Past Times

A Memory of Shildon.

I was born in Byerley Road, Shildon, just up from the picture-house - Hippodrome I think. The male population worked either in the pits or on the railways, you could tell the time by the shift-ends when the men either went to work or returned home.
I went to Timothy Hackworth School till I was eleven, then I went to Bishop Auckland.When we went on holiday, never more than a week, it was to visit relatives and we went by train. At the back of Byerley Road there were allotments and beyond those were the pit heaps and fields.