When I visited Wylam in 1906, this street also was demolished. Going back to Stevenson’s Centenary day, I distinctly remember a long line of locomotives all brightly painted and polished, bedecked with flags standing in North Wylam station, whilst canons were continuously being fired from the old slag heap close by. I remember these canons or small mortars about two feet long, were charged with a handful of powder and tamped with cotton wool. A sort of fair was carried on at the same time, stalls being scattered about under the hedges. Centenary medals of the great Engineer, with his head on one side, and “the first engine that ever pulled a passenger train” on the other, were sold, one of which came into my possession, I suppose through my father; which is still in my possession. The house that George Stevenson was born in, “Street House”, is a short distance down the north line, which is laid close past the door; towards Newcastle.
Many stories have been told to me by my father, which were related to him by a Miss Jackson, who was very, very old, and who tidied the reading room for her living several of which related to George Stevenson in his young days.
She was the sister of Isaac Jackson, a coal miner of West Wylam, but living at High Wylam in a small tiled house, within a short distance of the school.
Jackson, it seems, had practically no education, but was a veritable genius with things mechanical. He made several clocks, and models of engines etc. One of these clocks was given to my father by Miss Jackson; it was what is called a 'Wag-at-t-Wa'; well after being oiled a few times with the hair oil it got gummed up, so my father proceeded in the usual way then in vogue, to boil it; but what was his dismay when he lifted off the pan lid, to find many dozens of pieces floating on the top of the water; the whole clock was made of wood, but so cleverly varnished, or lacquered over that the whole thing looked like metal. I remember this clock quite well.