In a message dated 15/12/2009 11:49:54 GMT Standard Time, SirLancelot@talktalk.net writes: Just interest, but does anyone know how the name of the street One Ball Lonnen originated? I notice that there is also a Two Ball Lonnen. Lancelot: I've never heard of a One Ball Lonnen but Two Ball Lonnen, as far as I can remember having been told many years ago, occupies the site of what was originally the drive to one of the large local houses - perhaps Fenham Hall. There were elaborate gateposts at the end of the drive and they were in the form of pillars, each capped with an ornate "ball". You may prefer not to read this next paragraph - but its true. I friend of mine once spent a long time in hospital. He told me that he was in the next bed to a man who had a very dry sense of humour. When asked what he was in hospital for, he said, quite genuinely, that he had to have a testicle removed. "I wuddn't care", he said, with his "posh Geordie" accent, "but aa live in Two Baall Lonnen". Geoff Nicholson

Thanks Geoff, you're probably correct, it could be Two Ball Lonnen. The name has always puzzled me. In the 1950s we used to deal with the The British Thomson-Houston Company (B.T.H) who were based there. Lancelot Middlesbrough From Wikipedia *British Thomson-Houston* (BTH) was a British <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom> engineering <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering> and heavy industrial <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_industry> company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby,_Warwickshire>, England <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England>. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine>. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers> company in 1928, but the two maintained their own identities until _1960_. The holding company, Associated Electrical Industries <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Electrical_Industries> (AEI), would later merge with GEC <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Electric_Company> which exists today as Marconi Corporation plc <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telent_plc>.