Washington memories
Here are memories of Washington and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Washington or a Washington photo.
Margaret
Margaret lived at 20 West View in 1951 and came regularly to Gateshead. She had a friend who lived near Saltwell Park. When I was called up to do my National Service on 4/10/1951 we were pen friends but she stopped writing after a good while. I went down to Washington for the first time in many years in 1979 and walked up to the door where Margaret lived at 20 West View but I didn't knock. 20 years later I was in Washington again but West View had been demolished. If anyone knows about Margaret's whereabouts I would love to know how she is getting along these days. I have sadly forgotten her surname.
Les May. e-mail: lsmy59@aol.com
Washington Chemical Works
I was born at 55 Pattinson Town about 20 yards from the chemical works which manufactured products from asbestos. Most of my mother's side of the family worked at the factory and have since died of asbestos related diseases. I am surprised that no mention or photographs exist of this factory. I used to pass through the village green going to Washington Glebe secondary school. The school had terrible subsidence problems with a mine shaft going directly underneath causing the wood block floors to buckle. My father was demobbed from the Royal Navy after serving in submarines during WW2 and he then got a job as a deputy in Washington "F" pit. When I was 14 he took me down the pit and the first thing I noticed was the wind blowing a gale, then the floor was covered in white powder (fire damp). When we reached the coal face which was under the North Sea there was hardly enough room to stand up. That is when I decided that... Read more
Sproul Family
My father, Joseph MacNab Sproul, his brothers, sisters and parents always lived and were born in Washington, they are all gone now and I am trying to find some information on them. My grandparents were Samuel and Ellan, I was told by my cousin that there is a Sproul on the North East War Memorial right side bottom, left list. I have been trying to find photos and addresses but I'm not getting anywhere, if you know where I can look I would love it. My father came to Canada in 1957, my brother and one sister and I were born in the UK, my other sister is a Canuck, ha ha. Thanks to any and everyone in advance, John Sproul
The Past
I was born at Usworth colliery and lived at Old Row. I went to Usworth Colliery School and when I left there I went to work at Usworth pit.
Life as A Kid
I used to go to Usworth Park to play football or go bird nesting down the planton at Waterloo. I also used to go round collecting bottles to take back to shop and get the money for the pictures. We had 3 picture houses in Washington, the Kings, the Queens and the Regal. I went to Saturday matinees and saw Flash Gordon and Hopalong Cassidy.
Gilbert Scott, my Father, And me 1915 to 1998
My dad was born 1915 and I was born 1947. At the age of seven he went blind so he went to Queen Victoria Blind School in Newcastle till he was 15 years old. When he came out he learned to play the accordion, he went round the clubs in the North East and played to people in the pubs and clubs. When he was 6 he went blackberry picking on the Glebe pit railway line with my aunt, there was a train coming and my aunt called out to him to tell him but he did not hear her, his hand was over the line getting blackberries and the train ran over his left hand, taking it off at the wrist. He played in the clubs till he took ill in 1996. We lived in Grassmere Terrace in my grandfather's house, Thomas William Scott. He died in 1964 so we lived there till I got married in 1968. We used to go down to Patterson Town and deliver papers.... Read more
The Gassy Gutter
Does anyone else remember the gassy gutter as we called it at Coxgreen? I still remember the lunatics sliding down it into the River Wear. This is before the footbridge was built and there was just a rowboat ferry there, it was actually the outlet for the effluent from the Washington Chemicle Co and I dread to think what was in it. We also used to play on the "space ships" (old storage tanks etc) on top of the "black mountains" . There was Stan and his wife in the long pull as we called it our favourite sweetie shop and Bob Witherspoon in Ken Pyles motorbike shop which started my passion for motorbikes which endures to this day. Brady Square was a different world then with adventure playgrounds all around, Bluebell wood and the waterside,the denes and woods behind Harpers stores and the pond and claypits and brickworks between the prefabs and calders and Usworth Aerodrome and camp.
