Teddy Bear Trail, 2021

Jesmond Library’s famous Teddy Bear Trail is back – and it’s bigger than ever. A total of 76 bears are now in place waiting to be found. And each one hopes to be chosen as the people’s favourite! This year there are two trails to…

Welcome back – we’ve missed you!

We are very excited to be opening our doors again. From Tuesday 13th April we will be open for a total of four sessions each week: Tuesday afternoon 2-4 Thursday afternoon 2-4 Saturday morning 10-12 Saturday afternoon 2-4 Our volunteers have been working hard to…

World Book Day

In the UK World Book Day is celebrated on the third Thursday in March. The charity behind it aims to ‘change lives through a love of books and shared reading’. This year children will be able to use their £1 gift vouchers to choose from…

Extension granted!

Several of you have requested an extension to this year’s competition deadline, and we are happy to grant it! The new deadline for this year’s Jesmond Library Creative Writing Competition is Saturday April 10, 2021. The theme is ‘Do you want to know a secret’. We…

Lost and Found

Last year in July 2020, when we could travel, we visited the RSPB’s Bempton Cliffs nature reserve in North Yorkshire. Every year from March to October the cliffs are host to 200,000 breeding seabirds Gannets, Puffins, Kittiwakes and Guillemots, all nesting on the chalk cliff…

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

This week marks the beginning of the new year in the Chinese calendar. Traditionally the event is celebrated with dragon dances, fire crackers and family gatherings. Sadly this year the celebrations will be more muted, even in Newcastle’s celebrated China Town where the many fabulous…

Anyone can draw? Yes, even you!

The ever popular Wellbeing for Life group meets again this week. Hosted jointly by the Elders’ Council for Newcastle and the Friends of Jesmond Library, the group currently meets online. Speed drawing your way through lockdown The next event on Wednesday 3rd February at 10.30am…

Erm… what day is it?

How many of us have a 2021 diary which, because of the ongoing restrictions and repeated exhortations to stay home, is still pristine and unused? This third lockdown means our normal routines have been disrupted. I wonder if you too find yourself unable to work…

‘The Beatles’ – one by one

Anyone visiting Liverpool in the early 1960’s would have found the epitome of ‘the dark satanic mills’. The city’s civic buildings were soot blackened, there were gaps where buildings had been, evidence of the intensive bombing the city had experienced in wartime. Two cathedrals, one…