Peterlee The Place To Be.

A Memory of Peterlee.

My mother had a few problems back in 1979 in a small village called Glossop in Greater Manchester, so she placed an ad in our local paper asking for an exchange of houses. We never knew that we would get a response from what seemed to be a lifetime journey. Peterlee. For me Peterlee was a new town, only 15 years old, it has all flat roofs, and big gardens, some people said it was like Bethlehem. As we drove past Shotton Hall School for the very first time, I was told by the people who lived there, that that would be my school if we moved up north. I knew of no bigger fear at the time, moving school was something I had never done. I remember crying for the longest time ever when I had to start school some five years ago. Leaving friends from the past was going to be a whole new life. After we made the first visit to Peterlee, we agreed to make the move some three weeks later, Trevelyan Place here we come. As we started moving in, via Allen Hall's removals, we soon started to get people from all over the street looking at our furniture and looking how we were dressed. The houses were so strange from what we moved out from back in Glossop. The houses didn't even have a roof, well it had a roof, but it was as flat as a pancake.
Peterlee was said to be the place to be, so we embraced the change and took up the challenge. The town centre has several up-ramps that took you to a second floor of shops, there were two working escalators and a giant shop called Doggots, I think back then there was a shop called Fine Fare, Lipton's, and Solo's. Lloyds Bank was in the place where the new curtain shop is now and the once-called Curry House was to be my mam's first job in Peterlee. I started looking around for a paper job, but found myself working as a milk man for a famous boxer called Maurice Culling, he had us carrying 4 bottles of milk in both hands and running like we had never run before. Maurice the Boxer said it was a good way to train, and that the extra bottles made us much stronger. "If only I knew what I know now". In time the milk round took on new housing estates, like The Oakland area, and Pennine Drive. After school I played out with friends from South Way and Thames Road, they had three-story houses that consisted of a garage, above that were your sitting room and kitchen, then the bedrooms and bathroom on the top floor. There was several other buildings called cantilevers, they were two flats in one. Just as we got settled into Peterlee, I was told by a friend that the school had been set on fire, having collected nearly all my new friends we ran over there as fast as possible, only to be shocked by the horrific blaze that lit up the skies over Peterlee. I saw the head master Mr Clarke walking around in his wellington boots shouting "No, no, tell me this is not true". We all just stood looking with shock on our faces. At the time of the big school fire, we were all glad that we might get time off from school, but looking back now, it was horrific what happened. There was talk that we may have to go into other schools like St Beed's, and Dean House, even North Blunts, but in the end we managed to be put into larger classes. I have loads more stories of my past, and would love to know if any of my friends read this story and reply to my memories of past.