(Illustration: A bird’s eye view of the camp)

Eyvind Rian, posted this video link below of the camp, it’s dated 1972, I’ve only just found it on the internet Thank you Eyvind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l17h0rjDjM

Bellingham International Camp was an annual summer event for sixth formers in the Northumberland schools, so the pupils could meet up with other international students of a similar age. The camp was set up after the war, to promote peace, tolerance and understanding between the European nations. German children were part of the scheme, as were the French, the Belgians, and the Norwegians, but the majority of students were from schools in Northumberland.

I looked forward to making new friends there, and I certainly did. I met someone who became my best friend, and has been ever since, my husband, Bob.

Shortly before this camp, my family were invited to a wedding party, at my friend Lynn’s house, next door. She was the bride. Joan and I arrived later, after a cinema visit, and we popped in to see everyone to congratulate the happy couple.

However, a pleasant lady whom I’d never met, came over to chat to me; her name was Harriet. The first thing she said to me was, “You’re lovely, what’s your name?”

She asked me about my future plans, about college, what subjects I had opted for, and then she asked about my holiday plans. I explained to her about the holiday I was looking forward to, at Bellingham International Camp!

Her ears pricked up and she cried out excitedly, “Bellingham? My son is going there. He’s one of the leaders at that camp!” And she proceeded to tell me all about him. Next minute, she ushered me swiftly into the next room to meet her husband Jack, a man with a moustache, twinkling eyes, a friendly face and a lovely smile. They had both been to the wedding that day, as friends of the groom, and they both seemed eager to talk to me.

When we left to go home, Harriet said to me, “When you meet Bobby, at the camp, you must say ‘Hello’ to him! You will, won’t you?” I smiled and promised I would.

As soon as we were outside, my first question to Joan was, “Who is this Bobby Hamil, the one that that couple were talking about, do you know him?” Joan had been to Bellingham as a student in 1966, but didn't seem to know all that much about him. It seems that Bobby had only attended during the last weekend of that camp, so she didn't have much information about him at all.

I was soon to find out, for myself! 

All of a sudden school days were over!

And so, the day arrived for the Bellingham International camp holiday. We were all due to meet for the bus to take us to Bellingham, on Monday the 22nd July 1968.

There was a tall ‘man’ waiting there for us at the school gates, in his navy anorak with its fur collar, his umbrella and holdall, he was obviously a member of staff. I didn’t take much notice of him, but I saw Watty talking to him, she knew him, apparently.

So there we were, sixth form pupils from both the Grammar school and the Wallsend Technical school, chatting together, waiting for our coach to take us to Bellingham. Watty returned, and I asked her who she had been speaking to, and she told me who he was. She had known this man, Bobby, through county athletics meetings, when they had both represented Wallsend, when he was a pupil at Wallsend Technical School.

‘So he must be Bobby Hamil,” I thought to myself.

I wasn’t particularly impressed, as I glanced at him again. He seemed rather old fashioned for my liking.

Mrs Chapman, who was the nurse for the camp, then turned up, she was the last one to arrive.

Our names were checked off on a list as we boarded the coach, it was my first real holiday away from my parents. It was all so exciting.

Our suitcases were stored away by the driver, but I took my guitar on board with me.

On the way to Bellingham, we picked up pupils from Gosforth and Walbottle. It suddenly hit me then, that this was going to be such a very special holiday, with so many young people from so many different countries from all over Europe, and of course Northumberland. Pupils from Ashington and Bedlington would be joining us there.

We would also be seeing teachers from our own school who were going there as leaders too.

Peter Stavers, Roy Todd, Malcolm Berry and Jim Laffey.

David Featonby, a former pupil, who was by then teaching at Walbottle Grammar, was coming along too as leader; and as the organiser of the entertainment.

WAB, our French teacher, and headmaster of Wallsend Grammar School by then, was the ‘Camp Commandant’! We were still rather in awe of him!

On our way to the camp, my guitar came out of its case, and we, at the rear of the coach, sang as we journeyed along, I noticed that the teacher (Bobby) at the front, who had by then, taken his old-fashioned coat off, kept looking back at us, as we laughed and sang song after song.

