Jacksons Pub Byker

A Memory of Byker.

I started work at 15 when I worked at the quilt factory, I later went to work at Tizer pop factory. I had smashing mates there my own age but we all got on with the older women as well.

Friday night was the best night of the week when me and the lasses would get the bus home have wor tea and get bathed and wash wer hair make up on and all make wor way to Byker. We'd start off at the Blue Bell pub, then go across to Jacksons, we'd try and wear something white so the blue lighting would make us stand out. Every body knew everybody and one or two of us had our 18th in there.I forgot to say that when we all first started ganning to Jacksons we were all under age and would only be able to afford a glass of cider with 2 glasses so we could share, the landlady was a lovely wife called Jean who happily bought us a drink on the house when we turned 18, she always said the same thing ["God that's give is peace of mind, another one of yus 18"]. A lad used to drink there and one time he came in and he was wearing a snowy white suit he'd bought hissel ...well as he walked through the door and the fluourescent light hit it, it was blinding, he was a canny lad but from that day on he was known as Daz. One night he came in and he must have had a whole glass of cider to hissel, he started shouting "I'm the only lad in here that's had a bairn", the place fell about laughing. I think he must have been about 16 at the time but he only looked about 11. 2 brothers used to come in, it was the 1970s but they were in a time warp, Tom and Dave had enough grease on their hair to start a chip shop and dressed in dated 3-piece suits. They would walk in like they owned the bar and seemed so old to the rest of us, they must have been at least 19 years old. One of the lasses was called Haggie, another Nancy, and another one called Dot, and Paula Cooper, many more names don't come to mind.

On New Year's Eve we'd walk along Byker kissing the old folk Happy New Year on the cheek, one year I remember wishing an old man Happy New Year and tears rolled down his face, he told me his wife had died 5 years earlier and he had no family, he said I made his day, what had started out as fun and a joke took on a different light. I gave him a hug, slipping a 10 bob note [I was flush me ma and da had both give is a copper] into his coat pocket and sincerly wished him health wealth and happiness, I think that night I grew up a bit.

I left the Northeast many years ago. People often ask if I am on holiday, when I say no and how many years I been away from home they always say the same thing, oh you haven't lost your accent, and I always reply that I've never found anything better to replace it with, I'd rather be a true Geordie than a fake anything else.

I lived at 40 Church Street at the bottom of Hexham Avenue, Walker until I was about 7 years old.1 cold tap, a tin bath in the yard, gas lights, outside netty, a wash house in the back yard with a brick built boiler, a poss tub and a poss stick or dolly and a big cast iron framed mangle. Monday was wash day for everybody. Me ma had a big family and 2 lodgers as well as my gran to look after and if life wasn't hard enough for her, George, her young son, was dying, and she nursed him until he died aged 16 years old.

Our home was heated by coal fires, the front room was the best room, only used when we had visitors, in the living room we had a big cast iron range with an oven on one side and a boiler on the other, ma had to black lead it once a week to make it look nice. It had a lovely drape along the mantel and under that was a brass pole that ma would hang towels on in the bad weather to dry. When the coal man came all the wives would run out into the back lanes to take their washing down before it got hacky.

I remember going to the flicks on Church Street, we called it 'The Lop Hoose', you went up 6 stairs to
get upstairs and not that I was old enough but if you sat in the front row upstairs you could tap someone in the back row downstairs on the shoulder and ask them for a light for your tab.

After swimming at Walker baths we'd go into Henzils to buy a penny loaf [a slice of stale bread with no marge ....yummy].

I later moved to Tynevale Tec, INDOOR BATHROOM, HOT WATER ON TAP, nice folk, but I missed Church Street.

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