Spanish Geordies

Maximo Park's lead singer, Paul Smith, looks like another Spanish Geordie to me.

The Tyne Valley area has a high proportion of dark-haired, saturnine-looking people who contrast with the fair and ginger Scots to the North, and the other mainly blonde northern English. This is supposedly because Hadrian's Wall was manned by Iberian troops seconded there, all of sixteen hundred years ago, and they settled. Blood and DNA tests have confirmed that there is a strong Spanish component to their heritage, and local dialect maintains the link; for example the word "netty" for toilet is derived from "gabinetta", or so they say.

Certainly a good many famous Geordies have the dark Mediterranean look to them, such as Bryan Ferry (above), Jimmy Nail, and the near-forgotten Paul Jones. And, as I said, Paul Smith.