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Billingham, ICI Office Building c1965
Billingham, ICI Office Building c1965 Ref: B315056
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 Billingham, the Campus Schools c1965 (ref: B315009) |
Year: 1965
Those were the days
I was still a teenager, 17 years old and my baby brother at school at Bede Campus. I escaped the campus by virtue of it not having been completed when I passed the 11+. The town centre in Billingham was still being built, and we used to hang out in the park - John Whitehead. In those days, pleasures were simple, roller skate in the street (though not when neighbours were on nightshift and so still sleeping) cycle around the neighbourhood, walk, swim at the local pool or go to the bowling alley. Cafes used to open late so we could sit and have a coffee at 8 o'clock. There was no early morning tv which used to start mid to late afternoon so we kids were encouraged to spend our time outdoors which to me now is remembered as being warmer, drier and longer summers? I was often given sandwiches in the summer holidays and went off to amuse myself all day long, sometimes bringing home tadpoles/froglets or tiddlers caught at the local pond in a farmer's field. We carefully negotiated the railway track on our travels and would walk for miles alongside streams, along tracks to distant villages only accessible otherwise by buses. I remember that everyone took responsibility for children minding their manners and a clip around the ear from a neighbour wasn't unusual. Any misdemeanors at school - punished by a swipe with a ruler across the knuckles remained a memory at school as if I mentioned it at home, I would receive another swipe from a parent for letting them down. At no time do I remember any parents marching to school to wreak revenge for their children being punished. Ten years earlier, when still living in Wilson Street, Middlesbrough, I remember a wedding where the bride and groom returned to her parents house, leaned out of an upstairs window and threw pennies, threepenny bits and sixpences out of the window to us eagerly waiting kids down below. My mother was brought up in a 2 up and 2 down terraced house with 8 other kids with no lasting hardship. She forgo the scholarship she won in order to take up employment and bring home her wage to her parents. She was given a small amount for herself out of her earnings. I cannot see today's children accepting that. Even at 19 years, I still had to toe the line regarding staying out late with a boyfriend. A time limit was set and enforced up to the day I was married. I struggled to keep up with my own children. I employed strict standards of behaviour with my own family, which as adults they now see the merits of and so are employing similar strategies with my grandchildren. It was sometimes awkward to access a supermarket in those days as all the mums would leave their prams or pushchairs outside the store with their precious little ones securely strapped in. It was the norm. I was horrified to discover that a friend of mine (a social worker) saying that if she encountered that now, she would have no alternative but to prosecute as "abandonment". For goodness sake, where has common sense gone? But to return to 1965, the only school on the campus which was open when I passed the exams was the Secondary Modern. It was the uniform which encouraged me to pass the tests as I could not see me going to school in such horrific colours. I would rather wear the black, white and gold of the Henry Smith Grammar at Hartlepool, even though I would have to leave for school before baby brother was even out of bed. I often wish that the clocks could be turned back to an age where there was far more respect from children to their elders, where discipline was accepted as the norm rather than as abuse and before there was too much "political correctness". We have come on so much since those days but I don't think we are any happier for having more, but instead are afraid of losing so much of what we don't actually need. We had so much going for us as teenagers, we had plenty of fun, pleasures were simple - a book, the cinema, so where has it all gone wrong? Posted: 08/10/2008 11:57 by Paula Hollingworth |
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Billingham, the Campus Schools c1965 (ref: B315009) |
Year: 1968
schooldays
Billingham Campus School consisted of four halls - Bede, pictured in the foreground, Davy behind and Faraday furtherst away. The fourth hall, Stephenson was about 800 yards away, not pictured. There was a sports block with a swimming pool which can just be seen to the left of this photograph. Last edited: 27/09/2006 15:03 by Lyn Wells |
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 Stockton-On-Tees, High Street c1955 (ref: S195021) |
Year: 1955
