Dr J. Hope Pool
_edited.jpg)
The infamous Flying Scotsman derailment in Cramlington, on which Dr J Hope Pool blacklegged as a volunteer guard.
(Image credit: The Northern Echo)
Dr John Hope Pool
Dr John Hope Pool (d. 1981) was a medical undergraduate when he became a volunteer Assistant Guard in the General Strike. He was on board the Flying Scotsman when it was derailed at Cramlington on May 10, 1926.
Alongside fellow blackleg (“volunteer worker”) Dr Thomas Snowdon Blaiklock (1905-2001), Dr Hope Pool is featured in the BBC’s 1970 Yesterday’s Witness programme in which he called the derailment “irresponsible lunacy”.
​
Like Blaiklock, he was an assistant guard on the day of the crash, justifying his blacklegging to “serve king and country”.
​​​
During the strike, the Dean of Hope Pool's college put out a call saying students would be excused from lectures provided they did work for the essential services, i.e. on trains, buses, trams, etc.
"In my day, I don't think students had any political thoughts. They weren't militant."​​​
- Dr Hope Pool, in the BBC's Yesterday's Witness, describing his contemporaries at university in the 1920s.
He told the BBC in 1969: “In my day, I don’t think students had any political thoughts. They weren’t militant. They just did their duty for their college or for their country, I think … politics was never mentioned.”
John was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs George Pool of Newcastle upon Tyne (The Times and Directory, April 3, 1931).
Marrying Phyllis in Southbourne, Dorset, in 1931, there is an image of the betrothed couple in the Bournemouth and Southampton Graphic (April 2, 1931). Phyllis nee Brierley was the “daughter of the Minister, the Reverend Harold Brierley and Mrs [sic] Brierley”.
The wedding ceremony was conducted by Minister Brierley at Church of Immanuel, Southbourne, on Saturday, March 28, 1931.
Under a large heading, “Young Doctor Marries Daughter of Southbourne Minister”, The Times and Directory (April 3, 1931) carried two images of the wedding, calling it “an interesting marriage”. The best man was his brother Douglas.
It appears to have been a popular occasion; 150 guests attended the reception in the church hall - a gathering of the Southbourne privileged classes.
The article describes the whole nuptial occasion and ends with: “Dr and Mrs Hope Pool will subsequently reside in Newcastle.”
We know, from 1931 to 1938, Dr Hope Pool was an anaesthetist at Newcastle dental hospital and a lecturer in dental anaesthetics at King’s College, Newcastle [then Part of Durham University, now Newcastle University].
​
The good doctor later became a General Practitioner (GP) in the West End of Newcastle. Based at Southernwood, Fenham Hall Drive, he had a detached, combined house and surgery. Today (2025), the property is considered the most expensive in the NE4 9DQ postcode area. It sold for £400,000 in 2003.
A London North Eastern Railway (LNER) armband worn by blackleg railway workers during the 1926 General Strike. (Image credit: Wisecrack Productions)
The former surgery of Dr Hope Pool on the corner of Fenham Hall Drive and Wingrove Road, Newcastle upon Tyne.
(Google Earth)
Pre-World War II (1939-1945), following his obedience to “king and country”, Dr Hope Pool was a member of the Auxiliary Air Force.
During the war, he joined the re-formed 607 Durham County RAF Squadron as the squadron’s medical officer.
The Journal and North County Mail (October 29, 1945) announce that Dr J Hope Pool was “resuming practice” at Southernwood, Fenham, on November 1.
However, his military links continued long after hostilities with Germany ceased in 1945.
According to the Sunday Sun (Newcastle, March 15, 1949), before the Berlin Airlift (1948-49), Air Vice-Marshall Sir R.L.R. Atcherley inspected Usworth RAF station near Washington (then in County Durham) when the airstrip was being re-laid.
The AVM shuddered and said, “Anyone who can land on this must be a mountain goat!”
The 607 squadron came roaring back from Germany, managing the landing strip, and fired off a telegram to the noble Sir: “The Mountain Goats have landed” - thereby earning the squad moniker of the Mountain Goats.
According to the same Sunday Sun article, Dr Hope Pool presented a mahogany statue of a mountain goat to the squadron.
The squadron was disbanded in 1957, but the doctor collected mountain goat horns from junk shops to present to squadron members who had distinguished themselves.
His obvious sense of humour was further endorsed when his letter to the British Medical Journal (May 12, 1951) about “frivolous calls”, describes how he was called out to see a man at 2.50 am who “had wind for a week and it was now so bad he thought it would “blow his brains out - and he was not my patient!”
​
In the 1955 New Year’s Honours List, he was awarded the OBE (military division). According to the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer (January 1, 1955), Dr Pool was an Acting Wing Commander.
John and Phyllis were to have two daughters, Gillian (later Atkinson) and Margaret (later Bullen). They became grandparents of six.
Margaret’s marriage to David Bullen, a Newcastle solicitor, was announced in The Journal (April 22, 1958), and the couple were married at All Saints Church, Gosforth, on September 19, 1959.
In 1962, Phyllis was chair of the House Committee of the Percy Hedley school in Forest Hall.
The Journal (February 14, 1969) contains an image of Dr Hope Pool and Phyllis at a Doctor’s reunion at Newcastle Mayfair ballroom. He was chairman of the Newcastle Medical Ball.
After a short illness, Dr Hope Pool died in Newcastle General Hospital on July 13, 1981, aged 75. His funeral service was held at Robert Stewart Memorial Church, Wingrove Road, near the family’s Fenham home.
The Evening Chronicle (July 14, 1981) described Dr Hope Pool as being “one of the North East’s most respected family doctors” who “ distinguished himself as a GP and in medical research”.
​
The obituary said: “As a tribute to his medical skills he was made president of the North Counties Medical Societies, one of the oldest societies of its kind in the country, and … [he] was also Newcastle district chairman of the British Medical Association [BMA].”
​
The irony is that resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, remain locked in dispute with the government, a conflict that has stretched on for more than a decade. The doctors have taken strike action against both the previous Conservative administration and the current Labour government - strike action supported by the BMA!
Hark! Is that the sound of John Hope Pool turning in his grave?
Another interesting twist of fate is that Bill Muckle’s father, originally a pit pony handler, became the landlord of the Fox and Hound pub on the West Road in Benwell, under a mile from Dr Hope Pool’s Fenham home. If the doctor had popped in for a pint, what would they have talked about!?