Looking back, I suppose it was like the guitar scene from the film Airplane!

We had almost reached our destination, when Mrs Chapman informed us all in a hushed and excited tone of voice, that we were nearing the camp. She spoke in awe, as if some sun-drenched exotic beach was about to emerge, surrounded by palm trees!

“Just over this next rise, you’ll see it!” she announced. ‘The camp!”

In the distance the camp appeared; we saw rows of low dark huts, which looked like an army camp, set within a large field. We weren’t too far off in our thinking. 'The camp' was really a boarding school, known as Brown Rigg School, and its pupils were on their holiday break, and so this place was to become our home for the next two weeks. The school was actually built in 1938/39 and had been used in World War Two to house evacuee children from Newcastle.

When we arrived, everyone shuffled forward slowly to get off the bus. We at the back were last to get off. As we left the bus, I honoured the promise I’d made to Harriet, to get it over with. As I passed this teacher standing there, watching us getting off the bus, I looked at him, and asked him in a matter-of-fact way,

“Are you Bobby Hamil?”

He said he was.

So I continued, “Your mam said I had to say' "Hello," to you. So "Hello!’”

Job done!

But then . . . a smile lit up his face, and he said ‘Hello,” back to me.

Whether it was his blue eyes or his white teeth, I know not, but I think I may have fallen for him in that instant. He was actually very handsome and tall; he wasn’t wearing what had looked like his dad’s coat anymore, and he looked less . . . old fashioned, and more ‘with it’!

How can I describe how I felt when I walked up the driveway?

Strangely warmed again? But more about Bobby later.

It was dull that day, and the camp itself looked really rather depressing, with its regimented dormitories in seven straight rows, with their washrooms across the way.

Across a large square lawn, we were shown the dining hall, with its staff room to the right of it, and a concert hall adjacent to it.

This description of the camp reminds me now of a well-known song called ‘Camp Grenada’; which was about a person having a miserable time at a camp, that is until the sun came out.

Sure enough, much later on when the sun came out, we students began to enjoy ourselves, chatting to one another, and making new friends, and there was an instant change in the whole ethos of the place.

That next day while Watty, Lesley and I were playing tennis, I was trying to retrieve a ball from beneath a hut, when Peter Stavers and Bobby passed by, they walking to where staff cars were parked, on their way to the village, but Bobby stopped to help me retrieve the ball.

He told me much later, that he asked Peter about me in the car, and he had told him my name, and that I was a good cook!

Bobby was in charge of sports, so there were plenty of chances to meet him on the volleyball court. He was quite changed in appearance by then. He was ‘college boy’ all of a sudden, and he was wearing a grey hooded top given to him by a friend from college, who had lived in Bermuda. No-one else that I knew had worn a hoodie before. They hadn’t hit the market yet, so I suppose you could say he was actually trendy too! He also wore green shorts that emphasised his long-tanned legs, and he looked extremely fit. He had just started his career as PE teacher at Wallsend Technical School, and had begun supply teaching there, a month before the summer break.

So, I was determined to be learn to play this new and exciting game, volleyball, and to hang out there on court, you understand . . . but I paid the price for it! My wrists became very bruised in the process, and sore. At one point, seeing me wincing, Bobby stooped under the net, to check my wrists for me.

How caring and considerate! But did he really have to hold my hands as long as he did?

It was his job to organise a volleyball tournament between the boys and the male staff, so I asked if he could do the same for the girls and the lady staff.

He replied “The female staff are far too ladylike for that!”

Was he insinuating that we students were tomboys or something? Unladylike?

There was a dance the following evening in the concert hall, so I decided to dress to kill! I would show him, that we female students were no longer children, or tomboys for that matter.

The girls from our dormitory by then, knew I liked him, a lot, and they helped me get dressed that night. Norwegians, French and Belgians as well as Geordies all played their part in helping me get 'dolled up'. One carefully arranged my hair up off my shoulders, another lent me a necklace, another a bracelet. I wore a pretty white dress, despite the fact that I hated dresses, and then off I went, like Cinderella to the ball, minus her coach. A plan was afoot!

Bobby later entered the hall where the dance was being held, and immediately launched into conversation with a tall blonde girl from Norway, who as far as I was concerned was a Brigitte Bardot lookalike, (a famous French film star then). In fact, she was her double!

