Newburn Shops

A Memory of Newburn.

As I told you, in Millfield there was only one shop, 'Jacksons', and two houses, Sewells and Gribbles, both in Victoria Terace where they turned their front parlour into shops. Sewells was run by Anne Veitche's mother, a nice lady, who lived straight opposite in Albert Terrace. All main shoppping was done in Newburn. There were two shops on Warkworth Crescent, Coffees and Lewins who I believe were related. I can't remember who ran which but one was a little general dealers and the other was a wool shop, I'm sure this was Lewins, anyway I was forever in the wool shop getting stuff for me ma who was always knitting. When Christmas was just around the corner the wool shop had an Aladdin's Cave downstairs, set out with all the latest toys, but he never let us down on our own, I can still picture the scene, and the smell of the new toys. I remember buying my jeans from here and new ones had come on the market, coloured grey but not tight enough for me, so there I would go into my bedroom with my needle and thread and when I had finished I had to sqeeze into them. The post office was on the corner, then the Meadow Dairy which had the biggest letterbox in the front door. One night I watched lads putting their arms in with a stick and getting packs of biscuits from the display around the side by the window, mmmm. Nothing was ever left that close again! That shop had its own smell as well. Then there was the fish shop, then the hotel. Around the corner was the wireless shop where we could buy our latest records, first 78s then 45s came in. When my 14th birthday came around I was given ny first record player, a Danset Major, and the top ten at the time in 1957 included 'Maybe Baby' by the Crickets, 'Cumberland Gap' by Lonnie Donegan, 'Long Tall Sally' by Little Richard, 'Whole Lotta Woman' by Marvin Rainwater, 'Who's Sorry Now' by Connie Francis, 'Magic Moments' by Perry Como, 'Wonderful Time Up There' by Pat Boone, 'At the Hop' by Danny and the Juniors, 'Garden of Eden' by Frankie Vaughan, 'Friendly Persuasion' by Pat Boone, 'Its Late' by Ricky Nelson, 'Jailhouse Rock' by Elvis, 'Blackberry Hill' by Fats Domino, and 'Great Balls of Fire' by Chuck Berry. But there were a few I wasn't into, like Tommy Steele. Cliff wasn't too bad with 'Move It'.
We lived in 10 Millfield Lane then which was an upstairs flat and I would plug the Dansette into a socket in the kitchen and mount it on the bath top as that was the closest it would get to being outside. I would then have the volume up full and stand on the stair landing looking over the wall, showing off my new birthday pressie. Wes, my pal, would come down from Throckley and stay overnight on a Saturday as my Ma and Da would be down the Conservative Club. We would have the Dansette on in the kitchen and practice our bopping steps there as it had a stone floor and it wouldn't annoy Ginny Walton downstairs like it would have done if we had danced on the wood floors. See how considerate we lads were then! I remeber what we did with the old vinyls, we would put them into a dish of hot water until they became supple and then we bent them into different shapes, but the only really useful one was as a vase to hang on the wall and put the bluebells in which we collected from the Dene.

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