Memories Of Picktree Village

A Memory of Picktree.

Aged 7, with my parents, we moved from Hadrian Avenue, Chester le Street to 'Woodside', Picktree Village in 1951, where we kept hens and three pigs. Fred Scott had the nearby farm and delivered the milk each morning. He had two sons - Tom and ?
Roy Tulloch rounded up the cattle for milking in the field between us and the A1 on his motor bike. The Renwicks lived almost opposite us. A now demolished row of cottages, 200 yards towards Fatfield, housed Billy Burns who was a gamekeeper on the Lambton Estate. His brother was a Police Inspector.
Immediately opposite was a row of estate cottages with a large arch in the middle. A family called Grass lived in one of them. On the end of this row, adjacent to the woods, was a small chapel. Next to the chapel lived another Gamekeeper and his family. They had a son, Brian, who died aged 5. Fentimans lemonade wagon called once a week. They sold ginger beer in stone flagons.
Further up the village was John Aunger's farmhouse. As he had the only television set in the area, we kids all crowded into his lounge to watch the Coronation, then afterwards down to one of Fred Scott's barns which my father, who was an electrician, had wired out with coloured lights for a celebration tea.
Next to 'Woodside', on an empty plot, a young couple named Morgan built their house.
Just over the fence from their garden was a depression in the field which was said to be the pond in which Elsie Marley had drowned. Her public House was thought to have been where Renwick lived.

---

---