The Waterside in The 1950s
I lived at High Barmston Farm down the Waterside and had a fantastic childhood there before moving to Alnwick when I was 11. In the 1950s there were loads of houses down the Waterside and Coxgreen. Sadly not much remains of the Waterside I knew. I remember Blast Row, Wilden Terrace, Middlefield Row and many other houses in the area. A friend of mine lived in Staithes House which is still there. It is a lovely old house and I was lucky enough to be invited there last year by the present owners. I remember Finlays shop in Wilden Terrace and going over the Iron bridge to Biddick School. You could go another way up the 'Tanks' as the road was called, probably beacause of the tanks at the Chemical Works. My family the Potts farmed at Middle Barmston from around 1850 with my great-grandfather taking over High Barmston around 1888. How I wish I still lived at High Barmston, such an idylic place. Sadly it was pulled down after we left... Read more
Washington, Brady Square
One of three children who lived at Hillthorn Terrace, just next to the railway lines. I can remember as if it was yesterday when the coal train used to travel from Washington "F" Pit down towards Brady Square, through the houses on route to join the main line. We often used to jump on the coal wagons as a dare or place a penny on the railway lines to flatten it. I can still remember a lot of the kids from those days. I am now living in Greater Manchester but still have family and friends in Washington. I sometimes walk down to Brady Square when visiting and stand on the railway bridge which spans the railway line from Brady Square to Coxgreen. Although the houses have been demolished and replaced with newer houses, I can still picture the families going about their everyday business. Its funny when someone comes up to you and starts to tell you all about the area when... Read more
Memories of Tyne and Wear
Best Times
Just looking back over the years. I now live in Nottingham but I remember Fatfield, we lived in Biddick Inn Terrace, looking at pictures it's no longer there. I had a friend called Alan Cook lived at number 2, I think with his sister Sandra, his grandmother lived next door, then we lived at number 6. The monument was on top of the hill, we played on it most days. With there only being about 6 or 7 houses everybody knew everybody, it was a great time.
Springwell Village School 1944 -1954
I was born at 3 Underhill Terrace in Springwell on 18th February 1939 and attended the village school from 5 to 15 years of age. I remember walking from Underhill Terrace daily to the school via what we called the "Horse Holes". my First teacher in the infants was a Mrs. Clough.Later teachers were Mrs. "Pip" Jenkins (a Tartar) and the gorgeous Miss Glendenning. Mr. Fawcett and Mr. Potts were the only two male teachers I can name but I'm fairly sure there was a 3rd. Mr. Garside was the Head. We didn't have trips away in those days, all we ever got was a walk around the school playing field. I can remember sports days. I was in the Yellow Athenians? House. I was also in the school football and cricket teams. I left school on the Friday in 1954 and started work with British Railways on the following Monday. Names I remember from my schoolmates were. Ian Price, Arthur Richards, Walter Tully, Lawerence Outerside, Pat Bamford.
My School Years
I started at Eighton Banks Primary School in 1952 aged five, having been moved from the slum clearance of the Teams, Ghd. To be in open countryside after the lung-choking life of the industrial Teams was absolute heaven.
The headmistress was Miss Smith. My teacher was called Miss Forster, I believe. I loved playing on the old "camp" at the back of the school, (before it became an animal shelter) with my good friends George Harrison who lived on Longbank in a detached stone house, his mother and father were very good to me, she would give me food and clothing, Tim Shield who lived in Springfield Avenue, Eighton Banks, (his mother was a teacher at the school), someone called Michael, a girl called Violet who lived in a bungalow off Wrekenton "Long Bank", Angela Belford and many more.
The school was first established in two cottages in 1832 as a "Charitable" school, called Barrington Charitable school, then in 1867 the existing building was built, still... Read more
Memories of Wrekenton A Mining Village in Gateshead
Memories of Wrekenton a mining village in Gateshead, County Durham from my late mother and my memories from the 1950’s
My mother was born in Wakes Yard in a mining village called Wrekenton, a village close to the village of Springwell, Gateshead, County Durham, she lived at Eighton Terrace a cobbled street with 2 rows of sandstone built houses, darkly stained due to pollution from coal fired chimneys over the ages, she was an orphan with her 2 sisters, being brought up by there grandmother on there mothers side, a Hannah Watson. Mother’s grandfather was James Leslie Watson and he was a coalminer who worked down nearby Springwell Colliery.
In the war years, there were many shortages, people had to make do with want they had and economise, if you broke a cup, you had to make do with drinking out of a jam jar if there wasn’t a replacement, it was the same with the tea rations, often it was mixed with dried bramble leaves to... Read more
Childhood in Wreckenton
I started school at St Oswald's RC in 1944. We lived on Tanfield Road. I remember the head teacher was called Miss Wilfred, and later we had a headmaster called Mr Clancy. I remember when the war finished and we had to parade around the school yard and salute the Union flag. I remember the winter of 1947 and the snow too deep to walk in and it seemed like it would never go away. We spent our childhood playing in the fields at the back of the house which was known to us as Micky King's field. Beyond that were rolling hillocks of heath grass which led on to moor and gorse we called the whinys and the camp. We would often walk the two miles or so to Shadons Hill and drink water from the well there. I am told that that hill holds a lot of untold history, the first miners meeting there at some time in the1 830s. And it was the spot where... Read more
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