Off To The Smoke

A Memory of Newburn.

Wes Coulthard and me decided to go to the smoke to try our luck,this was early sixties. Wes had worked in London before for a building company called Higgs & Hill so we decided to give it a go as we had just been laid off. It was a warm Friday and we set ourselves up on the Tyne Bridge with our rucksacks, I had the Stones written in indelible ink emblazoned all over mine and Wes had the Animals on his. We started thumbing a lift and in no time our luck was in, two lads gave us a lift as far as Nottingham. We must of got there in the evening  so we decided to stay the night and slept upstairs on a bus on the back seat in the bus depot. It was early in the morning that we were startled by someone there, it was this huge black woman who was the cleaner, all we could see were her big white eyes, I don't know who got the biggest fright and we made our exit quickly, then it was a brisk wash in the local toilets and on the road again. This time we thumbed a lift with a British Road Service lorry, he wasn't allowed to carry passengers so we said nought, this lift got us to Peterborough and that night we slept in a railway carriage in a siding. Sunday was the last leg so we decided to hop on a train. When we got to London we headed for Southall as that's where Wes had been working and he knew a few lads who had stopped down there. One was Peter Gilmour from Throckley (it was his sister June that John Sample had married) and low and behold we bumped into him in the main street. He was either married or settled with a girl by this time so we went for a couple of beers, and behind the bar was a man in a Turban serving and the rest of the bar was full of Indian people, which is something I had not witnessed in my life. We came out the pub and Wes took me to the picture house, we stood on the opposite side of the road waiting for the people to come out he said "here they come" I don't know how they all got in, it was all Indian people, old, young, male, female, children, the walls must of been stretched to accommodate them, apparently there was a Bollywood picture show on every Sunday for them.
We were told by Peter that most of our lads were living in Battersea and Higgs & hill had a site in Southgate on the opposite end of the Piccadilly line,this is where the foreman Charlie who Wes had worked under before was at. So off we headed to Southgate on the tube. We couldn't miss the site it was just over the road from the station it was an office block starting to go up. It had timber hoardings all around the site with a gate to get in and out obviously for security. We seen Charlie and started the next day but there was no where to get digs as it was a bit upmarket. On the sites in London they had a  portacabin which was the canteen, this was about 12ft wide and 20ft long with tables and chairs and a lad was paid to keep it clean, he also made a bit money on the side making the tea, going messages for all on site, he even cooked bacon, egg, sausage, pies, beans etc. They even had portable toilets, we had nought like this on the sites up north yi had ya bait wher yi sat, and the toilet on J T Bells site in Whickham was trench dug out by the jcb, a hut put over it and a plank of wood to sit on. As the site progressed this was then filled in, a new trench would be dug and the hut moved over the top again. Anyway back to the smoke. Charlie the gaffa said we could kip in the bait cabin, this was canny, we had running water, gas heaters, a portable Loo and in the lift shaft we hung a hosepipe up high with a bean tin perforated with holes for our shower this was summer but by was that water cold. once a week we would go for a proper bath down at Wood Green.
There was a Hoults removal depot down the road from the site and the lads from Newcastle would come in the pub over the road, they gave us a double mattress which we took gladly and plonked it in the bait cabin. Tony the lad who ran the cabin just worked around our bed in the corner. Big Bob Dalziel from Kenton and a bloke called Clasper from Longbenton cant remember his 1st name, were good crack. I remember us going to there big removal van after the pub, (as that's where they slept,) and Clasper started playing the piano in the back of the van which belonged to whoever they were moving. Then Bob brought out this home made scrumpy cider, there were demi jars of the stuff which again belonged to the person they were moving. What a night that was and we all just kipped down in the back of the van. He said we will put a couple down as breakages. They would come into our little palace from the pub with a few beers and Wes and me always had a galvanized pail of broth on the go. This little job was becoming quite lucrative as besides not paying for digs Charlie put us down as night watchmen as well. Episode 2 to follow.   

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