Memories of Horden

Horden Memories

I was born in Horden in 1946 (Elizabeth Lumley) and my father (George Lumley) (and his father before him) ran Lumley's grocery store which was on the bank top (21 Beech Terrace - now a house but the United bus stop is still callled Lumley's) just after you enter Horden from Blackhall. We moved from Horden in 1954 when my father's health broke down but I was a bridesmaid at this church circa 1951. Sadly both of my parents are now dead so I do not even know the name for the bride and groom though I think they will still be around. I have the wedding photograph and can still remember standing on the church steps.

My grandfather (Henry Lumley) started off as a miner - I think they lived in 13th Street and started running a shop from there in the late 1930s. From there he moved to Beech Terrace and set up as a grocer.

I was 8 when we left Horden but still have many memories of it.

Horden and St Marys Church

My mum was born in March 1931 in the Easington Colliery area, 26 Boyd Street, and was the youngest of 5.  All the men in the family were miners - they lived close to Easington and Horden for work. The two elder sisters, Doris and Greta (named after the Greta Bridge in Rokeby), were away from home for the latter part of the war years working in bigger towns.  My Aunt Greta never returned to live in the north east, settling in various locations around the country, until finally ending her days in Telford. The family were very musical.  As part of the "war effort" my grandma, Alice Mosey, used to put on charity concerts at the Hall in Horden (Salvation Army I think) in which she used to recite poems and monologues (in dialect) that she had written herself. Along with other "local talent", my mum and her brothers used to join in the entertainment and my grandad, Mark Mosey, who was in the ARP at that time, as part of his contribution provided a blackout curtain for the stage! My mum remembered a particular occasion when she was 11 (in 1942) when she and her brother, Wallace ("Wally") sang a few songs, and her other brother Thomas ("Totty") played the banjo.  A family friend was often roped in to play the piano.

My mum and dad, mum's brother and his intended were married in a double wedding at St. Mary's Church, Horden some time during 1948 (April, I believe). Mum was just 17 and her name was Joan, my dad's name was Thomas (Fisher). His family were from Wallsend in Newcastle and, after his own mum's death, he had moved to Cotsford Park to live with his grandmother Bailee.  Mum lived a few doors away.  They met at a local dance when she was 14. My mum's brother was also named Thomas and was, I think, around 19, and his bride was named Joan. The vicar who married them made the comment at the time that he would have to be sure to marry the right Joan to the right Thomas!  Sadly, I never met my Uncle Totty as he died, aged 21, leaving a little girl named Ann, whom I never met as her mother moved away and eventually re-married.

I was born in No. 120 on 3rd Street, Horden in 1951. We lived in the same house as my Uncle Wally and Aunt Edna with their two young children.  In late 1953 we moved to the 'new town' of Peterlee for a short while where my brother, Geoffrey, was born in 1954. Mum remembered sitting on the upstairs outside window ledge cleaning the windows whilst heavily pregnant! (We had followed my Uncle Wally who was the very first tenant in the 'new' Peterlee.) Both families then moved to Rugeley in Staffordshire (a new mining estate) but due to dad's deteriorating health we left my Uncle Wally behind in Rugeley where he brought up his own family, and he died there some years ago. We moved down to London to find lighter work for dad, and joined my grandparents who'd moved from Horden some time before. Unfortunately dad's health never recovered and he died (aged 32) when I was 6 in 1957, so I don't remember him very much, except on one occasion when a jumping jack firework chased him around the garden on bonfire night and we all fell about laughing!  Six months before my dad's death my grandmother suddenly passed away shortly after my grandparents had re-located to Coventry.  By that time my grandad had a good job and stayed put.  We'd remained in London because dad was ill in hospital, and after his death we also did not move until Mum remarried about 8 years later - eventually moving to Essex.  After a short illness, mum died in April 2008 (aged 77).

We did occasionally return to Horden to visit my Aunt Doris and Uncle Tom (Brady) who had re-settled there after the war and who lived on 4th street for many years bringing up their own family, until the whole row of houses were demolished to make way for a "village green" - they went to Peterlee and eventually London.  As a child on such visits, I remember playing in the local park, also the nearby pebble beach and going to the local hall to hear a brass band play (my cousin Eileen was a majorette), and visiting Crimden Dean.  However, it wasn't until about 12 years ago that mum and I made a 'memory lane' visit and she took me round the places she remembered when younger. I have a photo of her standing outside St. Mary's Church, and one of me outside the house where I was born, and also of our house in Peterlee. I had forgotten how close to the North Sea we had been in Horden (literally yards away) and Mum said that she used to play there with her brothers when they were kids, and often took me there in the summer when I was a small baby. We found that the mine had been filled in and grassed over and all that remained on the surface was, I believe, an airshaft wheel; she remembered as a young girl sometimes going to the mine when a shift was over to meet her dad and brothers coming home.  Rather sadly, she also remembered that, two days after I was born on Sunday 27th May 1951, there was a terrible explosion and a lot of miners lost their lives at Easington Colliery.
 
There is no-one left from the Mosey family living in Horden, or indeed County Durham, any longer. Happily though, a few years before her death Mum did manage to again make contact with her former best friend, Ethel Sayer, who now lives in Peterlee and they corresponded often. Mum even made a couple of visits "up north" - one shortly before she passed away.

Someday - perhaps soon - I will go back "up north" to see if I can find those places again.

to Kareen Surtees

Hi Kareen.
I am interested in what you said about your mam and dad's burial and wedding.
The wedding of your parents I'm sure was Rev W.H. Walton before he died.
And when your father was buried in 1980 Fr Alan Bowser, I'm certain of this because I started serving on the alter around about that time. Hope I've been helpful to you. David Lee.
I started serving at the altar of St Mary's church. My memories were lovely ones of friends I knew over the years, my old priests that I have worked with, what a joy to do what I did. The places we visited as a parish. Oberamagou 1970 and 1980.  Everything we did was satisfying in many ways. My late mam and dad did their bit, Tom and Freda Lee as verger, Dad did the garden, I helped when able. Loads of memories. My sister got maried there, I myself got married to my late wife Carol in 1986. Sadly now I can only do so much on oxygen, but we have a good priest, Fr Kevin Smith.  Yes, good memories.

St Marys Church Horden,.

My mother and father were married at this church on the 5th of March 1960 George Turnbull and Jaqueline Kell. Does any one out there know them?
George Turnbull (THIS WAS AN UNCLE OF MY DADS WHO WAS NAMED AFTER HIM AND MY GREAT UNCLE) was buried from this church in 1982.
This church still stands. I would like to know the vicors name at the time of both my dads marriage to my mam and my great uncle burial please can any one help.