Spennymoor memories
Here are memories of Spennymoor and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Spennymoor or a Spennymoor photo.
Spennymoor Rink
I was interested in Doris's memory of the rink in that her boyfriend at the time was George Pennington, sax player. I knew Geoge and we played together from time to time in dance bands at the Rink. One band I remember was Bob Forbet. I played drums. Also another local band was Fernley Mitchell. It all seems light years ago but, yes, great memories. I remember one Friday night there was a group turned up to play in the interval who turned out to be the Shadows. They were just starting out. The guitar was just starting to be a recognised instrument and one or two of the older musicians in the band we saying 'Well, it will never catch on'. Thank you Spennymoor Rink for the great memories.
West Cornforth
I remember the donkey wood, the pit ponies that used to roam in the wood. The old picture house now has the lop house at the time at the bottom of the pit bank. Also the hills and the holes where we used to play as kids. Back to back houses down old Cornforth. Johnson barbers at Slake Terrace. The tar beds where the gipsy used to stop. The big old lime pond. And Bolton cafe where all the lads and lassies met to listen to the juke box in the late 1950s. The old coal yard half way up the pit bank, picking coal up off the pit heaps. The old coke ovens on the way to Ferry Hill station. Good memory of Doggy. I was born in Laburnum Road in 1946.
Music at The Rink
I played guitar with a skiffle group in a talent competition at the Rink during the 1950s. Frankie Vaughan appeared there and I saw the Temperance Seven and Screaming Lord Sutch, amongst others, on the Rink stage. Many of the country's biggest stars appeared in Spennymoor in those days - a tradition which continued after the Rink became a Variety Club. Everything revolved around the Friday dance (10pm until 2am) and my most treasured memory is of the Friday afternoon when Bandleader Matt Bell knocked on my parents' door at 5pm and invited me to play piano with his band at the Rink that very evening. His regular pianist had been taken ill and later that day (in the late 1950s) it was a great thrill to realise that I was playing with my favourite local band on that long, elevated stage. I was helped along by the bass player who showed me how to handle the musical score during the dancing! I subsequently played... Read more
Spennymoor Rink.
Dancing the night away at the rink, from 10pm until 2am on Friday nights, was the highlight of my teenage years. My boyfriend played in saxophone and clarinet in the resident band. Had some great times, felt so grown up staying out so late. George Pennington was my boyfriend's name. I have lived in Australia for the past 41 years but have never forgotten my nights at the rink. I lived in Leeholm but travelled to the rink every week. I would give anything to have just one more night dancing at the rink. Saw Johhny Dankworth and Emile Ford at the rink.
The Rink
Surely someone remembers Spennymoor Rink in the 1950s or am I the only one left? That last dance! 'Cherry Blossom Pink' etc played by that superb trumpet, the Teddy Boys. The fights, they were not so great! What about the pub next door. Was it the railway or something? Three Newcastle Brown Ales and a rum and pep then off to the dance. The late one... 12 Midnight till 4 am was it, the late buses or if you missed them that long walk to whereever. It seems like yesterday, a hundred years ago.
John Tully
Memories of County Durham
Up The Wood
We had no TVs, and there was not much on the radios so we made our own entertainment. One activity was playing up the local wood. We had two woods close to East Howle. One was called the Side Wood and the other was known as the Middle Wood. We just did the usual things, like making camps, climbing trees, playing on rope swings, eating worms, just the sort of things that young lads did in those days. Most of the time we were in the side wood, because as the name implies, the middle wood was in the middle of a field and to get there we had to cross the farmer's field which in the summer was always planted with something, invariably corn of one type or another. It was always risky crossing the field because you never knew when the farmer would appear and chase you. If he was on foot he always seemed to have a shotgun with him which was quite scary. On reflection I... Read more
Boyhood Days
My aunts and uncles lived in East Howle and I was a regular visitor around and before 1950. The two families lived opposite one another in what I think may have been "railway cottages" and my cousins totalled 9. In those days you got off the ABC bus at the railway crossing and walked along a path towards the Jubilee Bridge. The track then carried on towards the Tar-beds and West Cornforth. My relatives lived in a square and there was no electricity down there, just coal fires, paraffin lamps, candles and battery-powered radio. The atmosphere at night was fantastic and the boyhood adventures amongst the woods, streams and railway around the "Rocks" area are still magical!
Happy Days
My gran came from Leasingthorne, moving to Cambridge in the late 1920s. She had a sister named Mary who lived in an end of terrace house near a corrugated tin 'social club', chickens were kept opposite. l can remember an Uncle 'Tiser'. Mary had two Yorkshire terriers, Dot and Daisy. From her yard you could see the mine where most of the men worked, l believe Sir Anthony Eden had an estate nearby.
Uncle John, his wife Margaret and daughter Jennifer(?) lived up the street a bit, l believe my gran had about five brothers, most of whom died in pit accidents. l think in the early 1960s the mine had closed and they bulldozed all the remaining houses in the street. My gran Margaret (known as Meg) followed her husband Jack/John down to Cambridge following the General Strike of 1926.
l also remember an Uncle Norman, his wife Eleanor and son Peter who lived near a railway line and had horses in a field opposite. More relations... Read more
My Familys Past
My mother and her family were born and bred in Leasingthorne, my grandfather was a miner at the pit, as were my two uncles. My grandparents were Robert and Ethel Wilson and had 5 children, Jack, Ruby, Lilly, Irene and Robert. My mother was Irene. I too was born there and returned to spend many holidays with my much loved grandparents, often visiting the pit with my grandfather to collect his pension. The last time I visited was for my grandmother's funeral and alas the villiage had been demolished leaving only the streets (my grandmother had been relocated to Leeholme several years before). Everyone in the village knew each other and the community spirit was very strong. In fact my first school was Leasingthorne Infants (which was still standing when I last went there).
My Mother Was Born in Leeholme
My mother, Madge Ward was born at 10 Windsor Road, 5th Jan 1904, daughter of William Ward (Builder) and Margaret (nee Morrison). Madge was christened in St James Church, Coundon 18th Feb 1904. Always thought that she was born in Ferryhill. However, when searching for her birth cert after her death in Norfolk in 1997 aged 93 years I found out that it was in fact Leeholme. We made a journey a couple of years later in 1999 and took a photo of the house for my family records.
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