School Days And Beyond

A Memory of Fenham.

Having just stumbled on this website I felt compelled to add my recollections of living in Fenham in Cheeseburn Gardens from circa 1961 to 1980. I lived 2 streets down the hill from the first contributor who lived in Ovington Grove. At one end of our street was the English Martyrs Catholic School, we all used it as our private playing field despite the gates being locked most of the time, it was an easy climb over the railings for a game of golf, badminton, football, boomerang throwing, Frisbee flying, kite flying, tag or racing around on our bicycles.

I was born Benwell and moved to Fenham when I was quite young with my parents and older sister in the early 60’s. We lived in a two storey semi-detached 3 bed prefab. The street also had several 2 bed brick houses on one side. I attended Stocksfield Avenue Primary school just off the West Road having to cross two busy roads on our way there and back with the aide of the ubiquitous lolly pop man/woman especially when the government decided on not to put the clocks back one winter leaving us going to school in the dark. While Stocksfield Avenue Primary School is still there the old school building has been knocked down and rebuilt some years ago either that or my memory fails me while looking at it on Google Earth. On my way to school we passed a small parade of shops in St Cuthberts Rd one of which was a newsagent. I would stare at the sweets and toys in the window as my friend and I picked out the toys we most wanted by shouting “I bags that” until one or the other shouted “I bags the lot” and ended our daydreams. I recall one day the newsagent gave a stunning display of his prowess with a yoyo making it do all sorts of tricks. I bet he made a few sales that day. The other shops there were a wool shop (owners daughter was in my class), butcher, freezer shop, off licence and a small grocery store. Looking at the shops now on Google earth they appear to have been converted into houses and one or two have been demolished to make access to the land and future housing behind on what is now Abbotsmeade Close where the allotments used to be.

One of my classmates lived in Lanercost Drive and I recall his father was on the Golden Shot TV show via a telephone link with Bob Monkhouse as host but he didn’t win anything. I guess the phone was in the hall which was usual then and he couldn’t see the TV and had his instructions relayed by someone watching the TV in the lounge as he was so late in giving the now famous commands of up a bit, left a bit, right a bit, fire etc. he failed to hit the moving target or may have run out of time. It was another 6 or seven years before we got our first phone installed. Even then it was a shared/party line so you had to check the other person wasn’t using it before you dialled.

I too recall the “aroma” from the crematorium which was about 500m upwind of the school. I also recall the St Cuthbert’s Green housing complex being built. We had a good view from our school field as it was slightly elevated and we were at roof level with them being single story and the cutting edge use of compressed straw boards for insulation in the walls & ceilings. After a few years the short cut we used to take in summer from the shops across the school playing field to the playground was stopped when a 6’ high steel fence was put along the school boundary with the new houses. I recall some of the teacher’s names i.e. Miss Thorpe was my first primary teacher, then we had a Mrs Gallagher and Mrs Sexton who job shared, the head mistress was Mrs Simpson, if she had to stand in for a teacher off sick she used to teach us French. I recall Mr Beryl (Baldy) played the piano every morning while we assembled in the multipurpose gym/assembly hall/dining hall, he always wrote the name of the composer and the music on a black board by the hall entrance then tested you when back in class to recall the music and composer jotting it down in a little note book we had specifically for this. I always recall him when I hear “Clair De Lune” by Debussy. There used to be another school for educationally handicapped children sharing the same grounds but I recall we had different break times so we hardly met unless it was a hot summer’s day and we had an extended afternoon break. I recall we had a new classmate join us with a strange accent. His parents were from New Zealand and were having their big Overseas Experience (OE) as they say here. I recall the boy was off school for several days nursing his fingers after a bicycle accident in which they had been caught between the chain and sprocket while attempting some maintenance. Bicycles made in NZ back then didn’t have brakes and relied on a fixed back wheel/pedals and trying to stop it by the rider trying to stop the pedals going around to slow and stop the bike. while on the subject of kiwis in the UK I recall having a Kiwi woodwork teacher while in the 1st or 2nd year at secondary school.

I don’t recall the fish shop on the West Road mentioned in earlier blogs but I do recall the one at the top of Stamfordham Road in my opinion it served the best chips and I used to stop and buy some if I was in the vicinity, though that is unlikely now as I now live in New Zealand. Next door was the upstairs barbers shop run by Terry and slightly further down Stamfordham Road was an electronics (TV & Radio) repair shop and a DIY store for hardware and timber etc. before the advent of B&Q etc. I recall going with my father buying some hardboard to cover our panel doors as he had seen it on TV by Barry Bucknell (DIY show). The DIY store closed some time later and reopened as a Chinese takeaway. I think the electronics shop stopped trading as I saw the owner many times in the The Balloon pub on Silver Lonnen near the former Co-Op, now EDS, next to the large roundabout at the junction with Stamfordham Rd. Don’t shout at me if I have missed a few reincarnations of the former Co-Op I recall on a visit to Newcastle several years ago it was an electrical supply shop and still is according to Google earth. Incidentally one of my cousins used to work there.

