Ashington
Ashington is a town in Northumberland 15 miles (24 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne, bordered to the south by the River Wansbeck. It was a colliery town, and claimed to be the largest mining village in the world. Woodhorn closed in 1981 and Ashington Colliery in 1988.
Many inhabitants have a distinctive accent and dialect known as Pitmatic, which varies from the regional Geordie dialect. The painting class the miners started in 1934 became known as the Ashington Group, or the Pitmen Painters, and the town produced the footballers Jackie Milburn and Jack and Bobby Charlton.
Besfords lived across the colliery rows and streets of Ashington and Hirst.
Mary Lyons (1919-)
Mary Lyons was born in 1919 at her grandparents’ house in Milburn Road, Ashington, the daughter of Daisy Besford and William Lyons.
William Lyons (1893–1968)
William married Daisy Besford on 13th June 1918 at the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Morpeth.
Elizabeth Mary Dixon (1901–1969)
Elizabeth Mary Dixon married Alexander Sanderson Besford (1901–1992) on 4th October 1921.
Irene Besford (1923–2018)
Irene Besford married Roy Boston and had two children, Lynette and Christine. She is buried at Korumburra Cemetery in Victoria.
Jack Besford’s Clock
The Ashington Mineworkers Federation presented Jack Besford with a grandfather clock when he stood down as president in 1939.
Family of John William (Jack) Besford (1891–1975) and Agnes Jane Hewit (1890–1958)
Jack Besford and Agnes Hewit married at Morpeth in 1914. Their two children were born at Rosalind Street, Ashington.