East End

A Memory of Ryhope.

I was born in Sunderland in 1948 and Christened in Holy Trinity Church, Church Walk, where all of my mother's side of the family had been hatched, matched, and dispatched.
I was raised in Wear Garth till the age of twelve years old when my parents left Sunderland for work in the midlands. Although times were hard in Sunderland at the time for many, we as a family of eleven didn't have much. I have some fond memories of my early life there. I can always remember playing on the quay side with friends oblivious to the danger of no barriers to prevent children from falling into the water, there had been a few children had lost their lives through drowning and I was forever been told not to go down there and keep off the quay side by my mother. I suppose I was naughty and offen disobeyed my mother and still went down there with friends. I recall it was about 1956/1957 when a battleship docked on the River Wear, it was announced that the public could go and look round and the news teams would be there to document the event. I heard about the event from friends and asked my mother could I go and look. She told me I could not as she didn't want me down there alone and that she didn't have time to take me so the answer was no. Well, I had different ideas and I was determined that I wanted to see the ship. I took myself and stood in the line with other spectators and waited patiently to be allowed on the ship. I walked round the ship looking from stern to bow, not thinking for a minete that any one would notice me and go back and tell my mother. That afternoon when I went home and said nothing as though I had just been out playing as normal. Then my mother asked my sister to go down to the paper shop to get the evening paper Sunderland Echo. My sister came back running inthe house saying "Ma, look who's on the front of the paper". There I was on the front of the Sunderland Echo, of all the photograghs that newspaper reporter must have taken it was one with me that he decided to put in the front of the Echo. Well, I will leave up to your imagination my fate, and I was not allowed out either for a week. I still have family in Sunderland but don't get back much these days, but it's wonderful to see some pictures of the old Sunderland that I fondly remember as a child on this web site.