The Green Bottle

By Kenneth Newbrook

Ken and his dog Spot are inseparable, of course, the fact that Spot can talk is a great advantage. Particularly when the duo are once more involved in an adventure...

From saving orphans from Workhouses to helping an ancient Egyptian prince recover his treasure, through Roman camps at Hadrians wall and an English village during the Napoleonic Wars, Ken and Spot are always just in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place, if you look at it from the point of view of the villains that they help to apprehend.

Each story leaves the reader wondering what an earth can happen next. He could not even begin to guess!

This story takes Ken and Spot on an incredible adventure. They are captured by a gang of pirates and taken on board their ship, where Ken and Spot are forced to take part in the capture of a Spanish Galleon and steal their cargo of gold.

Ken and Spot were only trying to get back to England and lead a normal life!

........... will they make it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Dec 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490721026

Kenneth Newbrook

I'm from a family of 7 brothers and 3 sisters. I have 2 sons, 7 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. I have always told stories to the children, but it was only after my wife died that I bought myself a computer to fill in my spare time. I started to type short stories and found that I could easily put them into print. I gave them to the grandchildren, and before long, I was printing them for all of their friends.

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© Copyright 2013 Kenneth Newbrook.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-2104-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-2103-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-2102-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013922575

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Trafford rev. 12/11/2013

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 1

I opened the curtains and looked out of the window. It was a beautiful sunny morning. A nice day I thought for Spot and me to spend down at the beach.

I was having my breakfast when Spot made his appearance.

‘Good morning Spot, Have you had anything to eat yet?

‘Not yet Ken, it was such a beautiful morning, I have been out in the garden ever since I got up.’

‘Yes, it’s a beautiful morning. Fancy going to the beach today; it will make a nice change after being stuck indoors all the winter.’

‘Why not Ken?

‘We will leave the car, and take a nice walk; it will blow the cobwebs away.’

‘That will do me Ken, but don’t put that dog lead on me, it chokes me and I can’t get my breath.’

‘It only chokes you because you always get too excited and want to run on ahead.’

‘Yes but as you have just said, we have been stuck indoors all winter and I am just very glad to get out into the fresh air and sunshine for some exercise.’

‘It’s no use moaning Spot I will have to take it, and you will have to wear it, because the law states that all dogs must be on a lead.’

‘I think it’s a stupid law.’

‘Spot it isn’t the law that’s stupid, it is some of the dog owners of certain dogs, like Rottweiler’s, Alsatian’s, or Pitbulls that are stupid. I’m not saying all dog owners but some of them. A lot of people are frightened when they see those types of dogs running about all over the place without a lead. Some are even required to wear a muzzle; they can be so dangerous. But as I said you can’t blame the dogs, but some of the owners who are irresponsible and they get other dogs and owners a bad name.’

‘I suppose your right Ken.’

‘Tell you what Spot! If it is quiet and there is no one about I will take the lead off when we get there okay.’

‘Alright Ken.’

We left the house, but before we went out of the gate I put Spots lead on him. Straight away he was trying to pull my arm out of its socket.

‘Take it easy Spot I am going to have one arm longer than the other one.

‘Sorry Ken.’

‘I will take you the way me and my brothers and all my friends used to go when we were little. This road we are walking down now wasn’t here when I was a little boy.’

‘It wasn’t Ken?

‘No, this area around us here was all farmland. Over on the left-hand side here for instance was a field that was always used for the dairy cows.’

‘That would be great Ken; I could have had some fun chasing them all over the place.’

‘Oh no, you wouldn’t have.’

‘Why’ not?

‘Because in the first place you would have been on a lead, and secondly how would you liked to be chased all over the place as you put it.’

‘Your right again Ken, but it would have been fun.’

‘Not if the farmer saw you doing it.’

‘Why?

‘Because they used to shoot dogs that worried the animals back in them days, in fact a lot of farmers still do, they have to protect their livestock.’

‘This road we are approaching now was just a little narrow farm track, it led you right to the farm, it was called Hemsleys Farm, it was a right of way for people, but you had to respect the farmer’s property and the animals.’

We walked on a while. I stopped and pointing to a couple of houses I said to Spot.

‘Right there Spot was where the old farm house once stood, there was always a few chickens scratching about and the ducks were over there in that corner.’

‘Where those houses are now Ken?

