Happy Days

A Memory of Wallsend.

I was supposed to have been born at the Green.. ended up being at Tynemouth... So I missed out on a commemorative silver spoon given to kids born in wallsend on the day the Queen Mother visited Wallsend.. 1.10.1954.. My family lived at 18.Charles St. The Cotcher's.. my nanna Annie. Uncles Bob, Joe, Dad..Jimmy.. Mam Thelma.. I have memories of Bob and I going down Davy bank.. me in a pram barra..picking up driftwood covered in oil from the shoreline.to help eke out the coal. The Tyne was that polouted you could just about walk on it!!sawdust from Lambies for the rabbits and A pint for Bob in the pub on the way back..sometimes?My Mam,my kid sister and me moved over to my nanas Kitty Finnegan at Edward rd. Rosehill when I was 3.. I still did my growing up in palmers buildings.. all my friends were there.. Colin Gordon..the Carolines John & Norman. The Claspers Billy& little Eddie. Bobby & John Mooney. Peter Jackson..Ron? Hutchinson. There are quite a few more names that escape me at present.. we would be either playing football against the gates at Lyons ice cream under the bridge or cricket up by the billboards or down the "Alamo" which was and old bombed out factory down Davy bank which was ideal for war games etc and easily accessible..Sunday evenings there would be a gathering up by the railway bridge to listen to the latest top twenty chart from Alan Freeman? Invariably the Beatles would be in there.. I went to Central infants/Juniors then Stephenson Memorial from there to Deneside Comprehensive.. I left Wallsend in 1969 finished my education in Keresley near Coventry.Still go back tho still got my roots and some family there..retired 8 yrs ago.. live in Dunstable. BEDFORDSHIRE!!

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