Crook memories
Here are memories of Crook and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Crook or a Crook photo.
1950s
I was born in the war years in the area where the Workmen’s Club was later built and later moved to Hall Lane Est ( 28) as the first intake. I remember well the coal loader at the end of Railway Terrace and the great times out and about around the colliery, making camps in the pit prop heaps, as well as events best not gone into. Gathering pigeon eggs in the pit rows as they were been demolished. The wild snow rides down the hill to the river. The pit slag been used to make up the banks at the football field. The big flood that moved Jubilee Bridge. Many memories. I am informed the main street is now mostly gone, along with the pit heap and the colliery. I packed up and left in the late 1950s and have lived overseas for 40 plus years but I still remember the ‘home’ village.
The Young Family - Cemetery Cottages.
The Young family lived at 6 Cemetery Cottages from 1922 until the mid 1930s. My grandparents, Walter and Hilda Young, were married in the Hope Street Methodist Chapel in 1921. Walter was living in 27 Grey Street, before he got married. His sister, Priscilla, lived in Gladstone Street. My mum, Edna, and her sisters, Jean, Sheila and Mary, lived in Crook until the family moved to Cambridgeshire, when my grandad along with many others took the long journey to enable them to earn a living on the Land Settlement Scheme. My connection with Crook goes back further than the 1920s as my great-grandfather, Robert White Young, was born in Woodifield in 1857. His parents were Robert Young and Thomasin Green. In 1861 they lived in Bridge Street. When Robert White Young was 14 he was employed as a labourer in the brickyard, up at Job's Hill. My grandad's step-mother lived at 80, West End Villas. Her name was Hannah. If anyone knows anything about this family and they have... Read more
School Dinners
Well, this is just a thought , but school dinners have come to mind. I was like some who said they didn't like school dinners even if you hadn't tried them, in the early years of school this was a good excuse for going home for an hour. I don't know when I started staying at school for dinner but I certainly don't regret it. I remember some of the menu and if I have missed anything off please tell: mince and dumplings, fish mash, carrots, beef stew and mash, salad, cheese straws, mince and mash. I still do most of these meals today. I also remember ham pie, it was always cut into squares, liver and turnip mash, can you remember all the butter beans put up on the side of the plate? I think even if you liked them you still did it? Anyhow, my point is, who said chips and burgers were to take the place of good old English food, and now want to go back?... Read more
The Local Shop
Well it has to be at least for us, Willabys, if that is spelt right, we would get our fix of kett there, let me think, two a penny sweets, and that was when a penny was a penny, if you know what I mean. You could get this silver tray filled with this hard boiled candy with a stick in it, golden cup I think it was called, they also did a red one but I don't have a flavour, maybe you know? I do remember the price of a Marathon, sixpence, Tudor crisps, Jubilees, sports mixtures, I know you can still get them but in name only, they are not the same but what is, we've got sugar free sugar now. Eh.
Ice-Cream Cart
Can anyone remember the horse-drawn ice-cream cart, the guy had as I remember a green cart, a white coat and a whistle. His ice-cream was really good proper stuff, then soft ice-cream came along and that was it, he must have just packed up. It's the old story, you don't know what you've got till its gone. Some names have come to mind, Mrs Hosey, Larnicks, Mrs Bond, Mr Woodhall, Susan Harker, John Hall, I think his dad drove the broughs wagon, have I mentioned Keith and Phil Hansom, and Carol their sister, Mable and Frank were their parents. Frank always had some paraffin on hand to light the bony. Funny how things like that come back to you. I would say that our main meeting points would be on the green, on the seat outside Mag and Kev's house. I can only think of one year when the top half of the green had their own bonfire, there must have been a bit rivalry just coming to an end,... Read more
From Childhood Onward,
South-end villas, that was my world in them days as a child, it was like the whole world revolved around it. I was born and brought up there, if I had to write a story about the things we had to do as kids,or should I say found to do it would take forever. This story will only be recognised by the people of that time in that place, but I wouldn't change a thing; people involved in this story are Kevin Bainbridge and his sister Mag, her friend Linda, Greg, Martin, Keith, now I know there were more people later on but this was the early days, Tony, Kim, comes to mind. Where do we start with memorys, bony night, well I loved that night collecting, you would get jail for burning tyres now but we got wagon tyres from Tarans by the dozen. I would like to bring in now John Chedd, a lovely lad, I would get inside a wagon tyre and John would roll it down... Read more
Up The Heaps
well lads and lasses can you remember going up the heaps sometimes to roll a tyre back down again ,boy that was exercise, or sometimes to slide back down on a tin sheet or car bonnet or anything that would slide , we didnt need a gym in those days you had to be fit to do what we did, anybody up for a game of kick the can down the garages,if you were part of this gang you will know what its like to get hit on the back of the head with a flinger in the back field specialy if it had a knott on it .well im off to willobys now for some kett and a bottle of that new pop its only a tanner, i will carry on with this story as things come back to me ,.