‘Yes, but those houses weren’t there then. The milking sheds were over this way, sometimes on the way to the beach you met up with the farm hands who would be fetching the cows up this path to the sheds for milking.’

‘Did you have to run out of the way?

‘No you we stood at the side of the path and the cows would walk right passed you.’

‘And they never attacked you?

‘No, they just looked at us as they passed. If we came by just after the cows had been milked and there was no one about, we used to sneak into the shed where the fresh milk was kept in big churns.

We would take the lid off the churns and scoop out some of the warm milk to drink, before the lorry came to take them away to the dairy.

‘What’s a dairy Ken?

‘That’s where they would take all the milk too, from the farms. After being treated it was put in bottles for delivery to the houses round about.’

‘In those days Spot the milk bottle tops were made of cardboard, we would fill our pockets with them and play Getty the further.’

‘What was that Ken?

‘It was a game we played, you put a milk top between two fingers and flicked them at a wall, When everybody had flicked their milk top, the one that was nearest to the wall won all the tops that had been flicked by all the other boys.

On this corner here was the pigsty, we loved to watch the new-born Piglets, and there were lots of them.

How the big sows, that’s what the mother pigs were called, never used to crush the little piglets when they were fighting for one of her teats to feed, I don’t know. And the noise of them all squealing was ear splitting at times.’

‘Next to the pig sty Spot was where they kept Hemsley’s Bull, you wouldn’t have chased him around the field, he was huge, bigger in height than I am now and weighed about two tons or even more.

During the day, it would be tied up in the field to a big post by a copper or brass ring through its nose, and at night it would be taken indoors.

One day one of the farm hands, some say it was the farmer Mr Hemsley, went into the field to bring the bull indoors for the night and it somehow knocked him to the ground. And he was supposedly found dead in the field, we used to keep well clear of that field when the bull was in there.

When it was tied up in its stall we used to peep through the open door to see it close up.’

‘Was it scary Ken?

‘No, not with him being tied up by the ring through his nose, knowing it couldn’t harm us, we were very brave.’

We walked further on; I pointed to the name of the road.

‘See the name Spot, Hemsley Road; it is named after the farm.’

Looking down this road now, all you can see are houses, but back then when I was little it was all fields. On the right hand side were the Friesian cows, they were like you Spot, black and white, also the farm horses, used to share the field with them.

They were the farmer’s main animal’s back in those days, as horses did most of the work before tractors were introduced.’

On the left side here is where the farmer grew his corn, as far as your eye could see.

‘At harvest time we would come in the early morning and wait for the farm hands to start cutting the corn, we would have with us a couple of Tommy Goftons Whippets.’

‘What were those Ken?

‘They were very fast dogs, a type of racing dog just like a greyhound but smaller.

When the thresher came along cutting the corn, the noise used to scare the Rabbits and Hares, and every now and then, one would break cover making a dash for it. We would let the Whippets off their leads and they would chase after them and catch them for us. We had friends scattered all about the field, because you had to get the rabbits off the dogs as quick as you could, or they would eat them, we would share whatever was caught between us and take them home for dinner.’

‘I would have loved that Ken, chasing Rabbits and Hares’

‘I think they would have been too fast for you Spot’

We reached the bottom of the road, and went through a little cut leading onto the Coast Road.

‘Right where I am standing now Spot, there used to be a train line.

The train was called the Marsden Rattler; it used to run from the pit at Whitburn with coal, to the coal washer at Westoe where it was cleaned. Then it was taken down to the river at South Shields, Where it was loaded onto ships they called colliers, or coffin jobs as the seamen called them.’

‘Why did they call them coffin jobs Ken?

‘Because to get a job on them you had to wait until someone died then take their place.’

The colliers took the coal to the London power stations. The bigger ships, took it all over the world.

Up to twelve million tons used to leave this river every year.

There isn’t a trace of any coal now. No trains or even one pit left.

Come to that there are not many ships left either.

If you did anything good my dad used to say, You’re the best lad in the four collieries that’s what they called pits, how things have changed Spot.

Quickly Spot over the road. That’s another thing there were not all these cars then, this was a quiet road with a bus going each way every half hour.’

On this side of the road the farmer grew turnips and potatoes and more corn, it’s all green belt now, and runs right up the coast.’

You know The Great North run.’

‘Where thousands of people, run in the race Ken?

‘Yes that’s the race, well this is the finishing line right here.

In the potato picking season, we called it Tatty picking. All the women who lived round about, and my