Boyhood Memories From 1952

A Memory of Gateshead.

It was around this time that the tram lines were taken up from Sunderland Road in Gateshead. The men stored the old lines in Somerset Street and Devonshire Street. As boys we would dig up the tar from around the  streets and paste it on the road safety lamps when they were lit. It was great to see the watchy run around putting the fires out, or what he thought was a fire. We kept him fit.

I too remember the Crescent, the only bit of greenery near our house in Devonshire Street. It must have been a grand crescent in its time with grand people living there. We lived in a rat-infested street which was also covered in grime. I hated using our toilet as it had a resident rat. Inside our house we watched for hours as the mice played with my liggies. They were little grey mice with funny little faces. They were never seen when me da was having a bath in front of the fire in the tin bath. Me ma would wash da's back as he was as black as the coal he hewed. One day me da was changing the gas mantle and his hair went on fire. Well us three kids burst out laughing. I was cracking up because he looked so funny. Me brother who was older than me and me sister started to shove us about and we laughed more. The more we laughed the more me da was losing his temper. He put out his fire on his head and we all calmed down. He was only scorched. Our sides were aching, what fun that was.

Me and my friends from Devonshire Street used to go to Saltwell Park to watch the sheep dog trials with our friend Lassie the sheep dog. We all behaved well until Lassie decided to round up the sheep herself. She was the best. This was our friend behaving like she should but the man wasn't pleased. We were all very proud of our Lassie that day. We got a right telling off but it was fun.

As boys we would play down by the Tyne counting the rats and these balloon things which we found out later on in life were condoms - hundreds and hundreds of the things. The Tyne in those days was green and smelly. We would fish out the coconuts and eat them, never thinking of the things we could catch. When you're hungry you will eat anything as a kid. The man next door dealt in fish and we would make camps out of his fish boxes. We always pretended to be somewhere in the jungle or inside a mountain, our imagination used to run wild at times but it was fun.

Me and my family moved to the Springwell estate where we had a brand new council semi. Me ma thought it was a little palace. When we looked out of our back landing window we could see Whitehouse Farm with a pond. The pond did  pong in the summer - if you could bottle the smell and send it to Durham Prison and put it in the prisoners' cells, they would think twice about coming back. Whitehouse Farm had a ruin of a house, a big fine house. We were always chased by the farmer, because we played by the big house and we made our rabbit hutches from the wood we took from the old shelves in the house.

The pit heaps at the top of our street were smashing playgrounds. In the winter we would slide down the slopes when the snow was a couple of feet thick. The snow drifts were sometimes five and six feet deep. We were drenched and didn't give a toss because it was fun. Our parents very seldom called us in as in those days we felt safe. I was ten years of age when I moved to Springwell estate, rough and ready as all kids were in those days. The thought of somebody attacking us did not enter our minds.

We would swim in the dog ponds along the dykes, pretending to be pirates on a raft. When we swam in the water, it was no surprise to see dead birds. We just moved them away. There was always a gang of us. What fun. When Heworth pit closed, we used to play around by the old cottages and up by the rail lines. As I got older me and my pal Bob would carry the rail sleepers to his garden and we cut up the timber to sell as fire wood. In the winter we would carol sing and make a few pounds and also sell the wood. If we were lucky we would clear paths of snow. We did allright for pocket money. Me ma and da would never spoil us with money, because me da never spoilt me ma, so I never got it either. What fun we made for ourselves.

When I attended school I could see the flames belching out of the steel work chimneys when I sat in class. Gateshead was a scruffy place in those days and we had to breath in that air but as children we didn't know any better. I'm sure the birds wore masks. We used to walk down by Springwell arches and through the farmers' fields on the pathways. One day we were chased by this daft old bloke with a blunderbuss - what a noise it made. We nearly had a fit and didn't come out of it. We only walked across the corner of the empty field.

When I look back, it was fun. We made bogies out of orange boxes and raced each other. We used to break old bikes up and make them into our racing bikes. It didn't really matter if the paint was still wet. We used to walk down Chowdean bank and nab all the apples and pears and when the season started we would go for conkers down at the old house there. What fun we had.

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