634-687) is one the the most famous of all English saints. He lived in solitude on Inner Farne off the coast of Northumberland, surrounded by the birds he loved, and promised to take care of them even after he was gone.
A bird of prey shattered the peace of St Cuthbert’s island, and was taught an unforgettable lesson.
St Cuthbert (?634-687) loved the many birds of his island retreat, and before he died the saint promised them ‘St Cuthbert’s Peace’: that if they lived in harmony with one another, no man or beast would disturb them and go unpunished. Five centuries later, monk Bartholomew (?-1193) saw for himself the saint’s determination to keep a promise.