My Era - Stockton Revisited A memory of Stockton-On-Tees, Cleveland I was 28 years old at the time of this photograph, living at Roseworth, with wife, Doris,and daughter, Judith, aged two. Married at St Peter's Church in 1947, with Rev'd J McGill officiating, a 'wartime' wedding really, with rationing in place, and I in a khaki uniform with royal artillery brass in place, Doris in a treasured but borrowed weddding gown - coupons were reserved for more pressing items then. Two years after the photograph and we three had embarked on the 'Empress of France' from Liverpool to Montreal, Canada, then by train for four days to Edmonton where the oil and gas business, on which I had pinned my hopes, had faded somewhat. Within weeks Pacific Petroleums Ltd had identified my value and we drove 500 miles or so on gravelled highways to Fort St John, living there for the next seven years. We moved east in 1964 to Montreal, influenced by a career move and the chance for a better education for Judith, who became fluent in French within a year. Peter, our son, was four years old when we made that trrip via auto to La Belle Provence, with my parents, Vera and Walter, along for the ride. They were vacationing with us for the summer, and shared with us the experience of house-hunting, purchase. and finally receiving the household effects from Fort St John, having sold our first-owned home there. My father thought we were crazy for leaving Fort St John, which had grown upon him since the spring of that year! Back to Stockton on Tees ... We have returned numerous times, when family visits were very important, but since the demise of my parents, who had moved from Kilburn Road, where our family of four were primarily raised, the reasons for additional trips became less attractive. Thanks to the archives maintained by the Borough of Stockton I am able to achieve my 'Stockton fix' periodically. The picture, whilst being familiar, evokes thoughts of ancient times within my life's span - it is dated beyond what I would have deemed correct, but there it is, just as it was when I visited the down-town area so often. At that time I owned a pre-war Austin 10, and so must have parked it many times in the confines of the Median in the High Street. I never, ever entered the Town Hall. It seemed almost hallowed in my day! Traffic patterns were ultimately changed, both in the High Street and in the surrounding small, neighbouring streets, making my sense of where I was and how I was to navigate to destinations that were formerly straighforward, extremely complex. At this age I will probably never need to navigate them again. Air travel being so onerous these days severely curtails all thoughts of making a nostalgic trip back to Stockton on Tees, but it remains in my mind and will always stir emotions within. Last edited: 02/09/2008 10:25 by Ronald Haslock |
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Year: 1954
childhood A memory of Huntworth, Somerset I was born in the parlour of 25 Pierson Street in 1954. My Mam's name was Margaret (Meg) and my late father was Alf (or Hank) to his mates. He worked on the tugs on the River Tees. I don't have any memories of him as he died when I was four. I remember we didn't have a lot but then neither did most of the street. Mam had me and two sisters and three brothers to look after, not an easy task with no breadwinner but we managed and one thing I always remember was my happy childhood. Playing in the streets with all the other kids, running messages for people, mam telling us not to take money for doing it (but we did). We were told to mind our p's and q's and always say please and thank you. If you saw a policeman you'd run a mile even if you hadn't done anything. Friday night was bath night. We had a tin bath hung up in the yard and we would bring it into the kitchen and fill it up using an Ascot gas boiler, it took forever to fill. No central heating then, mam would let us light the oven and keep the door open to heat the room, then there was the outside loo which froze in the winter so we burned a candle in there to try and stop it freezing, cor, the good old days. I remember the old cobbles in the road being tarmaced, it was great because we could rollerskate up and down the street, if you only had one skate we placed a book or board on top of it and then sat on it to ride along the road or pavement (that's where skateboards came from?). I started Lawson Infant School at the age of five, all I remember was the sand pit some canvas beds outside to sleep on in the afternoon, and the bigger kids playing with hoola hoops and stilts, oh and plastic money and a set of scales. I then went to Smeaton Street School for Boys until I left at the age of eleven. The trolley buses would turn around and head back to South Bank just outside our playground, we would watch the drivers reconnecting the electric supply poles to the overhead cabbles and they would always send sparks flying to the ground. Market day was always good as I got either a toffey apple or a toffey dab and I would run home as fast as I could. Other things I remember, the big lamps the stallholders used in the winter to light up the stalls. There was a pet stall where we bought our dog Kim. My sister Ann went out to buy a hairdryer and came home with him. All in all it was a great place to live, very different from today. My street and all around it were pulled down in the 60s. Well that's a few of my memories, would anyone else like to add to them - feel free. Last edited: 18/03/2008 14:44 by John Hutchinson |
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Year: 1966
Cargo Fleet, all gone now! A memory of Huntworth, Somerset It is so sad that there is little of Cargo Fleet remaining, not only physically but also photographically. I have searched in vein to find photographs of this once strong community. Those I have are from when I was around 4 to 6 years old and only show outside of our house and a couple I have of the old school taken shortly before being demolished. Posted: 18/11/2007 01:34 by C Elliott |
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