I recall the old quarry at the Moor end of Two Ball Lonnen, a friend and I used to go newt fishing like one of the other writers we also gathered fern fossils from the quarry floor as the stone was very soft, I recall taking one to school (John Marlay Secondary Modern School) after our geography teacher asked us to bring some in for our next class. Returning to Newcastle some years later I was astounded to see the disused quarry was completely filled in with the spoil from the new central motorway, all my memories buried under metres of soil and clay. The last time I was in the UK in 2001 it was a Safeway supermarket. I see on Google earth it’s now Morrisons. Next to it was a tyre & puncture repair shop with a TV rental shop behind it. Our neighbours had a Rediffusion TV which had piped music when there was no TV to watch which was most of the time during the day.
On leaving secondary school my friends and I used to meet in the Fox and Hounds pub on the West Road invariably heading for the top floor room where we could gather around a table or two and chat. I recall telling them I was leaving Fenham to study at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for three years. They kept asking if I would return and were astounded when I said there was no guarantee of me ever returning to Fenham, Newcastle or the North East as I would go wherever the work was. In fact I used to joke I was a prostitute selling my body to the highest bidder.

in the mid 80’s while working for Perth & Kinross District Council in Perth Scotland I chatted with the Canadian born swimming baths manager Mike Mesourie (apologies Mike if I misspelt your surname) and when he heard my Geordie accent he remarked he used to manage a swimming pool in Newcastle and when I probed deeper it turned out to be Fenham Baths frequented by myself and most of my friends. He didn’t remember me so I couldn’t have done anything too bad to upset him. It’s a small world.

I recall many of the shops on Two Ball Lonnen including the disused cinema being converted into a small supermarket, the Aero Garage (Now Newcatle plumbing & baths and Mr America Pizza) with attendant service and internal ramp to get cars up to the 1st floor show room, The milk bar next door (very 60’s), the small V.G. grocery store, the manager lived in Cheeseburn Gardens, the Co-Op at the top of the parade where they sliced the bacon and cut butter pats and handed you the other items stacked on the shelves behind them when requested (just like they do at the Co-Op at Beamish Museum. Next door was a fruit and veg shop where the owner (Cliff?) had a market stall in the Big Market once or twice a week selling or was that shouting his wares. Eblettes? newsagents/post office was on the corner of Two Ball Lonnen and Fenham Hall Drive. Another of my classmates lived above a small grocery store just down from the fruit and veg shop. The store was about to close and soon after opened as a Chinese takeaway now called the Wing Chau. My first taste of Chinese food was from here when my sister came home one evening with a takeaway, my parents refused her offer after hearing horror stories about dogs allegedly being used for meat. Some years on, they eventually overcame their fear and we would buy takeaways there or from the Chinese takeaway at the top of Stamfordham Rd until I moved away from Fenham, in 1980 I went up to Edinburgh to study at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. My parents later went to live in Northampton nearer my sister and her husband. They did return to the area living in Jarrow before they both passed away. They were visited many times by their close relatives, one of which still lives in Heatherslaw Road, Fenham.

Recalling Beamish Museum and the Co-Op rolling ball cash system for payment and change, my father had a motorbike and sidecar and he used to buy spares from a motorbike shop in the Haymarket and they too had a rolling ball cash system. I used to be fascinated watching the ball being hoisted up to the ceiling track, disappearing out of sight then shortly afterward coming back to the same sales person with the change and receipt.

I left Fenham in 1980 and moved up to Edinburgh to study at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for three years where I met my partner Gloria. I then worked for Perth & Kinross District Council in three different positions ending up as an area manager. Ironically I then returned to the Newcastle area in 1990 working for North Tyneside Council as their Parks Manager followed by York City Council then finally Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council before emigrating to New Zealand in 1998. We had a brief spell in Australia in 2001/02 before being made an offer I couldn’t refuse to return to Wanganui District Council, New Zealand where we still live.

I recall a favourite winter pastime was sledging down the short hill linking Deanham Gdns, to Cheesburn Gdns, not much traffic then not like nowadays I guess, or if you felt really brave sledging down the much steeper and longer Bavington Drive with several side streets to watch for cars on the way down.

I could go on but I will leave that for another day in the hope some of my school mates and friends read this blog and feel inclined to add their memories.

Keith Hindson