Most of us will know the opening lines: "I went to Blaydon Races, ‘twas on the ninth of June/ In eighteen hundred and sixty two, on a summer’s afternoon/ I took the ‘bus from Balmbra’s, and she was ...

THE Blaydon Races - the national anthem of the Geordies, and a 5.7-mile race run every June 9th from Newcastle to the town of Blaydon. In 1862, an annual horse race meeting held in meadows alongside ...