“Oh well,” I reasoned, “my friendship’s with Bobby is not to be!” Then the music started up, and the first dance began; I noticed that he’d asked the same Norwegian girl up, for a Bradford Barn dance.

At least I knew how to dance every single dance that evening, thanks to those Christmas party dance rehearsals at school. That was some consolation. Now we students were expected to teach them to our foreign visitors. This would be interesting! Such dances have fallen out of fashion now, which is so sad as it really was such a lovely way to meet other people.

Lively music struck up, Living Doll’ by Cliff Richard, and the Bradford Barn dance began. This was a dance where you keep changing partners, in a large circle, so I knew that for a few short seconds, I would get to do one very short dance with Bobby, before he made his way back round the circle to his film star!

When he reached me, he paid me a compliment. (Well done girls!) I explained it was important that he realised that we students could be just as ladylike, as the female staff. I reminded him of what he had said earlier. He seemed to find this amusing, as he passed on to the next partner, which was annoying, because I was being serious!

After that dance he didn’t go back to Brigitte Bardot after all, he came over and asked me for the next dance. I can’t even remember now which dance it was, my mind was in a whirl.

Afterwards he guided me to the side of the hall, to where the radiator was in the corner, and we chatted and watched the next dance. My hand was down by my side, by the radiator. (Every girl should have her hand at the ready like that!) Then his hand brushed against mine, and he took hold of it!

YES!

It was as simple as that! I couldn’t believe it. And that’s how our romance began.

We made our way over to the tuck shop to buy a drink, and then we walked around the lawn outside, and we chatted so easily and so naturally with each other.

I soon discovered that he had just broken off his engagement to another girl; at college! (not his fault might I add!) Her loss, my gain!

There was a Camp rule for any couples venturing outside, which was to ‘Keep walking’ and we did every evening after that, around the quadrangle. We had so much to talk about, and had so much in common.

That evening at the end of the dance, he gave me a kiss outside, just before we all went back to our dormitories. I was floating on air when I got back in, and fell back on my bed with a sigh, and all my friends started cheering.

I was to learn one of our female leaders, WAB’s daughter, must have been listening to us, just then. She was the head of our dormitory, and Bobby told me later, she had entered the staff room, declaring casually, whilst making a cuppa, “There’s someone here in this staffroom, who has made a girl in my dormitory, very happy this evening!”

“Which one of you is it?” thundered WAB. He asked, “What’s Toddy (Roy Todd) blushing for?” WAB always wanted to know everything.

“It shouldn’t be Toddy that’s blushing, it should be Bobby” replied his daughter.

What a tell-tale!

Bobby, (he was known by that name long before everyone began calling him Bob) cowered down in his chair and said nothing.

“Where does the girl live?” WAB demanded to know.

WAB’s daughter said, “Nearer home, this time.”

“Whereabouts ?” WAB asked.

“By the gasworks!” she said, giving him a clue.

By this she meant Wallsend. . . By process of elimination he concluded that it was a Grammar school girl, and he guessed my name.

Next morning, I was a little nervous going to breakfast. Would Bobby still acknowledge me or have had second thoughts? Would he perhaps dance with a different girl, or even Brigitte Bardot again at our next dance? If so, why the kiss?

But as I walked over the lawn towards the dining hall, I glanced to my right, and there he was walking over towards me!

I was so happy. He took my hand, smiled at me, and said, “Good morning.”

‘Wow’, I thought, ‘fancy, what a coincidence, the two of us emerging together at the same time to go into breakfast!’ (I found out later he’d actually been waiting for me to appear, it wasn’t the chance meeting I thought it was!)

In previous two camps as a student, he had been friendly with Norwegian girlfriends, Inger one year, and Uni the next, but he was to write to his mother, Harriet, on a postcard that next day saying,

‘I’ve met someone, and you’ll be pleased to know that she’s much closer to home this time!’

So you see, I suppose I could say that mine was a bit of an arranged marriage!

His mother Harriet’s scheming and intervention had played its part. Or perhaps I should just say that everything simply fell into place, at the right time, and it was all meant to be!