Boy From The Slums

A Memory of Gateshead.

I was born on the 28th March 1947, into an existing family of 5 siblings in a one-up one-down decaying terraced house of 12 Russell Street, Teams, Gateshead, just off Upton Street, near to the coke works, the gas works, the rope works and every other kind of filthy polluting business on the banks of the Tyne. We ended up as a family of 8 children by the 1950s. My father was Leslie George Bull and my mother - Isabella Gattis Chilvers.

The word "Poverty" was part of their wedding vows.

In the back lanes of these rat infested dwellings we played mouse chasing and "liggies"in the "gundi". The area was so bad the rats wore white overalls.

Everything you touched was black with soot, grime and God knows what else.

I remember once being in the back yard. As I gazed into the black night sky, festooned with shining stars, I watched as a bright moon waxed its glittering magic over a cascade of low, white clouds, that shimmered the reflective cacophony of shadows, moving, as though driven by God himself, onto the rooftops of black slate, and I thought to myself, "Why doesn't dad put a roof on this netty?"

The stench of industry was all around. Most kids had breathing difficulties. My breathing difficulty was induced, my Dad would throttle me for nothing.

I remember my best friend Norman Liddle as a small boy with a red peddle car, and Longstaff's Pie Shop who made/sold the most scrumpcious pies, Hoggarts Crisp/pickle factory on Askew Rd. The Coffin public house on Askew Road/Derwentwater Road was actually shaped like a coffin, but Dad said he wouldn't be seen dead in that pub.

My family were very poor, so poor the birds would throw us food. Every Easter other kids got new clothes. My mother would buy one new hat and stand us in turn at the parlour window. I remember the bailiffs calling. Mam opened the door to greet them. "Come in", she said, "take a chair." "We've come to take the lot," came the reply.

Fleas died on us from malnourishment.

My mother used to sell furniture for a living -  trouble was it was our furniture!.

I somehow reached school age at 5yrs. Off to Victoria Road School, a half starved wretch of a boy dressed in hand-me-down clothes - from my sisters.

I vowed then that I would live forever - or die trying.

My Grandparents on my mothers side lived in a small bungalow in Dunston. We visited them every day - to borrow money.
I never knew my dad's side of the family at all. I can only assume that his choice of wife was frowned on by them and they disowned him. He seldom spoke about them.

But, life was about to change for the Bull's family. Our slum, that the rats had vacated long before us, because they could not stand the smell, was to be demolished. We were allocated a brand new house in Springwell Estate at 3 Medomsly Gardens. IT HAD A GARDEN, in which we would grow rhubarb, more rhubarb and a purple stemmed plant that look uncannily like rhubarb.

We lived in this luxury of a house with its internal toilet and bath, its hot and cold water heated by coal picked from the local coal lines nearby. To a family like us this was Buckingham Palace. When rent arrears got bad we moved into 52 Lanchester Avenue.

For years I thought we had a German rentman called "Karl Bach".

It was when Tally Men started to camp outside our house that we moved again into a wonderful old Victorian house in Belle Vue Terrace at the top of Gateshead High Street. Opposite it was a large YMCA/ Church building and a curved terrace of Victorian houses called The Crescent. It was rumoured that once Bobby Thompson lived there, before he became poor.

I remember my visits to the Essoldo, The Ritz, The Odeon and Blacks cinemas.
The Army and Navy store where I worked for a wonderful Jewish lady, and Gateshead Bus Comany where I worked as both a conductor, now there's a memory, and then as a driver, Laws sarsparilla shop was a frequent haunt.

I left home aged 15yrs in order to get something to eat. I got a one room bedsit in Granville Street, lived a life of luxury on £8 a week. I then got a small flat in a street just off the High Street, just off Warwick Street,the Salvation Army place, I forget its name now. The Police Headquarters now stands there, Ah, York Street.

The High Street and the West Street were  busy streets then. Shepards Store with Shepards money, Saltwell Park with girfriends, motor bikes and scooters and cars galore. Terraced houses everywhere. Afflick Street, Arthur Street and Coatsworth Road, all memorable to me.

I remember the girl I loved lived in Macadem Street, off Bensham Road, Pat Wightman, I well remember her ginger hair, stunningly beautiful!

She was so unlike my current girlfriend who said she would "die for me" -  but she hasn't. The street is to be pulled down now, I read.

I remember Felling as a little tidy village and the Pelaw shirt factory. The field of Leam Lane before they were built on and a tiny row of cottages on the beginning of Leam Lane. Fords shop with its one pump petrol station and opposite this another curved row of cottages mostly owned by the Smiths family, as was half of Wrekenton. I delivered papers for them as a kid.

Low Fell was another great memory in my youth. I worked for a kind old butcher called Harry Swan whose wife made the best pease pudding in England.

Life, in its unwitting way, makes people value it more with the experience of its university.

If the High Street is the heart of Gateshead then surely the Teams was its butt-end, but despite this I loved living there. Its maze of streets off the High Street, its nooks and crannies of passages, its friendly, giving people, its culture, its secrets, but most of all its "vibrance to survive".

To Pat Wightman and Liz Iveson, both Gateshead Lassies.