Rumbyhill
My grandparents, John and Ginny Loftus, lived at Rumbyhill farm from the 1920's until they retired about 1950. This was the old Rumbyhill farm, subsequently the name was given to the farm across the road.
My mother grew up at the farm and has many happy memories. Granddad used to give out oranges and apples to the children at Christmas. Rumbyhill was a proper little village in those days.
Does anyone remember the Loftus family or have any old photos of Rumbyhill? My mother would love to get in touch or see the photos.
Memories of County Durham
Nanna's House
I remember going to my nana's house in Roddymoor, it was only a bungalow but I was so small I thought it was massive, haha. I remember jumping the little ditch near her house. I remember taking pictures of the horses.
Childhood
I was born in Roddymoore and lived there until I was six, I remember the walk up to the school and the many times we had to walk from my grandparents' home in Crook as the bus couldn't get through due to the snow. I fondly remember a family I adored, Nancy, Walter and their daughters Ann and Gwen and Tommy Griffiths whom I was good friends with. I now live in South Wales with my husband and 2 children but remember my few years in Roddymoore fondly.
Village Characters
Mr Joe (Cloggy) Jackson
Almost everyone who met 'Cloggy' has stories to recollect of this colourful village character - Dave Quinn recalls:
Mr Joe 'Cloggy' Jackson, Club Doorman and Saturday Evening vendor of 'The Pink', AKA Sunderland Echo. Invariably dressed in flat cap and tight fitting jacket, riding breeches and leather boots, Cloggy looked every inch a 'horsey man'.
He claimed that as a lad he had been bed-mates with champion jockey Manny Mercer. This was extremely doubtful as Cloggy was not so much economical with the truth, but rather he embellished it.
The classic case occurred one hot Sunday morning when Cloggy was sitting shirt sleeved and barefoot by the well along Witton Road. A by-passer remarked upon Cloggy's weary and overheated state and was answered in no uncertain terms. 'Thou'd be hot if the'd just warked back from Ireland.'
Being something of a romancer Cloggy was also rather gullible. The most famous example of this being the Friday evening phone call to the... Read more
School
Vague recollections of my first days, being taken in my little blue coat and cap by the girls next door. I seemed to cling to them for ages. (Was this a sign of things to come?)
Finally graduated to playing with the boys, sliding in the school yard in black boots with 'segs' in. It was all boys because the yard then was divided by a wall and the red brick toilets and you just didn't venture into the girl's half. What is now the school field was still 'Carter's' field, where Alf kept his pigs.
I suppose most of my generation will have roughly the same memories of the school, such as the huge thermometer on the wall, dinners in the W.I., sitting on the pipes in the winter, 'Tommy's Pantry', and maybe the old oak desks with wooden pens and ink-wells. Surely though, the most lasting impression must be of a certain Miss Elizabeth Heslop. 'Lizzie', with her imposing figure, grey moustache, specs stuck on the... Read more
Play
I know records will prove me wrong, but summer seemed to start around the beginning of May and last until getting on to Bonfire night. We walked to Witton-le-Wear night after night to swim then walked home or, if we were lucky, got a lift in an empty meat van, not unlike the one driven by Corporal Jones in 'Dads Army'.
When it got too cold to swim we set about building and guarding our bonfire in the park. There were few organised displays in those days but there was tremendous rivalry between Bitchburn, High Grange, Valley Terrace, Victoria, 'Them up the New Buildings', and us. We invariably won, but to be fair we were well in with Dougie Wilks for a few tyres, and we enlisted the aid of a few 16-17 year olds, who in those days were not men but still big boys. We also had all of the park to ga at for dead trees and branches, not to mention a few live ones!
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