Bank Street

A Memory of Gateshead.

We lived in an old Victorian house on the Bank, I was eight years old. I remember a shop on the corner of School Street owned by a man named Ted Weihton and on the other corner Tates fish shop, the owner was a friend of my Great Aunt May. I spent some of my childhood, like most kids, playing hopscotch, top and whip, leap frog, skippies. I ran messages for neighbours, spent Saturdays at the Bensham matinees and scrambled for pennies outside the church when a wedding was on. We didn't have a lot but there was community spirit. I still remember the tables spread out in School Street for Coronation Day. There was a barbers on the Bank that cut my hair, I was the only girl customer. I often wonder what happened to some of the families I knew like the Fosters, the mother May had twin girls, they were both ginger, I think one was called Irene, and the Bells family, there was Carol and Louisa, also a lass called Marylin Nicholson. My maiden name is Warren. It would be nice to know if these people were still around.